In Between

What’s Winnie the Pooh’s middle name?

The.

What’s The’s middle part?

H.

That stands for Half-Way.

Pooh’s creator, A.A. Milne, wrote a poem about that potent half-way place.

Half way down the stairs is a stair where I sit.

There isn’t any other stair quite like it.

I’m not at the bottom, I’m not at the top.

So this is the stair where I always stop

Half way up the stairs isn’t up and isn’t down.

It isn’t in the nursery, it isn’t in the town,

And all sorts of funny thoughts run round my head.

It isn’t really anywhere! It’s somewhere else instead.

My beloved and I are presently in an in-between place. Not completely moved out of L.A. and not all the way moved in to the new place in Oakland. Up to our keesters in cartons, evaluating each item we withdraw from box after box, room after room. Stuff tells its own story... and there’s way too much of it in our lives at the moment.

This is a story about the potency of that in-between space, and how taking time to inhabit it adds value, depth and appreciation to my life.

In yoga there’s a word for it: dvaadashanta, which translates to “that peaceful (shanti=peace) place in-between.” When a swing has reached the zenith of its arc, it pauses just before it begins to swing the other way.

In between our in breath and out breath, there is a little pause. There’s another when we reach the end of our exhale - just before the breath turns around to come back in. Yogi’s say, that it’s in those little pauses where we’ll find our true nature; what I call our “Big S Self.” The Self that’s beyond gender, job description, status, race, beliefs, or age. Those are all part of us… but those descriptions are the ‘little s self,’ or personality, and just the tip of the iceberg. The Big S part is so vast and incomprehensible that we cannot grasp it except for the wee glimpses which the half-way down the stairs contemplations afford us.

Saturday and Sunday evening, I got to watch the sunset over San Francisco Bay. That ‘not fully day / not yet night’ is another in between place. The beauty of it lent extra enjoyment to the extended in-between-ness. Mark and I just hunkered down on the beautiful green hill all mud-luscious and puddle wonderful after the rain, and just WERE in the moment. It was found time, set apart, and all sorts of funny thoughts seem to leave my head, allowing a sense of peace to permeate all my cells from the inside out.

This move from one city to another offers various transitions which I’m relishing: from seeing a lot of clients, to anticipating seeing way fewer; from being an off-handed gra’ma to being a very hands-on sort of gra-ma.

Change allows me to re-evaluate what’s essential - just as the activity of boxing and unboxing possessions affords me an opportunity to question do I need/want this item? And further, who or what is possessing me? Do I really possess anything?

It feels as if I am possessed by my possessions. Finding the juicer seems all consuming… yet patience yields more benefit than does frantic searching through all the as yet unopened boxes.

In Between allows me to question every action, every choice, every thought. It seems I have a lot of weeding to do, in order for my internal garden to flourish.

With gratitude, I embrace this transition, even while struggling with some of the loss of familiar friends, family, and neighborhoods. I foresee a time when the now home will be bustling with new friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and the familiars will come to camp out here too. Then, we can all be in-between together!

Have Yourself a Merry…

We’re HERE!

Christmas Eve, and we’re slowly coming out of the boxes and seeping into the new digs - every bit as much as the new home is seeping into us. I didn’t stub my toes last night on all the boxes in the path to the bath, and, as of this evening’s dinner of soup (again), I made toast on a genuine cookie sheet, instead of on an aluminum pie tin from the camping tub. Progress!! We’re finding stuff slowly, by slowly… and we will be BETTER PREPARED to move again, should need arise, before we’re outa this life feet first! We learned a LOT doing this, and feel so grateful for the Expert Team moving crew who stayed with us every step of the way - even when the larger of the two trucks couldn’t make it up the steep hill from 580 to our street without a tow chain to help it along. Blessings on Julio and his loyal workers: Francisco, Carlos, and Jose. Christmas Spirit reigns. Glad tidings: The job is well done. 

Today, we got connected to the inter webs thanks to a lovely AT&T man named Ron. 

Tomorrow, will be a luxurious, do-nothing-but-unpack kinda day! Yay!

Turns out, there are a LOT of moving parts to moving farther than just around the same city. Did I mention, we learned a LOT!?? Label every item that’s in every box... it’s worth it! Where IS that box with real onions?? OH... follow the smell... THERE you are! And the toaster?  Not yet sighted.

Happy Holies. Toasty, Cozy 25th!

Eager to see the Grandie for longer than the 15 minute visit we allowed this evening, before she went off to her dad’s house. We've got some germs that moved with us. Drat! Looking forward to feeling well enough to PLAY, after we recover from whatever malady got shared at little brother’s BD, December 20! Coming out from under. Every moment is better than the one before.

Looking out on the SF skyline this December 24th, it’s the gratitude that makes the tears flow so that the lights have tails and topknots, and arms splaying out in all directions. Pure, full-bodied GRATITUDE that we get to have this adventure; this next chapter; this opportunity to be of service and to meet new folks who like doing something for kids too. Enjoying my honey so much... just sifting and sorting and casting out still more crap that we accidentally moved with us, is a joy with him as companion.

Both of us were gob-smacked by the outpouring of love over the weekend, and we are still leaning into buoyant love .

May every holiday celebration bring you joy. May you thrive as light returns to the northern hemisphere.  Know that you are loved.

Culmination

It's been just over 21 years and a couple of months since I sang eleven of my songs to some 150 friends and family members in celebration of my 45th birthday. I called 45 my "record-breaking year." I got together a few friends to sing with me, and a little back-up band. A Phoenix Rising Yoga buddy played keyboards, and I swapped her sessions for transcribing the music. I'd done a lot of healing of my childhood wounds, and was ready to come out of the shadows… I thought.

At the party, a dad from our school carpool asked if he could arrange one of the songs, and we were off and running on an adventure in learning the ins & outs of a small corner of the record business. Well, Ian (Freebairn-Smith) knew the record business. He had Barbra Streisand's Evergreen on his list of Grammy Awards as her arranger.  I knew nothing, but got an education over six months or so. Ten thousand dollars later, we had an audio cassette of my daughter's friend's mom Shirley Cavallero singing, "I Cry for the Children," a song I'd written in 1989.

We shopped that song around to movie producers, Oprah, and Streisand herself. No one seemed interested then, in a sad song about child abuse. Maybe, since its victims are coming forward almost daily, the timing is better now, for the song to be heard.

I hope so, because I just finished a recording project - singing that song, arranged this time by Barry Dow, sandwiched in the middle of eight other songs. I may not be out of the shadows yet, but I'm ready to let 'em fly, like fledgelings off a branch to see where they land.

Thanks to some very talented and very generous friends, the support of my honey Mark and my family, and some prodding from other friends, I forged ahead from August through November in Barry and Lynn Dow's basement recording studio, to capture sketches of nine songs. Barry took the pressure off by saying, "Look, Melinda, you're not making a 'record' down here; you're recording a few melodies that have popped into your head over the years… just so they don't get lost." (Or he said something like that, and it really helped. I wiped my tears, took a deep breath, and kept singing.)

The CDs are ready to give away. If you want one, let me know. 

Thanks to all the supporters and well-wishers, and especially my midwives: Barry and Lynn.

It feels like a timely culmination… just before we move north in a week… YIKES! Pass the packing tape and another box, please!

Unanswerable

How does a fourteen year old hang herself?

The news drifting in from another state is vague and oblique.

Upstairs, I remove dry tablecloths from the rail on my landing. 

They’ve been there since just after Thanksgiving. I wonder...

Her mom and I Skyped in the spring. 

I could see a railing behind her at her house. 

I heard a dog.

All seemed cozy and normal.

Did the girl use a strip of pink checkered bed sheets? 

A bathrobe tie, a couple of belts, or her terrier’s leash? 

Did her fingers shake with fear, or were they 

Steady, sadly resolute?

Morbid curiosity of how persists where 

Wise ones know that whys are… 

Unanswerable.

November. No sun, no warmth, no birds, no answers. 

November is when she did it. Just before Thanksgiving.

Friends are still moving through molasses 

Trying to comprehend the act. Trying to be helpful.

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December

But the days grow short when you reach September...

The days dwindle down to a precious few

September, November...

And these few precious days I’ll spend with you…*

How does a mother survive her young daughter’s suicide?

No amount of chicken soup, sermons or pretty cards can 

UN-do this,

Nor return normalcy.

There is only a suffocating new-normal. 

Every sunrise, a new slug in the stomach.

Each holiday, birthday, anniversary, and 

Recollection of a shared private moment conspires…

Compounding interest on pain -

Like pulling nails from nail beds, pouring acid in the mouth, 

Taking our words which would effort to explain, 

Express, or exorcise the deed

Making us - numb and wordless - want to 

Join the dead in their freedom.

Too many movies? News stories? School lunch room banter? 

Playground taunts?

Whys persist. They can never be answered.

Pain persists.

If we’re lucky, it diminishes by increments over decades.

Compassionate Friends, like Twelve Step meetings, 

Proliferate.

Every city has one. The need increases.

Bullying is epidemic. 

Skin is thinner - or over exposed through social media. 

Is it climate change?

*September Song by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson

Building Bridges

Sitting in the living room in Southern California on a gray Sunday, I pull my sweater closer about me. I’m projecting myself into the new (for us) house in Northern California, where it is a bit cooler, and rainier, and more exposed to the elements.

Heretofore, I’ve been unable to imagine living anywhere else but here. Today, the image of the new living room pops in my head as I sit on this old couch that will be against a new wall, but in similar relationship to the coffee table and other furniture as it is now configured in the old house.

Old house. New house. Same spouse. I can’t grouse.

Together, we decided to move. Together we are chucking and packing. Together we grumble about how hard it is to say G’Bye to friends, family... even familiar strangers - like María, the egg lady at Sunday’s Farmer’s Market. We’ve watched her kids grow from lap-sitters to minding their own stalls on Sundays. María always asks, “Como está la nieta?” How is your granddaughter?

Today, I hugged her. Who knows whether I’ll ever see her again? Perhaps not, but it's the amazing heart magnet of that very granddaughter María asks about that pulls us northward. Go we must! Irresistible!

 *  *  *  *  *  *  * *         

Younger daughter Megan made a scrumptious apple pie for Thanksgiving here. 

I watched Thursday morning, and marveled at her adept fingers as she double-crusted her creation and adorned it with shiny egg-glazed dough leaves.

Some of the dough is left-over in our ‘fridge. 

I roll it out to make some heart-shaped sugar cookies for Mark to take to the new house. He’ll hang out there for a few days, and meet with some carpenter folk to get some odd jobs done before we move-in. I'll stay behind, finishing up my work with clients… oh, and packing and chucking, chucking and packing. 

Building bridges from old to new seems easier with continuity. I hope he may be able to taste the love… here and there.

It is odd, and a little bit sad to think of not being in the familiar surround. It’s odd, and a little bit exciting to think of all the newness we must acclimate to... it’s the “top of the roller coaster” kind of exciting. I must remember that it doesn’t go straight down, but rather round some curves and up again. Aaah... that’s better. Knitting a bridge takes imagination. I can see myself crocheting and looking out at the rain falling on the new backyard. I can hear the same thirst of the land slurping up the divine moisture.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  

I wonder if all Californian’s can manifest rain by imagining it falling where ever we live?

Did a conscious Creator whomp up the Garden of Eden by imagining it? 

Could we build a bridge from this crazy world in which we live, to one in which life is valued, Earth is honored, and animosity, greed, and war are such dim memories that we cannot find our way back to the old way of being - simply by projecting ourselves into the future by way of our imaginative thought waves? 

I’m going to try it out. I’ll let you know how it goes... from Oakland; site of the next adventure.

Two Spiders

Two spiders live in opposite corners of my clear-story bathroom window. One prefers waking up early. She’s positioned herself so that the earliest rays of sunlight drench her web. I imagine her up there bustling and busy, tidying and tsk, tsking over every speck of fly poop and gnat plop that sullies her nest.

The other has built her web so as to optimize her view of the sunset. Her web looks west and appears more languid and laid-back, if you can imagine gossamer threads making a gray triangle in the corner between window ledge and wall looking languid. To me it just does. I imagine her up there, with maybe some fruit fly poop or mosquito skeletons laying about. A bit of detritus doesn’t seem to bother this one. She’s looking at and taking-IN the colorful display that happens just before twilight and the falling of night. 

I wonder if spiders can hear the clunk of night as it falls. I wonder if they can hear the sounds of first birds up, or whether they can hear anything at all. Can they feel the warmth of the sun as it passes from east to west in the sky? Do they wonder about us down below using whirring brushes that buff and polish our teeth each night? And, if they can hear, do they prefer BBC News past midnight, or Morning Edition on NPR?

If I were a spider, I’d choose to look west, and reflect on the best of my day before night falls. I’d choose to savor the beauty of sunset, which somehow lasts longer than sunrise, which is all about business and getting things DONE - quick - before the sun reaches the zenith of its arc. 

Yes, I’d like to be spider number two please, a bit more like Mary than Martha. Wasn’t it Martha who did the drudge work in the kitchen, preparing the feast and scrubbing up afterward, when Jesus of Nazareth came to call, and doesn’t the story tell of Mary simply receiving the teachings, and basking in splendor at his side or at his radiant feet?

This lifetime, I’ve done a lot of tidying up; my fingertips split with too much water and soap. Next lifetime, I choose not to be hung up about fruit-fly poop or mosquito skeletons on the floor. Next time, I’ll savor more sunsets, enjoy more late into the night conversations, and damn the high-nosed examiners of the White-Glove-Dust-Testing-Brigade.

Bless This House and Be Your Home Also Blessed

In the doorbell recess of my grandmother’s front hall, hangs a weathered parchment with this House Blessing:

Bless the four corners of this House

And be the Lintel Blest;

And bless the Hearth and bless the Board

And bless each Place of Rest;

And bless the door that opens wide

To Stranger as to Kin;

And bless each crystal Window-pane,

That lets the Sunlight in;

And bless the Rooftree overhead

And every sturdy Wall:

The Peace of man, the Peace of God,

And Peace of Love on All. 

It’s the familiar corner-of-my-eye vision of it, that registers safety, and touches my heart. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Author unknown, calligrapher, who put pen to parchment, long gone to dust, as is my dear Gram, but when my husband, children, and I moved into our current home, I placed the blessing, now protected in a frame, in the doorbell recess here.

Mama Barbara tried her hand at calligraphing it, to replace the crumbling, fading, turning to dust, one. Hers will hang in the bell-well until we move, then we’ll see which of the two will fit in the recess in the wall of the new home - if either.

As the mantle of matriarch is passed from mother to daughter, in our family, so is this House Blessing. Even though some might wish it didn’t have the G-d word in it, I shall place one version of it in this new home as we start a new adventure. Continuity is comforting.

My mother eschewed matriarchy. Until Grammy and Gramps became too infirm to host Thanksgiving, the family always gathered there, at their home in West Los Angeles. After their deaths, the mantle passed over Mama Barbara, perhaps to her relief, and landed on my shoulders. 

I love that my mom was avant guard. I love that she felt more at home in the library than in the kitchen. I love her calligraphy, and some of her writing. I love that she taught us every name for every tree, flower, bird, and bush, and that we went camping for more than a few Thanksgivings, while the grandparents stayed in a nearby motel.

Still, my affiliation is closer with my Gram than with Mama Barbara, when it comes to blessing “the door that opens wide to Stranger as to Kin.” It’s not that my mom was anti-social, but rather that she seemed to chafe a bit under the mantle. Neither House Blessing version would have fit, anyway, in the John Lautner mid-century modern, where I grew up, and for years there WAS no doorbell, nor well for it, in any wall, only a few cow-bells hung on the redwood gate.

This Thanksgiving will be the last we host in this house; a bitter sweet occasion. 

2015 we invite the family to caravan up to Oakland and partake of the extra coolness of the Oakland Autumn, and of the Bay Area too-cool-for-school vibe.

May your Thursday be the best of all Thursdays past, and the least of those to come.

Thank you for reading this!

Ether or…

I’m on the ceiling floating along in some mysterious misty ether, when I hear a cry and look down to see my baby self hanging by the ankles, upside down. Dr. King is smacking my back with his other hand and says, “Bobby, it’s a GIRL!” He smacks Bobby’s feet. I see her eyes flutter open on the table. Up here, on the ceiling, a shimmery gossamer presence drifts down to my mom’s body and enters the top of her head.

I sense nothing. Only cold. 

I try to float closer to that baby body, but can’t get near. I’m out. Cold. I’m cold. Cold, cold.

A nurse wraps the baby tightly in a rough blanket, after sticking something up her nose and down her throat, and cutting a rope on that baby’s belly. Too late, from my eheric mist, I wonder about jumping into the rope. It’s familiar. 

The nurse rubs the baby’s back up and down, up and down. The baby is coughing and crying, her lower lip sticking out. She opens her eyes and closes them tight shut again. Stinging liquid is squirted in each.

I don’t feel a thing up here on the ceiling. 

Numb.

The nurse puts the baby next to Bobby’s head. For a moment, the warmth of mama Bobby’s breath on the baby’s face shifts what’s happening up here on the ceiling. I begin to see-saw back and forth between the ceiling and that baby body next to mom’s head. That baby opens her eyes and looks seriously into Bobby’s eyes. They stare into one another’s eyes a full minute before that nurse takes the baby away again and puts her in a box. Bobby’s eyes follow the nurse out the door as she pushes the box on wheels down the hall. 

Now, I’m really in a predicament. I’m up here alone, and... oh, here comes mom, back up to the ceiling. Dr. King has given her another shot and she’s out again and floating in the ether mist near me.  There is no warm breath in ether. There are no warm arms in ether either. Only misty cold. 

Back on the table there is sewing going on at one end of Bobby’s body. At the other end, her eyes are half shut and dull. There is a vague feeling of dread assembling itself in the region of my etheric belly button - like a whole body vomit about to project itself out of my baby mouth. I float to another room and see that sick baby in the box looking blue and the same nurse rubbing and rubbing the baby’s back, then wrapping her tighter and running back into the room where mom is, shouting, “Dr. King, Dr. King, the baby is blue.” 

“Too much morphine,” he sizes up the situation, and he smacks my mom’s feet again. And he smacks the baby's back. 

Mom stirs and opens her eyes. She reaches for that baby and I float just a little above them. She pulls that baby to her chest and I tuck in from the ceiling through the crown of that baby’s head and let out a terrific cry. Equal parts numbness and pain assault my baby body now integrated with spirit. No wonder mom and I left! It hurts in here! It hurts a lot. I find that crown from the inside again and float out easily enough, but mom is not there on the ceiling. We play peekaboo in and out of our bodies for quite some time. Only when we’re tucked into bed together do both mom and I leave the ceiling and see eye to eye several more times before we both fall into exhausted sleep.

Baby dreams of clamps on her head and whimpers in her sleep. She smells the ether; tastes metallic morphine; sees maroon blood stains. Mom’s strong arm pulls baby closer, calming both.  They drift in and out of sleep, in and out of body. Trying their hand at nursing for the first time.

Explosions of sensation happen in that baby body. Sometimes I’m in, sometimes it’s too much to bear, so I float just above or all the way up and out, on the ceiling, watching. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

This past weekend, I attended a supervision gathering with five other body therapists. We work on one another - fish-bowl style. Table work. One client on the table, one therapist sitting at her side, one dyad at a time, supporting the resolution of developmental disruption, and attachment kerfuffles, while the remaining three witnesses provide safe container in which to process our stuff - both as clients and as therapists.

I was holding the kidney/adrenal system of one of my colleagues who was on the table, Our faculty supervisor was coaching me. With his guidance, I found my way down from the ceiling and got seated in my body in a way I have not known for sixty six years. That’s a long time to be circling the field. Even as I write this, there’s a menthol feeling just to the left of the crown of my head... where the trap door has always been a reliable exit point. 

Coming in, allowed me to hold deep anchor while my colleague / client on the table re-negotiated her birth / death / birth, and re-organized her breathing. I ended the session feeling as if we’d had a two-fer! Her guides, my guides, our strong container of witness consciousness, and, bless his heart, our supervisor with SUPER vision all supported some deep healing this Sunday afternoon. 

What an odd feeling to be new-born into a BODY at sixty-six!

What a perfect prelude to el día de acción de Grácias - Thanksgiving Day!

I’m so thankful I got born and that I get to play on this planet with some remarkable folks.

Moving Experience # 3

When Mosa was twelve, and about to graduate from sixth grade, we decided to move from the hills of Sherman Oaks to the “flats” of Studio City. She was gung-ho to attend Walter Reed Jr. High School - a (gasp) PUBLIC school, instead of what her dad refers to as “la escuela de mucho dinero,” where, he says, they don’t give report cards, but rather invoices. Many of her friends matriculated to Oakwood - often called Coke-wood or Smoke-wood in those days. Wonder if that’s still the case?

The NEW home came with a pool, walkability to said public school, where it turned out the cute guy from sixth grade would also be attending, and a huge mortgage.

It has been a marvelous house in service to many functions... weddings and showers, memorial services, dozens of workshops, family gatherings, dinners with friends, a home away from home for multiple folks and stray animals, as well as my mom’s final living space.  We have been blessed to have the cozy walls embrace everyone who enters here, and surround us with love.

The move itself was the biggest so far, involving a moving van - like the gigantico vans hired by people who have major STUFF. 

Almost immediately after moving here, Mark was called to Sidney, Australia to work on a TV game show. When he returned, the girls caught him out with one of the most delicious scams: verbally bemoaning the fact that, in his absence, Megan had not learned to swim, and then both of them jumped into the pool and swam the length and back to his (mock?) astonishment. Both parents and kids beamed with pride. Did I mention it was February? The water was icy. They both came out bluish.

Later our two meshuganah doggies, Marvin Gardens and MacDougal would also learn to swim after tennis balls in this pool.

We had virtually no furniture when we moved in here. It was rather like a giant indoor track where we enjoyed running around and around in the large circle from entry way through living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, formal (tiny) dining room, and back to entry way… over and over and over again. Empty was good. Now it’s FULL of furniture, and that's good too… except it's a LOT to move.

As we prep and pack for this next move - to OAKLAND!! - I’m aware that THIS will be the biggest move to date, and likely, our last. We’ve accumulated so much memorabilia of four full lives lived within these walls, that it appears we may take up TWO moving vans. That seems ridiculous! 

Do I REALLY want to keep my grandparent’s, parents, and kids STUFF? Not so much, but going through it all has been a delicious dance down memory lane. 

There’s the photo my Gramps snapped on the NY train platform, of “the woman I’m going to marry,” as he told his traveling buddy. Gramps saw an opportunity, and gallantly gave up his lower berth to Grammy’s portly sister Mary Polly and her eight year old son. Portly was the polite term for Aunt Polly. She had actually burst into tears on discovering that her assigned berth was an upper. Grammy says she fell in love with Gallant Gramps, immediately. He saved the day for her obese sister.  Two years later, they were married, and three years after that, my mom was born. That photo MUST come along to Oakland and be embraced by new loving walls.

There are all the lovable-unlovable pots Mosa and Megan made in the pottery studio of my friend Jen. Teeny tiny glazed bits of clay fashioned into small vessels perfect for holding vitamins to take with breakfast. How many of these darling clay pots do we need? 

Then there’s a box filled with the extremely pared down copious volumes of poetry my very prolific mother wrote in her later years… not to mention the notes from scholarly classes which she took, and which I just might want to read one day. Oh, and historical documents, and letters from my father, from a time when he and my mother were madly in love.

Sigh... there doesn’t seem to be enough time in a LIFETIME to touch and read and ponder all the wonders of life and of lives lived with creative souls.

Better to HAVE what you don’t need, than to regret tossing, and NEED what you no longer have.

Let Mosa and Megan chuck the stuff when THEY no longer need or want it… or after they've mined the inherent value of love passed along through the generations. THEN they can toss the material and hold on to the ephemeral, life-affirming intent of saving all the stuff.

Moving on…

Moving Story # 2

The move from Hartsook Street to Benedict Canyon was a bit more complicated than our first move from Mark's apartment in Studio City to the Laurel Canyon cracker box on stilts in 1972, or the move to Hartsook from the hills.

Labor Day: The Prequel

Our first born daughter came three weeks early. She was "due" to be born November 7, 1976.

I was determined to have a solar clothes dryer at our brand new (to us) house, which we moved into October 1, 1976. I had visions of tee-nine-see-wee baby clothes blowing in the breeze, and smelling oh, so sweet. My Grandmother never had a dryer. My mom bought one when I was about ten years old, and I mourned the loss of that comforting line-dried laundry smell. I found a wonderful Sunshine Retractable Clothesline to attach up under the eaves of the roof overhanging the patio of our new home. We’d moved in a week before and already put the business end of the clothes line in place. It needed a support pole to hook onto out in the terraced garden. I went to the hardware store and bought a sixty pound bag of concrete, some sand, and the steel pole.

At the hardware store, a very nice gentleman put the bags of concrete and sand in the car for me. Funny how when men see a pregnant woman coming they either give her wide berth (perhaps superstitious behavior in case ‘being with child’ is contagious), or move in close to assist her in any way they can.  Every woman who sees you wants to share her birth story nightmare. It’s as if you’ve got a sandwich board sign that reads: “Tell me about your Great Aunt Agatha’s triple hemorrhage, please.”  You DO NOT have to listen to the story gore! You DO have the right to say, “Thanks for wanting to share. It makes me feel nervous to hear that right now.” I was a slow learner and listened to a few too many gory stories before I got the hang of changing the subject. “How ‘bout those Dodgers, eh?”

Once home with the concrete, I was eager to start on the clothesline project right away. My husband wasn’t due home from work this Friday afternoon for another four hours. The October sun was slanting and daylight leaving the sky earlier every day. So, impatiently, I carried the sixty pound bag from the Volkswagen bus in the driveway around the side of the house to the back yard. Ditto the twenty pound bag of sand. No problem.  I found the right place in the garden and dug a hole for the pole. No problem. I screwed the clothesline receiving hook onto the pole. No problem. In lifting the bag of cement to pour it into the wheel barrow to mix with sand and water I had a problem. The bag slipped and I made a grab to catch it. I caught it. No problem… but, I just want to acknowledge, I was an idiot. I nearly fell down the steps up to the terrace and probably should have waited for my honey to help. I really wanted to complete this project right NOW!  I had baby clothes to wash. The nesting instinct is real and it comes with a lot of adrenaline!  I didn’t hurt myself, but gave myself a good scare and felt some belly muscle strain for a couple of hours.

Two days later, during a surprise baby-shower in North Hollywood Park, my shape really changed. The baby dropped so low I suddenly had room to breathe at the top end of my belly which felt wonderful and made more room for yummy cake… but I had to pee every five minutes. Trade-offs. When you’re sharing space with another in such close quarters you’re grateful for every half-inch you can get.

Monday after the baby shower we had a doctor’s appointment out in Pasadena. On examining me, Dr. Schoeber said, “My, my, my! You’re nearly fully effaced and four centimeters dilated already. You have what we call ‘silent labor’ and could go into ‘real’ labor at any time.”

Thursday night we went to our birth education class and told our teacher what Dr. Schoeber had said and that we might not make it to the last class so was there anything we should know if the baby did come early? Ms. Campbell’s drama background came to the fore and she said, “You get down on your bended knees and thank the Lord your baby came so swiftly!”

“Yes, but is there anything else we should… know…?”

Nothing. She told us nothing.

When labor started just before midnight on October 17, I chanted a little mantra to compensate for any missing info. “I have faith in my body, I have faith in my body, I have faith in my body.” We very nearly came to call the baby “Faith.”

Perhaps the clothesline project hastened my labor. Perhaps our first born saw a post-it note left in the womb-space by a former tenant. October 19, 1967, when I was nineteen, I enlisted the help of a compassionate MD in terminating an unplanned pregnancy. Perhaps the post-it note read: “Beware the nineteenth of October; Evictions happen.” I felt very lucky to have had the option, in a time when abortion was illegal in California, and I've been curious about this coincidental timing of my daughter's birth ever since.

Having faith in my body served me well, but I wish that the homebirth movement, in the mid-seventies, had had more providers from which to choose.  We felt tremendously buoyed by the support of friends and utterly let down by the paid professionals who were supposed to be attending us during this pivotal time. 

It feels to me as if there's a monolithic machine that moves slower than slow when it comes to acknowledging what kind of support moms and babes need for a good birth.

The house move, and the birth at home, that had some snafus, combined to put me squarely on a path to try to make things better for me and my sisters.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice-

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

---Jelaluddin Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks

This next move we're preparing for will be a doozy. Long distance, secure packers, and too much stuff - even with what feels like pretty austere paring down. The fellow who was to have come Sunday to give us an estimate stood us up. Not an auspicious sign. 

Moving right along… where's the Yellow Pages for Movers, when you need it? And WHERE will we put the clothesline?

Moving Story # 1

We can fit all of our clothes, assorted house plants, books, a dog and some kitchen paraphernalia into his Toyota Station Wagon and my VW Bug. We have no furniture to speak of, apart from two bent wood rockers and three gigantic stuffed floor pillows from the Prize Department of Truth or Consequences, where Mark is working. We are moving to our first house!

For little over a year, we’ve been renting in Laurel Canyon from Jeanne, the  contestant coordinator of the show. She tells us about a friend of hers who is getting married and moving cross country to Michigan and needs to lighten up.

Her name is Lyda Tong.  She invites us into her Park La Brea apartment this evening to look at what she wants to sell. It’s 1973. Lyda is seventy eight years old. She is moving back to Michigan to marry her first love - college sweetheart, Sedgwick. It might be his first name, or his last, or both, but that’s what Lyda calls him, and every time she speaks his name, her eyes twinkle behind her glasses more brightly than the rhinestones on her beige frames. 

“Sedge lives in a lovely and gracious home, right on the lake, but I can’t bring all this stuff with me! My husband died five years ago. Sedgwick’s wife died three years ago. We reconnected at our sixtieth high school reunion last fall and fell in love all over again - as if we’d said good bye only yesterday! Our children think we’re crazy. Maybe we are... crazy in love!”

She shows us a brass floor lamp with heavy marble base and silk shade. “We love it! For how much would you like to sell it?”

“I expect five dollars is a pretty fair price.” 

“Make it ten and we’ll take it,” Mark says. “And the chair?” he points to a rosewood chair with carved back and upholstered seat. 

“Oh, maybe seven dollars for that,” she chirps from a chair behind two huge steamer trunks.

“We’d love to buy that too,” I nod.

The steamer trunks are the kind that stand on end, and open length wise. Each has space for hangers on one side, and drawers and built-in shoe-boxes in the other half. Plastic wrapped clothes and strings of pearls are spilling out of one trunk. On the floor in front of the other is a pile of dress shoes. The scent of mothballs and lavender mix with Earl Grey.

Over tea, she tells us of her life, her plans, this new twist of unexpected love. She pulls from us our hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and the fact that we’re crazy in love too… and decided on our second date to get married. 

Lyda  gently guides us to a chest made of cedar wood. The lid is propped open. Inside are linens, photos and a flag. Lyda sees my eyes light up at the sight of embroidered napkins and white cotton crocheted placemats. She bends forward and brings forth several beautiful pieces.

“Back in the day, I embroidered all these for my “hope chest.” My granddaughter has the chest, but she is such a Modern Miss, she doesn’t want anything to do with these relics.”

Lyda straightens up and looks us each in the eyes. Her jaw juts forward as if she’s considered and decided something important.  Behind her lenses & rhinestones, her own eyes mist over. She pulls the rolled-up flag from the cedar chest, clutching the long cylinder to her heart.

“This was over the casket of my brother William when he came back from World War II. Will you please keep it for me? I think you’re just the right couple to honor his memory.”

Our own tears are touched. I smell the cedar-infused red and white stripes as she hands it over to our keeping.

“Thank you, Lyda Tong, you have given us so much in such a gracious way. We will always remember you.”

******************************************************

And so we do! Forty two years later, we still have Lyda’s lamp, chair, and the chest of linens. The forty-eight star flag reminds us of her brother’s service to our country, and all the ones who fought for a cause and came back in boxes, or broken into so many pieces that some of their souls still need mending. We keep William’s flag in the large, formal cedar chest which had been my grandmother’s.

The little cedar chest from Lyda Tong held our clothes when we went on a two week camping trip in 1975 - B.C. (Before Children) to Colorado to see my cousins, Mesa Verde, Salt Lake, Tahoe, Mendocino, Willtts, Fort Brag and San Jose - where Mark’s Aunt Hilda lived. We had bought a tie-dyed Volkswagon Bus from a production company. Mark built a plywood platform, I sewed a cover on a foam mattress. Voilà! We had a bed. Out of Noah’s Ark sheets, we made curtains. 

The little chest now contains musical instruments which we pull out every family occasion where noise or music is required. It also holds many memories, including memories of feelings that cannot be contained - even by so sturdy a chest - but must well up and flow out from time to time.