Remember Me? I'm Still Here

IMG_0533

We went to visit friends in northern California recently, where we walked in a misty redwood forest and one day along a narrow trail that went on and on with nothing to see but the trees and brush on either side and I kept thinking we'll finally come out into a clearing at the very next curve but it was more of same for nearly ten miles and at some point I just had to let go of that chronic habit of looking beyond, and when I stopped thinking of the walk as monotonous, it became meditative, like slipping into a sustained kind of now. I needed that.

Weird world. The coyotes have been singing so loudly under our window at night, it's as though they are in the room with us. And there are red bugs everywhere. I asked someone what they are called, and he said, with great authority: red bugs. Sometimes they connect to each other like cars in a train, and they cling to plants, covering them in such numbers that the plants look red. I see them on the road, in the house...everywhere.I

went for a walk yesterday that took me along the main road for a bit, and someone drove by and complimented me on my hat (a cowboy style) and I complimented his (also cowboy) and then he asked me if I was writing poetry in my head while I walked and I said no, I'm being a poem...and I suddenly sort of felt like I was!I seldom have not-sad thoughts about my mother, but while I was striding along briskly and happily yesterday, it occurred to me that this walking thing was one of the gifts she gave me. Walking was her escape; even when I was a little child, I remember her taking me with her all over the city, on foot. She prided herself on being a good walker well into the last part of her life, felt caged if she couldn't go outdoors, and thrived on her mobility. At some point she used a cane, which she tended to swing around erratically, but boy could she move fast!

At 89, she fell and broke her hip, and the rehab folks had never seen anyone so motivated to get back on their feet. After that she used a "walker", steadfastly resisting the wheelchair that was parked in her room for her, and one of my last memories of her is watching her push that walker down the corridor, counting the rooms as she passed them, her long white hair pulled into an elastic tie, and a countenance that can only be described as defiantly cheerful. So I suddenly saw that she has given me this gift, and it's a good one.

Another memory I have of my mother that may also be a nice part of my inheritance is her childlike capacity for amazement. Birds at a fountain, a cat strolling along on the sidewalk, clouds...oh, my...look at those clouds! I remember one day she stood at the window of her bleak little room at the assisted living facility, pointed to a tree across the street, and told me with great conviction that it was "the most beautiful tree in the world." I thought of this as my mother being endearingly batty, but now in retrospect, it seems so...I don't know...enlightened, almost. Because it was the most beautiful tree in the world. It was the tree she could see, every day, from her own window.

There's so much around here that is worthy of amazement. Yesterday: dolphins swimming close to shore, always a good omen. Quail rushing around in their self-important way, a few tiny chicks among them. And an evanescent border of shimmering white light above the hills at the brink of the gloaming.

I interviewed a couple of cowgirls for The Living Stories Collective, and that was fun. I learned a lot about the work they do, and I very much appreciated some of their descriptions of this ranch. You can go to this link to read and listen. (You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much on this, my more personal website, and that's because I've been spending a lot more time on The Living Stories Collective.)

And I don't feel like talking about the political scene right now, although there'd be plenty to say, but I have had a crazy, hopeful thought that maybe the whole outrage of this deeply disturbed and disturbing Trump thing will test us as a nation and we will reaffirm our best and better selves.