7.18.14 Childhood By The Waiting Dunes and the Forever Sea

     When I was in elementary school, I couldn't understand math at all. It didn't make sense. I couldn't remember it. 
     I remember going up to Miss Moran's desk, sitting in the little chair next to it, being tested on my second grade addition and subtraction.
     She didn't really like me. She really liked Bobby, a little girl with straight blond hair who wore a little cotton shirt and skirt and socks that matched in the same color every day. Miss Moran put her at the front of the line, every day, smiling at her, to hold hands with a boy. We were all to hold hands, a boy with a girl.
     Me? I was shy and confused and insecure and a loner. My first-grade teacher was an older woman, who took great care with me. Miss Moran had no time for that sort of thing.
     When I stood alone on the playground, it irritated her. When I couldn't keep track of my things, or didn't remember the directions she just announced, she rolled her eyes.
     These things happen. They happen all the time. In all situations all over the world. They happen because the teacher's tired. Or the child is difficult. Or it's just the wrong kind of day.
     After she quizzed me on my math that day, I turned to her and confided in her. I'm not sure why I thought it would do any good. I said to her that I could not remember a thing as soon as the quiz was over. Everything just left me.
     She gave me a hard look - and told me to return to my desk. So I did. Nothing in life prepared me to expect any more than this.
     This is in part why it is such a deep and profound and lasting pleasure to become a parent., after a desolate childhood. 

     You get to have good intentions, work hard to learn how to be a good parent, always always be there for your child, empathize, study books, observe others, consult with people, and then try to learn how to relax and just love them. And have a little fun.
     A few years later, it became evident that I couldn't learn math, among other things. That I was articulate and seemed intelligent, but somehow couldn't manage many things.
     Forgotten was the fall down the cellar stairs at age 2, where I was knocked out.
     But eventually I was given a tutor, and dropped off at her house three times a week, to painfully go over mathematics.
     She had a four-year-old with golden ringlets, a cherubic child, while she had misshapen hips, difficulty walking, and was living with her parents.
     We sat at the dining room table, while her mother cared for the child, and she more or less patiently taught me mathematics.
     Her armpits smelled. I remember the way in which she pushed her glasses up her nose, scratching at her skin, but she did manage to teach me math , enough that I could pass each year.

     The house next door to hers was a large one, with a Widows Walk at the very top; three stories, black shutters, columns, somewhat formal front gardens.
     I overheard adults talking about the parents and child who lived there. The child was very ill, and would soon die. She didn't go to school, and she didn't go outside.
     Finally, my fourth grade school year was done. My second year of having math tutoring was over, thank goodness.

My mother packed the five of us into one of those enormous Pontiac station wagons, with toys and towels and lunch and umbrella and blanket, and drove us 20 minutes to the beach club.

     I had four brothers, and she was pregnant with my fifth. We arrived at the beach club gate, one of us hopped out to unlock the lock and open it wide, so the car could drive in. We all grabbed things; I often had a child on my hip, up the path through the dunes we all tromped , through the boiling hot sand, to the crest, where you could see the ocean for miles and miles and miles.
Hummarock, it was called, and it had a cherished place in my heart.
     Holding hands with little boys , complaining of hot feet, we all managed down to the place my mother would select, and helped prop up the umbrella, and settle everything.

 And then down to the water we would run, cooling our burning feet in the frozen water.

     Our mother's orders were that each child had to go all the way in at least once each beach day. When you went into the water, you slowly turned blue. None of us really liked going in the water, but we did, as the waves dragged rocks back-and-forth across your feet.
     My youngest sibling, the seventh, has a memory I have recorded on video somewhere, telling myself and another sibling how they remember being a baby in the portable crib, put down by the water.
     They remember watching the tide slowly come in; and the waves come up under the legs of the bed - withdraw back and then return. 
      As they turned and watched our mother back up on the beach, sitting and laughing with friends. It was simply the way things were.

 But on this day, at the end of the school year, when I would no longer be going to that tutoring house - at least for the summer, nor driving past that mysterious big house, purportedly with the sick child all alone there, who was to die : on this day , that child was at the beach.
     She had short black hair, and she was as pale as the moon. And weakened, but smiling. 
     As her parents held both hands and she walked down toward the frozen water, looking out at the sea, turning to look at the dunes, taking it all in, with pleasure.
     Kindness and sadness surrounding her, as she delighted in her precious moment of being alive.
     We overheard the adults talking about her. I stood on the beach, her age or at least her size. I took in the contrast of our lives. I wondered at what it was like to be her, from the little that I knew.
Did she know she was very ill? I thought probably so. But I would also, if I was not in school, and not allowed outside.

     Did she know she was about to die? I thought she did. Suddenly, they allowed her to go to the beach.

 And she stood there, unsteady and vulnerable and pale, smiling when the small bubbling waters came up to her feet, and she felt the so alive cold, as she sank a bit into the sand. 
     As her parents stood by her, kind and sad and smiling and quiet.

 I stood there on the beach, alone myself, watching her quietly. 
     Wondering what kind and sad and smiling and quiet parents were like. 
     What being a child alone in the family could feel like. What being so weak and vulnerable might be like, day after day.

And then I watched across the vast distance between us - as she had her moment, being allowed to go to the beach, feeling her hair ruffled by the wind; sensing the hot sun upon her skin, standing simply, being just there, with the waiting dunes and the forever sea.

 
 
     

7.17.14 All That Is

     When we have a day like this, and on the way home from a leaping-pile-of-dogs-walk, the phrase that comes to my mind is always "Of God's own creation".

     I do remember my own upbringing, in the Unitarian church. And I too, recall raising my own children. All of our conversations, about faith and belief and prayer and the divine.
     We would sit around, and I would tell them that at different points in our lives  faith appears to us in so many different ways that we don't always label it faith. 
     And for me, God is not a man. Certainly not a white man with a robe and a beard, making decisions and listening and allowing some things and not other things. Granting parking spaces. Doling out diseases or health. For me, God is not a woman either, even though we felt that way for payback. What we know for sure is that  the Divine appears in so many ways to so many people.
    The first time I heard the phrase "All That Is", it's stirred my soul. It filled my heart. And I knew that that is what God was to me. Besides, the word God is a very helpful translation when communicating with others. About Faith. Grace. Love. Devotion.
     I once knew a person whose answering machine ended with  "Enjoy God's beautiful day". I loved that. There was a gift every time I heard it. Of course her God and mine seem pretty different to us, but that's the way  it goes. We're sitting in different places at the table, and we can have a different perspective.

     My maternal grandmother was a devout Baptist. When my first child was born, without the benefit of married parents, and not baptized, she told me, worried, that God does not bless unbaptized children.
I told her not to worry, embracing her. I told her "My God does."
     In the meantime, All That Is -  is everywhere. We would lay on the grass and look up at the clouds while my children were young, and talk about that. "Well then, what IS All That Is?"
     And we would lie there, chewing on the ends of grasses, watching enormous billowed clouds stream by overhead, and we would think about what is All That Is, to them.
     Every single thing in the universe. They loved the idea of neutrinos, minuscule unmeasurable things in the universe that pass directly through every single thing, possibly without us detecting, I don't know.
     They were taken aback by trying to imagine the endlessness of the universe.
      But I laughed, and told them that I never couldn't quite get it either. And that maybe it's one of those things, like love, that you don't think about or measure,or challenge someone to PROVE to you, but instead, just feel. Get to know. Get to trust. Grow a deep and lasting relationship with, slowly.
     To me, that is a great and unfortunate misunderstanding about God. Detecting God. Finding God. Having proof of their existence. Them 'proving' their existence to you. 
     I'm not sure why humans tie things  all up in knots this way, in lieu of simply listening carefully to themselves. 

      Honoring others as they would be honored. 
       Taking into consideration all of the vantage points that surround them, and all historical considerations, some that hold great great lasting wisdom. And then ? Simply finding their own way.

     In the meantime, many of us are lucky enough to live long enough discover this precious thing-that Faith grows when we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

     That when we cannot find our faith, during terrible terrible difficult times, we can be patient with ourselves. 
     Simply keep taking step after step, until things ease up. 
     Until the streaming sunlight through the trees lifts our spirits. 
     Until a row of breathtakingly majestic clouds moves along the horizon.

     Today I drive past my home , wet panting muddy dog by my side , further on down the road,  to see if I can catch a better view of these clouds before they moved through the neighborhood altogether. 

     And down by the Eagle Sanctuary, on their way out of town, there they are. 
     Enormous. Miles high. Glorious. 

And yeah,  they are. God 's own creation.

7.16.14 July

July. 

Just a mite bit different than, say,

 January.

       

7.15.14 What Could Be Better

What could be better, some days, than dappled light?

7.13.14 Oh, To Rise Up Singing

     Long ago and far away, we'd sold our house and moved to a beautiful Victorian in the middle of Amherst, which, unbeknownst to us, had been oversprayed with a neurotoxin, diazinon. Took me two months to understand why I couldn't wash away the pervasive Raid smell everywhere; why my children's lips turned red and peeled- why we all developed bronchitis and became pale as a white percale sheet in the sun.
     I got us on out of there, despite the anguish of my husband, then in doctoral program , two dogs and three cats and kids aged 2,3, and 11.
     But we all were environmentally ill by then, and the kids could no longer go to school, where if you've noticed, pesticides applied regularly.
     No Jones Library, at the time in lawsuits for sick building syndrome. No shoe stores or most stores or new rugs or new paint . At restaurants if they pulled out the bleach or ammonia, we had to calmly pack everyone up quickly and leave, before we spent a month with more acute bronchitis all round.
     We spent thousands seeing Hart Brent, and slowly addressed the organ issues, while I studied and studied, and began treating us myself.
     When you have a particular human made toxin move into your body that has, say, a 500 year half life- or a 50 year half life, you need to keep the stream of the body clear and moving- ever moving. It's you "Get Out Of Jail " card, especially to avoid childhood leukemia .
So we homeschooled and I got up into it, forgetting until recently to actually explain to them the necessity.
     And sought out a vast range of things that we did as I quietly worked to enrich their lives, and simultaneously work in my practice,
     One if the loveliest things I discovered was a family sing night once a month, held by The Hooks of Amherst, activists and grandparents and wise wonderful souls.
     The night would begin with a potluck in their long, pine kitchen . Behind in the backyard was the barn where he adeptly taught woodworking classes to young people, which one of my sons relished.
     It was a house built in the 1800s, down a wooded area, dark; the ceilings , the woodwork old and carefully made and fascinating in its structure.
     And we would all cram into this one room, after sharing dinner, children popping under and over adults legs and arms, to fill their plates at the long pine table;
families and families,all upon each other, squished happily together on laps and by feet; kids smooshed in corners together , laughing and tickling each other - song sheets handed out,
     And then? We would all sing.
     So many people, beginning a song together, all ages, some familiar and some whispering hints- the regaling as we repeated a refrain, now somewhat familiar. The younger ones singing out! Because they could not read yet , but this part they knew!
     It was simple and glorious and inclusive and those present varied- the new ones, the soon to become familiar, as we all slowly stumbled in the door each month , welcomed and bearing our dishes of food to share. The kids gamboling about in delight.
     In retrospect, it was as far from anyone checking a cell phone as you could ever imagine. Can you remember that way of being? All focus on the present. If there was anything that could possibly engage you , it would need to be FOUND by YOU, right there, with whomever was with you, in that evening.
     No small ones quieted by watching an iPad . No adults sneaking off to check sports scores on their phone or their face book page. No photo taking by 1,000 devices, at the ready, hand held.
The phone was stuck to the wall and heavy, with a long tangled cord. The television had rabbit ears that communicated with a rooftop antenna, tv was limited and free , and it all had to be fiddled with according to the weather and the day, and what waves you were trying to pick up , from where.
     And at the end of the night, everyone had sung soft and low... Then hard and glorious and LOUD !!!!
     And as small ones got cranky and slightly older ones began to pinch or tease or bonk a sibling, the parents would reluctantly find the impetus to rise up, gather to them the almost asleep, the misbehaving, the stilted or wronged or crying ( "oh honey, you're just tired. Let's get you home ." "I'M NOT TIRED!!".
     And the Hooks knew every scenario, inside out, from raising their own children to patiently teaching them woodworking as they quietly taught them life; as they carried on their day jobs of tireless political activity for justice and equity .
     And by their creative efforts and generosity, they instilled into one generation after another the delight of coming together, of bringing forth one's food to share, to settle all together like an enormous heap of Lions - and listen as your own small or large voice rose and joined and resonated with this herd of humans, on these special nights, over and over and over.

7.12.14 As A Toad Swallows

     Sometimes I feel like my life consists of me dancing about on something akin to a Twister game pad. And I dance from one round primary bright circle to another, never knowing where I will land or where the places went that I landed upon previously.
     But now and again , I do find myself firmly on one place I recognize- and I can feel the solidity beneath my feet . And in that moment, but not before, nor after, I recognize The Place.
In that stilled moment, betwixt all habitual chaotic unpredictable flooding of stimuli and response ,
I suddenly have the recognition that this is my creative jumping off place, where ,
     if I could just stay long enough,
     I could leap.
     And in that differentiated leap, I would encounter the concrete ability to initiate, participate in,          and follow through on the creative possibilities
     that swirl about me and beneath me and by me and through me,
     much like unseen but very substantive Neutrinos- every moment of every day.
     And then of course, poof, and I find myself pushing off, not by choice but by biological impulse.
     As a toad swallows. As a Swallow sweeps the field. As a Field Mouse is born and mates and prepares for winter.
     So go my leaps , on and on and on; nomadic, amnesiac, left with an odd sense of loss, of malaise.
     And lost too is that sensation. That moment of recognition. Even that place.
Until, by chance, at some unexpected, unanticipated time to come, I land there, just for that moment, once again.                                                                                                                T 2.7.15

7/11/14 So Much Changes

So much changes; 

and yet, remains the same.

7.10.14 From Very Small Dreams

De pequinino sonho be nasci forca grandes 
From very small dreams are born great strength

7/9/14 The things of the world will comfort you. Love the things of the world.

7.8.14 Priceless

A huge supply of excellent library books - check. 

Lots of fresh water- check. 

Being surrounded by happy dogs and cats- check. 

Resting as the sun turns from another day 

      and our moon awaits it's reveal 

     and the colors are different every day,

     be they in the sky or the window? 

Priceless.

7.8.14 Heading Down the Path; Rounding The Turns

     On the way back from driving my beloved to work, I saw the pup becoming restless, on the seat next to me, where he does not quite fit-his front legs slipping out slipping out from under him , as he strives to be by my side.
     I thought, "Poor young thing- no walk for 2 days. Why not? Just a small one".
And so, as we drove from the high Hadley fields into the forest of the mountain range, I dropped the car into the tiny break between guard rails alongside the forest, and snuggled the car in to park.
     Elated but polite, locked on leash for a bit, until far enough away from the road, he finally was let free, and thundered across the woods in dogish delight.

The torrential rain last night, combined with the aspiring but failing tiny tornadoes, cleansed the forest, so that today I see debris here and there and everywhere.

As well as the delicate blossoming Pippsissewa, dusting the forest with their unique white momentary flowering . 

Up and around and down we wandered along the mossy , little used path, until he reached the top that joined a horizontal trail, and immersed himself in the tiny stream of cold Mountain water. 

One small moment of sun , on an overcast day, appearing overhead, and then sliding down through the forest ; these shafts of brilliant light turning golden this branch, that stand of trees, this grouping of ferns lightly bobbing in the intermittent summer breeze.
And then, unfortunately, I tire, and instead of marching across the Seven Sisters range here, on toward the Appalachian Trail, across the nation, and continuing to other lands... instead we turn down the woodland trail, on our way back. 

We pass this large reclining mossed rock alongside the trail, smooth with small curves. 
Whatever I gaze at this rock, no matter the season, I wonder what it has seen. Millions of years. Who has wandered by ; who has hunted - the storms on the land here, and the wild winters. So many years. Has it been pushed or rolled? Or stayed right here long before you or I were born? All the stories within the rock. Its shape inviting to any human or mountain lion or creature , to lower themselves in comfortable repose. 
Heading back down the path, rounding the turns, Dante hears something alarming off in the woods - something crashing about, going about their day. 
Around here, as is true with many places, this is a time of bear cubs; we all know this.

So of course, I look and holler some, as in "Hey over there, pain in the butt beings over here, beware!" 
And then request of my shepherd that he come to me, and now.
For some reason, despite his ruff up and his leaping vertically to ascertain what is off in those woods, he has the good sense to come right over to me, and I leash him, getting us right on out of there, amidst more whooping and very loud singing , just to let them know exactly where we are. 
We finally get down far enough that I let him play for a bit again on leash, dragging a 15 foot branch, which catapults itself over bumps in the path as he pulls it, seemingly alive! Leaping upon it with glee. 
And then he begins drag dragging it sideways down the path once again. 
I furtively look up the path, just in hopes that no large dark figure is lumbering near.

Yes we encroach on them; we keep building and building , and they have their traditional neighborhoods that they were brought up in, that their parents were brought up in, that are theirs. Their homelands.
And in all of our vapid human species-centric shallowness, where the only intelligence or value in life is accorded humans , with machines, who speak in the manner that we do, we remain painfully immaturely self centered when it comes to realizing that all of these creatures have homelands too. And that we happen to share. 
But I don't hold my breath on this count- simply am a bit satisfied when one or two of my brethren now and then seemed to recall that this earth, or these woods, or this day - somehow ( ludicrous) underwent creation, and NOT with only humans in mind .

7.5.14 Letting The Wind Take You

As for many of us, a tropical storm has skirted the edges of our neighborhood ; come, and gone.I have been sick and I have been gone ; yesterday I was back home.

Yesterday here a babe was born , right next door. Peacefully, in a living room ; as were my three, long long ago.

Yesterday the outskirts of that storm did pass, and all the land was bathed clean; thirst quenched, as the trees gently swept high and low, in the wild wild winds.

  

Today we have the bright morning after, where everything is resplendent, shining ; glistening. 

    

                                

The volume of baby birds , fresh from their feathered nest birdhouses, are hungrily scouring small moths and insects and worms , with great ability, their small small selves wandering about the same safe harbor of the neighborhood here. 

                                                    We sit out, holding hands

 as a bald eagle dips gracefully by, and then far out of sight

The hills in the distance a deep indigo blue ; the Tibetan Peace Pagoda barely visible, always a white dot nestled into that far off land, filled with those who hold great faith, ever, against great odds , each step and breath an assertion of the freedom and gift of this present moment. 

  

Tiny bees 

The beautiful choreography of asexual mating slugs. 

      

And here,in this land filled with infants,

 we watch fondly; with baby Bluebirds, the tiny new Sparrows, tufted topped Phobes , and of course, the Pines Siskins ; perched sideways upon Mountain Laurel and aged Oak, their incessant interactions sweet and pitch perfect and soothing . 

   

We find ourselves awash with delighted newly-hatched gallivanting butterflies and newly unfolded dragonflies.  

For, we forget all the ones whose gestation is so evident- eggs and chrysalis and due process .

Years ago I sat on a dock on a pond far up in New Hampshire, and I watched the transformation of a dragonfly , as it came out of it's case, found it's sea-legs , slowly unfurled the length of its body, in the hot summer sun and the vast pond breeze,as it's intricate wings began to dry. 
It's body actually inflated as it unrolled before me- as I sat, stock still, breathless. Watching someone. Brand new. Transform.

And then it stood, winged for the very first time- outstretched, entire body unfurled, somehow knowing just how to wait in the sun ,in the gentle wind , until just the right moment, which did come, and they did know, because suddenly, in the blink of an eye, they knew what to do, and they were gone.

Now my beloved has left for the day, and I am still sitting out, watching the baby Bluebirds frolic and interact as they drink from the birdbath and feed here and there. 

An agile, brash Doe makes her youthful way far down across the newly shorn Conservation field, nibbling the soft grasses and enjoying the warm sun on her back, intermittently looking up to check upon me, sitting here, watching.

And I watch back, as , all about her, the elegant neighborhood swallows sweep and soar across the field, at times flying high above for a, yes, bird's eye view- and at other times , hunting down close to the ground, swooping and stopping to feed and feed and feed. 

The yellow finches are enthused with the bright yellow Mullein blossoms ,having ardent mis-en-mis, as two Redwing Hawks fly, so far overhead. 

Almost motionless. As one of them keens. This is late for mating? Are they on a break from parenting? Are all the children gone? Will they join and plummet, here and now?

                                 

But, there they are, on this gloriously gusty day- seeking food, and then suspended, almost too far up to be visible ; absolutely motionless in the wind streams. 

And in that moment , there I am, high above the land , with them. Letting the wind take me as it will. 

Far below, with rain and sun, the gardens explode and grow fast as a dirty, knee-scraped watermelon smeared kid in summertime. Fast as a weed. 

The quiet Box Turtle who scuttles beneath the shaded maples through the mosses. The remarkable rare moths who come to mate among the Pippsessewa. . Life abounding, all around us , if we stop and listen. And smell and feel it upon our skin : our closed eyelids and then our sight.
And I think of all the things we also know, the way a baby bird knows how to peck out of that egg and yearn to leave that crowded nest and test their wings . 

The way a butterfly or dragonfly knows how to wait after they unfurl until they are dry and then somehow miraculously ready to stretch and pause and then spirit themselves into the air; to avoid predators, and find sustenance that fits and will sustain them.

I mean, what does that feel like? 

The urge to flex your small insect legs and take flight? 

How similar is it to the way you and I experienced some ancestral, genetically linked urge to roll ourselves over the very first time. To press our arms out and push up up our weighty head, the better to somehow peer about? To shun hot things and pain and move toward that which was kind and of great interest and that mattered? 

So it goes . The very same. My neighbor knows how to be in labor. Her baby knows how to come into the world. To breathe, to find the breast, to rest and gaze and poop and sleep. Our needs. 

And so also, we humans know, if we put aside all the trappings we have created for fun and distraction, that do not always benefit us. 

We truly know so much of what we need, if only we can slow and remember and listen.