Blogging in Brazil

For the next two weeks I'll be bloggin' in Belo, but not posting any 'til the return.

Keep Cooooool as possible, wherever you are!

Thanks for returning with me on July 21!

Ciao for now,

Melinda

I Changed Desks

I changed desks!

It’s a big deal.

Since 1949, and probably years before that, the old maple desk had been my father’s. It’s a lovely desk. It has one deep- and two shallower drawers on one side, a wide one in the middle, and two-shelves for books on the other side. In an old family album, there’s a photo of it, circa 1949, next to one of the roof supports in the living room of the John Lautner home in which I grew up. 

Three years after my father left, I claimed his desk and painted it a lovely shade of avocado green with gold trim in all the little crevices carved on the maple front.  I also painted the wooden drawer-pulls gold. At the same time, my thirteen year old taste dictated that I paint the high-boy mahogany dresser to match. What a gaudy set! But I did it all by myself. For permission to do something so abominable, I’m thankful to my mother. It WAS empowering. It DID help me to have confidence in my ability to tackle and complete a project - TWO projects. Well, three... she also let me paint my bedroom apricot and cocoa brown. Maybe she was into cheap labor, but in truth, I think she had a keen sense of adventure and figured it wasn’t life threatening and it might be life enhancing to let me paint my own room and furniture. She was correct.

I recall the next challenge that arose the summer before I turned sixteen. Mom and my step dad, Papa Leo, allowed me help build a cinder-block wall with re-bar, and to pick-out and put-in the neon-ORANGE wall paper and tasteful white linoleum floor tiles for the new bathroom they built so I could have my own suite at the other end of the house. They wanted privacy, and by then, little brother Steve was nearly two years old and required the only other bedroom.

So, Abe Osheroff, a barrel-chested veteran of the Lincoln Brigade, who helped topple Franco’s reign in Spain, served as contractor to our friend Arthur Silver’s architectural renderings for an add-on to this Lautner gem. What were they thinking? Who in his right mind would amend an original Lautner in any way?

I feel guilty for being the impetus for my folks to even consider such blasphemy.

Back to the desk change...

My older brother Mel helped MOVE that maple desk six times within a year and a half,  when I was eighteen to twenty, and uncertain  about who I was and where I wanted to live and with whom and what I wanted to do with my life. That desk served as dining room table in one configuration; side board in a dining room with another roommate, and an actual desk in a few apartments.

When I married, the desk came with. Before giving birth to our first daughter in October 1976, I decided to gift my beloved with a “new” maple desk. I stripped the God-awful green and gold paint, sanded it smooth as a baby’s bottom, and put on several coats of varnish. Except for the wee bit of green and gold in those pesky crevices, you can’t tell it was ever re-imagined (defaced) by a thirteen year old.

At some point, I think when we moved to this current home, Mark got a built-in desk and I had the old maple wonder back. It has served us well.

Only after years of healing my childhood wounds, and after I began to write more regularly and seriously, did I begin to feel the desk might be haunted. I began to dream of using something other than my father’s desk for my writing. It became clear, in a number of therapy sessions, that it might be a good idea to find my own desk. I went so far as to peruse second hand shops and search on-line for stand-up configured desks. The former were too cheesy; the latter too expensive. 

Last Thursday night, alone in the house, I was writing at the ol’ maple desk and listening to the radio, which sits atop a large roll-top desk, which we purchased when we moved into this house. Both desks ended up in the room which I now call my office. It used to be a bedroom for our younger daughter. I use the roll top for storage. It's too far from the computer plugs to be a writing desk.

From across the room, I kept looking at the radio on top of the roll-top and then looking quizzically and maybe a little disdainfully at the ol’ maple. At 9:30 pm, I decided to try to swap them. I figured that if I could take the weighty contents of the drawers out of each, I could move both pieces. It proved to be more difficult and time-intensive than I’d imagined. Eventually, the five-and-a-half foot by nine foot rug had to be turned, to go lengthwise across the room - opposite to its original orientation, but the rug also allowed me to slide things around without gouging the wood floor.

Many women I know seem quite self-reliant and creative when it comes to moving heavy furniture. Several of my gal-pals know that it’s easier to complete a creative urge without editorial commentary or “help” from a well-meaning, but design-challenged guy.

Sometimes, it’s easier just to DO it than to explain it... especially if the final vision is a work in progress.

When my honey returned from camp Friday night, I showed him my new office arrangement. “Why didn’t you ask for help?” he asked with a mixture of disbelief, hurt and protectiveness of my “weaker-sex” physiology. Bless his heart and strength, I know both are in the right place. Now my desks are too, and I didn’t have to compromise his back or patience as I figured out just how everything should go.

By one O’clock Friday morning, it was good enough - dusted, vacuumed, books in place, good to go! By Sunday night, it was all set for the trial run... TA DA... first blog post from MY desk - not my dad’s!

Our older daughter used her Gran’pa Howard’s desk Sunday night, in its new position, to be close to the wi-fi connection in my office. She never met my dad and has no cootie baggage about him that I know of. 

Who knows where the ol’ maple desk will end up? I expect it will be purified of any negativity and be useful to someone in the family for years to come. Maybe the glorious four-ish granddaughter, who lights up our hearts with joy, will need a desk one day. I wonder how it will look painted pink.

Freeway Zipper Unstuck

zipper 

sticky

two lines 

of cars 

merging 

into

one lane

metal

nubbins

one then

other

right then

left and

then there’s

nothing

moving

‘cause the

stream comes

to a

stand still

sticky 

zipper

freeway

not free

no flow

at all

stuck fast

no go

go slow

zipper

is STUCK!

how long

'til we

glide smooth

again?

ray-dee-

oh, good

comp-an

knee, yay!

now there’s 

movement

zipper

zipping

cars move

again

onto

freeway

yippy

zipper

unstuck

My beloved asks, "Do you know why they call it the '405?'" 

"No, I don't."

"Because you don't know if it will take you FOUR o' FIVE hours to get where you're going!"

Recently, the transition from the 101 to the 405 was so slow that my charmin' Garmin GPS screen asked me if I wanted to switch to Pedestrian Mode. Alone in the car, I laughed out loud. If I COULD have ditched the car and walked to Santa Monica, it might have been faster.

Curious, Sunday afternoon, to see the line-up of cars at the Forest Lawn exit in both directions off the 134. So sad. Too many dead dads. Now, we know where all the flowers have gone!

Hoping you had a pleasant day in which to remember the dads who may be close to your heart.

My favorite father is very lively and he's the one my children are lucky enough to call "Dad." 

Feliz dia de los padres, Pun!

Attitude? Gratitude!

“Don’t turn out the lights! Don’t turn out the lights!” Dad came out of the morphine induced coma and began jumping up and down on the bed. It took three orderlies at the Long Beach VA hospital to restrain him and shoot him up again. Weak as he was, he struggled to to push them off. 

Mel and Uncle Bob reported to us back at Bob & Nora’s home in Redondo Beach - the hub of pre-shiva-sitting while Howard slowly died - that his eyes were wild and he was frothing at the mouth while he jumped. Clearly, part of him was not ready to die. His cancer-riddled body could no longer support his will.

He’d once been a boxer, a soldier, a street-car driver, a newspaper photographer, movie maker, chain smoker, friend, lover, husband, and father. While he was a son, something must have gone terribly wrong inside. Something must have bent the twig that grew into the tree called Howard Wilbur Maxwell. Something was not quite right with him.

My guess is that in the web spun by death, he was caught with remorse of such proportions as to catapult him out of the coma for one last chance to set things right. I wish I could have been there. I wish I could’ve heard from his mouth the nature of the frantic effort. I hope it was, in part, that he wanted to apologize to Mel and me for his drunken tirades, lewd acts and abuse. Here is my fantasy:

Hazel eyes plead, “Forgive me, my children, please forgive me.” From behind closed lids, salt drops squeeze, falling, spreading a gray puddle as the institutional white pillow slip meets its plastic core. Mel and I sit side by side. I’m sixteen He’s twenty two. Our father holds and strokes the backs of our hands with his neat, square-nailed thumbs. Nicotine stains his fingers amber.

I can't bear to look at his sunken cheeks, protruding collar bones, toothless mouth. Mel stares at his own shiny Navy dress shoes. I wish I could hear Mel's thoughts. I reach with my other hand to hold his free hand. 

Our Father, who ain’t in heaven yet, Howard is his name, continues: “I wish we’d had doctors instead of lawyers back in 1959, kids. I didn’t want to leave you. I wish I could’ve bound my own wounds so as not to pass the lashes on to you. I’m so very, very sorry for all you had to endure at the hands of my drunken self. I so wish I could’ve spared you the pain. I so wish I could’ve made it right with your beautiful mother, Barbara.

Please know that I will always love and cherish you and watch over you as you grow into the selves you came to be on this planet. As much as Angelically possible, I will guard you and protect you from harm.” Dad squeezes our hands and closes his pleading hazels. Lids are almost translucent. I imagine him watching even as his eyes are closed... now, closed on this side of the veil... to be opened anew on the other side.

Mel squeezes my hand and I return the reassurance as both of our noses drip and our cheeks run with tears of gratitude. The three of us united in some bond of understanding and forgiveness. 

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

In the late 1980’s, when I was actively healing from the wounds of my childhood, I had a recurring vision of a cobalt blue arrow that I came to associate with my father... as if he was present when that vision came... as if he was pointing out the way of possibility. It was a comforting and re-patterning presence - much the same as the night, about six months after he died - that I sat straight up in bed and moved over to make room for Dad to sit down.  While I didn’t see the mattress depress, I felt it as he sat in brilliant, quiet, comforting presence.

Yesterday, in conversation with Emma, whom I've known for twenty years, she allowed as how her husband of 47 years was an alcoholic, and how mean he could be when drunk. I told her, my dad was like that too, but that I wouldn’t trade what happened to me back then for anything, even though it was painful and left tread-marks on my psyche. I am so lucky and filled with gratitude every single day, that I made it through those early years, and was able to find competent healers to help compost the garbage. The healing helps me to sit in presence with folks who have big feelings. I know something of big waves, and the ebb and flow of them. Surfing Howard’s rages taught me how to watch the tides and know that they rise and fall - the frothy swells, not too dissimilar from Howard’s final jumping, frothing farewell. I’m so lucky to have found love; so lucky to have found and married Mark. Not passing on (too many) wounds, perhaps our biggest gift to our children.

Emma, too, has highly competent and functioning children and grand-children. She and I agree that gratitude is the best attitude.

From the Heart

Nick & Gnarly went to town

to show their pretty hearts

When they got there all could see

the differences between ‘em

Nick’s was smooth and oh, so plump,

The people ooohed and aaaahed

Surely there had never been 

A heart as glistening pure

Unscathed, unblemmished, soft, it truly was a marvel

Unbowed, and upright Nick’s youthful pride apparent

He strutted, preened, he winked and twinkled

Puffed from adoration

All the while o’l Gnarly smiled; wistful full he waited

For Nick to finish his parade, time grew ripe, Gnarly took the stage

Notice for your viewing pleasure this scarred and sacred heart

This here gash, the one that goes from bottom up to top

Is where I felt the stab of love that when lost made my heart stop

And this whithered bit that barely beats is where I kept my child

When we lost her, she took that part, so now, I’ve half a heart

The stories written in this old heart could fill a book that’s thick

And when you’ve done with reading it, you’re bound to learn the trick

That love is worth the battering that life worth living gives

That love - full hearted love - that’s filled with life’s full passion

Will trump the prettiest clothes we’ve learned to call full fashion

The people paused and held their breath, they looked from Nick to Gnarly

All who favored one over t’other silently moved beside him.

Bit by crowding bit they chose to side on the side of beauty

When all had chosen, surprise reigned as all were gathered 'round Gnarly

The people learned a lot that night, they learned to value love

Nick’s heart got it’s first full nick, and he swore to gather more... 

The nicks of time and living life give loving hearts their beauty

Nick and Gnarly contested theirs and each fulfilled his duty.

If you should meet them some day hence, be sure to ask to see them

Hearts of breath-taking and hallowed architecture

Hide

Thin skin. The skin I’m in. 

Thinning more each day.

Shin skin. Chin skin.

Shedding along the way.

What’s the skin, but boundary? 

What’s you is outside my hide; 

What’s inside my hide is me. 

What becomes of hide if you slide?

Thin shin & chin skin. Slide into home; tear-up my hide.

What a metaphor my sore knees were for sliding into home. 

Nearly everyday, on my way from the Fox’s house to home, 

I’d slide in all alone... 

Scrape my knees

On gravel in between 

Our houses on top of the hill. 

You could hear me scream so shrill. 

Needing comfort, needing knees to be tended to. 

See me! See how coming home hurt, won’t you?!

My Conception Journey ended with a bumpy landing. 

WAIT! 

Wrong womb! 

W-A-A-A-I-T!! I was pushed! 

W-A-A-A-A-A-I-I-I-TTTT! NO FAIR!!!

I didn’t mean to DROP in H-E-E-E-E-R-E!!!

Take me baaaaack to baby heaven.

Let me choose the folks for me!

NO! NOT this place, please!

These are not my people!

Mercifully, mom could sing - even though her sight was blocked.

Mercifully, mom could rock - ‘though she knew not that daddy’s cock 

was going where it shouldn’t ought.

Let me hide my hide so he won’t whup it.

Let my hide be spared his rod.

Let me hide my hide so he won’t see it.

Let my hide be spared, by God!

I couldn’t believe in God on high

When daddy s-l-i-m-e-d me - mouth to thigh

Daren’t ask Jesus’ help to fly...

He’d asked so nice and was left to die!

Hiding hide became my practice

Closet safety my specialty

Hide my hide in trees and grasses

Great outdoors my sanity

Daddy drinks and daddy stinks

Just the same as Don

Fox... and Jacky’s daddy John

All daddies drink and stink, me thinks

All the daddies and their wives 

Are running for their lives

Just after war, lest we forget

Water forgets not it’s wet

Big brother is a bother

Acting much the same as father

Drank at ten when I was four

Drank from then and ever more

Who will save this freckled hide?

Who will mend this mangled pride

Who, indeed, can make it better?

Grammy, maybe. Wrapped in her sweater

I’m protected and calm

Her love, her prayer - a healing balm

At her house, I can be seen

And daddy here is rarely mean

Grammy sees me, so does Nora

Kay Harris, too, shore ‘n’ begorrah

It takes so little to help a kid

Just see her and she stops the skid

From light to total dark

She turns, rebounds with every quark

Going lightward full speed ahead

Going upward, shedding dread

Soon there’ll be no need to hide

With daddy on the other side

I’ll write and sing without any fears

Wet cheeks’ reward are joyful tears

So, Memorial Day plays double duty

Commending Dad and Bro 

Who fought for country, love and beauty

Not so very long ago

I remember, too, the girl whose hide has healed

Whose sentence was repealed

The one whose gratitude is infinite

For Grammy’s love like granite

The rock on which I could depend

Foundation of love unconditional

I suppose it’s simply traditional

That Gran’mother’s love never ends.

Heidi Hi, Heidi Ho.

Heal the hide and away we go!

Grand Night for Flying...

A fish flops into the bay as if thrown. No one is around. Then, another flops, and another and another. My heart beats faster. It’s my very first real sighting of flying fish!

Mission Bay, San Diego, California, USA, May 17, 2013.

They’re REAL, not just some fictional CGI critters as in Life of Pi, and not just “fish out of water”, but rather creatures at the effect of some strong life force impelling them upward.

The correlations I make between fish leaping in - what... joy? biological imperative? - and the healing and returning resilience I’m privileged to witness in people at this Advanced Training in Somatic Experiencing, as each participant sheds limiting beliefs and constrictions in the nervous system, seem credible to me. The same upward rising impulse is present in each. There’s just no knowing how that thrust of life longing for itself will manifest.

It’s grand to be gob-smacked with delight at this wacky universe, and I am!