Lowly Rutabaga, Cast Your Golden Light

The Grandie has some special friends at school.

Saturday, one classmate whose family lived awhile in Switzerland, shared an autumnal ritual learned there with invited classmates and their chaperones.

We gathered on the grass next to Lake Merritt, which would've bee enough. Just to see people walking, marathon runners in Halloween costumes, picnickers, lovers, whole families in celebration of whatever they were celebrating on a beautiful October twilight lifted spirits.

For kids, the freedom to rough house on Mother Earth's soft green lap while their adults watch obliquely, is a rare and needed gift. Bubble blowing, bubble popping, bubble keep-it-up games, tag, circle dances, swings, slides, and climbing structures delighted the two to ten-year-olds. Playtime would have been enough.

The inviting family came prepared with humble yet magic ingredients: A plethora of rutabagas and collection of carving tools. Sarah cut the top off each stinky tuber before showing a child how to use a melon-baller and the pokier pointed tools to make the walls thin enough to see light pass through.

Now imagine that as the sun descends to color up the sky, a goldish pinkish glow of more than a dozen candles - each in a hollowed out rutabaga echoes what's above.

The effect as twilight yielded to darkness was breath-taking. My camera couldn't capture one one-thousandth of the wonder in children's eyes as each held her/his light-filled vessel. Still, I will remember the glow inside and out as I witnessed these children thrive in the warmth of their own imagination, camaraderie, and safety of caring adults. Shared food was also delicious.

What transpired about half way through our gathering gave many of us food for thought. 

A gentle, but at the effect of whatever was in his "water" bottle, man parked his body on the grass just on the fringes of the tarps for veggie carving  and blankets laid out by the fifteen or so families from the school. The gentleman spoke to the air around him, or to entities only he could see, about gratitude, all people, and food - while gesturing to anyone who walked near enough to make eye contact. He looked hungry in every meaning of the word.

The "unknown" plunked himself in the middle of  our minds in mid picnic, putting all us caring adults into a quandary as the imaginative children, who cannot be sheltered from news cycles, shortened the distance between themselves and their adults. How do we keep our kids safe without hovering, without instilling irrational fear but only reasonable questioning fear: Is it safe to be near this person? How near is too near? What does he want? What is my responsibility to be my neighbor's keeper? What of my right to enjoy nature without an uncomfortable closeness of unknown other?

My granddaughter asked me on our way home, "What was wrong with that man?"

"I don't know for sure," I said, "but it seems as if he had too much alcohol to drink and wasn't making good choices. Maybe he is without family, without friends, without shelter, and without food.  The food seemed to interest him most of all, right? And the blankets.

"Uh huh." she said looking into middle space the way she does when she's sorting information.

Then she changed the subject.

I could not derail my trains of thought so easily. What I didn't voice, but what raced through my mind with the force of dozens of diesel-engine locomotives for a good portion of the rest of the night was those actions I might have taken to support and move along to another locale the gentleman on the fringes of life in the park. 

He wasn't sinister. He was marching to a different drummer. He wasn't holding weapons. He was holding us captive by our concerns for fairness and well-to-do guilt. He wasn't making obscene gestures. He had found a picnic and wanted to taste it. 

Dark came fast. I moved to make a plate for him at the same time I asked the host nearest to me if I might please take a sandwich and piece of pizza to him. "Of course," said the classmate's dad. "I think someone is giving him the whole box of pizza now." I put the sandwich in with the fragrant cheese pie while the gentleman said in his accented English, "Put all in. Put ALL in."

He asked for a candle. 

The mom of the classmate drew a line, saying, "Sorry. These are what the children made to take home." 

Guilt assuaging phrases come cheap:

The lights around the lake stay on all night. 
He has a blanket and a meal.
We don't want to encourage hustling in the park. 
There's a bathroom and a boathouse for warmth. 


Some might say, he shouldn't be making people feel uncomfortable.

Or... He shouldn't be making people feel. 

Or worse... He shouldn't be.

I do not pat myself on the back because I don't say that. 

The Grandie and I may need to have another conversation about how the presence of a different sort of gentleman near the picnic made her feel.

He certainly became my teacher at twilight.

Redwoods and Forgiveness

When a redwood senses it's going to die, or is struck by lightning or fire, it sends up shoots off its roots. And because its roots radiate out in a circle,  the next generation stands  surrounding the wise ancestor's stump.

Two weekends ago, when I went with a group to Roberts Regional Park which is populated mainly by redwoods I observed many circles of trees but didn't know the cause.  It wasn't until this past weekend, at a camp outside Occidental, that I understood the phenomenon of why the Sequoias often stand in circles.

Survival looks like respectful honoring in the Redwood family.

What does survival look like in the human family? Not quite so stoic and regal, eh? More like dog-eat-dog?

I wonder how we might reinstate the sense of wonder and honoring?

Dreaming a poem, waking to write it, this weird start of gratitude for all that befell me as a kid popped out...


In the dream I scraped some semen off the walls that know

What happened in that bedroom in my childhood long ago

I put it deep inside me just to see what it would grow

DNA of my warped daddy mixing with my own


And in the dream I noticed the results were much the same

That I grew up surprisingly, I'm healed, no longer lame

The pain of early childhood with its awful name

Don't wish incest on anyone the monster must be tamed


Still there are some upsides I must bow down in awe

Sure Dad's own dark suffering, unhealed, left us raw

But his art and creativity, aliveness to the core...

Worth a celebration and honoring... what's more

Profound the gifts he gave us, the wisdom for to see

When others hurt I know it, 'specially if they hurt like me



The gift to know that addicts must never be left in charge 

Of kids - especially young ones - but even when they're large

For addicts act to sooth their pain that's way down deep inside

Leaving all in ruins; beloved friends and family all in for a wild ride



Can we stand in wonder, in witness of this stump

That gave us life and honor good as we stand all in a clump?

Supporting one another, making vows to pass on the good

Respecting others' boundaries the lesson now understood

Unvitations

Yesterday, I issued three unvitations to the same person.

I was cooking when the phone rang and a friend went into a rant about the POTUS. Usually, commiseration R US, but I suggested we change the subject, as I didn't want the eggs to curdle.

Next, I was at a memorial service with like minded folk for a wonderful woman who enhanced many lives with her spunk, smarts, daring, and beauty. During the reception, someone got around to the latest scandalous tweet. Again, I took a page from my Cousin Gina's book and reminded the friends seated at table with me that the POTUS had not been invited to the ceremony or the reception.

Later, in the redwoods with ten like-minded and environmentally conscious friends, while picking out an invasive species of spiderwort from the forest floor, inevitably, the parallel play led to political talk and sharing of disturbing disgruntlement over the bullying we're seeing from the highest bully in all the land. 

"Ya know," I said, "He wasn't invited to our weed-pulling party. Let's see if the beauty of Nature can truly restore our sanity, refresh our senses, and dilute the rage, anger, disappointment and helplessness we're all feeling." 

A spider's giant orb web danced in the sun, casting a magic of its own. Steadfastly, we pulled the intruding weeds that compete with the redwoods for nourishment.

We spoke of the innocence of children. We spoke of people we know who are doing wonderful, creative things... creating art and beauty and music and gardens. We spoke of how gardens absorb all our negativity AND all our CO2, and how they give us so much solace, comfort and FOOOOD!

As far as I can tell, talking about the terrible horrible no-good very bad things that are being perpetrated under our noses makes us miserable and talk won't change a thing. Voting will.

There's an organization called thelastweekend.org which seems to make a lot of sense. From Friday, November 2, through Sunday, November 4, they encourage people to TALK with other people about voting. It's those last few impressions before election Tuesday, November 6 that seem to stick and make the biggest difference. The idea is to get as many folks to vote as possible. 

It's scary to think how many people have been stricken from the voting rosters for not having a street address, but only a Post Office Box address. Since when must you have a street address in order to vote? Ever since Trump and his handlers, circus clowns, and puppeteers came to power. 

What about this for a street address: Third car from the One Way Street sign, Corner of Main and Grand, Anytown, USA? So many Homeless Folk. So many Native Peoples. So many disenfranchised are excluded from the polls. Seems as if some ARE more equal than others, just as George Orwell predicted in 1948 about 1984. Now thirty-four years down the road, we've had lots of practice and inequality has mushroomed.

I've got my mail-in ballot and my recommendations from The League of Women Voters and I'm gonna send it in soooooon!
And, by the way, the POTUS is not invited into my heart or brain for the rest of the year. Or my gut. I shall return to the redwoods for comfort.

Sugar Highs and Political Lows

I ate a lot of buttercream frosting atop glorious and gloptious gluten-free cupcakes Friday night at a women's retreat half way up Mount Tamalpais.

Surprise!

My beloved husband conspired with a neighbor who also went to the retreat to schlep up forty cupcakes and waxen numerals he'd purchased so I would remember he loved me on my big "Seven-Oh."

The gals all sang the traditional song to me. I was totally surprised.

On Saturday, we heard the news about the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice who seems to be unable to control his temper. I do not believe he has the temperament of one who is supposed to be able to review cases with impartiality. Saturday was a sadder day than anyone at the retreat would have preferred.

We stood and sang "We Shall Overcome." I was totally overcome.

I hope we may not be in danger of returning to darker ages in this country when only illegal abortions in shadowy circumstances were available, and the harming of women in this and other ways was even more common than it is today. 

Is anyone listening? 

It is hard to hold up half the sky while trying to keep your panties up and fighting off drunken and determined, or sober and sinister overly entitled men.

May you VOTE for what you believe in. Vote to preserve the goodness of a three part government of, for and BY the people, rather than voting for pawns of oligarchs.

Rape is not healthy for Mother Earth or other living beings.