Volitional Valentines

My first marriage was lovely but didn’t last long. Danny and I were two, and our parents oooohed and cooooed and kvelled and took photos of us all dressed up.

Marriage number two, to Jeffrey at age seven, similarly didn’t last long. The best part was the “honeymoon” which meant that the taxi driver, in this case it was my best friend Angelika, who only a moment before had played the part of the preacher and pronounced Jeffrey and me "man and wife," had to give us a ride on the chaise lounge, from the top of Jeffrey’s yard, all the way down to the peach tree at the bottom of his yard. 

We walked back up, dragging the chaise, and switched costumes. Jeffrey was next to be the preacher and taxi driver. Angelika and I got married. That was the shortest marriage of all, simply because Jeffrey could run faster than any of the others of us. So technically, my marriage to Angelika doesn't count. Also, unfortunately, during that time in the 1950's same sex unions were not recognized.

Third time’s a charm.

Meeting Mark in January, 1972, and marrying the man four months later in April has turned out to be the best marriage of them all. They said it wouldn’t last because of the short courtship, but here we are nearly forty-three years later, still stopping to smooch while making salad side by side. It was the best two dollars I ever spent - for the marriage license.

As Fats Waller sings: “If this isn’t love, it’ll have to do, until the real thing comes along.”

Hoping your heart is happy all year, never mind the Hallmark Blitz on February 14th!

Ghost Story

The curtain parts. On the center of the piano bench puppet stage,  sits a haunted house made of honeycomb cardboard from the Ikea bed we assembled last week. It makes a swell haunted house. Next to it lurks a Tyrannosaurus Rex. There are two ghosts flying over the whole set. 

Miss D, the five-year-old script-writer, director, and composer is playing spooky low notes on the electronic keyboard, and giving us, her grandparents, directions like, “Just act.... and make lots of scary noises.”

I hit the floor with my fists, like claps of thunder. This activates the sound-sensor in the big stuffed tiger a foot away, and starts him to G-R-O-W-W-W-L-I-N-G. Gran’Pun swoops his ghost low enough that part of the haunted house is knocked off. Our two ghosts get into out-boooooing each other.

Before her Dad, audience of one, gets here, D asks, “Which way shall I run with the signs?” She has painstakingly written “Boooooo” and “Aaaahhhh” and drawn ghosts and a witch on old cue cards. (It pays to save things after all!) She deliberates running right to left and decides upon left to right, because that’s the way people read, and she doesn’t want to have her sign misread as “OooooooB!” and “HhhhhaaaaaA!” The logic is irrefutable. Stifling laughter sometimes hurts, like stifling a sneeze when it just wants to rrrripppp.

To his credit, Dad is an appreciative audience, and laughs in all the right places - particularly when his daughter says, “It’s not over yet!” 

Gran’Pun and I are getting cramps - as much from sitting cross-legged on the wood floor as from the laughter.

She’s a hoooot, this grandie! This is where we’re supposed to be. It’s worth the upheaval, the shifts of tectonic magnitude, the missing of Southern California, and the temporary inconvenience of extra caution due to thuggery that’s moving from San Francisco to East Bay. 

Sunday night, at our third community meeting in less than ten days, we signed on as supporters of Bay Alarm patrolling the neighborhood. They need thirty families. Looks as if the meeting gave them that.

We look forward to many more puppet shows, walks in the park, play-dates with the seven-year-old-young man across the street, and hours of music, magic, reading, and dancing.

Notice the Bats in the "B"

D's re-write changed "I am…" to 

"We are the scariest ghosts."

Her spelling skills astonish us!

If you want to hide something…

For the past week, we’ve been looking for articles that seem to have gone missing in the move. Finally, the sea biscuit, or whatever name you call that computer back-up device - thingy, surfaced! 

The continuing-for-a-month-mystery has been, “Where the Hell did we put those white canvas curtains from the old middle bedroom, and the other two maroon colored velvet drapes from the old master??” We'd hung four of six panels in the new master bedroom. Where could the other two panels be?

Methodically, each of us separately, looked in the plentiful cupboards, drawers, and closets - the search intensifying with each passing day. We were duplicating efforts, but not certain if the other one of us would “see” what it was we were looking for. Distrust of our own and the other’s faculties increased by the hour. Where could two separate sets of draperies be??

Sunday night, after a traditional Chinese Take-Out dinner at our daughter and granddaughter’s house, we came home refreshed, enchanted, and more determined than ever. Mark again looked in hanging closets, while I gave the kitchen, laundry and bathroom areas a “fourth-over.” 

In the linen closet, in the downstairs bath, on the bottom shelf, I had stashed some nylon sheer curtains, fresh out of the dryer, when we had a houseful of company - twelve panels of white sheers, from various rooms at the old house. As my hand lifted them, something about the heft gave away the truth. Not all was “sheer” madness!! I hurried upstairs to Mark’s office, knowing my kinesthetic sense to be nearly as precisely honed as that of a dealer in ‘Vegas. Excitedly, I spread the mass of material on his office floor. Sure enough, the white canvas tabs poked out. We laughed and laughed. 

While separating the white canvas panels from the nylon, and folding-up all of them, Mark asked if I’d like to have some of the sheer white panels in my office behind the crimson velvet ones… we’d hung there January 4, when our younger daughter and her beau were here. 

When the question was only half asked, we both burst into giggles, Oakland neighbors and anyone in L.A. might have heard us guffawing in disbelief! 

We’ve been in my office/healing space dozens of times during the last month and opened and closed those drapes every day, yet both of us were convinced the purplish beauties had gone missing, and would turn up someday.

Truly, if you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight!

The white canvas tabbed ones look smashing in Mark’s office. As for the ones in my office... WHAT burgundy curtains? If ever you want to make M & M melt with laughter just say: burgundy curtains!

It IS Oakland…

It’s windy, cold and clear. The Grand Old Oaks on the hill are ruffling in the bluster, looking like the ‘fros sported in the ‘sixties, as they were buffeted by breezes on Peace Marches and CORE, SNCC, SDS, and Black Panther demonstrations.

It IS Oakland...

As of today, we’re taking extra precautions in our home.

Yesterday, at mid-day, in the intersection of our street with the main drag up into the hills, a neighbor was held up at gun point in her car, robbed, and struck in the face by the butt of the gun. This was the boldest anti-social act of several committed within the last three weeks within a few blocks of home.

I’m heartened by the PRO-social actions of neighbors coming by to introduce themselves, bringing our rubbish bins in from the street, in our absence, and the general congeniality of folks we’ve met in the neighborhood and businesses nearby.

A movement is afoot to have a contracted security company patrol the streets here in Chabot Park. This action is similar to what our daughter’s neighbors have done in her sweet, but at-the-effect-of-hungry-or-angry- ones neighborhood. Oakland Police Department is stretched too thin. Response times to burglary reports or alarm systems going off range from forty-five minutes to two hours. Neighbors are taking things into their own hands. We will probably join the ranks of folks paying a premium for what we hope will be more frequent and consistent patrolling.

It IS Oakland, and Berkeley adjacent...

In our travels out of San Francisco by way of Berkeley Sunday, we came across the Berkeley Bowl Market. Wow! Better than Whole Paycheck in their selection and price. Just don’t try to PARK there! One of our camp family members gave us a gift card there. Can't wait to use it!

We hope to have the TIME this coming weekend to explore more. We’ve had guests every weekend since we moved here, except the one during which we went to camp! VERY wonderful to have the world come to us, and to have deep conversations around the table... and some kazoo, piano, and guitar playing.

The granddaughter held court with six camp counselors supporting her play Friday night. She smelled the safety and bossed us around with perfect imperiousness.  

Tonight I start a writing class, led by a Bodynamics/SE colleague. Should be fun... and an impetus (boot to the butt) for me to get writing more consistently.

While I MISS my familiar peeps in Southern California, writing, being with the grandie, and semi-retirement are the perks of the move. Plus more time with my honey!

Thugs be damned. There will probably be thugs even on the MOON... should we choose to move again!

Late Night Musings

This just in…

Two tired counselors from Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times drove 7.5 hours to return to their NEW home from their beloved OLD camp in Idylwild (in the mountains above Palm Springs).

What a marvelous four-day weekend spent with 101 adolescents and about 40 fellow counselors.

Pun and I kept each other awake for the drive 
up the 5… getting in about 8:45pm.

Hoping your celebrations of Dr. King's birthday were filled with whatever makes your eyes 
light up.

I'll be continuing my commitment to writing, Tuesday… after some horizontal shut-eye.

For those who have been reading: THANK YOU!

For those who have given me feedback on the CD: THANK YOU!

Filled from toes to crown with gratitude for all the joyful adventures in which I get to participate.

My Monday Muse…

My Monday Muse...

...has sustained me throughout this monumental move from Southern California to Northern California. By sustain, I mean the commitment to blog served me well, this past month, as an anchor to bigger commitments to myself as a writer.

During the weekend, I was a participant in a Bodynamics course, along with eight other students and three faculty members of The Bodynamics Institute, USA. I got to be in a demo session for Grounding in Early Will Structure. In finding those muscles that support me sticking to the task I’ve chosen, I re-committed to writing for at least two hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday is the “given”, in that I have been able to maintain that discipline even during the busy-ness of relocating.

So, with eleven witnesses metaphorically looking over my shoulder, I’m deferring further opening of boxes, un-packing, and even stripping beds and generally “tidying up” after four folks slept here within the last week, so that I may steep more deeply in the adventure of writing beyond once a week.

Acknowledging, during the session, that my beloved and I have different ways of “landing” in this new place, has helped me find some ease, grace, acceptance, and some humor in how different we are. His need is to have it all done ASAP. Mine is to do spurts of unpacking, sifting and sorting - interspersed with times of replenishing practices (yoga, meditation and walks), and social engagement with peers, friends, and family. We have plenty of time to settle-in. I don’t feel an urgency. To his credit, he made HUGE progress in the un-packing process in the living room and garage over the weekend! With happy heart I hugged him.

Sunday night found the house abuzz with as many of my Bodynamics family here in the Bay Area as could make it for supper and conversation, a colleague who is here for another workshop, and a lovely mom and seven year old from L.A. who made an over-night stop here during a very special week-long, mother-daughter road trip. Both Mark and I thoroughly enjoyed the stimulation of conversation, laughter and good food, punctuated by joyful outbursts of an active seven-year-old-girl-child, who has immediate access to how to have fun. She particularly loved running, sliding, and “skating” on the hardwood floors in her stocking feet and jean-covered seat. I joined her in the skating.

I’m delighted, as is my husband, that this new home, like the old home in L.A., is turning out to be a resource of lovely, welcoming proportions. The kitchen is gracious, the space is spacious, and apart from a persistent skunk, who nightly sprays the back of the house with her stinky, pungent, punitive(?) essence, we are feeling sooooo lucky to be able to live here and enjoy company and the spectacular view. 

This morning, one of my colleagues left at 4 O’Clock, to catch a flight back to Calgary. I got up to see her off. When I opened the bathroom door off our bedroom, the sulfurous smell was so strong my eyes burned. I think we need some help in the skunk deterrent department! Another thing to add to the list… after doing some more yoga!

Box by Box

Un-packing is an art unto itself.

When a family has TWO moving vans full of STUFF, you can bet it's too much for them.

By Friday night, I was in denial and total overwhelm about ever getting my office put together in any semblance of order. Basically, I'm combining two rooms (my healing, seeing clients room, and my writing, business office space) into one room that is smaller than either of those rooms at the old house. Cozy is my new mantra. Cozy curtains, cozy cot, cozy closet! Mercifully it's a spacious closet, and allows for storage of several blankets, books, massage sheets & supplies, baby toys, and teaching materials.

Setting out the altar will be a welcomed and final touch. I must get a feel for the room before I can figure out the placement of it. Its implicit presence in my heart and mind have dictated the configuration of the room:  All spokes relate to its hub-ness, so I've had a general idea of where it will be, but the precise choreography has yet to be revealed. I'm valuing the guidance from unseen "friends."

Our granddaughter, daughters, and their guy pals have been so very helpful this entire weekend! From making meals, to hanging curtains and assorted mirrors, paintings, hooks and hardware, they have turned the tide from overwhelm to seeing the possibilities for completion of the settling-in process.

My work is cut-out for me:  Sewing the shoe bag, hanging a couple of shelves, and the stained glass window, and vacuuming… endless vacuuming, as more and more boxes are emptied and the detritus within falls out. It is very satisfying to cut the bottom tape of each empty box and squeeze the box flat to add to the ever increasing pile of flattened and empty cartons. Free-Cycle, here we come!

Saturday night brought some excitement in the form of a funny black and white "kitty" which busied itself digging ferociously for something in the back garden. When it released an amazing and lingering scent, we remembered that we're not in the "city" anymore! Can you deter skunks with anything?

The other "excitement" is that there seems to be no access to use an auger in the main drain line. After calling at least four plumbing companies, to no avail, "Paul" showed up an hour and a half later than the promised time, and informed us that it would be a two person, 90 foot line job and run about $400 to clear the line so the toilets will work. We're calling for a second opinion now that the New Year's weekend is at an end. Wish us well this week, please!

Royal flushes sound dreamy.

Happy Healthy Joy-filled New Year to you and your dear ones.

May Peace Prevail!