All Hallooooooows Eve

October, my favorite month
   Out of control sugar cravings
     Oy, the sweet temptations*
       Oh, the compulsive sweeping of leaves
         Owing to deferred maintenance,
    the hOuse inside is haunted by dust bunnies
          ghOulish garbage and stacked 
       maggOt-zines.
                  Orange colored skies, 
                  gOrgeous pumpkin pies have
  given way to Outlandish plastic buckets
                   full Of sweets
                         NOw it's time to say 
                            gOod night. 
                             GOod night, sleep tight. 
         Happy All HallOw's Eve!
                                 DOn't let the 
                             bed bOoogs bite!


*Lucky me! My honey is taking me to see the Temptations musical very sOOOOOOOn!

All Hallows Heave

On this coming All Hallow's Eve

How many goodies shall we leave

When we head across town to

Celebrate with family who

Live on a street with lots of kids

Trick or Treating with their sibs?



At the old house every year,

Warlocks & witches would come near

Our new neighbor kids seem missing in action

Halloween on the hill gives no satisfaction

On the night of boos & ghouls

Do they seek out malls and schools?*



Where do all the children go?

No candles in carved pumpkins glow

Not one ballerina, nor comic hero

Do I hear the fiddler Nero?

How many costumes? How 'bout ZERO?

Am I simply being romantic?

Is this vacuum symptomatic?

Life now feels so automatic.



Lives are busy, this we know

Can we conjure olden times slow?

Popcorn balls and apples caramelled

Homemade treats still unparalleled

In this age of fear and compromise

It's not just milk that we homogenize



One size fits most; experience blended

Originality used to be splendid

Where are the pirates with charcoaled cheeks

And ghosts made up of household sheets?

Store-bought masks replace bound-with-laces-

Handmade costumes and painted faces



We champion diversity in Oakland's city

Yet the pop-up sellers of atrocity

Sell electronic decorations that dart

Or shriek or moan or smell of farts

Hobbling us to putrid conformity

Wreaking of stifled uniformity





Life with nearby community

Has much to offer you and me

Beyond the night of bats and clowns

All other nights the whole year 'round

We live near humans rich in wisdom

 Stories ignite communal vision



We may learn more from those who're different

From us; who had to keep their upper lip stiffer when

Through adversities they had to go

Hearing their lessons helps us to grow

As we listen with our hearts open

For world-wide softening is what I'm hopin'



Coming soon, the night of wonder

Hoping the Orange Trumpkin doesn't blunder

Ripping the entire world asunder

Hell's fury sounds a mighty thunder

While he rants & tweets at each broadcaster

I fear this most unnatural  disaster


Every atomic tweet I hear

Ramps up ever growing fear

That life on earth which we hold dear

Will end up on a funeral bier

But come, my friends, let's strike a chord

Turn against the ugly hoard

Of divisiveness and rancor

Let melody & harmony be our anchor




Happy Halloween!


* Our Nextdoor Neighborhood chat site contemplated this question. Answers to why there are no kids  here on Halloween include naming our neighborhood unsafe because it's poorly lit and there are no curbs, and the lure of wonderful venues where kids can show off their costumes in the light of the mall and consume a LOT of candy given out by shop-keepers.

Still, I wish I could take the granddaughter and her pals back in a time machine to the "fun house" we neighborhood kids constructed in howling winds October 1958 - complete with sensory delights like peeled grapes for eye-balls, cooked spaghetti for brains and walking on eggshells meant to simulate broken glass.

Moms sixty years ago certainly allowed for messier celebrations than most kids are allowed currently.

Burstin' Buttons

Our older daughter graduated Saturday from an arduous two-year Montessori Teacher Training program. It was such joy to witness her enthusiasm and grace as she MC'd the student part of the ceremony for her 15 classmates. 

We, her peeps, are so proud of her that we're burstin' our buttons! We're also VERY happy to have her back. Her professors and examiners thanked us family members in the audience for our patience during this time of "Maximum Effort" - a commitment which all of these vibrant young women made and completed. The three-ring binder books they have created take up a minimum of two feet of shelf-space. The teaching tools they have fashioned from bits of ribbon, cardboard, felt, and ingenuity are sure to wow their students. I've heard that Daiso became their most frequented store for teeny tiny objects with which to construct lessons for eager young minds to tackle. 

Maria Montessori, certainly knew how children learn and she developed methods for their guides (teachers) to keep curiosity alive in young ones.

I have to say, because it's true, that Mosa embodies the irresistible and genuine enthusiasm that makes wanting to learn contagious.  Lucky are those who get to be in her classroom. Lucky is her daughter to have such a clever and hard-working mama. Lucky are we to have landed in a place (Oakland) where we got to support the process by hanging with our delightful eight-year-old granddaughter as part of the care-team while her mama BARTed over to San Francisco for school so many evenings and all day Saturdays these past two years. 

How lucky we are to celebrate with both our daughters and the grandie, this monumental accomplishment. It gives such satisfaction to prepare a celebratory feast. My beloved and I feel extremely lucky to have daughters and granddaughter who are self-actualizing women all! Thank you for coming up for the weekend, Megan! Your presence makes such a positive difference.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

We also count ourselves lucky to have a home. Ninety-thousand have had to be evacuated in the North Bay this past week. Many folks still are not sure whether their homes have been spared or devoured by hungry chaotic flames.

The Red Cross may be the most efficient organization for making things happen on the ground during the on-going relief effort. It's hard to stay away from the fire zone when so much work needs to be done ASAP to support folks suffering horrific loss, but for now, the roads must be kept free for emergency vehicles.  I was relieved to hear my high school buddy Judy's voice on the phone Saturday morning as she let us know she's safe and staying with a friend. 

Many thanks to the persevering firefighters from all over the state and beyond. Gratitude too, for the inmates fighting the fires in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino. The combined heroic efforts seem finally to have turned the tide as of Sunday. Containment is increasing. While there are still red-flag warnings for the tinder-dry hills in "Smokeland" where we live, we are, for the moment, also safe.

May all beings be safe, May all beings be healthy, May all beings be happy.

Tweets, Sweets, PRGs and Shame

There is danger in conducting international policy using 140 characters, especially if insults are being flung into space on the wingless tweets of a narcissist with intent to threaten a wildly irrational leader of a cold-war country north of South Korea, who seems intent upon lobbing a nuclear warhead into our country's space.

Sleeping soundly is no longer an option. I feel as if I've been flung back into junior high school when the bus ride to the campus took us seventh graders past house after house where fall-out shelters were being dug. Dreams of those days featured me weeping at the total extinction of all creatures on this beautiful earth. Somehow, I was looking down on the events from on high - as if from somewhere off-planet. If you've got coping mechanisms to share for use in these troubled times, I'm all ears.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Celebrating the beginning of my 70th year over the weekend involved some sweet treats. In addition to some stellar flourless chocolate cake in the shape of a heart, thanks to my honey Marko Pun-O, there were various kinds of chocolates at a women's retreat I attended Friday through Sunday. Chocolate amongst friends seems to bond us, much the way a lovely wine may do by empowering us to bolder, more authentic disclosures.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

I disclosed to my older daughter that on my way home from the retreat on Sunday, I stopped at a very crowded estate sale in the neighborhood. The reason this final day of a three day sale was swarming with people was that all were invited to fill a large packing box to the brim with ANYthing and pay only $5 for the total content. It was the fabric that was my downfall. Gorgeous fabrics and hand-tatted lace, hand knit scarves by the home's owner, who was there and with whom I had a lovely chat about her quilting days, Ukrainian cross-stitching, and downsizing. Clearly, she was ready to downsize. Clearly I'm still operating while at the effect of my family's curse: the PRG or the Pack Rat Gene. All fabric has since been washed and is now hanging over multiple chairs in the dining room to dry. Autumnal colors, vivid greens, batiks, silks, linens - just every sort of wonderfulness for projects well into the future. By my seventy-fifth birthday, if I haven't completed some of the dreamed-of quilts, collages or costumes, then please remind me it's time for my own garage sale, won't you?

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The most salient nugget I brought away from the retreat has to do with shame and the pervasive quality of it among my sisters on the planet and me. I joke that if it's a smoggy day in LA, it's my fault. Sad but true to say, that's how I feel some days - as if I should be a better person and solve these problems that dog us all. Hyper-responsibility syndrome? Maybe.

It's no wonder that more realistic extensions of myself into the world, when not done to my highest standards cause me grief. I've been a non-blogger for two weeks preceding this entry. Mostly, for six and a half years, I've been showing up for myself as a writer, using My Monday Muse as a carrot in front of my nose to keep my chops oiled. I have little to no expectation that anyone is reading it. Most of it is, as the title states, merely musing. But when I don't follow through with my intent, I feel bad. So, I'm writing a mish-mosh now, as a place holder for better things to come... hopefully before my 75th year. I'm not sorry to be using more characters than the tweeter in chief.

I Hate Cancer

I hate cancer, but I love the families we work with at camp whose lives are impacted by it. Instead of building a wall to impress the world with his genius, couldn't our president and his congress put money toward finding better treatments for brain tumors in our most vulnerable children?

Mule, one of our long time camp counselors at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, recently posted this on his face book page: 



We need to do better than this. 

Currently, our methods for dealing with tumors are slash, burn and poison. The discombobulation in the wake of these treatments is devastating. Members of our camp population suffer from loss of sight, balance, sensation, mobility, speech, immune function, and ability to socialize, among other losses, due to side effects. 

The losses endured by siblings also take an emotional toll. Parents do the very best they can. Medicine is doing the best it can, but we're creating more cancer in children than ever before.

Cancer is an equal opportunity destroyer. It cuts across all ethnic, racial, religious, age and gender lines. There are more cases in areas where pesticides are concentrated, and in areas where water and air quality are poor. So, there is an economic component that is skewed. 

In 1984 Juana Gutierrez started organizing Mothers of East Los Angeles to fight against the smoke stacks being built in their neighborhoods for the purpose of burning toxic waste. The good that these women have done and are doing for their families is astonishing and a simple example of how impactful we can be when we stand together against the idiocy of pretending that this planet is not our only life boat in the inhospitable ocean of outer space.  For more about their struggle and triumph click this Living On Earth transcript.

http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=93-P13-00015&segmentID=5

I propose we confer with our inner space (hearts and minds) to see what we might do in our own households and neighborhoods to clean up the toxins. 

Could we pre-cycle to diminish the size of our individual carbon footprints? That means purchasing items packaged in less plastic or buying items in bulk, and instead of carrying them home in plastic bags, re-purposing our glass jars from spaghetti sauce and canned fruit, or mayonnaise to store grains, pasta, dried fruits, cereals and the like. Getting the plastic out of the waste stream will support cleaner air and water. Many stores are coming on board to support us bringing our own containers to fill with the groceries we purchase from bulk bins. Every scrap of plastic we don't buy is one less scrap in the land-fill... which drains to the water table.

If Harvey and Irma teach us anything about how everything ends up in the water, we should heed the teaching and cut down on the chemical load we're dumping into our own nest.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

It was a brilliant weekend at Jack's Camp in Livermore, California. We Can has merged with Pediatric Brain Tumor Network. Camp is the same, the name has changed. Cool weather and blue skies prevailed. Stage Night, which we call We Can Do ANYthing, showed off the many and varied talents of our campers age 2 to 22. Dancing, singing, lip-syncing, magic tricks, and jokes delighted us all. One sixteen year old showed off walking across the stage without his crutches. After Stage Night came the dance party. Wow! This was the most cohesive celebration I've ever witnessed at camp. EVERYone was dancing! The music was at a doable volume; the kids, their adults, and all twenty-five volunteer counselors danced and danced. We decorated wheel chairs and ourselves with glow-sticks and light-up rings and enjoyed "YMCA" and "Electric Slide" on wheels and on foot. 

Good-byes Sunday afternoon were tearful. No one wants to leave the haven of safety we've created together - where the break-out groups help  patients, siblings and parents bond with their peers.

There's no place on earth like camp. It's not the place, it's the people.

Love people. Hate cancer.

Privilege

How are we privileged? Let me count the ways…

White

Male

Youthful

Physically Able

Protestant

Heterosexual

Monied

Living in a non-war-torn, non-violent, geographically stable area

That leaves an elite few on the planet… The First Worlders who may never have suffered the challenges of sexism, racism, classism, age-discrimination, persecution, poverty, war and natural disasters. If you haven’t experienced these challenges, does it mean you cannot have compassion?

Is empathy what we’re really talking about here? The ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes - to feel as if a challenge were happening to us - and act to help our fellow humans.

Am I privileged if I can't put myself in the shoes - soaked shoes - of those struggling to find ground in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma’s thievery?

What was solid has become wet, muddied and drowned ground. Folks have had torn away from them the basics: Shelter, food, clean water, and clothing. Can I identify with that? My child self can, yes.

I have experienced being white since I was born, but not being a male. I was raised in an 

a-religious, middle-income, broken and dysfunctional home. Just like most folks, I had some challenges.

Do we really have to have been at the effect of the exact same adversities to have empathy for those who suffer? I don’t think so. We are hard wired to feel with our tribe... to have compassion. There is even hard wired into us the reflex of yaaking when we see someone else throw up. If Glorg and I have been feasting on the same mastodon that’s gone bad, chances are I should purge if I see him do it. It’s pro-survival. (I’m not sure about why yawning is so contagious! Maybe carbon monoxide build-up from our cave fires caused us to yawn for more oxygen? Something to explore another time!)

How about childbirth? If you've never given birth, might you be excused from knowing how intense the experience is? Or can I count on you to be empathetic in an EMERGENCE-y. That’s where the word comes from, you know… a person is being born here, THIS very moment. The event won’t wait! It’s an emergence, SEE?!

How about women’s privilege? We get to experience the joy of childbirth or not, now that there are more choices at preventing pregnancies.

Privilege in this realm of childbirth choices is afforded those who can go outside the mainstream medical field to soften the blows which technological birth keeps jabbing at moms and newborns. Under-served women in communities of poverty are treated rather poorly and the birth stats show it… with poorer outcomes in weight, Apgar scores, and more drugs being used during the birth.

Without empathy, we’re creating trauma quicker than we can heal it. Mother Nature is doing fine all on her own to create traumatic events. Must we assist her with acts of violence, war, intolerance, and hatred?

It is heartening to see how neighbors in Texas are helping one another through the biggest storm crisis to hit that state in nearly a hundred years. Individuals with boats are paddling house to house to check on folks who may be unable to get out. We cannot count on government to become Deus ex machina. Help must come from within our own hearts… the internal prompt to see what we may do to make a difference. I believe the same will hold true in Florida and the whole Eastern Seaboard. The people of Louisiana already showed their mettle during Katrina, when there was virtually no help available from governmental agencies.

Sunday was Pride Day in Oakland. The march was the most colorful I’ve ever been in. Rainbow colors everywhere, and not just in articles of clothing. Skin tones run the gamut from pale to deeply hued. We are a rainbow colored people standing together in solidarity and love. 

Here’s a different take on privilege: It is a privilege to live in a democracy where we each can decide each moment how we will act toward our sisters and brothers. What a privilege to unify to celebrate our diversity!

Protection? Hah!

Is there any true protection from the vicissitudes of life?

Sunscreen and flossing not withstanding, experience says no.

Originally, I wrote for this blog a very dark memory of a time I was left on my own at age five with a dangerous family, which happened to be my family. Both mom and dad were drinking and fighting and older brother left to run away to the peace of Elysian Park, just to get away form the war zone. He was eleven. I begged him to take me with him. He did not. Both of us kids would rather have been anywhere else besides in-home with the Sunday night fights.

But what good does it do to talk about it? What do we do with that kind of experience? Conclude that no one is safe? That we're all gonna die?

Or do we cultivate compassion for those whose behavior is other than what we wish it to be and take action, when possible, to steer them into life-enhancing choices?

My lizard brain's mantra is, We're all gonna die. There's obvious truth in that... eventually, all of us will kick the bucket. We're all hard-wired to survive; to fight for every last breath. It takes some amount of insanity to override the reptilian / survival brain, yet to live in fear of the eventuality of that day makes no sense to me. 

Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump may do the earth a favor, by ridding it of the vermin called humans once and for all with one glorious fierce fireworks of a conflagration. In the meantime, whatever time we have left, we verminous beings may as well perform outrageously gorgeous, courageous, humanitarian acts of loving kindness and beauty as last-ditch efforts to save our sorry asses and savor the flavors of LIFE.

Living at all is a gift. Living in fear is miserable, but it is a conscious choice. Living full-on in this rare and beautiful moment is a different conscious choice.  

How do we tame the reptile to allow for choice beyond fear? How do we go about our daily rounds as if the specter of death were a friend to be welcomed to table in whatever time frame the wraith sees fit?

I don't know.

Experimentation is all I've got.

We just had eight delightful humans stay in our home with us for a couple of days. Three of those beings are aged seven, four, and one year. Our eight year old granddaughter and both our daughters were part of the mix as well. In the wake of the visit, we seniors are wonderfully and happily exhausted, ready for the "napuary" or "dozitorium," but instead, we are moving on to the next tasks at hand without pause.  It looks as if we're going to do what one platitudinous email that keeps cycling around and around advises us to do... slide into home completely used up, with torn knees and scraped elbows... having gone all out, giving it all we've got. How fortunate we are. Many are struggling with recent storms, droughts, floods, famines and fires.

Still, maybe because it's Labor(less) Day, we'll let the laundry and sticky floors sit and take an actual nap!

May all who are suffering, and those whose homes are underwater in whatever way they may be - financially or literally - find a way to higher ground, ease and comfort among fellow humans who offer compassion. I'm bowled over by the kindness shown by neighbors to neighbors in times of crisis. Maybe Harvey will turn out to be a great teacher. Every chemical we set loose on the planet has a consequence. Water is a great equalizer. If we put poison into it, all will be poisoned. All species, all classes, all races, all castes, all genders, all religions, all sexual identities. All will be poisoned. One family, one planet. Harvey and Irma seem destined to teach us something. May we be good students.

We ourselves are our only protection from our ignorance, hubris and -isms.