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?