Beets Me Why Termites Like Wood

Did you know that to pick a beet out of wet earth, one must clear some of the dirt away with a deft finger to see the outline of the beet? Intention is the shortest distance between any two points. Beet growing in the garden being one point: Beet roasted, peeled, cut into ruby wedges on white plate with fresh basil and tossed with light lemon dressing being the other point. It’s all in the wrist and the angle of the pull. One must see the direction that is most advantageous for extraction.

Whole House Farm in Sebastapol has been a Goddess-Send these past four days! Christine and David Cole have a twenty three acre working farm from which we were invited to, and taught how to harvest sorrel, basil, raspberries, lemon cucumbers, grape tomatoes, kale, ground cherries, chives, shallots, leeks, and these marvelous beets and beet greens. 

Y-U-M-M-M!

It was easy to forget that the last vision of my home in the rear-view mirror on Friday was of it covered top to bottom in a termite-gas-proof green tent. Yuck! Really gross to think about killing every living squatter that was living under that tent. Clearly, I’m not a Jain.

Yucky too, to think of termites and their wriggly pupe-escent larvae chomping on the beams and joists of our home. We tried the “greener” approaches: orange oil, heat, freezing their butts. After 25 years of living here, this is the second time we’ve had to call out the big guns and tent for the buggers. 

Termites began to rain on my clients from the ceiling beams. I was picking up a dozen or more wriggly, winged reddish bodies every afternoon from the white carpet and my altar. I worried that they’d fall onto the faces of my clients.

Swarming is what they call this season. The heat brings them out. 

Here in Sebastapol, I’m hours and four hundred miles from the worrisome creatures, although I picked up two here on the white linoleum kitchen floor. I swear I didn’t bring them with me! The Northern California variety are twice the size of their lowly lower CA cousins.

It will be another *^&%$#@ growth opportunity to put away all the food items we had to bag and double bag with special gas-proof bags against the infiltration of Vicain gas. The shelves will be so clean (after I wash them all down). The termites will be so... dead. Unfortunately, so will the spiders, ants, silverfish, crickets, wasps and any leafy tendrils that may have been trying to grow in the crawl-space under the house. I did talk to the non-house-eating bugs and invite them to move elsewhere before Friday... or else! I hope they understood my intention!

Spending four days and three nights with six of my high school buddies was a real treat. Each of us brought something to share for our meals - which were spectacular gourmet productions! Fresh chicken eggs for breakfast along with FRESH raw goat kefir, fresh-off-the-vine raspberries, and plum jam - all from the farm! Dinners included every vegetable mentioned above  plus crunchy green beans and chard. We grilled salmon, sautéd sausages, and baked brownies. Because I had to clean out the fridge at home, I brought many items to share. We made use of them all. Did I mention the wine? OMG! So flavorful and conversation boosting.

Sunday, three had to return home; four of the seven of us went into Healdsburg and browsed in antique shops and wineries. The interstitial one-on-one visits with each of my friends was more nourishing than food. These are gals whom I’ve known since those awkward teen-angst years and with one another, we can let our hair down.

One of the things we discovered is that no one is immune to chin whiskers! What a relief to know that not one of us suffers from terminal uniqueness. Have tweezers; will pluck! I do remember my grand mother laughing at her reflection in her dressing table mirror with the query: “Ain’t Mother Nature wonderful? She takes the hairs out of our eyebrows and sticks ‘em on our chins!” I wonder if I talk with my bristly hairs... will they depart?

Home is where the heart is. Mine is forever migrating. I seem to be at home in the north and in the south. Perhaps, I’ll set my intention to become bi- latitudinous!

Harvesting the Gold

Equinox/Harvest

Here’s a song I wrote 24 years ago for a ceremony at The Healing Light Center Church:

Equinox, equal day and night

Equinox, equal dark and light

Balance me at this time of the year

Balance me, casting out any fear

Equinox, let me rise up in the spring

In the Fall, let me dance and let me dream

Balance me at these points on the wheel

Balance me, let me heal

I sang it Friday in my Creative Life Writing class, and again on Sunday at an intimate gathering of healers - on the Autumnal Equinox! It felt great to share it on the actual factual day. 

After singing, I only shook for a short ten minutes each time instead of the familiar past norm of thirty to sixty minutes. This time, sweaty pits and palms, icy fingers and big shuddery, jolty quaky-shakes were minimized so that they were mostly indiscernible from ordinary metabolic processes. Progress, not perfection. It's good to get out of the closet and to know I won't die from being seen. Shadows and light... what will my harvest be?

What’s the “gold” for me to reap?

Write me another song? Play me another game of Candy Land with the Grandie?

Harvesting the gold may mean addressing the shadow, my dear. Robert Johnson, in ‘Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche’ says we buried that gold at the back of the closet along with our shadow material.

NO! Not again! Too many years being KO’d during shadow boxing. Too often the darkness wins.

Well, dear, how you gonna get to the gold without gettin’ your hands dirty?

Mmmmmm... point taken. I’ll take a stab at it. Hand me that shovel will ya?

Sure, deary, but it’s a garden spade; not a shovel.

Calling a spade a “spade” - how like you to be so precise. No wonder it’s hard to write when I have to dot every “i” and cross every “t” - make all the grammatical edges smooth as glass. Well, KISS MY...., you evil taaaassssk master!

I’m writing up a storm which will devour your sour precision and overrun the banks of marble with a guard at every door. I’m going to run and run and run ‘til the words run dry... THEN I’ll think about the picky, poopy, picayune precision you proffer. Perhaps I’ll prefer your profession after the blast of creativity, which leaves embers on the skid marks, has come to its own organic resting resolution.

Suit y’self, deary.

Balance is sometimes found in the big swings first - like big brother’s weight on his end of the teeter totter keeping me up, feet running in space, at the other end, until I invite him toward center, and 

                        down 

                                     I 

               

                                           float. 

Soon, we find perfect balance. 

                   Effortless ease.

What will my mining yield from the back of the closet... what other treasures might I find in the shadows?

We’ll see...

I intend to keep diggin'!

My friend D'Lanie says, "Life is a garden and I dig it!"

Happy Harvests

Happy Autumnal Equinox

Happy first day of Autumn!!! 

I Hope You Dance

Sunday’s Family Reunion with a couple hundred people, most of whom I’d never met, is thrilling.

The Painted Turtle’s “Camp on the Move” at Hotel del Coronado’s Grand Ballroom, over looking the truly peaceful Pacific replaces a camp weekend that would have been held at the beautiful and familiar venue in Lake Hughes, California - had it not been for the Station Fire of June 2013 rendering the facility unusable until next year. Fifty six families from all over southern California - many local to San Diego - fill the ballroom this morning. Staff and volunteers round out the number to well over two hundred folks.

The program begins with carnival games around the perimeter of the gorgeous and enormous circular ballroom. The west-facing windows all look out on the ocean, the pool and the San Diego Coastline.

Built in 1888, this architectural gem is the oldest wooden-structure hotel still standing in the United States, and a grand old Lady she is - even if her floors creak and room 217 is “haunted.” Staffers from the hotel are so gracious, kind, and helpful as we pull together to make welcome these families, who have at least one child challenged by some life-threatening illness. 

"Corn Tossers" is my carnival game assignment. Two sorority sisters from San Diego State University and I staff it from 10:45, when the doors open, until lunch break at 12:30. Kids of all ages, sizes and abilities improvise lobbing the bean-filled cloth projectiles into the single hole in an angled piece of plywood on the floor. Two people can compete at one of three toe lines (blue painter’s tape) on the carpet.

Other games include similarly adaptable games - like “Whak-a Mole”, “Ping-Pong-Ball Races,” (using straws to blow the balls up hill in troughs), and “TP Toss”, which involves throwing (taped) rolls of toilet paper into mounted toilet seats - like basket ball! 

Two teens, using their joy sticks, drive their chairs right to the base of our Corn Toss slanted board. I hand each of them bags - four red for Leopold, and four green for Miley. Using all their concentration, available muscles and huge will, they plant a couple of bean-bags IN the hole. Very young ones, or those very short of stature, but huge on personality, also position their aim right over the hole to drop the bags directly into the target. We three retrievers are suddenly VERY busy, cheering, picking up and giving back the bags to throw again. I fear, that by Tuesday, we’ll have sore quads from the non-stop stooping and squatting for an hour and a half!

Any minor discomforts dissolve when we observe the impact of today’s family camp on these families. For some, it’s the normalizing that happens when they see other families with similar struggles. For others, it’s the safety of this container that allows parents to give their kids free reign to explore amidst so many “aunties” and “uncles” (counselors) who truly care about their kids that makes them melt.

At the end of lunch, there’s the familiar “Fun with Pun” - a combination magic show and chance for the spotlight to shine on my husband’s (Pun’s) helpers. He invites the ones least likely to be included in the daily flow of life to pull the plungers (magic wands) off his cheeks, or try to stretch a rope to make sure it’s not stretchable. The kids just glow with pride, and more than one adult is left with glistening eyes - either from laughing so hard or from the poignancy of a child finally having the spotlight of love and appreciation shining fully on his or her proud face.

The afternoon provides arts and crafts of many varieties - from face-painting, to making bird feeders out of popsicle sticks, to making secret messages with white crayons and painting over them with watercolor, to painting the inside of baby food jars with glow-in-the-dark paint for small lanterns.

For the last hour or so, after closing down the art stations, we have “Stage Day” which is an opportunity to tell a joke, sing a song or dance to a piece of music in front of this unconditionally loving audience. We’re led in “Yes, yes YES” cheers or a standing (or not) “Ooooooooooo Yah!”  by TPT staff members. Performances include a mom & daughter duet of Zippity Doo Dah, lip syncing or singing along to any number of pop tunes, a three year old spinning on one foot until she’s delightfully dizzy as her long braids whap her in the face and her brother raps a familiar (camp appropriate) rap song. 

The five tissue performance for me is a trio of teen dancers. Leopold introduces the song on mic from his motorized chair in his halting speech something like this: 

“The Painted Turtle Camp is all about doing the best you can with what you’ve got. I invite all of you to get up and dance with us.” 

A cheer arises from the crowd. 

Leopold scolds, “I think you can do better than that!” 

(Roar of laughter.)

“You volunteers and staff of the Painted Turtle have all worked so hard today, and for months before this day, to make it happen. The people here at Hotel del Coronado have welcomed us and worked for us all day. Thank you ALL so much for making it the best day ever!”

With that, he hands over the mic, the music starts, and Brittany pushes Matt’s wheel chair onto the floor -  her own gait hampered by her physical challenge - and the three of them dance with whatever moves to Lee Womak’s “I Hope You Dance.”

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder

You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger

May you never take one single breath for granted

God forbid love ever leave you empty handed

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean

Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens

Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you daaaaance

I hope you daaaaance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance

Never settle for the path of least resistance

Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin’

Lovin’ might be a mistake, but it’s worth makin’

Don’t let some Hellbent heart leave you bitter

When you come close to sellin’ out, reconsider

Give the heavens above more than a passing glance

And when you have the chance to sit it out or dance

I hope you daaaaaance

I hope you daaaaaance.*

For many of us, it’s hard to dance blinded by our tears. Leopold’s words, and the dance he, Brittany and Matt do is now etched on our hearts forever.

Written by Mark Daniel Sanders and Tia M. Sillers

Walking Each Other Home

Skirt so tight, her backside is a question mark. The question is will she be able to right herself? Her stiletto has caught the door mat! I’m transfixed! Will she be able to right herself? Truly curious, I stop with groceries in hand, to see how she navigates this unexpected challenge. The too tight skirt allows only teeny tiny steps. She looks like a cartoon figure or leaning pencil trying to keep her teetering balance. She manages it, but just barely. If a pursuer gave chase, he’d win. She’s a barely walking disempowered foot- bound female. Is this the new “sexy?” Is it a turn-on for a guy to have absolute power over someone who can’t even move? She’s a catch all right, all glamorous and squeezed, made-up and tweezed. Breasts pushed so high, cleavage hits your eye.

Been there, done that... showed cleavage where there was none. I would’ve done better painting it on with an eyebrow pencil. I wore shoes that made my feet say, “You want us to w-h-a-a-t-t?” I remember the feeling of too tight jeans being a turn-on in their own way, and of too tight bras making me feel pretty and held.

Not any more.

In THE ’60’s, I was brazen in my skimpy wardrobe. In MY sixties, I’m all about comfort. In my twenties, I was right on schedule with the wind of the biological imperative at my back. I primped and preened, wore way too much “alluring” make-up and too few, and mostly appropriate clothes. It was the time of the mini-skirt and Hot Pants. I could hear the hot, panting males in the ad agency where I worked and that suited me just fine. Now, I know that it was not only the cultural norm, but also my unique wounds of childhood that made me dress thus and act promiscuously. Evidently, the cultural and commercial sexploitation of young women has kept dress codes pretty much the same these past forty years, and the codes are probably rooted in wide-spread personal tragedies of women abused as girls. 

Once I found my mate, it was Birkenstocks and bra-burning. Poor guy.

If I’m currently so into comfort, why am I loaded down with thirty pounds of groceries on a hot August morning walking more than a mile home from Trader Joe’s? A slight detour may explain:

There was a brief story on the classical music station, of Joshua Bell’s extreme discipline. His violin prowess is extraordinary. When asked how he perfected his technique, he said he likes to set a goal and do whatever it takes to reach it. In High School, he got it into his head to throw thirty flawless free-throws in a row without a single miss. He kept at it into the wee hours of the morning until he completed what he’d set out to do.

I’m no virtuoso violinist. I’m mediocre at basket ball, but I do have the idea, if not goal, to stay as fit as I can for as long as I can. So, I walk... with two bags of groceries - as weight-bearing exercise, in the heat. I like to sweat. I like the feeling of my body working. Yes, it would be nice to shower and eat breakfast after the exercise, and before seeing my first client, but letting the glisten evaporate from my cheeks also works.  I haven't made time to do it all.

Making and drinking down a green smoothie feels bright, light and just right. Juice fasting for part of the day or all day feels good to me once or twice a month. 

Over all, I’m pleased with this aging process. For the most part, I like what I see in the wake of this ocean liner moving forward toward the unknowable horizon. Thank God for myopia... and hey, I sure as hell can’t turn this vehicle around!

As Ram Dass says, 

“What it boils down to is this, we’re all just walking each other home.” *

I’m grateful to the stranger in stilettos who walked me part of the way home.

*Thank you, Lynn, for the the Ram Dass quote!

Snoggers in the Park

I help my granddaughter into the swing facing away from the young couple snogging on the park bench. Mostly, I have my back to them while I’m pushing her. Fourteen, maybe fifteen... they’re right on schedule hormonally. It’s sweet to watch, but they deserve as much privacy as making-out on a park bench in a busy park can allow. They’re in full sun now. Legs scrambled. I wonder how long they’ve been at it. 

They seem to stop their tongue probe explorations of one another’s dental details and smile, while listening to me sing to D, “How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing ever a child can do...” by Robert Louis Stevenson. I wonder what they’re thinking. I imagine that biological imperative has them spinning futures of endless love, kids and grand kiddles. Although, come to think of it, at 15, certainly, I was NOT thinking about grand kids or children for that matter - only SEX!

Mostly, it’s young moms or nannies with young kids filling the redwood-rimmed play areas - my husband and young make-out man being the only males past the age of five.

We observe, with some pride, how socially adept our daughter’s daughter is. She comes up to a young one of similar age and says,

“Hi, my name is D. What’s yours?” and off they run to pretend all sorts of imaginative scenarios.

Her most recent triumph is learning to PUMP on the swings to keep herself going and to soar away from gravity’s reach. Mercifully, she allows us the grandparental privilege of pushing. She appreciates her Gran'Pun's bubble wand at the ready so she can pop them with her pumping feet.

Hard work - this making sense of the world through play. 

Hard work - this making sense of sensuality, mysterious urges and how to kiss. 

Someone’s gotta do it! I'm glad the job is covered today by this snoggerific couple in the park.

My appreciation for the grace of time that got me through all those hard-work stages of life is boundless; HOW I made it through without more collateral damage shrouded in mystery.