Simple Splendor

 

The ocean puts me to sleep. It’s amazing. I have plans to do so many things each time I drive over, but as soon as I hit the sea air and hear the gentle roar of the waves I collapse into a complete letting go. It’s as if someone put a sleeping potion in my afternoon tea. My eyes get heavy. My breathing moves to the root of my belly, and my resolve crumbles. What a lovely thing this ocean mother is. Each time I land in her lap she cradles my spirit, insisting I rest, rejuvenate and restore. 

The ocean is busy today, not at all like my usual hide-away. It’s Sunday in late July, which is prime vacation time. I watch legions of tourists migrating with kites, shovels, deck chairs, good books and broad open smiles. The sky is cloud covered and cool, but they don’t care. They are making memories. They swim in frigid water, build castles, pick up stones and roast marshmallows around open fires. I watch, like being at the movies, then take a long brisk walk. 

A tall slender man in a wet suit drips back to shore. The clouds are low so he is dreamlike, emerging from both water and haze. His hair is black, like his suit, and his spirit seems generous and free. He clearly loves what he’s doing and has come to collect his young daughter, so she can learn to love it too. She’s about three years of age and has long streams of blond hair running down her back. He gathers her gently in his arms, knowing she is uncertain, then walks into the sea, the way Stevie Wonder walks to the piano. He owns it. I stop walking and watch, curious to see how he’ll share his pleasure. After a few yards he puts her belly down on the board, holding her steady as she looks into his eyes for courage. When a wave comes, she sails to shore in a smooth effortless ride, her father moving proudly by her side. 

The beauty of this day does not escape me. The simple splendor is plentiful and abundant. Nature is such a pure canvas. It takes me back to my center like nothing else, and reminds me that we are all just specks of sand in a limitless universe.

Blessed Day

 

A gentle current of water, warm sun, a quiet breeze, old growth trees, cliffs, red tailed hawks and osprey – a long row of Canadian Geese, a good friend next to me, my air mattress and intimate conversation. Summer is now official. I made my first trip down the Sandy River. I was afraid a full work schedule and travel might have prevented it.

I went with Jill, a new friend from NYC, who arrived in my life a few months ago, complete with accent and spunky attitude. She was the perfect floating partner.

Going down the river is the finest purist thing I know. It is raw and timeless, a slow sensual communion with nature that carries away all emotional debris in a perfect blaze of splendor. Being on the river brings me fully and completely back to myself. Time stops, there are no tensions, worries, or problems. Mountain fed water and a burst of sun induce relaxation for mind and body that is deep and complete.

I never know what it will be like to float the river with someone else. Inviting a guest is always a gamble. The river is my special place so I am very careful about the person I share it with. Lucky for me, Jill was an ideal companion because she completely understood what it meant to be there. Thank you Karen, she said, I believe this was the best day of my whole life.  

My worst river partner was Neville, an older man who found it impossible to relax and just be. All he had to do was lie down on his belly and rest, but the poor fellow was incapable of relaxation. Instead, he propped his elbow against the inflatable pillow and perched his neck in the air like an awkward giraffe. He churned, lost his balance and plunged into the river repeatedly.

I pulled him to shore several times to teach him how to lie on the mattress.

See Neville, just like being home on the couch; all you have to do is close your eyes and nap.

But the lesson didn’t hold. Once his mattress was back on the water, he tensed up and began to twist, turn and battle. The river will take you. I insisted, there is nothing to do, but be like a leaf and allow yourself to be carried on the face of the current. You will move safely down.

Nothing worked until I instructed him to hold firmly to my toes. That gave his mind focus and dismantled his giraffe pose. By the time we reached the bottom, I was exhausted from paddling both his weight and mine. The experience had lost its charm and dear Neville had scrapes, bruises and drips of blood on his knee.

To my surprise he said the same thing Jill said, Karen, this was the best most exciting day of my life. We must do it again very soon! I smiled and wondered how quickly I could get an unlisted number.

Two summers ago I went down the Sandy with my daughter Kristen and my friend Joan. The sun was playing in shivering sparkles of light on the crest of each current. The blue sky warmed our skin and kissed my body. The combination felt like a deep sensual erotic bath.

Oh my God, I said in a sleepy voice, floating down the river on a day like today is better than having sex.

Joan turned her head in the same lazy manner and said, absolutely, this is amazing.

Then my daughter turned over and looked at us, incredulous.

You women must never have had good sex!

Pieces of Monday

I had a very large arrangement of edible flowers delivered to my door this afternoon from my daughter in law, Khrystyne and my son, Clayton. The card said: We Love you so much. Hugs and kisses. Clay’s name was first on the card, but he’s a guy. He loves me, I know, but his mind goes to carburetors and computers before floral arrangments, so thank you Khrystyne for making that happen. I was so touched, I had to hold back tears, so I could continue seeing clients. 

My first client settled in for her session. We did some catching up, then I wanted to focus our purpose.

So dear, what exactly do you want today, what do you need?

Oh Karen, if only you were an ice cream truck, I would know exactly how to answer that question!  

Perfectly stated.

I am allergic to chocolate but ate 6 chocolate covered strawberries anyway. They were worth all the itching that will arrive any second. 

I am in touch with my cousin, Bobby, whom I’ve not seen since childhood. He is giving me news and sending me pictures of his life in Florida. It’s vibrant and alive compared to gloomy June in Oregon. Writing to him has retrieved a sense of family I believed was extinct. 

I bought presents for Caleb, my niece Ingrid’s new baby, painted the boxes purple and put gold stickers on them. I enjoyed having purple fingers and the mess of it all.  I worked outside with the sun warming my shoulders and flamenco music shouting from the door. 

I watered this morning while the gardeners pulled up morning glory vines. I built a trellis for wax beans and pushed flimsy metal cages over cucumbers. My stunning pink rose bush is getting ready to bloom, but it’s all an exercise in non-attachment, because the deer will level my garden in their hunger and greed - and I’m going to let them. 

The bees did not sting me as I made my way through fields of wild strawberries in bare feet.

The dirt-covered cat did not jump into my clients lap when she sat outside to admire the day.

The library did not close before I could leave an old book and grab a new one. 

That’s a lot to feel good about for a Monday.

Bird Woman

When the mailman demanded I come outside to receive a package a short breath ago, I found an orange and black thrush on the ground. It was male by its markings and quite dead. I have many floor-to-ceiling windows that birds mistake for an entrance, bang up against and break their necks. I brought him inside for closer examination. What a stunning fellow he was. The name thrush fell short in holding the splendor of his design. His colors looked like a blazing orange sunset against a black sky; the markings on his wings and collar were intricate. He had grace in his countenance even in death, or maybe especially in death. What a gift to hold him in my hands. I will save him for my granddaughter’s afternoon visit, then we’ll walk down the hill together and bury him.

Last year, while walking the library paths, I saw a Canadian goose flaying in the middle of the pond. Other geese were gathered around making a great ruckus. I feared he was caught in fishing line, so I waded knee-deep in February water to see what I could do. No one else was around. The others flew away as I gathered him in my arms without a struggle. He was gasping for air and panicked. I sang to him and lay his head against my shoulder as I walked back along the paths to my car. I was driving him to the vet when I realized his spirit had gone. He was suddenly cold, heavy and without movement. I pulled the car to the side of the road and wept at being too late to help.

Part of me felt I had stolen property from the park and wondered if I should return him, but decided it would only cause bureaucratic confusion, so I drove him home. I had a marketing meeting scheduled, which I had no time to change for. I brought the bird inside and put him in a basket while we did our business. Anthony, my marketing guy, kept looking over at him the whole time. He was having a little trouble concentrating on business with this large dead Canadian goose staring at him for a full hour; the unexpected is part of doing business with Karen. I took his body down the hill and buried it as Anthony’s car pulled out of the drive.

I believe I was a bird in another life. Birds are my people, my tribe, my feathered friends. I stop to collect their bones and feathers whenever I see them.  Others comment on germs and lack of wisdom, but I will always reach for them, because I remember - and because their flight reminds me of the freedom I’ll have once again after I leave this body.

Displaced

I have a place in my heart that will not heal. It grows but does not diminish. Coming to the ocean helps me empty it when it gets too full. The pain is an ache, a heart break, an intolerable hurt that makes me wish I could throw it up and out.

I am displaced, a person put down on the wrong planet, a snail pushed naked from its shell. The people here are nice; most are sweet and kind. We interact but my sense of belonging and sisterhood remains disengaged. Where is my tribe? Where are the others like me? Where can I plant my feet and feel my spirit returned to its home place?

I come to the ocean to heal, to breathe the air deep inside my lungs, to weep without apology, and be accepted by a vast watery expanse greater than my sorrow.

The man who owns the Oceanside Inn tells me that he is perfectly happy there. There is no place else on earth I would rather be. He means it. I know many people like him, people who are at one with the place they live, the people they interact with, the work that defines them.

I am a healer for the artists, the creative souls, the sensitive ones, the spiritual seekers. I know the landscape of their pain and the road they walk upon. I understand the loneliness of being different and set apart. I am the wise woman they seek to heal their hearts, because I don’t hold up societies mirror and tell them to be what they can never be. I show them the reflection of their gifts and greatness. I teach acceptance and celebration. I take them to the core so they know how to breathe into the sacredness of their lives. I support and love them as they become their dreams.

So – why can’t I do the same for myself? Why can’t I find my own path to freedom? What bridge will connect me to an experience of life that makes sense? When will I stand on land that I never want to leave? When will I look into the eyes of others and feel a sense of tribe?

Gib thinks I am elitist, but that is not true. This is not about class. It is about finding the lifestyle and energies around me so alien that I can not relate. He has no such problem. My husband is wired for this place. He slams up against life like a game of bumper cars, and is better for it. He rejects nothing, because it all makes sense to him, television, sports, taverns, community. He is in it all, racing up and down the highway every day, ready for the next adventure. Our relationship is one of opposites. I am the turtle and he is the train. I am exhausted by people, while he is recharged. There is a lovely tenderness between us that overrides this polarity, but it remains a challenge.

If only you didn’t feel every single thing, he tells me. If only you could censor or repress, like the rest of us. You don’t have the emotional walls we have to protect ourselves.

Maybe that is the definition of a psychic. Everything comes in. There is no shelter, there is no escape.

But I have not given up hope. I still believe if I keep traveling and searching that I may eventually find a place that resonates as home and a people I can call my tribe. If not, I look forward to returning to an unseen realm as expansive and vast as the ocean that cradles my spirit today.

A cool breeze lifts the papers in my notebook as I write, while an unexpected January sun lays against my forehead like a long lingering kiss. There is peace here, in this moment. I will take it with me; tuck it away like medicine for the secret broken place I carry in the truth-telling places of my heart.

Forest visit

Fasting makes the veil between the worlds thin, so more is revealed. I am on my sixth day now, full of curiosity and readiness to see what is delivered. My morning has been beautiful. I slipped on my old grey sweater, pulled blue jeans under my dress and laced hiking boots. What a combination, very odd and very me. I am grateful to be able to walk along the hillside, pass into the woods and be swallowed deep inside her belly. She always feeds me and is gentle. I feast on a million shades of green and listen to the songs of the birds and the buzzing of a single black and orange bee. How grateful I am for this gift of time and communion. I could be stuck in a cubicle, in front of a computer, in traffic, in a bad marriage or in the bloody wars brought by the last administration. How fortunate indeed.

I walk the road until I come to the log that blocks my path, always a good place to rest or turn back. But today I notice a chainsaw has cut the base of it, preparing to move it elsewhere. Climbing over the top, I notice the entire lower trail has been cleared and widened into the road it was intended to be, even the basin impossibly dense with blackberry bushes has been cleared. Just a matter of time now before the owner claims his forest road and I am left without my sanctuary.

I move back over the log and retrace my steps to a small dirt clearing. With sun at my back, I am able to sit for an hour being quiet and letting the forest feed me. Fasting and age allows a stillness that is not available to the young. Their bodies demand so much of them. Run here, do that, keep going, climb higher. It takes a kind of skill to sink into the womb of the forest.

I look down at my leather boots and blue jeans, and at my dress and silk slip peeking out around my knees. I love the colors, fabrics and textures. I love the deep inner quiet I feel, and for a few rare moments, am truly happy to be the spirit housed in this body.

Snowbound

Wind howled through the breezeway last night, pelting cedar boughs against the windows of the house, waking me from a sound sleep. The snow started the night before, a few flakes at first in a dull afternoon sky, and then wind-driven eddies around the edges of the house. I watched sharp gusts of snow billow, then swirl and drift to the ground. The naked branches of the trees turned white. The forest beyond, covered with soft white caps as it quietly fell into a darkened night.

Portland does not get many snowstorms, but when she does, they are forecast with a sense of awe and drama one would reserve for the second coming of Christ, or the end of the world. The forecasters call them, ’storm events,’ as if weather needed to be labeled and made bigger than itself. Our east coast and Canadian friends would laugh at this storm in its meager accumulation, but the ice that melts and freezes underneath makes it dangerous and noteworthy.

On a personal level, it marks days of retreat, since our driveway is steep, long and formidable. We read, work on the computer, and gaze from the window. A large island of ice has formed on the pond below. Ducks swim to the ice, stop abruptly, and change direction, seemingly confused by their new confinement. They test the boundary one at a time, and in groups. A few push on top of the ice, stand on one leg and preen, while the geese stay on the bank, search a wind-exposed patch of grass and watch the ducks from a distance. They waddle, honk and survey, as the ducks lift off in unison darkening the sky in great noisy bursts of life.

I mother my husband, Gib, in winter, because he has no understanding of weather. While I was making ice sculptures in Vermont, skiing on Burke Mountain, and thawing the pump to bring water to horses in upstate, New York, he was playing baseball and driving sports cars in Southern California, his wardrobe nothing but sandals, bermuda shorts and tee-shirts. His childhood was spent in sun, so weather is a delight for him, the more severe the better.

The first time we drove to the mountains I put ski pants, flannels, gloves and boots near his suitcase. When we arrived, he had none of them. Where are your winter clothes? I asked in disbelief. He stood before me in a spring jacket, loafers and blue jeans. Oh, those things? I didn’t think I’d need them.  The man will go out in a blizzard with no thought to hat or gloves. The cashmere scarf I bought last year gathers dust in his closet. Last winter he had frostbite and pneumonia, but makes no connection between under-dressing and illness. I have become a militant wife in self-defense, because I’d rather be that, than nurse his enduring respiratory aliments. No matter, Gib loves weather, while I sit with a cup of steaming tea, having fantasies of swimsuits and warm exotic places. I get emails from friends who winter in Hawaii and the Caribbean, and try not to hate them when they send images of suntanned faces holding fruity cocktails near the sea.

The sun is fading now. Another short December day. The radio says a new storm should arrive by Thursday. Gib will be delighted as he bursts through the door with is Rudolph nose and ears to match, his hair swept straight up by savage wind. I’ll put hot soup on the stove and a crisp in the oven, then put a movie in the player like a needle in my arm, in the hope of numbing myself until the welcome herald of spring.

The Deer

The deer don’t come around anymore. I used to see them every night. They’d cross our downward stretch of driveway after poaching from my neighbors garden, or nibbling the pears and apples lining the hill. We’ve been adversaries, the deer and I, garden foes, and still I slow my car as I inch down our long winding drive, wanting them to feel safe.

The problem is, they’ve mistaken my raised beds for an all-you-can-eat salad bar. They’ve acquired a taste for spinach, beans, broccoli, strawberries, raspberries and even delicate pink roses. All quite satisifying, then washed down with a cool drink from the pond, like a fine vintage port. 

I move morning mediation to the garden in summer. The deer sense me and leave the space alone, but on days I don’t go down, I’ll glance from the window to see them stomping my vegetables -  as welcome as a workman’s muddy boots on a just mopped floor.  I went screaming from the house last August, as naked as noon, to spook them out of my carrots. Get out! Get Out!  I yelled waving a crimson cloth. The neighbor rushed out to see who had been murdered or was about to be.

 My office window faces birdfeeders, ferns and towering maples. It’s patrolled by Hannah, the neighbor’s lab, and is not the usual path for the deer. But one misty morning, I looked up from my writing to see a large gentle creature standing just beyond. Our eyes met. Everything else fell away. Our vision locked. We studied each other for a long time. In that moment, I had a realization of the abundance in my cupboards and refrigerator, and a glimpse of what it must mean to forage for dinner, searching, finding or doing without. By the time the deer walked on, I had surrendered my strawberry pots, wondering if perhaps they’d like whipping cream served on the side. 

That has all changed now. They’ve moved beyond our ten acre wood. It was evening – I’m sure of that, but the rest I hardly know, because the main road is away from our house, blocking noise, squealing tires and the sounds of shattering glass. A young deer lay dead in the morning, bloody and torn, already buzzing with flies. The highway department promised to come, but it was Sunday, and a holiday followed. The deer lay near the road full of decay and emptiness far too long. The rest of the herd knew. They felt it and distanced themselves. And so they are gone. No more deer in my driveway, leaping over the hill, or rummaging my garden – and you know what? I’ll be darned if I don’t miss them like crazy.

Blue Heron

Blue Heron flew black against a changing sky, large lumbering wings making shadows across the moon. Two of them, circling, moving higher and higher on currents of evening air. They spiraled together searching for the perfect bedtime perch.

I know these birds from my walk along the library paths. They stand close to the water’s edge, lifting off on short low flights to small islands or neighboring fields.

Flying looks difficult for them, as if lifting their great bodies away from earth takes extra-ordinary effort. I imagined they slept tucked away, camouflaged near a bush or blending into sprouts of spring cane,  necks folded down, great wings tucked by their sides.

I was late walking the paths today, much later then usual. Looking skyward at the beckoning moon surprised me with more than expected.  There they were, wings spread wide, graceful and searching, climbing in constant motion toward ponderosa pines. I stopped and smiled, overcome with gratitude in sharing the moment.

written 2-27-08

tree tops

 When I look into the tops of the trees I feel possibility, freedom and expanse. The space is open and without restriction. 

I am familiar with tree tops, sky and scope. My spirit, more bird than human. I look longingly at flight, angry that my feet are attached so heavily to earth. I try not to gaze too high or too long, because that is not my work. My work is to be acquainted with the tree’s roots and solid trunk. The gypsy in me does not understand roots, and the dancer in me does not understand immobility, but my lessons are there, at the base, in the earth, in being here and not above.

I took my daughter parasailing in Mexico. We rose into the sky, above the trees, mountains and ocean. I never felt so at home. My whole body said, YES! This is me soaring free like an eagle, while my daughter was terrified. We had a serious talk after that. Mom, this is it! All of my life I’ve followed you on your crazy adventures. Now I’m old enough to say, no more!

written 10-16-08