Thanksgiving

Every once in awhile I go through that little ritual of counting my blessings. Usually it's a reality check, a way of acknowledging that things aren't as sucky as they feel. But somehow, I can't experience gratitude, neat. I find myself qualifying my gratitude, saying things like, "I'm grateful that I have my health......sorta." And then I think about all the things that ail me, trying to convince myself that those are minor problems, and basically I'm in good health because I can still climb Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch, or go hiking in the Sandias with G and P. Doubtless it is true, that I am basically healthy. But it's not all the truth, and I need to acknowledge the yin in the yang and the yang in the yin, right? Isn't part of living in the moment recognizing all aspects of the moment?

And so it goes, with all my causes for gratitude.  My family?  too far away.  My friends?  ditto.  My capacity for joy?  drowned in exhaustion.  My capacity for productivity and creativity?  ditto.  The gratitude in my heart is silenced or diminished by the carping of my inner critic, and all I can do is whine, "what am I doing with my one beautiful life?"

My more robust companions will have none of this.  Some try to bolster, some speak sternly, some send hugs, virtual and real.  None of them say, "you're being boring," for which I am....grateful.

Sometimes I listen to my friends, and sometimes I listen to myself. A few weeks ago I had the amazing experience of listening to my heart through the agency of another human. My friend M's friend L is a dowser, and she spent 2 hours with me, talking, dowsing and clearing. Afterwards, I felt....light. I went to the clay studio and played on the wheel, producing an off-center vase, with thick lower walls and thin curvy rim. I took one side of the upper excess and curled it down, attaching the edge to the container and creating a handle. The opposite side was transformed into a spout, and the lopsided vase became a lopsided pitcher. In the ensuing week, as the mass of dark grey dried to leather-hard greenware, I trimmed and smoothed and carved. The resulting imperfection is actually rather interesting, but that is not the point. The point is the process, experiencing the transformation. I don't say I guided the process, nor did I control it. Again, that was not the point. I experienced it. I gave my inner critic a much-needed vacation.

There is a cult of excellence in our society. One's productions  must approach perfection as closely as possible. People must be beautiful, writing must be expressive, pots must be balanced, bodies must be taut and muscular. In such a culture, it is difficult to be grateful, for how can one rejoice in the imperfect? And yet, I do, and I must. Otherwise, what is the point of creating. And, if you are constantly judging your work by an unreachable standard, how can you live in the moment, how can you enjoy your life, how can you be anything but exhausted?

L's take on my constant exhaustion and nausea is that my heart wants to be free and my soul wants to connect, and my body is expressing how much both hate where I am right now. Yes, my head says, it's beautiful here, the job is good, and so is the financial reward: I should be content. But my heart says "get me out of here!"

So, we asked questions and the pendulum answered yes/no. Some of the questions were directed to the body: am I taking care of it properly? Yes. Do I have a diabetes? No. Most of the questions were directed to my heart, And, according to that guide, it seems pretty clear that I need to get rid of my possessions (even more than I have) and go out and explore, and I need to do it sooner rather than later. Apparently my heart does not want me to move back to Portland or Albuquerque or Wit's End, but it does want me to bring my violin along with me on this soul's journey. It doesn't want me to change my attitude towards my current situation, it wants me to move out and on. It wants me to trust it as I have trusted my brain all these years. I'm good at taking care of business, thinking things through, analyzing. Now I need to work with feeling. 

My first foray into that was most successful.  That day, when I got home from the studio, still feeling light from the session with L and the session with clay, I split some kindling and built a fire and posted the following haiku:

Content to be home

Lying by a crackling fire.

Who will make dinner?

A few moments later, I received a phone call from S, who said: "We will make dinner!" They were in Taos, and I met them at Kyote Club. The Universe responded splendidly.  Ask and ye shall receive.

Still, I'm not clear about my choices here.  I teared up during some of the discussion, and part of it was knowing that my friends and family will be worrying about me if I take this journey.( Not that they don't worry about me already.) My head wants me to wait for a few years to build up more retirement,  But it also says, what's the point of having an extra thousand a month if I have to spend it on healthcare? After years of living with D and years of working a stressful job, my body and soul are both hurting. I don't think I can afford to abuse them any more.

Yet, I'm not sure that a change of attitude is not the solution. I do have so much gratitude in my heart, and my critical thinking brain cannot always stop that. I am grateful for family, friends, health, talents, capacity for joy, capacity for productivity, material comforts, meaningful work, beauty in nature, beauty in art, beauty in people. Not necessarily in that order. I'm grateful for hearts and heads and souls.  And sometimes I am able to tap that gratitude, neat:

I spent much of Thanksgiving Day worrying about my niece.  Her labor had begun the day before, and as the hours wound on on the contractions weakened, and the medications came and went, and the baby reacted negatively to the whole process.  I wanted to be there, because of course if you are there, things will be okay. Finally, they decided on the C section, and my sister sent us the word:  I have a grand niece.  And there was no inner critic to say anything about it.  I felt light, happy, and intensely grateful.

I am grateful for

A great end to a long wait.

Welcome, Abigail!

Don't be a jerk

We had our first fight the other day.  Actually, G is so laid back and understated it's possible we have had other fights and I just didn't notice.  And, it's possible he didn't think this one was a fight either.  Maybe a disagreement, maybe a source of frustration, but not really a fight.  I don't know, because I have a skewed view of fights.  I don't easily get angry, and when someone is angry or irritated with me, I get hurt or confused.  Sometimes I get indignant because the angry person is not seeing things accurately, in my opinion, and it feels willful.  But usually the response is an internal curling up into a ball.  The fetal position has long been my default.

Fights with D taught me that I had it in me to scream so loud my heart hurt.  I found myself saying "Fuck you!" and meaning it.  It didn't feel like me, though.  I had changed my default from fetal position to flailing.  I stopped apologizing or taking my share of blame for the fight, because he rarely reciprocated.  My compassion was seen as capitulation and weakness.  Finally, I just ran out of energy.  I had no more investment in defending myself, I neither flailed nor curled.  Our final fight, the night I left, barely qualified as a fight.  I just looked at him and left.  There was no more fight in me.  As T often said, "when you're 'thu,' you're 'thu.'"

Since then, I have been in some fights, but they remain strangely passionless.  Yes, I've been hurt, yes, I've been irritated.  But mainly, I've just ignored my opponent ("It's his/her problem,") or walked away ("I don't deserve this.")  I still don't have the energy for fighting, it seems, and I don't know if that is good or bad.  Neither, I suspect.  It's where I am, part of the healing, part of the lesson learned.  I never again want to care so strongly or hurt so deeply that I invest in fighting.

For the less personal fights (war, gun control, environment, abortion), I have the good fortune to live in a place and in a way where my safety, livelihood and selfhood are not overtly challenged.  I know that there are real problems, real attacks, and that they do impact me as a human on this earth, but I can live in my bubble and leave the fight to others.  Is this a symptom of the lack of energy, or is it another example of my stunning first-world self-absorption?  As I recall, I've always been that way.  The fights with D were an aberration, as were many aspects of that relationship. Normally, I just want to enjoy what I have.  I don't want to fight for it:  if a fight is necessary, I walk away.

So....our first fight.  As with many fights, it was about nothing.  It was about a game.  It was about an unequal investment in the game.  It was about a lack of caring, a lack of focus.  It was about a misunderstanding.  It was....a fight.  I first realized it was a fight when G handed me the game rules and said "You need to read these, you don't know the rules," and I said, "I DO know the rules," and G said....I don't remember.

I curled up on the couch with the rules and started reading. It was a role-playing game, and the rules would have made no sense to me if I hadn't already been playing the game for several weeks.  Most of the rules had to do with setting up the game (G's job).  But I dutifully continued, occasionally saying: "this doesn't make sense," or "we haven't been doing this," or other mutterings to indicate that I WAS NOT THE PROBLEM.  G passed in and out of the room, sometimes responding, sometimes not.  And then I hit the jackpot.  I laughed and read it out loud:  "Be courteous and encourage a mutual interest in playing and don't engage in endless rules discussions.  Enjoy the game, be considerate of the others at the table, and don't let your actions keep them from having a good time.  In short, DON'T BE A JERK."  Later I kissed him and apologized for calling him a jerk and he said, "That's okay, I know you really care about me." 

I do, but not enough to fight about it.

Mending

Her hair was grey with red streaks, pulled back into a short messy ponytail, the shorter front hair framing her face and flopping forward occasionally.  She was bending over boxes, piling things on the too-narrow conference room table, digging into satchels, and generally presenting a frazzled, disorganized front.  But her smile was puckish, and I liked her scattered style.  I was there for free because I volunteer for NMLA, so I stepped in to help pass out materials, photocopy handouts, and generally make myself useful.  This meant I missed some of the introductory material, but it was mainly stuff I already knew:  her name and credentials, the way a book is put together, the terminology.  I have been working in libraries since 1981, and along the way you pick up some things.  Text block, check; gutter, check; leaf, check.  However, there were a lot of terms that I found very bizarre.  I would never think to call paste and tape adhesives, for example, and she had a tendency to refer to the complete book as an artifact (as in: "this artifact is poorly constructed.")  Terms like "fail" and "loss," fluttered from her like so many moths (which could be the source of the said "fail.")

To me a loss is not a hole in a page (er, "leaf"). 

But, there is a certain pleasure in the technical vocabulary.  I want to talk like that.  It's almost poetic:  find your adhesives, your cutting tools, your internally plasticized protective pouches.  Conserve those artifacts.  Hinge in those pages or tip them in, using the brush that has just the right amount of adhesive.  You swirl the brush in the glue, (er, adhesive), and you lightly strike against the edge of the page, (er, leaf), leaving beads of adhesive all down the edge.  Bop, bop, bop, I write in my notes, watching her demo this process.  It's a miniscule amount of glue, but after break she picks up the book and dangles it by the tipped-in page.  I am gobsmacked.

Each job is both unique and the same.  You look at your book and you decide:  is it worth the time and precision of the task to repair it?  CAN it be repaired?  What should I do first?  We learn that ten is the magic number for tipping in:  any more and you risk a total fail.  A TOTAL FAIL!  Complete and utter failure! You step the pages, 3 or 4 at a time, a millimeter of edge showing for each leaf, and you cover that edge in a thin layer of adhesive.  After that, you line the leaves up and pinch them together, sheathing them in wax paper and weighting them down.  In twenty minutes, you pick up the set of leaves and prepare to tip them in:  bop, bop, bop with the adhesive-filled brush, leaving a thin line of glue beads.

Before you tip in a leaf, you need to prepare its edge.  It should be a little "toothy" (aka, feathered), so you don't use the scalpel or scissors for your cutting tool.  You figure out how much paper you need to remove, because the tipped in page will stick out if you don't trim at the gutter but you don't want to trim too much.  You set a straight edge at the edge of the table.  You line the leaf along the straight edge, with the millimeter of excess hanging over the straight edge.  You pick up your abrasive (aka, sand paper file) and, in a brisk sweeping motion down and across the straight edge, you file off the edge of the leaf.  It's magic.

As I played with my new dangerous poetic tools, I thought about what I was doing.  I was mending, I was evaluating, I was repairing.  I was not curing anything though.  The goal was to be good enough, to give a little more life to the damaged artifact, let it circulate a little more.  In the end, there would be more failures, which I would be unable to repair.  And the book would be weeded, its life at an end.

So, it's a stop-gap, as so many activities are.  You decide it's worth doing, and you do it to the best of your ability, with the best of your focus.  Our conservator/teacher says she repairs the library books that she checks out, and she wonders if anyone notices.  But, that's not really the point.  She sees suffering, and she heals where she can.  It's a choice, and in the end, the choosing and the doing are what are important.

After 30 years
Of working with abused books,
I've learned how to heal.

"I pronounce you healed"

A few weeks ago, I was attending the 4th Annual Spider Reunion.  I missed the first one, the 30th Homecoming Reunion for Class of 1981, but several of us had agreed to meet annually after that.  The 2nd one was at my home in Albuquerque, the 3rd at G's family riverside home in Kentucky. This year was based in C's South Forks, Colorado, family cabin. 

It was another excellent visit, from both a vacation and a reunion point of view.  The aspen were at their peak, and the rocks at La Garita's Penitente Canyon and Creede's Bachelor Loop were awesome.  B drove her 4 wheel drive truck rental, so we were fairly intrepid until we reached the sign halfway to Wheeler Geologic region:  "Boggy road: 4 wheel drive not recommended."  That would be another way of saying, "Don't even bother."  At any rate, that was our interpretation.  Our other option was an 8-mile hike, which the literature claimed to be quicker than the road, anyway.  Not being in shape for a 16-mile slog at altitude, we turned back.

Anyway, this is not going to be a travelogue.  The road to Slumgullion Pass, with the bark beetle devastation and golden hillsides, Summitville ghost town with the tumbling grey houses and SuperFund sludge ponds, and the sandy beaches of Great Sand Dunes National Park: all are sufficiently documented elsewhere.  So is the Bloody Moon eclipse that C and I watched, along with the brilliant Milky Way, as we talked quietly of past, present, and future.  (B and her husband were still making their way down from Denver:  that night they were in Ouray, where the clouds obscured the event for them.)

For me, the main point of the trip was the farewell hug with B, who looked at me and said, "I pronounce you healed." 

It's good to hear, good to know that my friends have stopped worrying about me. But I still wonder.  Last week I was walking back from Cid's Supermarket with G.  We had been buying the fixings for salsa:  a man at the farmer's market had given me a small bag, full of overripe tomatoes, but I still needed cilantro and jalapenos. As we walked and talked, enjoying the crisp autumn weather, I found myself slipping on the gravel in a driveway that slanted across the sidewalk, landing on my left knee, hip, and elbow. 

It's at least 3 months
Since I last publicly fell down.
'Twas a graceful slide.

I tend to fall in G's company, but not exclusively.  I fell down the spiral stairs at G's during the last Spider reunion, when he was nowhere to be seen.  And the month before that I had fallen on the ferry deck, riding from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and thence to Sequim, WA.  Most recently, I had tripped on the sidewalk during the late June trip to Portland.

There is nothing physically causing these accidents, if accidents they be. I'm not dizzy;  there is no inner ear problem, no diabetes, no stroke, no broken hip.  I'm just not paying attention, distracted by anything and everything.  In each case, I've been talking to someone, excited and happy to be where I am, doing what I'm doing.  So, while I've been living in one moment, I've been ignoring other moments:  my body has been going on automatic pilot while my brain and attention have been focused on people, scenery, weather.  And apparently my body's pilot needs some watching.

But it's not just klutziness that ails me.  I find myself regularly closing down. Last month, I got queasy twice:  cold sweats, dizziness, and nausea.  Today I have flu-like symptoms.  I seem to need an inordinate amount of sleep.  I wake up grumpy.  What is going on? 

As I sit in my house robe, I ponder. Am I really healed?  Is anyone ever truly healed from the blows that life deals, from the viruses and attacks and bacteria and sorrows?  Does emotional healing lead to physical healing, or vice versa?  If I have healed emotionally, why am I still a grumpy, sleepy, queasy klutz?

Perhaps that's my basic personality, and I just have to get over myself.  Or perhaps I just need to stop berating myself for having a whiny mind in an imperfect body, because that's not all that I am. A few weeks ago I was struck dumb by the beauty of aspen on a Colorado mountain side.  I was joyful to be sharing that beauty with old friends.  And that's the flip side of my coin: a joyful mind in a sensory body.

I look out my window and watch the cottonwood, with its ancient, creased grey trunk and falling golden leaves.  I don't even have to drive up to Colorado to see beauty.  It's right in my backyard, and I don't need the ruby slippers to take me there.

Mosaics

I had a great time
Learning I am not good at
Making mosaics.

Mounting hardware

Last weekend I met S's Seattle girlfriend. She was visiting him and teaching a workshop in the barn: she's a mosaic artist and teacher, vibrant and talented. She has been pursuing her passion for 10 years, after 20+ years of working as an administrator at UW. I am impressed by her, but I don't think we like each other. There is some sort of constraint, and I find myself wondering why S prefers her. Perhaps because she doesn't seem to need him? He still thinks I'm lonely and seeking, and he does not like being a port in the storm. But, he does like being surrounded by talented, extroverted and attractive women, and we do have that in common.

Because I could not afford the workshop fee, S asked her if I could audit the class. She very kindly agreed, and eventually I was tapped to be the minion-assistant. That suits me: I like being in on the ground floor of any activity, knowing what goes into it, acting, not just receiving. It was not much work, and made me feel like less of a mooch, which I suspect was the purpose.

I arrived the night before, driving in through an incredible lightning storm and gully washer around Cerrillos. Ditches and arroyos that had never been damp in my experience were filled with muddy roiling waters, and the sky was filled with jagged vertical bolts and cloud-defining flashes of light. I stopped by WEC to pick up some mail and watched the show with C before going into it. We talked of M's condition and E's new home, but I could not focus on anything but the skies. That alone was worth the trip south. I reached S's home safely and curled up on the porch, listening to the muttering of thunder in the distance and the crackling of crickets in the garden. I thought about the past few years, and wondered how I had arrived at this place: a welcome guest everywhere, but at home nowhere. I'm not lonely, per se, but I am restless and unproductive. I like exploring activities and places, and I like learning, but I don't connect with any of it.

The mosaic workshop is a case in point. This was a class in using thinset as substrate, set, and design element. We learned how to mix and color the thinset, and we learned how to set various kinds of tesserae: small polished basalt pebbles, acid-washed glass gems, broken pieces of travertine, crushed pyrite. We weren't making art, but creating a techniques board. However, most of the students are experienced in mosaic, so they did create art.

I did not. I discovered that I am too slapdash for that sort of art. It's fun to play with beautiful found and prepared objects, but I don't think I'll ever be able to put them together in a coherent fashion. And, I prefer art with a more instant gratification: taking a photo, playing with it in photoshop, printing it up. Mosaic requires a vision, and if you make a mistake, you chip the whole thing out and start again. The thinset has a memory, so you can't just pull out a tessera and place something else once the tessera and thinset have bonded.

It's a very easy life metaphor, of course. You build your mosaic, piece by piece. Some pieces don't fit the pattern, and you can't just replace them, you have to replace the whole darn adhesive as well as the tessera. You break things to create your tesserae. You cure your adhesive, and your adhesive has a pot life, so you throw it away when it can no longer bond properly. The whole process is detailed and precise, and mistakes cannot be covered over. They have to be recognized in the effect they have on the pattern, and they have to be dealt with. Sometimes the whole pattern is a mess, ill-conceived and ugly. Sometimes it's just not what you wanted. K once chipped out an entire section because it was perceived as representational, and she is trying to solve some other visual problem.

And this is why mosaic art is not for me, and it's probably why I'm in this restless place. I've broken so many things, and I've picked up those pieces and set them in place, but the adhesive is not bonding because I didn't do the prep work, or the design is flawed because I didn't think about it, and I just want to walk away from the mess. I don't want to chip away and start over: that is too painful a process, and it will further destroy the pieces I've tried to rescue. Besides, I don't know what pattern I want. I recognize the beauty in the individual pieces, and I like watching the way they interact, but when I try to put them together, I am not happy with the result.

So, I'm restless.

A Six plans her Third Act

For the past few weeks, for the past few months, I've been sick and exhausted.  As I sat and coughed, I started questioning, again, the way I was living my life. I did  the math, again, and realized that I can stop my 40-hour work week right now if I want to.  But what do I want to do instead?

I felt a rush of excitement.  The last time my world seemed so limitless, I was 22 years old, just graduated from college.  I could do anything, but I decided to move to the Pacific Northwest and figure out how to take care of myself.   My choice was going to determine the next 30 years of my life, but I didn't realize it at the time.  Instead, I boxed up everything I had:  4 boxes of stereo equipment, 1 box of dishes, 1 box of priority 1 books, 1 box of priority 2 books, and several more boxes of priority 3 books.   A box of records.  A box of winter clothes, a box of summer clothes.  Boxes of paper and other school work.  A trunk, a suitcase, and a violin came with me on the train, and my Dad mailed the rest after me in dribs and drabs.  It took a few years before the last box of books came my way, but it didn't take long to find a place to live, a job to do, and friends to play with.  I had a life, and my whole goal was to take care of business.  The limitless possibilities contracted to a settled domesticity, with plenty of activities, travel, and music.

30 years later, and I have fewer books, no albums or CDs or stereo system,  more clothes, and a LOT more dishes.  Not to mention furniture, art, and craft supplies.  But, I've pared down again, and I realize how very little I need to be happy.  I don't want to give up the beautiful things I've collected, but I don't need them.  What I want is to be free.  And, I no longer want to take care of business.  Or rather, taking care of business is no longer my primary goal. 

I am realizing that it's time to start figuring out the Third Act.  The First Act was preparation:  growing up, figuring out my skills, learning how to learn.  The second act was existing:  finding a way to be productive and creative, and doing it.  But, it was also preparation: while I didn't believe that the world and the economy of the future were predictable, I did spend a little time preparing for them.  Hence, the pension plan, the retirement fund, the house. 

Now, I'm cashing in the house, and I'm suddenly thinking:  should I cash in the rest?  Should I quit with the existing, and move on to the living?  Is it time to stop preparing and being and start acting?  I feel limitless, but restless.  I have been sitting here with my cold that has morphed into pneumonia and bronchitis.  And I think, there has to be more to life than working, sleeping, and coughing.   People are dying, strength is a finite commodity:  if I'm going to expand my horizons, I need to do it now.

So, I sent my discontent out to my siblings, to my friend-who-is-living-my-life, to M.  She was the only one nearby, and she came over to drink coffee and listen to me process out loud.  Then she said something I wasn't expecting:

"You need to figure out your health."  From her perspective, I am both accident-prone and fairly constantly sick.  She thinks, and she is not alone in this, that it's a symptom of something that needs to be healed, something that is holding me back.  A past life?  A current grief?  An anxiety?

I am taken aback, and even more taken aback when she tells me that I'm always dissatisfied.  Really?  I thought I found joy in my life, that I realized how very lucky I am.  I didn't feel like there was anything percolating beneath, pushing my mind and body around in unhealthy ways, preventing me from flying, growing, loving, feeling joy.  I'm not dissatisfied, I'm just tired, and not sure this is what I really want.

It's more about ambivalence.  Last fall, when I was debating about this move to Taos, another friend laughed and said, "You're such a 6!"  A 6 lives in the Thinking aspect, but also vacillates within that thinking.  A 6 needs the community, the stability, but is always testing that stability and community, never trusting it will be there, never trusting its own decisions, never trusting the future.  "I process out loud," I tell new workmates.  I've always said that was part of my collaborative nature, but it's also part of my ambivalence.  I'm never sure what I want to do or be, or how I want to get there. I need the input, whether I use it or not.  I'm looking for validation.

That's why I had M come over.

As it turns out, no one is validating the early retirement idea.  M wants me to take this time and heal.  My siblings want me to be stable for awhile longer.  Everyone wants me to recognize how good I have it.  As my brother said, a gazillion people would be happy to trade places with me.  True. 

I think about Jane Eyre:  "For liberty I gasped."  Her petition is blown on the winds, so she reframes it: she wants excitement, change.  But finally, she settles on "a new servitude." 

I do not want a new servitude, I do not want to meet Mr. Rochester. I still don't know what I do want.  I do know that I am excited about the idea of no longer being trapped in my preparation phase.  I can wait to initiate the Third Act, but I can see it close by, waiting for me to reach out and pull aside the curtain.  When the time is right, the act will begin.  And who knows where the plot will take me?

A full moon gong journey

Description:
Take a sweet reprieve from ordinary moments and let yourself rest in the tones and overtones of the cosmos. Join Visudha, Master Sound Alchemist for an incredible sound energy alignment where in the tones and overtones of the gong take you into alpha and theta brain wave frequencies. These states of being allow deep meditation, relaxation and opportunities for physical, emotional and spiritual healing. You will come away relaxed, renewed and with a greater state of inner harmony.

Full Moons function as a powerful time that can facilitate pivotol change, and help us to see where we are coming from and where we need to go. Use this Scorpio Full Moon with the Sun in Taurus to release long standing patterns, and to bring yourself into fuller expression. Bring mat, blankets and pillows for your listening comfort.

 

 

Despite the clear description, I wasn't sure what to expect.  M and I had a date:  after my concert in Dixon, I'd stop by her temporary home for dinner and then we'd go to her yoga place for the Full Moon Gong Journey.

 

I noticed that this is Scorpio full moon, a time to release patterns.  I'd like that.  On her recent visit, C had already told me that I had Saturn return in Scorpio.  She was vague as to what that meant, but was clear that it will be a powerful time for me.  Maybe it's a good time to regroup and start something new?  Maybe it's a time to prepare for intensity:  get well grounded in a practise like meditation, yoga, walking, stretching, tai chi chih.  I got the impression that my health would be easily compromised if I didn't make such preparations.  However, it wasn't a real reading.  We were sitting at the Alley Cantina.  She was drinking beer, I was drinking Campari and soda.  We were chatting up the bartender and talking about C's Taos of 7 years ago and all the changes in our lives.  She had an astrology chart app on her phone, so I gave her my birth date and place, but was fuzzy about the time:  we settled for 10 am, but of course the time makes a HUGE difference. My twin and I were born 6 minutes apart and that's a whole degree!  And Lord knows our lives are very different.

 

Anyway, she wandered through the various houses depicted on her app, asking me questions ("Do you tend to be defensive?") and saying things like "Oh my, Scorpio in the 11th house," in a voice fraught with ominous meaning.  Apparently, it's lucky that my moon is not in Gemini.  I can't recall what it is, Aquarius maybe, another air sign, but it means I'm grounded, not a chaotic two-faced creature.

 

I haven't decided what I think about these things, but I know that I am influenced by natural phenomena and that, when I look carefully, in retrospect, I can see patterns.  Quantum physics would say you can't predict the future based on the past, but I do think there is a pattern there, even if we can't see it.

 

So, I'd been thinking about this reading and wondering if my current pattern of daily photo-journaling and walking on the mesa was sufficient preparation for a rather scary Saturn return. The gong journey seemed like a good place to think about that.  I like to focus my meditation on something.  Usually I do a walking meditation, like the labyrinth.  It gives my mind a focus, and it draws my body into the event and keeps me from feeling twitchy.  But paying attention to a sound is also good.

 

The evening started out pleasantly, with M and I sitting on the upper deck, eating risotto and drinking a citrusy pinot grigio.  We talked, as usual, of projects and life and the beauties around us.  The raucous crows, wheeling above the field, caught our attention.  Time passed, and we realized we did not have time to walk to the studio, which is on LeDoux near my home.  And, I wanted to get some cash, as yoga studios don't usually accept Visa.  So, we drove to my place and walked over.

 

It's a long room, with tall plants and shelving at the head, separating the yoga space from the entry area with its desk, supply shelves, hooks and cubbyholes.  The floors were polished bare wood, and the vigas were clearly modern, being smoothly-planed and regularly spaced.  Soft adobe-sided windows lined both sides of the room, with enough space between to permit legs up the wall and an outlet, but not much more.  One side of the room looked onto the courtyard, and the other into lightly-leafed trees, which lined an acequia and hid other buildings from sight.

 

We took off shoes and left them in the cubby holes by the doors.  We had arrived early enough create a second row of matts, closest to the gongs.  There were several gongs of varying sizes, lined up at the head of the room by the plants.  The largest was at least 6 ft in diameter:  taller than I at any rate. 

 

The practitioner was a tiny woman, in a floaty white dress, which accentuated her deep brown tan and long dark hair.  She seemed elfin, but her voice was both deep and resonant, though soothingly soft.  She greeted many people by name, walking between matts and mixing directions and information with more personal chat.  M and I followed the example of the regulars, setting up our matts lengthwise,  with the head at the gong.  We had neck pillows and leg pillows.  We could not keep water by us, because Visudha and her assistants would be walking between the rows and aisles.  The women in the first row were seated facing the gongs on large firm pillows at the end of the matt furthest from the gong, but the two young but balding men next to us were setting up their pillows at a slant, perched on blocks, with heads towards the gongs and feet stretching away.

 

It turned out that was the proper position:  the vibrations of the gongs were to travel through our bodies, from head to toe.

 

The room quickly filled up.  I lay quietly on my back, eyes closed, listening to people talking.  I had put my glasses and my labradorite ring under a smaller gong, to absorb vibrations too.  This meant that I couldn't see anyone, but there seemed to be a nice mix of age and sex, and not too many dreadlocks.  The lights were turned off, but one in the middle remained on, spotlighting one young man.  The studio employees flipped switches:  "No Greg is still spotlighted."  "Now the other lights are on."  "You'd think after all this time we'd know what the switches do."  But it was all calmly said, and meanwhile she talked of the gongs, their different properties, their names, all of which I've forgotten.  The assistants came through with lavendar eye pillows, and then Visudha came through with a tiny bell, ringing it over each supine form.  I could hear it getting louder as she approached, and then it was filling my ears, then passing by.  A pause, and the deep vibration of the largest gong filled the air.

 

And that's where memory fails me.  I lay, feeling the sound, hearing the sound, hearing it as an oceanlike roaring, patternless, yet full of pattern.  It grew loud, it fell back, it pulsed, it rang.  Other notes joined, fell away.  I thought of nothing.  The sound was physical, laying across my chest, holding me down.  My breathing was labored, but I wasn't scared.  With an effort, I moved my legs into a open yoga pose.  I changed the neck pillow.  My temples pulsed with pain....was it the wine?  dehydration?  I didn't think so.  The gongs' vibrations were in me and around me, trying to open...something....but something resisted being opened.  It had been going on forever, and then it stopped.

 

Some people spoke of flying, of visions.  M felt opened at a cellular level.  Visudha reminded us to be kind to ourselves, to not drive if we felt disoriented, to drink lots of water, to expect physical reactions.

 

She brought us dark chocolate, to help ground us.  I nibbled at it:  it was strong, earthy, quintessential.  I usually prefer milk chocolate, with caramel, but this was a different thing altogether:  it wasn't about an almost cloying sweetness.  It wasn't dessert, it wasn't indulgence.  It was vitality.  It was like drinking water after walking in the desert. 

 

We slowly put away our matts, cushions, blankets, and blocks.  We drank deeply.  I watched Visudha as she rubbed her neck and talked with another woman about muscular aches.  Her long hair had thin lines of gray in the black, her face was more lined, older than her dress and her voice had led me to believe.  I wondered:  how could someone with that power need a massage?  It's always disorienting to see a minister, of whatever faith or practise, exhibit his or her humanity.  But, as Liz Gilbert said, you are just a vehicle for your genius, which can be amazing, or lame.  You are not the genius itself.

 

M and I walked out into the cool night air.  The moon shone through clouds.  We looked at each other, and I said, "I can't drive you home."  She said, "I don't think you should."  We hugged and parted, and I walked home, my face lifted up to the moon.

 

And when I got home, I discovered I had a sore throat.

 

The gongs' vibrations
Leave me disoriented
But in a good way.



 

More guilt

"That woman is looking at us."  They were walking into the Taos Brew, on the main drag of Pueblo de la Norte, two dark-haired, dark-complected men of medium height and medium age. I had been noting the establishment, wondering at the odd mix of family-friendly and brew-pub advertising, pondering just who the clientele would be.  Burgers and brew did not sound at all appealing to me at that moment, but it seemed a cozy, pleasant enough place, adobe (natch) with a small portal in front and darkness behind the windows.  No neon.  The men walked in file with long strides across the sidewalk towards the door, looking straight ahead, one of them wearing a hat with a thin dark something dangling from the back.  I wondered if he had a braid or ponytail, but it appeared to be the hat's long cord.  They were talking about me, I realized, suddenly, and I turned my gaze back to the street and the soft blue sky with the soft white fluffy clouds.

I really wasn't looking at them, or not purposefully.  I was out for a walk, an attempt to clear my restless legs and mind.  This being Day 7 of Cold 2, I am finding it difficult to settle.  My head is foggy, so reading or practising or writing are out.  My throat is still sore, and my cough (as unproductive as the rest of me) breaks out in mini-seizures, unpredictably.  So I can't sing in the last concert, and social engagements are also out.  My pirated internet from the Town Hall across the Camino is too intermittent to permit me to watch Netflix re-runs and knit.  Tutoring is doubly unavailable as an activity:  neither my brain nor the wi-fi will focus sufficiently.

Because I have done nothing but work and sleep (and cough) for 7 days, my legs are twitchy earlier than usual.  I don't want to take the ropinerole too early, or they'll start twitching again when I'm trying to go to sleep.  And yet, the twitching is keeping me from napping or sitting and watching the fire and the birds.  They are restless too, swinging on the cottonwood boughs, darting to the feeder, WHUMPING to the ground en masse, fluttering upward again for no reasons.  I think I see the spotted towhee, but a closer look has me puzzled:  the distinctive red eyes are missing, and the hood does not connect with the back wings.  I decide it's a grosbeak, all the more because the males are being territorial about the single feeder. 

Watching a flock
Of aggressive grosbeaks through
Opera glasses.

I miss the magpies and the ravens:  my visitors seem to mainly be finches and grosbeaks, with a smattering of doves.  These don't seem to have any messages for me, not like the portentous raven or sly, cheeky magpie.

This cold, allergy attack, what-have-you has been going on for close to  two months now.  The first attack was March 15, and the cough lingered after the two weeks of repulsiveness had passed.  I had one week of reasonable health:  visited with M and C, sang in the community chorus' first two concerts, enjoyed life.  Then, whammo! on the evening of May 3 I attended the gong journey with M and walked out, disoriented with the vibrations and swallowing against an increasingly raw throat.  I still don't know if this current attack is a result of the vibrations or the incense, or if  the cold had just been in remission.

A library curse:
I either caught a new cold
Or renewed the last.

I remember the last time I was sick for so long.  I was working at the Woodstock Branch, and we were getting ready to close it for demolition and rebuilding.  My staff and I were being scattered to other branches, and I was going to open Capitol Hill Branch, which had recently been renovated.  In the midst of this turmoil, I caught a respiratory ailment that had me coughing so hard my rib muscles went into spasm.  I spent a month at home, too doped up to read or watch TV, and in too much pain to lie down.  I ended up sitting in the cushioned chair at the big oval library table in the living room, folding origami.  Mind you, I had never folded origami before.  Someone had been clearing out her supplies and had given me a beginners book.  I had reams of  smooth photocopied music from orchestra, and I also had thick fuzzy 6x4 sheets of deckle-edged paper, made from junk mail with a blender, a screen, lots of water, and lots of counter space.  I cut all this paper into 2-, 3-, and 4-inch squares and sat hour after hour, making tiny flowers and tatos and boxes.  I didn't get into the cranes until much later:  they were too free form for my beginning efforts.

I think about that now, because I just read a friend's blog about napping and guilt.  She and I both wonder what it is about us, or our culture, that will not let us just be.  It seems that even being must have a goal, a purpose.  If I'm sitting and staring into space, I must be meditating.  If I'm napping, I must be rejuvenating, replenishing the life force.  I can't just be sitting and staring or sleeping.  Likewise, if f I'm sick, I can't just sit and be sick.  In fact, if I'm sick, it must be something I did, there must be a purpose other than a virus' mission to live and propagate.   A friend used to tell me that I got sick because I was too busy and it was the only way my body could get me to rest.  M can relate:  she says she was sick for every vacation she ever had.

Still, if  there is a metaphysical purpose to my illnesses, I wonder why my illness is always respiratory.  Why is that the weak point?  What does it mean that I cannot breathe deeply without expelling the breath in a violent cough?  What does it mean that, usually, there is nothing obvious to expel?  That I am suffocating with my coughing fits, that nothing is clearing?  What am I drawing in that I do not want?  Why do I feel so claustrophobic?

I also wonder what I did to get sick this time.  I'm not overly busy, nor am I stressed.  Or am I?  I recently completed another move, recently started another job.  My aunt is upset with my self-centered behaviors, and I don't know what I want to do when I grow up.  But, these factors have been present for many years:  I was never attentive enough for D, and I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I have been switching jobs and/or moving since 2009.  I'm so used to those feelings, they don't really have the power to stress me.  Also, I've had 18 months to heal, and this was a very painless move into a very easy life.  Objectively speaking, my life just now is idyllic:  I am surrounded by the most gorgeous skies EVER, and this town, despite its dark side, offers me so many opportunities to learn and experience my beloved high desert home.

So, no, I'm not unduly stressed.  Why, then, am I sick?  Why restless?  Why questioning and second-guessing myself?  My friend is taking naps:  why can't I?   And yet...my friend is also questioning.  She and her husband are currently living my life:  their possessions are in storage and they are exploring and house-sitting.  They both brought along projects, and they are both ignoring said projects and she, at least, is feeling guilty about that, just as I felt guilty about not doing anything but crosswords and internet while I was on that 18-month sabbatical.

I still want to learn Spanish, piano, and gamba.  I want to hike ALL the trails around here.  I want to finish my NaNoWriMo novel.  I want to find the man-made caves near Embudo.  I want to draw.  I want to throw pots.  I want to make music.  I want to finish those darn knitting projects and start a new one.  I want my friends to do all these things with me.   I want, I want, I want.....to sit in my chair, reading, writing and watching the birds.  I want to travel.  I want to share.  I want to save the oceans. 

I want to be able to nap, guilt-free.

He brought me a video to check out:  ...And now Miguel.  He said, "Have you seen that?"  And I said, no, but the author was a Newbery Award winner, wasn't he?  "You know children's literature?!"  Yes, I suppose I do.

He was an older man, with white curls clustered over his head, a tanned lined face, thin corrugated neck.  His gray eyes fixed me as he talked on.  Somehow we moved from children's literature to Thomas Hart Benton.  It wasn't that big a jump:  apparently he illustrated Mark Twain, and the two native Missourians were both inspired by their home state.  I thought of the Thomas Hart Benton room in the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City., and wondered if the first editions were located there or the public library or some other archive.

It appeared that the gentleman talking with me had known Benton's daughter, Jessie, who lived in a famous commune in the 60s.  He talked on about her and those times and I was reminded of Hilton's Lost Horizon, where people learned the truly important moments in their lives.  This man's important times were in his youth in the east, when he met a painter and the painter's daughter.

I don't think I've had an important time.

But I listened as he spoke of Jessie Benton Lyman and then circled back to Miguel, who is still alive and perhaps could sign the original edition of Krumgold's book that my Ancient Mariner possessed.  And I thought of all the people I've met and art that I've owned.  It's irreplaceable, but what can I do about it?  I'm going back in June to pack up pictures and letters and the immigrant trunk, but I can't take everything back with me, and I have no crystal ball to tell me which of the possessions might mean something to future generations.

They have brought me joy, and that is their purpose.

Two poems

Spring Declaration
They line the road, stark and graceful,
Black or silver against a hazy blue sky.
Outlined in green, their shadows curve along the adobe.
I did not see this yesterday.

When did this happen?

It seems this is the day the tree sap rose up, saying,
"Let the leaves burst open their tight buds and rejoice in the sun.
I will course through their veins, the heart of spring will beat
As I slowly climb the trunk."

Or perhaps this is the day I finally opened my eyes.

The change is swift:  one must be vigilant to catch
That soft subtle moment between winter and spring.

If I listen carefully, I too can hear the sap.


A Farewell
On Easter morning, I write to my friends:
"Meet me at the Kosmos, we'll listen to Pergolesi and rejoice."

Silence, both expected and deserved.  It is a last-minute thought,
Born of a conjunction of time and space.  Here am I, there is the music.
I write out of my lethargy: if they say "yes," I'll have to go.

They do not say yes, and I find my concert in the Bosque,
In the call and response of the birds' sweet and  liquid warbles.

But then I come home to the message, heart-stopping, unexpected, and undeserved.
She had died four days before, on April 1st.

Cruel fool, senseless prankster:  why did you come?

I am not angry, I cannot rail against the unfairness, the wrongness.
All I can see is those deep-set bright eagle's eyes, the hawk nose, the salt-and pepper crest.
Is this what the ravens have been telling me?

I have been too complacent. 
I thought I had all the time in the world
To grow a nascent friendship. 
I forgot that every moment is precious, never to be retrieved.

As I drive home, I see the electronic road signs:
"Watch for pedestrians...Pilgrims on the road,"
And again, "Watch for Walkers."

Shall I park my car, walk down that ramp, make my pilgrimage to the Sanctuario?
Whom would I petition, and how?

The sandstone cliffs gleam ochre and red in the late afternoon light.
I watch the raven soar,
And I can't help myself. I smile.

In Just Spring

I was driving to work last week and suddenly realized that the trees lining the road were covered in a green haze of new buds.  The leaves had not yet opened, of course, so one could still see the outlines of trunks and branches, some graceful, some spiky and knobbly from relentless prunings or parasites.  Their graceful shadows striped the road and snaked up the adobe walls, curving with them. The fields and ditches and arroyos and fields were a blend of golden willow, beige stubble, silver-grey trunks and dark tangles of bushes, plus that bright new green.  It seemed to have happened overnight, and I cought my breath in sudden recogniztion:  it's spring!

I thought of the ee cummings poem, "in just spring, when all the world is puddle-wonderful..."  No, this is not the wet East, this is high desert:  there are no wonderful puddles.  There is some mud-lusciousness near the river, and, as I caught a glimpse of the lamb suckling its mother, I could almost hear that little lame balloon man's whistle.  But not quite.  I can delight in the sudden signs of spring, the yellow dandelions and daffodils, the tender newness of everything; but I'm driving to work, exhausted from my three-weeks-and-counting bout of respiratory virus.  The roads are dusty, and the gale-force winds stir up the dust and juniper pollen, covering my car in a thin layer of brown and making me sneeze.

I think back to my old spring rituals:  walking to the pioneer cemetary in Monmouth, looking for the hillside of violets; driving to Tryon Creek State Park in Portland to see the trillium; trimming the pussy willows in my yard and arranging the shoots in large ceramic vases.  Now the ritual is going to the Botannic Gardens in Albuquerque, or visiting the bosque and watching the cottonwoods burst into green, almost as I watch. I still color the Easter eggs, last year with G, this year with V.  And I sing the hymns as I drive "Praise to the Lord, the almighty the king of creation."  I may not believe in the deity (the jury's still out on that), but I believe in the joy, and am grateful for the ever-new, ever-timeless growth and change.

I think I hear that goatfooted balloon man.

Virtuality

I know this is nothing new, but I've been thinking about connections and the Internet and my choices. Being sick has something to do with it: I have nothing to do but force liquids and process thoughts.  The thoughts are routine, as are the conclusions.  I am learning nothing, creating nothing worth communicating.  But, the urge to communicate, to write, and to share doesn't care about quality.  That urge is about connection, and it will not be denied.

 

We are so disconnected, with our virtual lives.  We can't sing together over Facebook, we can't hug.  Emoticons don't sound like love or hurt or joy or righteous indignation.  Clicking on an email envelope icon does not have that lovely crackly sound or give that feeling of anticipation. The email travels instantaneously over the airwaves, not through the air, through hands, through human agency. There is no planning, no effort in its transmission.  It is usually about news, and it is usually created casually, impersonally.  It is not savored over a cup of tea or saved in a bureau drawer. 

 

Of course, no form of letter takes the place of personal connection.  But something tactile is so much better than something electronic. I've re-learned since SC was incarcerated what a treat it is to open my mailbox and find a letter instead of bills.  It's like a birthday present, like chocolate, like hearing a favorite song, like Carbon greeting me at the door.  Like love.  I do miss going out to the mailbox with the expectation that something wonderful is waiting for me.  And I have started writing letters in order to give that pleasure to others. SC cannot get email, and E doesn't remember to, but I'm sending letters to others as well.

 

Don't get me wrong:  I'm immensely grateful for the immediacy of the virtual connection.  I don't feel so alone when I see a name on a post or a note in my inbox. This past week, when I have been so ill, the Internet has been my lifeline.  I check for messages.  I post photos and haiku complaints and receive pity and good wishes in return. I text V, asking for a grocery run, and she brings me home-made chicken soup as well.  So, the virtual connection keeps me from total isolation and, in a lot of ways, the sound bite nature of it works better for my energy levels. My responses can be written quickly and I don't have to worry about my penmanship.

 

In fact, I wonder if I really do miss the physical connection?  As I mentioned in a previous post, living with E taught me that I am indeed an introvert.  I have fought all my life against the deep exhaustion I feel when the inertia of staying in pulls against the desire to be social.  It's like trying to pick up a cat that doesn't want to be picked up.  It's heavy with resistance, limbs and head hanging lifelessly, almost impossible to move.  So, I have scheduled myself and made commitments to force the issue.  The consequence seems to be that  I  regularly get sick and collapse.  I didn't get this extended sickness the whole time I was with E.  It might be because I wasn't working with the public then, but I think it's because I need stay home with my books and my music and my time wasters.  A 40-hour traditional public-contact work week is anathema.  How much of my physical response is caused by depression, I do not know.  I don't feel depressed:   I am aware of serenity and sometimes joy.  The discontent seems to come more from the "shoulds" than my actual feelings.  I "should" be active and productive and social and creative.  I "should" get out and exercise.  I know that I'll be glad I did.  But I felt those "shoulds" up on the mountain, too.  Was it because my activities had to be severely limited and rationed that they did not overwhelm me?  Was it because my normal day was spent cooking and eating and doing crosswords?  E at 99 was more active than I at 55.

 

There is the contradiction. I like being alone.  But I miss my friends.  I like zoning out with my knitting and my pictures and my books and (god help me) my Netflix reruns.  But I miss the activities and connections.  In fact, I recently received a text from S, who is visiting Portland with his Seattle girlfriend, and I peppered him with names of restaurants and theatre groups.  It was so hard to decide which to fit into one short weekend.  I was so excited for them! I was virtually with them, and it felt great, but....lonely.

 

I don't know why I don't just move back to Portland and my tribe, but somehow all my choices keep me here with the dry air and the circle of juniper-clad hills, with the huge bowl of sky upended over the sage-filled fields.  Early in this week of illness, I walked out to get the mail, and a raven soared silently overhead, huge blue-black wings outspread, each feather distinct. (Did it follow me from the campus? What is it trying to tell me?)

 

There was nothing in the box.

 

 

 

 

 

Not orange or black, but dusty maroon

We got up at 8 so we would reach Grants by 9:30.  It had been a late night, with M driving down from Colorado, picking me up in Taos, and then stopping off in Cerrillos for a fantastic concert of Early Music.  We didn't reach the house in San Antonito until 10:30 pm and were both exhausted, but slept well.  We had breakfast with P and I fed Zeus the cat and told him we were going to visit his Mom that day.

It was a glorious day, warm with a bit of a cool breeze.  After the preceding week of snowstorms and closed roads, it felt like a gift of early spring Since it was a Saturday, there was not much traffic on the road, which was a good thing:  M was still getting used to the size of the Tundra. We drove through the badlands, which are a jumble of huge broken lava flows and bubbles and tubes protruding through sage and surrounded by red and ochre mesas, which are cut into canyons by the arroyos.  A long train passed through the landscape, green and blue and maroon rectangles bisecting the fields, pointing towards the mesas in the east.  Another train passed when we left at 3:30, and that time the golden late afternoon sun cast the train's shadows.  It is a lonely landscape, but a truly lovely one.

 We had to stop by a bank to pick up rolls of quarters for me (M had already purchased his in Colorado).  Turns out that's the only thing we are allowed to bring with us into the visitors' room. No knitting, no food, no jackets, no sunglasses.  Just two rolls of quarters and the clothes we stand in (and no sleeveless tops either.)  We arrived at 10:15.  The building is long and low, with narrow windows.  It is surrounded by the traditional barbed wire and empty fields.  It's a typical government installation.

 

 

M was a nervous wreck, trying to make sure he did everything right.  He had to go out to the Tundra to stash my sunglasses and his wallet, which they would not keep at the desk. They gave him the wrong set of keys, so he had to come back again.  They did allow him to bring in the vitamins that he needed to take at 11 am, since visitors are not allowed to return once they have left.

 

There were two young women waiting in the anteroom, and they were called to the visiting room while M was out at the truck. Then it was our turn to wait while SC was being "processed" for the visit.  The walls were covered with posters and regulations, which I read carefully while I awaited M's return from the parking lot, and the ceiling was low, with square, covered fluorescent lights. The waiting room was approximately 300 sq ft, with the desk and scanner and gate to the left as you enter, and institutional chairs lining the walls facing the entry and the desk.  The chairs were separated, so M and I had to push them together to hold hands comfortably while we waited.  I kept hoping that it was legal for us to do that. 

 

The dark stocky young man behind the desk was actually quite nice about M's jitters and my questions about knitting.  And he was even nicer when I set off the alarm going through the gate scanner.  Oh, yes, my rings are metal.  Alarm again.  Take off shoes, recheck pockets. Nothing.  Alarm again.  Man, that thing is sensitive. All we could figure is that the bra hooks were setting it off.  The guard scanned me with the handheld scanner and let me through.  We walked down a short  concrete-block hall.  Everything was  beige-white: floor tiles, walls, and ceiling tiles. The lights were bright and yet somehow dingy.  The walls to our left were covered with posters about caring and proper treatment.  The walls to the right contained doors to restrooms and a private room.  The women's restroom had the eyewash symbol, too.  We stopped at a gate that was top-to-bottom bars.  We could see double doors ahead and a windowed door to the left.  That was our destination. We pushed the button to the right of the gate, and it parted and slid open towards us.  Another button, and we were in the visitors' room.  SC was coming through a door to our right.  She was wearing a dusty maroon jumper, purple eye shadow, and clogs, and she gave me a long hard hug.  Then it was M's turn. 

 

The CO (Correction's Officer) was a young woman, with nicely bunned hair, delicate features, olive skin, and a slight build.  She pointed out the chairs that were ours:  two small plastic blue chairs facing another plastic beige chair.  There were approximately 10 of these arrangements, set in loose rows between the CO's desk and the vending machines.  The chairs to right and left of ours were filled, and there was another group or two towards the back of the room.  Everyone seemed comfortable and calm.  Conversations were quiet, smiles frequent. The atmosphere was clinical rather than penal:  it was like we were visiting hospital patients in a particularly uncomfortable waiting room. 

 

The CO brought a small square beige plastic table/stool to sit between us and made me move my chair so the camera could see me.  She also took my jacket and hung it up on the wall behind her desk. The guard had warned me that might happen, but fortunately the temp was okay. The CO's desk was large, with a high narrow counter surrounding it on three sides, and a window behind it.  It held a phone and the CO's lunch, but not much else.  The view from the desk commanded the entire room.  Visitors faced the eastern wall, which held the restroom door, the meshed-filled windows into the phone room,  and the door through which inmates entered.  The phone room contained 3 or 4 stations, unseparated.  It was long and narrow, and was currently empty. Through the phone room window, we could see a door into a hallway that led straight east.  Another hallway apparently led north-south, behind the phone room.  The door from the hall into the phone room remained open, and around noon we could see inmates in green and blue shirts and slacks filing past, watching us curiously.  The CO eventually got up and put plastic cling sheets on the windows so the light came through but the inmates could no longer see us. I'm still trying to figure out why they didn't just close the door and cover its window.

 

There were several visitors, but plenty of room for more, so I wasn't worried about being asked to leave before the 3:30 curfew.  To our left, closer to the CO station, a woman in her fifties with a protruding chin faced the two young women I'd seen in the lobby.  They left after a few hours and she told us it was her daughter (and a friend) whom she hadn't seen in 8 years.  She was proud that her daughter could see her clean and sober:  she had been so for over a year.  I'm still trying to do the math:  is it really possible to be not clean and sober in prison?  I guess I'm too naïve.  SC told me that the letter I had written with calligraphy pen and ink was considered "suspicious" and was withheld for that reason.  Apparently drugs can be put in the ink, and the inmate then eats the letter.  For the same reason, the authorities have withheld the crayon missives from her grandkids.  They take photocopies and let her read those, but won't give the photocopies either.  Seems odd, but I guess I should be glad she was allowed to read the letter.

 

There was a small area for kids, with carpet, toys, books.  It was surrounded by a short wooden fence with a gate.  Later in the visit we went in there to get a group photo taken by the CO:  the only time outside of the greeting and farewell hugs that we were allowed to touch SC.  Otherwise, the only contact was visual and verbal.  She wasn't allowed to go to the vending machines, either.  We had to take our rolls of quarters, examine the wares, and ask her what she wanted.  She wanted a lot, because it was a treat.  Soda, candy, burgers with chili, burritos:  the usual vending machine fare for the usual vending machine prices:  $1.25 for candy bars, $1.75 for drinks, $3.50 for burgers.  We probably spent close to $30 on SC and on ourselves.  I felt sick afterwards.  Why couldn't we bring in our own food?  But it did give us something to do, someplace to go at intervals in the conversation. 

 

The plastic bottle drink machine was fascinating:  a robot arm moved laterally and vertically from the bottom left corner, positioned itself in front of the selection, caught the bottle as it moved forward, moved again in precise jerky motions to the deposit chute, and dropped the bottle in.  Sadly, it didn't always work.  If it wasn't positioned perfectly in front of the bottle, nothing happened and it returned to the starting position.  The machine did give back the money, at least.

 

The microwave was to the left on the machines, and, again, could only be used by the visitors. We had to bring everything for SC to the CO desk.  After I returned to my seat, SC was allowed to go to the desk and get the food.  Thus, no sharing of chips, no handing over anything.  I did notice that the girl on our right was allowed to play Scrabble and card games with her visitors, so there was some possible exchange.  SC didn't want to do anything but talk, though.  So we talked.  M talked about his travel trailer and plans, SC talked about her job sewing and other bits of daily life and the audit that the Corporation was undergoing.  (Rumor had it that they were caught shredding documents.  I don't understand the rumor mills:  where does the info come from, and how is it disseminated?  SC says the guards are the source, and I guess that's it, but it still doesn't make sense to me.)  I talked about my job and Taos. Towards the end we talked about her legal situation and her relationships.  As I suspected, D's speech in court devastated her:  she sees her father's influence in every word.

 

It was so difficult to just sit for 5 hours in those hard plastic chairs.  It was so difficult to not be able to hold her when she was upset.  M spent much of the visit holding my hand, rubbing my arm:  was it because he couldn't do the same for her?  In that sterile environment, touch was what we wanted, and what she needed, and what we couldn't give.

 

There was a restroom for inmates only:  twice I had to go back through the door and the gate to the one in the hall.  Again, my naïveté:  people pass things in the restrooms, apparently.  It's not all about metal, you see, and the detector cannot catch everything.  For example, another inmate asked if her daughter could buy some quarters from us:  she had a $5 bill.  Since this was the inmate who had the bed next to SC and was apparently threatening her, I wanted to be accommodating.  I asked the CO about it, the CO said it would not look good in front of the camera because no one is supposed to bring in ANYTHING except a roll of quarters (and M's sanctioned vitamins.)  I'm still trying to figure out how an exchange of money between visitors could constitute a risk of contraband.  I'm still trying to figure out why SC could not take off her clogs.

 

I asked about the maroon jumpsuit.  It's the special visiting outfit.  Usually she wears a green T and pants.  The God Pod wears blue, and the high risk pod wears read.  No orange to be seen.  As per usual, the TV show gets it wrong.  I'm not sure what color the fleece (which has still not arrived) is.

 

So the hours passed and it was time to leave.  Another long hard hug, and we all filed out the door, while the inmates waited in the room.  The anticlimax was discovering I'd left my jacket in the room (one of the colorful Marketplace India ones):  I got back through the gate and knocked on the window.  I pointed to the jacket and SC went to the wall where it was hanging and brought it to me.  I hope she didn't get in trouble for it.

 

We drove home through the golden late afternoon light, met SC's friend F at the 66 Diner for an early dinner, and talked some more.  My mind was a jumble:  M's traveling plans, F's moving plans, SC's legal plans.... everyone talking and doing and trying to make things better.  But SC is in prison for 8 years, in which anything can happen and all plans can go awry.

 

I just wanted to go to sleep.

 



Totems.

Today my lunch path took me around the campus on the paved walkways and roads:  didn’t feel like putting on my hiking boots and slopping through the muck.  There are a few places where one can get pix of the encircling mountains and the huge sky, sans buildings, without the need of getting into the fields.  As I walked, I looked into the blue blue sky, and there was a huge raven, wings outspread, soaring overhead.  There are a lot of them around, but for some reason, this one struck me as meaningful:  like he was right there for me to see against the sky, accentuating the blue and the feeling of being in the center of everything, my own wings outspread in the cold wind, my own eyes looking down and up, seeing how the world is encircling me, how the air is holding me.  I don’t think my totem is a raven, but this one certainly spoke to me.