Healing

 

Gorgeous sunset the other evening. If I'm out and about in the house, and see the light change, I rush outside to see what's happening in the sky. We don't often get the spectacular colors like this; more often than not, we have creeping fog occluding the sky at this time of day and season. 

It's very pleasant not to have my hand in a brace or splint. For a while yesterday, I even wore my watch. The freedom of movement has made my hand swell a little, so I left the watch on my bedside table today. But nothing hurts. I like that.

I talked to a woman who was at Radiology in the hospital yesterday when I was. I encountered her first in the waiting area; she tried to rearrange her body in the (very uncomfortable) chair, and yelped in pain as her left wrist contacted the arm of the chair. "Careful," I warned her, knowing just how a damaged wrist can hurt.

Encountering her again in the line for x-rays (more uncomfortable chairs in a different area), I queried, "Did you have a fall?" and held up my left arm with its stiff black brace. At her nod, I told her, "Me, too."

She told me she had just had her cast removed from her arm, and that it still hurt like hell. I didn't tell her it was going to hurt like hell for a couple more weeks, but we chatted about falls and breaks and getting older until I got called in for my x-rays.

That was the first stranger I've talked to since the start of the quarantine in February 2020. 

Her story was so important to me -- I would have gladly had the wait in line go longer to hear about her life. It's why the Piker Press is something I don't want to give up. What people's lives are all about -- that's the most precious thing I get to experience.

Tell me your dreams, tell me what last week was about. Tell me about the things you lie awake at night and imagine (skip the porn, though) about the world. 

 

Tell me the story of Who You Are.

After Seder

The night before this picture was taken, when our haverim (sometimes spelled chaverim) guests have left, I change into pajama pants and my softest, comfiest shirt.

We prepare for Seder (a Passover celebration) all week before participating in the ritual and dinner on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, and that Saturday is a flurry of work and adrenaline-pumping anticipation from about 6:30 in the morning: waking up, showering, setting out our nice clothes, picking up the rental chairs, dishes, stemware, and flatware; running the vacuum everywhere (Howie sheds heavily in the spring), mopping, wiping dirty little fingermarks off all the appliances, picking up flowers at the florist (and arranging them), cooking lamb and lasagna casserole, getting ice and whatever else we forgot at the store, moving furniture out of the front rooms ... crazy! Then the guests arrive around six, and everyone is eager to break into the wine and hear about all the "family news." Wine bottles are opened, the guests forget that we rent stemware and drag out the old mismatched wine glasses from the top dusty shelf, the kids descend on the noshes like locusts, and suddenly the kitchen is trashed in every empty space and counters are full of potluck offerings.

By 10:30, most everyone has left. Bernie was exhausted (he does all the heavy lifting) and I encouraged him to hit the sack. Looking around the kitchen at the mess and chaos, I remembered Cheryl Haimann's poem, "Keeping House," poured myself a big glass of wine over ice, and began doing dishes.

Wash five dishes, have a sip of wine. Remember how many Seders we've celebrated with these table friends: twenty-four. Dry some dishes, wash some more. Another sip, another memory, of how much the children have grown. Gather up the tablecloths (including the one the kids have spilled grape juice all over) and put them in the washer on Pre-Wash. Another sip, and now the pitcher and bowl used for the ritual hand-washing that begins Seder.

But don't put it away. Put it back on the table, beside the candles and the centerpiece, and the matzot, still wrapped in their white muslin cloth, Elijah's cup, and Bernie's yarmulka. Now to finish the dishes -- not so many after all, look around the counters and remember the fine friends who were there a bare hour or so ago, closer than family.

Peek out into the darkened front room and see the symbols of Seder there, listening again to the guests singing "Shalom, Haverim" in a perfect round to finish Seder, beautiful and haunting in our echoey room. (Nice recording; we sing it at a slightly faster tempo.)

In the morning, when I wake, I go out to the room again, and there are the symbols of a beautiful Seder, and I look forward to next year once again.

Dia de los Muertos, 2012

Today is the feast day of All Souls.

Or Day of the Dead. Dia de los Muertos.

My mother never would have considered honoring the day, except to say that we should pray for those who have died; if she could have hidden from the general public that she was Mexican, I'm sure she would have. However, in Central Pennsylvania, which was in her time so very white and genetically homogenous, her dark-tanning skin and classic Aztec-ian features stood out so that she might as well have carried a billboard on her grand broad shoulders that said "FOREIGNER!!!"

Culturally Mexican (though without the benefit of the secret language) and outwardly white (my cousin Susu and I were the only ones in our generation who turned out with reddish-blonde hair and freckles) I can totally sympathize with people who have a hard time identifying themselves within their populations. I never felt "at home" in Pennsylvania, and when we moved to California, and I began attending Mass in Spanish, I cried, because everybody looked like my cousins.

In spite of Mom's denial of her lineage, Alex and I cling to what Mexican customs we can. Today, Alex decorated the hearth in honor of the day, and it's truly beautiful.

We had the neighbor's kid in the house until evening, and Bernie and I were seeing the first showing of a movie in order to do a review, so we didn't get around to dedicating our midday meal to one or another dead relative. We'll get around to that, in the not-too-distant future.

But in the mean time ... Mom, I read a cartoon strip series last week that had the son begging his mother not to show up to talk to his creative writing class. His mom's friend says to her, "Would you have wanted your parents in one of your high school classes?" The mom answers, "No -- of course not!" Huh, really? Mom, I would never have said that. You were one hell of an entrepreneur, and though we butted heads from time to time, you had my back, and made me confident, and I would have loved to have you in my high school classes. You were da bomb.

Dad ... I miss you so. I miss all the stuff I wanted to wheedle out of you about your childhood, your family, your military service. I wish I could have wandered around the mountains with you more, I wish you could have snuck down to the river with me to fish and catch crayfish.

Jan, you taught me so much in the last weeks of your life. I have this memory, when we had to remove you from Mom's house, because she was forgetting to feed you, of you telling the staff of the group home (in a commanding voice) that you were working for the CIA. They thought that was just cute, but I knew you were telling them that you were not a person to be messed with. You were right. They didn't understand. You were epic.

I love you all, my dear beloved dead. Rest well, pray for me. See you when my time has come.

UP AND RUNNING!

Thanks to the pledges and donations we've received, we were able to push on with getting the Press back up and running, in a much shorter span of time than we had anticipated.

Seriously, thank you, donors, for all your kindness. With the promise of funds, we set the wheels in motion and are back on track, only a week behind schedule.

My dears, how good it feels to see that old familiar lizard on the banner, and see the luscious front cover again!

The Humble Man

My husband is the greatest.

Not only has he endured long, long hours in every job he had since we were married in 1975, and uncomplainingly underwent major cancer treatment at the end of that same year, and has never been mean to anyone in all the years that I've known him, but in his retirement, he has turned his intellect into $$$ saved for us.

He fixed three windows that were falling apart. I was sure that we'd have to replace them, but he took out their guts, got new working parts for a few dollars, and put them back together again.

He put extra shelving in my linen cabinet, one in our bedroom, and six in Lillian's bedroom corners.

He repaired the ice-maker in the fridge, without spending a dollar. Had we called a service-man, it would easily have cost us over $200.

He built five beautiful redwood raised planters for our front yard, and a masonry one for the avocado tree.

He repaired and renovated our wrought iron patio gate to the pool area.

He refinished a living room end table, and a dresser in the bedroom.

His work is beautiful, from the cute little wooden feet he made for my footstool project, to the once-again functional sink in the under-construction kitchen.

Last, but certainly not least, he figured out that our old router and the automatically-connected server hated each other's guts when Google tested its IPV6 junk a couple weeks ago, leaving us unable to use any search engines, or blog, or comment on other people's blogs. And then, because he is so clever, he figured out a way to fix it.

Maybe he wasn't completely humble on that last fix ... when his solution worked, he did let out a roar of triumphant laughter that sounded much like what you might hear from a super-villain who has just figured out how to conquer the world.

Here's to Bernie, my hero. Cheers!

Shadows Are Only There Because Light Was There First

Standing in the kitchen this morning, waiting for my rotini to finish cooking, I looked out the back door and saw Bernie sitting on the patio, his legs on one of the footstools I made this past year, his hands gracefully wrapped around his Bible, a blue scrub jay standing in his lap.

The morning was so sweetly quiet, without the thrash of horrid winds or the intrusive blare of lawn equipment. There were the sounds of birds, and of the click and bubble of macaroni salad being prepared for the afternoon meal.

My husband was near at hand, his face glowing with peace, communing with the Word of God and nature.

There is no amount of money that can buy the richness of joy that I felt watching him, knowing he would be here all day, knowing that he wasn't going to have to risk his life and our happiness in that damnable Mad Max melee of his former commute to the Bay Area.

We believe we have the monies available to live comfortably into our 80's without us having to take a crack at re-employment. Probably we have enough to live austerely into our 90's. Wow. Real retirement is really here.

I'm glad he's home for good. There was not a single day in 36 years that I wished he would get his ass off to work and get out of my hair. NOT ONE.

The only darkness that whispers evil in my ear is the voice that says, "What about health insurance? You can't afford much any more ... you are going to die if you don't have health insurance!"

An icy dagger stabs at me. I'm going to die if I don't have health insurance! This is when I realize that against my rational will, against my determination not to become a witless consumer led by the nose by advertising, I have indeed been indoctrinated by this media society to believe that Blue Cross, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente, whatever -- will make me immortal and I won't die.

It's not that I'm against health insurance intellectually; it was a great idea for two barely-twenty-somethings back in the day when health insurance was affordable. But now -- good Lord, the premiums are obscene! One month's health insurance = three months of groceries for the whole family.

In spite of the commercials and the hype, none of those health insurances mean that I won't drop dead in my tracks tonight, or tomorrow, or next week, or five years from now. It's a gambling game, not a guarantee. And if there's one thing that has been a tenet of my whole life, it is that I will never bet on anything but a sure thing.

Here's the sure thing: I am not immortal; I am going to die. I can bet on that.

What do I have to ante up to win that bet? Why, nothing at all.

If that is a darkness in my life, I have to remember the God Who illuminates each day, and Who promises that the life after this one will be even better. I have to remember that this life is practically an illusion of Life.

The shadows must remind me that the Light was there first, and that when all shadows are gone, the Light will still be endless.

The River Today

This locust tree lives down along the dirt levee road by the river.

The tree isn't blooming now, it being fall, rather than spring, but I always look for these branches when we're down there for a walk, which we were today.

The Stanislaus River is low right now, but crystal clear, and we stood along a curve of it above a deep pool and watched fish prowling back and forth. We must have stood there for ten or fifteen minutes, just watching fish drift in and out of the shadows, in silence, except for the faint rustle of the trees at noon.

On the walk back, a big blue dragonfly kept us company while we were in his territory. Once again we stopped and stood and watched, as the insect flew back and forth a few feet away from us, obviously watching us as we were watching him.

Bernie and I met in September, back in 1974. I remember being puzzled that the blond Polish boy seemed to have the same opinions about life and living that I did; I remember the fear I felt when I realized that I was in love with him. And then there was Love. A whole 34-year bloc of it so far.

Holding hands with him as we walked through the cottonwoods and bamboo and grape vine tangles, I still could not believe my good fortune in finding such a perfect mate. What other woman can boast that her love will watch fish and flying insects with her after so many years?

I hope, I truly hope, that there are many.