Deprivation

     Shades of the 1950’s I thought when I walked into the bathroom at the L.A. County Arboretum.  I could imagine women sitting on the metal stools brushing their stylized hair then  taking out ozone depleting tin bottles of hairspray and spraying with abandon,  mist falling in tiny sticky globulettes. To complete the touch up, golden tubes of lipstick, opened to unveil shades of red, (not pink nor orange nor white, those were in later times), were twisted to full height and applied sensuously to pursed lips that always kissed tissue or toilet paper to blot and hold the color.  The changing table was a nod to later times, beyond the 1950’s, into the 2000’s, when benches and chairs would no longer do for changing baby’s bottom.  Before the changing table, the mist of hairspray would have been mixed with the haze of cigarette smoke. 

     Standing in the bathroom imagining the scene, I felt deprived.  Glamorous times when bathrooms were more than places of necessity. But how glamorous are metal stools, cool to the seat, whether on summer or winter day? Elegance attempted though.  This had been a classy place.

      Even though I’m a native Californian and the Arboretum has been in existence since I was in single digits age wise, I’d never been there before my visit last month with a good friend of mine, a friend from my childhood. We choose a very hot day to wander the grounds, and we did not spend too much time wandering.  We vowed to go back.

     Before I went to the Arboretum,  I’d been thinking about deprivation, in a kind of what we once had sense, not in the we never had it sense.  Deprivation in the never had it sense would be another entry, another time, much heavier and would entail thinking about justice and fairness and equity, issues which sit on my sleeve and weigh my shoulders down, but which I don’t want to tackle today.  Today the deprivation comes from the sense of what we had and now do not.  So many things, so many places, so many notions and ideas. Not nostalgia, deprivation.

     In this kind of deprivation, what was gives way to what is now.  It is the gap between the was and the now that the feeling of deprivation fills.  For example, I am no longer young (whew, thankfully), but neither am I old (well, to some, but not in reality).  To shake off young or even middle age requires me to move into or towards old.  And here I sit.  I’ve been here for some time in my adult life but only now am connected to this feeling of deprivation.  I once could run around the bases after hitting a well pitched ball.  I once had long auburn brown hair.  I once had young children, adolescent children, young adult children.  I once taught school.  I once was married.  No longer.  I feel deprived.  I feel like the metal stools waiting for the return of the glamorous 50’s, lined up in a row before the mirror occupied now only by schoolchildren who realize they can sit and stare in the mirror rather than stand and stare in the mirror.

    My feeling of deprivation doesn’t define me.  Instead it serves to remind me of a fulfilling past.  A past that has grounded my future into which I will age with wisdom, hopefully, so that I can continue to see the use of this type of feeling of deprivation as a filler and connector, and then write about the injustice in the world when deprivation does not lead to hope.  In that sense of being deprived, what was, is.  But it need not be.  That is my hope.

Certainty

   Most of us live our lives as though we know what is going to happen in the next minute or the next hour or the next day.  We plan.  Sometimes we plot. Always we seek certainty and control.  The feeling of uncertainty is unbalancing and few desire unbalance in life.  What about thrill seekers? We all are thrill seekers in some way.  Some are a bit on the edge and crash through life focusing on challenging life to its limits.  But still, this is a kind of search for certainty.  To choose to face an element of danger and feel an adreneline rush is to find the certainty that there will be an adreneline rush, a kind of antidote against feelings of uncertainty.  Who wants to ponder that life is uncertain?  Too frightening.  So we plan and sometimes plot and often plod along.

     I’ve been thinking about uncertainty a lot recently.  A heavy conversation in my head about the limits of control.  I want to be okay with uncertainty in not such a dreadful way.  I want to return to my understanding of uncertainty as the conduit for possibilities.  I’ve had that intuition before and I’ve been dissecting uncertainty for a while from the feeling of dread.  This has given me firmer grounding.  Yes, life is uncertain. Yes, shit happens. But, the feeling of uncertainty connects me to life and to all others living.  There is nothing ominous about connection to life and connection to others.  Instead, there is hope. Each of us on a similar journey. A hopeful journey.  A journey filled with possibilities in uncertainty.  Possibilities of success and failure.  Possibilities of joy and sadness.  Possibilities of future understanding.  Probabilities of attempts at control.  Certainty of the uncertain.  Before each of us is a door and then endless doors of possibility.  The adventure of life, the adventures in life continue.  Relax. Take a deep breath.  Open the door.

chicken soup

Some need a sip of chicken soup

to soothe a troubled soul.

Slurping but a thimbleful

connects parts to the whole.

Others find a spoonful

satisfies the inner need

So pursing lips,

inhaling slowly,

they procede with latent speed.

Many need a bowl or cup,

Especially from time to time

To satiate that emptiness

that disconnects

their rhythm from their rhyme.

And some, a clear minority?

An extra needy group,

should fill a swimming pool

to be

enveloped

in

chicken soup.

   

unless you don't want to ; )

Breakdown Boxes

 I had been photographing blue sky and water and a bee that had landed on a flower and driftwood on the beach.  I was walking back to my place along the houses on Officer’s Row at Fort Worden in Port Townsend,  when I noticed the trash cans of various kinds, labeled for glass and plastic and non-recyclables.  My eye was drawn to what I took to be a misuse of a direction to break down the boxes and put them in this place.  I chuckled at the bending of the English language when two words become uncomfortable as one, snapped a photograph, and felt smug in catching an unintended joke.  When I noticed the boxes that had been stuffed into that container, I understood  differently.  Yes, in fact, some people do use beer as a breakdown box.  Some people use drugs,  Some people use escape and  addiction, we’ll just put it at that.
     But we all have our different breakdown boxes because we all, at one time or another, no matter our age or status or education or background or region or sex or ethnicity or any of the labels that separate us, come together in person-ness, because we all eventually have some sort of ritual of breakdown.  When the blip comes, we instinctively reach for something or someone who can balance our beam, who can teeter our totter, who can homeo our stasis.  Off kilter and off balance is the land we often inhabit before growth. Sometimes it’s a scary land and to contain it we need a box. A breakdown box.  A container that holds us  as we slowly climb out and make our way back to blossom, to be the opening flower, face to the smiling sun, the comforting moon. 

Pier Eye

      Friday I took a drive with my daughter to Santa Barbara to visit my son, her brother.  She had to be home early in the evening because friends were visiting.  He assured us he wouldn’t be able to spend too much time because he was working on his music.  We all knew it would be an up and back trip.  A bit over three hours in the car for a three hour visit.

      Driving up in the bright sunshine of the January day, talking about not much and everything, we arrived on the coast to see the ocean flat, like a lake.  The Channel Islands were visible in the distance, not as vague shapes, but as clearly defined peaks and valleys, separated across the waveless sea.  My focus on them,  I didn’t notice the oil rigs that dotted the channel between the coast and the islands. 

      We decided to spend the first part of the visit eating at a Japanese restaurant.  We talked about nothing and everything.  Next stop was the Goleta beach where we walked onto the very long pier to its end.  I snapped pictures of the seaweed in the water, the gulls along the pier, the river entering the ocean, a flock of pelicans, and my son and daughter delightfully hugging, posing for a picture at the end of the pier.  On the way back I snapped pictures of the shore, a shipwreck in the distance.  I looked down on the wooden planks of the pier and noticed the knothole.  I  bent to take a picture through the hole, then noticed the eye shape.  Even on macro the camera would not click.  I was too close.  I called my 6 foot plus son to come and take the picture.  I told him he was further away and I wanted the picture.  I love to find human presence in unexpected places. I especially like to find it in wood.  He took three pictures.

      As we walked away I wondered about creative license.  Who held it? I found the shot, he pulled the shutter.  I decided I’d give us both credit. After all, my original intent was to take it minus shadow.

     As I look at the eye, I don’t now see it as human.  I think the skin around it distracts me.  An elephant perhaps?  I do know the knothole reminds me of something living. Something alive. Like the day.

     We left the pier and went to the Monarch Butterfly preserve.  The butterflies mesmerized us as we sat on the logs and looked up in the glen. I could have sat for hours. But, she had to get back for her friends, and he had to get back to his music.  Reluctantly, each of us left, commenting about the connection to the experience.  A quick trip to his music space, a quick meeting and hug with my daughter-in-law, then back to the freeway and to home.

     The restaurant, the beach, the pier,  the preserve, the day. Memorable.  Connecting.  Freeing. Floating. Like the monarchs on their yearly path. Like the watchful eye. Waiting for discovery. Patient. Peaceful.

Circumstantial Friends

      Serendipitious. Wondrous. Glad I had time to get the camera-ous. Parked on a side rail waiting for a freight.  Some rule of the rails that freights have the right of way to passenger trains, which are apparently not carrying precious enough cargo.  When you ride the train you are on rail time which is a very different time than real time.  Rail time means delays. Rail time means you musn’t be in a hurry.  Rail time means taking time to look out the window as much as possible, especially when the train is stopped.

      At this most wonderful place to take a side rail, I met two circumstantial friends from more than halfway around the world.  Circumstantial friends is a concept I’ve coined to define those people who enter your lives when you don’t expect them to, affect you in some way with a deeper connection you can’t fathom, then, just as quickly as they’ve entered and shared, they’re gone.  You can meet these people anywhere, from a quick meeting in line at a store or in a doctor’s office where you share some kind of meaningful talk, not banter, not chatter, but talk that is real communication, to shared places on vacations, or conventions even. Airplanes, trains, ships are common places to meet circumstantial friends as well.  You may even exchange phone numbers or addresses or e-mails, but most likely no one will use them to maintain contact.  Somehow you know that the friendship you share in that moment is precious and specific to that moment.  A circumstantial kind of thing. It comes along when you both need it and then it is gone, except for the smiles of reminiscences when the meetings come to mind.

    My circumstantial friends were from South Africa and I first encountered them at the window in the lobby of the train when it had stopped on the siding.  I was standing there enjoying the happy coincidence of stopping at this beautiful spot,  and he (these people often don’t have names) came out of his room.  I mentioned that this was not such a bad place to stop.  He looked out the window and uttered a sigh.  He called for his wife who made her way to the small platform in front of the window.  Feeling like I’d soaked up the scene I moved back and motioned for her to stand next to her husband.  At this point we exchanged some banter about the incredible scene, I took some pictures, I enjoined them in the very American way to have a nice day.  As I walked up the stairs to my room I wondered what part of Britain they were from and if they were here on vacation or if they’d immigrated here.  I found out when another chance occurrence cemented our circumstantial friendship.

    Reservations are necessary to eat on the train.  I chose one o’clock for lunch.  As a single I was guaranteed to meet new people at the four-seat table.  I was placed at a table with Jerry, a real estate appraiser from California who sat opposite me and spoke so loudly I thought he was deaf or hard of hearing. As we were chattering, well, as Jerry was shouting at me, the silver haired couple that I’d shared the beautiful reflection scene with were seated at our table.  After some changing around in chairs owing to his actual deafness and the fact that he wanted his hearing ear to be towards the center of the table, he asked Jerry his name.  He said their names, but for some reason I don’t remember them. What I do remember is what a wonderful and intelligent conversation ensued at that table over lunch.  We stayed seated for over an hour after we’d finished, avoiding the glares of the waiters and steward who for some reason would not chance asking us to leave.  We talked about the economy,  and about the state of education in the United States and  apartheid in South Africa which, I now knew, was where my friends were from.  He had just retired as a Professor of Education.  She was a former teacher.  They had just come from visiting their daughter and grandchild in Australia and were now on their way to visit another daughter and another grandchild in Seattle.  They decided to take the train from San Francisco. Their daughter had paid their way.  As I was learning this, Jerry kept shouting and attempting to monopolize the conversation.  Jerry was very opinionated.  Something about Jerry did not cement him for me as a circumstantial friend.

     He, the professor, casually asked me how much it would be to take the train. He quickly followed with the fact that his daughter had paid their way and he wanted to reimburse her.  I told him I wouldn’t tell him.  I told him to accept the generosity of his daughter.  Sometimes, I said, our children want to do things for us to thank us and just don’t know how to do so.  Let her do this, I told him.  But I also assured him it was not too much.  Reluctantly, our conversation ended when we reached Eugene, Oregon.  I wanted to go and get some fresh air and to avoid waving to the prisoners. We said goodbye and godspeed.

     I never saw Jerry again but I saw the professor and his wife when I got off the train in Portland. I am known by my children and by friends who pick me up or take me to train stations, as not being one to pack lightly.  And, I did not this time either.  I had four bags.  But, I had a system.  Two suitcases rolled with four wheels and I could put the to smaller duffel bags on top of them.  I was proud of my system.  I got all the bags off the train and there stood the professor and his wife. He offered, no, insisted, that he would help me with my bags.  His wife concurred.  I followed him, she followed me, into the station.  I went to thank him and he kissed and hugged me.  I turned to her and we also kissed and hugged.  We wished each other a good trip.  As I rolled my luggage to find a cab, I thought about my friends.  I’d wished I’d exchanged e-mails, addresses, something to maintain the false promise that we’d get in touch again.  But, we wouldn’t.  My friends from around the globe definitely belong to my circle of circumstantial friends.  They will always be alive in my stories. I have the picture to prove it.

Yosemite, Dream within a Dream

 

       Up above the terra firma a band of effervescent bubblish dots enmeshed in a transluscent band---the Milky Way.  I stand on powdery dirt in the midst of cars  parked civilized and orderly even without lines to contain them,  and gaze upward to the blackness of the star salted sky.  On this night, in this place, away from city lights, with only the glow of campfires for illumination, I see what I often cannot see and yet, by faith, believe is always above me in the night

     I hear languages I do not understand as I pass by campfire after campfire on the way to my lodging.  The universal sound of laughter captures me as it wafts past.  I smile.  A rustle and a scream and a dust cloud as an animal breaks the line of my peripheral vision.  What?  The man in the next campsite says, “’Coon.  Big ass ‘coon.”  Southern, I think, in California we say ‘raccoon’. 

     After the last log turns to embers and the chill in the air overrides my need to sit in the open air, I trek to the bathroom, return to my campsite and hunker into my sleeping bag leaving only my head exposed.  The decibels of the noise of play and banter give way around me to the sounds of the night.  I think about the Milky Way.  I think about the stars I do not see in such depth in my citified existence.  I think about the absence of the moon that permitted the stars to emerge. I wonder--is it learned behavior that caused the stars to march in the band of the Milky Way or random behavior that caused the cars to be parked in order as if within lines? Is order in itself innate, neither random nor learned?

       On other nights beyond this, I sit in the courtyard of my home and see, peeking through the leaves of the four-trunked olive tree, the sliver of the crooked-smile moon, or the flashlight-orb of the full moon.  On those nights the stars are masked by glow of city lights and moon light.  I wonder about what I cannot see, what I do not know. What is on the backside of the moon, kept politely hidden in its veil of mystery? Beyond there, does a sentient being dwell within a courtyard and is the being capable of pondering the night, wondering about the unknown on the other side of the dark disk framed against a lighted background of our planet in the glow of its sun? Is the embrace of the dark and the light a connection between us?

      In my campsite the chill of the moonless night encourages me to burrow deeper into the mummy bag and pull the string until only my nose is visible.  I linger in the twilight before sleep where coherent thoughts give way to random images and the feeling of being covered by the night begins.  A clang so close startles me.  I pull myself from the pit of sleep. “Big ass ‘coon’” I hear through the still air. My nose disallows and sends to my brain, “Big ass skunk.”   As I once again float down into the unknown, into the depth of the night’s slumber, the raccoon leaps across the Milky Way, the skunk meanders through the stars.