Labor Day Weekend to Remember

Plum Delicious Labor Day Weekend

During my first session at a camp for heart patients, in 2001, I am one of three counselors in a cabin of nine to eleven year olds, on Catalina Island.   Tabbi, a vivacious nine year old who has already proven her social skills on the boat ride over, has an idea. We’ve just settled in, and are organizing our living space for the week end ahead, and from her top bunk, center of the room she says, “I know… how ‘bout if we all show our scars? I’ll go first.” Lifting her shirt, she says, “See, it’s a “T” where they did my heart operation and the little smile over here is where they put in my pace maker.” “Next?”  she beams, invitingly.

“Rainbow girl,” is up next, then the “tree girl,” the “straight line girl,” and several other configurations of scars where each of these beautiful young women has submitted to the knife for life-saving surgeries. Here we are, all together. Each girl is a member of a very special club, which no one would voluntarily join. What Tabbi does in the very first hour, and what camp is so good at doing, is to normalize the experience of being different. In life, in school rooms, at church, temple or Girl Scout activities, each of these beauties is odd one out. Here at camp, each is unique, yet part of a very select club. They all have this one thing in common: a surgical scar.

“Which one do you like best?” they ask us two adults and one adolescent Counselor In Training. “Well, it’s hard to choose,”  we opine. “Each is so beautiful and tells of a different experience, doesn’t it… although together they weave a similar story line, eh?” Tabbi and the others seem pleased with our answer. We go on to make up a cabin name, “Cat Boat” and create a cheer uniquely ours to share at the all camp meeting before dinner.

It is a Labor Day weekend to remember.    

Photo Credit: Mosa M-S and D. Laren

Inter-Generational Bird Rescues

My daughter told me about the special day she and her daughter had. They rescued a fallen robin and took it to a wild-life sanctuary that had its own museum. Because they brought Mr. Birdie in, they got to tour the museum free… and have a LOT of fun learning in the process. Mosa (my daughter) was calling to say thank you for modeling what to do with fallen baby birds. We had a LOT of experience when she and her sister were younger. It's just what needs to be done, right? 

We both laughed at the memory of three mocking birds Mosa and her friend Karen found at the base of a tree on Benedict Canyon. Karen's folks wouldn't allow them to stay at their house.

We had a large enough cage that the three flightless wonders were happy and sassy and safe from the four cats, while they grew flying feathers. I do have, somewhere, an iconic photo of the cats on one side of the glass door staring in at "Smack, Crapple, and Plop," which were happily jumping from perch to perch in the dining room. I think the cats were drooling.

I'm glad the art of bird rescue is being passed to the next (nest?) generation.

Rockin' 'n' Rollin'… No Nappin' in Napa

I'm not sure whether it's a sign of progress,

But in the midst, I remained equanimous

When shaking pitched us, north to south

Only a yawn escaped my mouth.

Though the shaking was long and deep,

I turned over, went back to sleep.

Oakland's a long way down from Napa.

Cool to feel the power of Nature.

Later Sunday,  we got word that

Lots of wineries needed to right vats

Volunteers appeared with straws?

To sip the wines from off the floors.

Naw, not really, but can you imagine?

Community support is what they're havin'!

Sometimes crises bring out our best

Good night sweet dreams, now get some rest.

… or forever hold your pee

The beach is full of Boy Scouts and pelicans. I have to pee.

The prehistoric birds cover the rocks completely, their dorky profiles against the newly born again sky make me smile. I realize I’ve had to pee since before I opened my eyes in this shallow cave, our bedroom du jour. Cousin Debby is still sleeping. The sound of the waves have worked on me all night. I really have to pee.

Inside my sleeping bag, I wriggle into my bathing suit, stealthily unzip my sleeping bag, and walk with my towel over my shoulder to the water’s edge. Dropping my towel, I wade in.

Upturned sedimentary layers is the name for this type of rock formation. Mark Gordon was a GREAT geology teacher at Los Angeles City College. We used to say, “He’s got ROCKS in his head!” His enthusiasm for earth’s formations was contagious and it still gets me excited to recognize in the field things he taught us in the classroom.

Only half feigning total absorption in the pelicans which truly COVER these flesh-colored, eroded by salt waves, stair-step rocks at Shell Beach, I feel as if I’m in a Michelangelo Antonioni movie. Red Desert has a dream sequence with fleshy looking rocks.

I wade right into the water - pretty much ignoring the testosterone driven rock-skipping contests which the scouts are engaging in on the nearly flat-lined surface of this quiet bay. Bless my own warm salt water mixing with cold ocean water. I shudder involuntarily and hope they won’t know what I’m doing in the water.

By the time I get back to the cave, Debby is just awakening to the sounds of boisterous Scouts. Their leader seems more interested in us up-turned nineteen year old young women who appear to be camping on the beach, than he is interested in pelicans and up-turned sedimentary layers.

We gather our stuff and head for a restaurant bathroom in the small town of Ávila, to wash-up before heading north. We’ve set our compass to explore Big Sur, where we spent so much time in our youth (under the age of ten).

My dad and Deb’s dad, brothers, and both good photographers in their own right, were friends of photographers Edward, Brett, and Cole Weston who lived in Garapata Creek just outside Big Sur, in the 1950’s and ’60’s. Edward featured big in my early childhood. 

His house was always aswarm with cats. Open windows let cats constantly come and go, spraying their eucalyptus scented male cat smell everywhere they could. Edward didn’t seem to mind. He smiled and shook his head. My dad called it Parkinson’s and brought Edward all sorts of stuff - including his very first television set - rabbit ears and all, groceries, cigarettes, and magazines. My dad and Edward both called the TV “the idiot box.”

I played with the cats and gathered watercress in the ice-cold creek. I liked how it stung my tongue with its peppery taste.

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

Debby and I spread a picnic on the bluffs over-looking the Pacific. The Seventeen Mile Drive is one of the most beautiful in California. The expanse of water seems infinite. Maybe we can see to China! Watermelon, granola, Wheat Thins, and a hunk of warm cheese for each of us, come out of our paper bag for late lunch / early supper. 

We sleep in a forest this second night out from L.A., spreading our sleeping bags in the dark on the spongey, peat moss floor. Morning light wakens us in time to see a Naval Officer inspecting my ‘54 Chevy, and to see that we’ve spread our bags on top of an ant hill.  Startled and batting our hair to release the ants, we must be a sight for this twenty something fellow. We had no idea we were on government land - Monterey’s naval base to be precise. Only when the officer asks to see my registration, do I realize that I’ve locked my keys IN the car. And I have to pee. 

In the past, under duress, I’ve done some strange things. This is one of those times.

I pick up a rock and try to smash the little triangle shaped wind wing, in order to unlock the driver’s side door and get my registration out of the glove box. It goes well until I discover that there’s a piece plastic imbedded in the glass - by way of making it safety glass. I end up using my pocket knife to cut the tough plastic, so I can get my arm through the hole in the wind wing. At this point, I think the Officer is more embarrassed for us than he wants to harass us. With a wagging finger, he cautions us to look before we set up camp. We think it would be a good idea to bring flashlights next time. Relieved when he drives off, we both relieve ourselves and get on the road to Garapata Creek.

The Ventana Wilderness speaks my language. Hawk speak, water laughing over stones, and cow bells on the fog zap me back to being four years old and in love with this wild place. Debby and I drive over the criss-crossing creek four times before coming to what used to be the Weston land. Brett’s place above - white-washed concrete and adobe - on the hill looks pretty much the same, though he moved out of it in the late ’50’s. Cole’s red barn and house are gone, razed, only the floor is left, where we played so many games of marbles, Monopoly, and lie-on-the-floor-while-Ivar-uses-us-for-target-practice, as he throws down stuffed animals from the edge of the loft where all three kids sleep.

It was magical then. It is magical now in my memory. Only... where’s the bathroom?

All Shook Up

The house shifted on her foundation, striking a careless pose as powerful ripples of earth energy made her floor boards dance. Each oaken strip did a wild piano-key tango - gyrating in jazzy wave formation with the other boards, as if they were in a vintage black and white cartoon of a keyboard. 

When the undulating stopped, all was quiet save for the hanging pots and pans clanging over the kitchen counter, and the slosh of the swimming pool water heaving over the sides.

“Shiver me timbers,” Houser exhaled to Dody Deodar, who stood shading her east side.

Crows began to caw noisily from Dody’s crown as soon as the shaking subsided. Then sirens and howling dogs were heard.

House and tree had been through this before; both knew the drill. Dody emanated stately calm, hoping to soothe the black birds so new to shakes ‘n’ quakes.

“I hope, when my people come home, they notice how strong and brave I am,” breathed Houser.

But the people didn’t come back, and didn’t come back. Houser didn’t know what could be keeping them so long. Dody, with her superior height, could just make out the place where the highway once stood. It was piled and buckled like a collection of untidy pinecones. She reported this to Houser who suspected it had something to do with her people staying away so long.

Sirens blared all the way into the night. Several subsequent rolling rides lulled Houser to sleep. Wailing vehicles awakened her. And so it went for three days. On the evening of the third day, SOMEONE opened Houser’s front door! She’d been asleep on her foundations, just nestling in, while a softening siren marked its distance. 

Who could this intruder be, she wondered. Her people always announced themselves with the family car pulling into the driveway. The only sound besides the fading wail she’d heard was the sound of feet on pavement.

Then she recognized the familiar sounds of her people, crying and thirsty for water. The earthquake created leaks in the pipes, so that no water was coming to the house nor out her taps. Not one drop. Houser sensed the refrigerator being opened. Happy gasps of joy as her people guzzled still cool water from ice gone liquid in the freezer. They also found grape juice and apple juice - still good - in plastic bottles on the door of the fridge. All this they found by flashlight. Electricity was out. Water was out. Gas wasn't going on… 

While the family was exclaiming over their good fortune to still have a house, and talking over all they had seen in the last few days, a huge aftershock ripped through - almost as big as the initial shaker. Dody Deodar dug her roots in deep. Hauser relaxed her frame. The family scuttled to stand under her sturdy doorways, flashing their lights crazily, at odd angles, as they held onto Hauser’s sturdy bones. Again pots and pans clanked, pool water sloshed, floor boards did their cartoonish dance, and crows and baby cried. 

This temblor did in the gas line. Smelling it, dad and older daughter ran out back, flashlights in hand, to turn off the main line, while mom and little brother tried to reassure baby sister, whose wailing matched the pitch of sirens going by. Mom said, and son repeated: “All will be well. All will be well...” even when they themselves weren’t so sure.

Hearts beat in unison like humming bird wings.

Were they ready for the future? 

Only time would tell.

Make the Most of Yourself…

Make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you. 

---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Go ahead, make an asset of yourself. 

---Melinda Maxwell-Smith

Thanks, Barry Dow for helping me make an asset of myself in your studio.

There have been several folks who were glad to hear the most recent recording of that old song I wrote in 1989. Thank you for helping me record it... even though my voice doesn’t yet meet my persnickety standards. (I’m a very picky person when it comes to evaluating my own products and projects.)

One day, I’ll re-record this piece... maybe soon... but for now, goofs and all, may it be of service.

So many people are coming forward with stories of abuse, neglect, and betrayal from their childhoods, it’s a wonder the world functions as well as it does.

Rockets lobbing back and forth in Gaza has put everyone in shell-shock. 

May the world’s people find peace inside themselves, and inside their country.

file://localhost/Users/melindamaxwellsmith2/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Music/Melinda%20Maxwell-Smith/Unknown%20Album/01%20I%20Cry%20for%20the%20Children%203.mp3

Meanwhile, I cry for the children…

I THINK you can copy the above address, paste it into your browser and listen to the song - such as it is.  Barry's work is primo; my voice a work in progress.