Bridge from Then to Now

       Between childhood and old age is a bridge.  Beginning of the bridge, ending of the bridge.  Many off ramps to the span, off ramps that take us along mountains to climb, valleys to descend, beaches to walk along. But always, we return to the bridge.  For the beginning and the ending are invariably the same.  The routes taken are the variables.  Sometimes, I find myself sitting on the bridge, on the railing to the bridge, not contemplating shortening the bridge, but contemplating nonetheless.  What off ramp do I take?  Most recently as I sat there, on the fence, I contemplated the paths I’d taken, and wondered about the paths still to come.  Like salt and pepper, cinnamon and cloves, vanilla bean and cocoa bean, my mind became seasoned.

          What are these seasonings in life?  Those parts of me that color the me of today with the crayons of yesterday.  I am awash in internal color.  I am flooded with feelings. Mostly feelings I’d confined to the depths as a way to survive their terror in earlier parts of my life when I dare not feel them because in doing so I would understand hopelessness, I would not want to go on.  Now, I feel their intensity.  How could a child deal with feelings such as these?  Bury them deeply with grief and hopelessness.  And now, when they return, they return to tantalize me with thoughts that I am today, further along this bridge, as hopeless as that younger part of me who had no voice, no choice, no choice but to bury the feelings and to go on, to survive.  I am in awe of that younger me who went on, who survived, who flourished with achievements, who made a way in the world by connecting to school, to baseball, to friends.  Awesome. 

         I look behind me down the bridge and see this feeling me who did not deny life and the hope in life, but went forward as best she could, growing in strength, burying the feelings.  I sit and pause and feel and understand.  We are all those parts of us further back down the bridge, no matter what off ramps we have taken.  The beginning of the bridge is anchored in bedrock.  We cannot deny that child of ourself who has, to varying degrees, carried or buried our feelings for us for an entire lifetime waiting for us to connect so that we can be whole.  Often not an easy task, but one necessary for self-acceptance. 

       I still sit on the fence, because I am still pondering, still contemplating.  I’m not ready yet to move along intentionally, but I will be moved along as the world moves me along and I will react and then sit back on my fence.  I keep looking backward and waving, urging her to come along.  You contain my feelings, I tell her, I need you with me. After all, the bridge, for me, has always been about words and as I look forward I see many paths to take.   I may have the words, but you have the feelings and we are one.  The Alpha and the Omega. 

Rainbow Writer

   Two years ago I lived on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, soaking in the creative and peaceful energy that abounds.  I came for a semi-annual writers retreat sponsored by A Room of Her Own Foundation, AROHO.  I walked to my own pace, moved to my own rhythm, broke from what I must and should do, and for seven days I lived, as much as possible, the life of an artist, a writer.  I learned that writing is not only producing words on a page.  Writing is allowing my mind to be free to think, to let the unconscious bubble through to consciousness, without the filter of the day to day rhythm imposed on me in suburbia.  I talked with women who wrote poetry and novels and essays and memoir and creative non-fiction and short stories and chapbooks and published books and unpublished books.  I listened as well to their words, to what was under their words, to what surrounded their words. To what encapsulated us all, containing us together, enriching us.  And on the wind, in the sky, in the earth I saw evidence of connection.  Unspoken often, at other times understood as serendipitous. We spoke of our connections. And in the speaking,   I received a room of my own, a room within my soul that is engraved, writer.  In the summer of 2013 I am excited to return to polish up that engraving.

Voluntary Deportation Program

     Lots goes on in a plant.  Growth and withering.  Flowers blossomed and flowers to bloom.  A mirror of the human spirit, I think.  Often the plant is filled with the detritus of times past.  It hangs on to the plant but eventually time helped by wind and water and the inability to hang on any longer will drop the withered pieces to the earth where they’ll contribute to the richness of the soil.  Surrounding this past, though, is the future, the bulbs not quite ready to burst into flowers. Standing stretching towards the sun in their finest greenery.  An obelisk of potential and kinetic energy.

      I read about the failure of a voluntary deportation program wherein undocumented aliens could turn themselves  in and be deported. Free of charge, apparently.  No one would take them into the desert and tell them to cross the river or climb back over the fence. No.  These immigrants who had risked their lives to come to America and perhaps paid a large sum of money that they’d saved for years would be driven back over the border, or at least to the border, free to go back to whatever had driven them to leave their homeland in the first place.  The article was lamenting the loss of the efficacy of the program.  The article was serious in its tone.  That it was a failure...Duh!

     Seven or eight people had actually turned themselves in, a sad testament to a life lived in poverty in the United States.  Life in the United States worse than life from wherever they'd come?  Perhaps instead of returning to their land which held more promise, they were self-sacrificing decoys to prevent capture of other undocumented family members .  Perhaps they were thrill seekers who want once again to test the system.  Maybe they are those that understand that the cycle of immigration is like a plant.  Or, perhaps they are planning to come back soon, bringing along some friends,  now that the voluntary deportation program is over and they won’t have to face that decision again.  My larger question is what bureaucrat is paid a government salary to think up these programs?  Perhaps we need to ask that person to volunteer for voluntary deportation from that job.  Geesh! Missing in the obelisk of potential and kinetic energy department to be sure.

Sunsets

        I take many pictures of sunsets and few of sunrises.  Perhaps this is my  unconscious way of learning to deal with endings.  I don’t deal with them too well, but in photographing sunsets I learn to enjoy the beauty of endings.  Otherwise, I don’t see much good in them. Beginnings, on the other hand, are times of possibilities.  Yet I don’t photograph sunrises over and over again.  Perhaps I don’t need to be reminded that beginnings are often beautiful.  Or maybe it’s just because I usually don’t rise before dawn.

       I don’t suspect too many people deal with endings so well, even while realizing that the ending of something often gives room for the beginning of something else, something else which is another necessary part of growing and life and part of the journey.   Maybe the best we can do is to recognize endings graciously, if not gratefully.  I’m going to work on the gracious part, because I am way too far away from the grateful part. Until then, I’ll keep photographing sunsets to appreciate the beauty of endings. Sunsets far away.  With plenty of shadows in between.

Writing, the Water of Life

   In California we have this moisture that shows up from time to time and we call it rain.  A mist, really.  Sometimes a cloud burst.  Mostly just spritzing here and there.  I like the pouring down rain, but little of that arrives.  Be thankful (comes the injunction)  for any kind of rain that’ll help the drought or impending drought, or former drought.  Water, in any form, is necessary for life.

    Lately I’ve felt like my life mirrors a drought.  Torrential rain has fallen early and with lasting consequence.  A cloud burst here and there renews the pattern.  Of late, no cloud bursts, no torrential rains, but plenty of mist. Fog really.  No clear sunrises, no opaque sunsets.  Sameness of a spritz of  mist and relentless fog. Adrift. 

    Adrift is unsettling.  Fog is unsettling. Drought is unsettling. In the combination of the three,  deep change is welling.  I feel it, but I don’t yet know it.  My mouth is dry, I do not utter a word.  My mind in twisted, random thoughts force writing. Writing is hope for clarity.  Writing is faith in the future.  Writing is a ship cutting through the fog of the endless waveless sea, bringing me closer to sunrises and sunsets. I wonder. I think. I ponder. Writing, in any form is necessary for my life. 

    After the rain, after the mist, after the torrential downpour, after the drought, the water drops cling to the leaves.  The sepal opens, the bud revealed, with water droplets clinging. Water, in any form, is necessary for life.

Have you ever had a day that felt  in slow motion? A day when your body and mind seem steps apart? A day where even birdsong doesn’t seem beautiful?    No real problems, but then again, no real solutions?  Just a hum drum oh what shall I do and what about the future day.   Eyes feel like they have little tiny barbells on them.   Blink.  S l o w l y.  Aware of breathing in, breathing out. S l o w l y.

     On days such as this I feel  older than my  years.  And yet  actually I'm feeling quite young, a time when feeling overrode command of language.  At such times I feel too young to be in touch with what is good about life now, what my life is like now, a life that includes writing and photography and family and friends.  So young that I only feel.  I feel like the  granite of Half Dome on a grey cloudy day. 

     Feelings that come forward from the past flood my present life and skew my thoughts about the possibilities of today, about my life of today. On days like this I not only feel old, but poor.  Upon present day reflection  I  realize it is not about my bank account but about a poorness in spirit, about a time when I did feel impoverished, unwanted, unloved, unappreciated.  This part is an important part of who I am today. To be in touch with the feelings is an honor,  for to touch my past and bring it to the present is to learn more about where I’ve been and where I am.  Who I am.  But, like the Midwest floods, when the feelings come and grey up my day, I need for the water to recede a bit before I can reflect on the possibilities from now. With this method, two contiguous grey days are rare.

     Quickly the sky turns blue, the clouds become puffy white.  Half Dome  stands  in its granite splendor, beloved and a beacon of hope and sentinel of dreams. Without the Shadow in the  grey days, would the blue sky days be so beautiful? Without the feelings, life would be dull. 

AutoVettor Error

I've spent the past two weeks formatting my book Base Ball: Coming to the Show for ebook publication through Smashwords.  Attention to detail is the keyword to format a book.  I followed the Style Guide to a 't', I thought.  I hired a professional cover designer on fiverr.com.  Great deal.  Anticipating, with format complete and cover, beautiful cover, all ready, I uploaded.  I was 123rd in the queue.  The page refreshed.  I stared on it.  Reminded me of the spinning wheel of the early computer connections, or the test pattern of the even earlier television connection, that was also so fascinating and alluring.  Gave some understanding to me of why so many of us sit transfixed while watching a car chase on tv, when the newscasters have nothing left to say and produce monologs of mirthful ridiculousness.  We stare.  I stared at the screen as it refreshed and randomly exhibited lower and lower numbers until the boxes with the various downloadable forms turned color with spinning circular pattern to green.  From box to box this pattern repeated.   Complete.  Complete.  Complete.  Seven different conversions.  I was complete.  Until "AutoVettor Error".  Mr. Vettor-Error told me that my cover was too small and that I had mixed paragraph formats.  I could not have, he scolded, block paragraphs and indented paragraphs mixed.  I wrote an email to my cover designer and asked for more pixels.  I went through all the paragraphs in the book and removed the spaces before the first line of the next paragraph.  I uploaded again.  AutoVettor Error.  Over two days I looked for those damn dots in front of a word that signaled the paragraph was not block, I uploaded again.  I could not escape the man.  My new cover came back, still beautiful, with the required number of pixels.  Yesterday I went back to the Style Guide and  followed the Nuclear Method exactly and uploaded.  Damn!  I stared at the TextEdit document looking for a sign.  Click!  No indents, but my format code for paragraph was there.  I highlighted the document and hit "apply".  Indented paragraphs appeared.  I smiled.  How could I have missed this? Was this it?  I uploaded the new cover, the new document.  "Congratulations" was on the screen that had previously been shaded in red and now was shaded in green.  I did it!  I have published my first ebook.  Take that Mr. AutoVettor Error! The next time I'll know what to do from the start.  It's really not so difficult, just tedious, just learning to follow every direction and wait for the aha!  This is the beginning of my learning curve.  Now to the marketing, to the finding of an agent.  I will learn to follow every direction and wait for the aha!  But for now, I'll just take a breather.  After all, it's baseball season, and that is important in and of itself.