brass cup accordion

thin and frail
he's walking down
the middle of the vacant
graveled street tucked in a
no-man's land between
the busy bridge and a freeway
where commuters fly by
in their oblivious stupors...
except me... i'm captured
by this apparition of a
starving musician,
his accordion trails him
on a tiny pair of wheels
with a rickety metal handle
which he drags behind
him slowly, his other hand
clutches a small brass cup
that looks more like a
miniature spittoon with its
small rim bending outward
like a silent beggar's hand...
as i pass him, i note his
buck-toothed smile and receding chin,
a dark slab of hair hangs
across his face like a half
drawn curtain, he leans in
the direction he's headed
still nothing about him hurries...
it's like he's a glistening
bubble floating by, but more
precious and fragile

the right illusion?

if you have 15 minutes,

first watch this, then come back to read

the rest of the blog...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU


at age 10 on the school playground,

my best friend and i had a favorite

"sport" that involved two adjacent

swings. the swing set at our catholic

school was industrial strength, with the

thick iron poles planted firmly in the

asphalt, the structure never rocked

even a micro-inch no matter how

wildly you were swinging... so my

friend and i discovered that if we

sat in two adjacent swings and each

walked backward as far away diagonally

from the other as we could, and then ran full speed

in an arc toward eachother, the chains of

our swings would spiral around eachother

winding us up into this ball of energy

and then reach a point of maximum

tension which would then begin to

uncoil in a wild spin full of centrifugal

force that left us giddily dizzy and giggling

with uncontrollable joy. each time we

made the charge toward eachother,

i discovered i could make the ride

even more intense if i leapt into the

air and leaned outward as far as i could

just before our chains met, and being

the intensely physical person that i am,

i strove to charge faster and lean out farther

each time. this was all very wonderful until

that moment my left forehead hit the

unforgiving solid pole planted in the ground.

i bounced back as if my head had been

a rubber ball hitting a wall and stars

dazzled me blind... i nearly lost

consciousness, but i am a hard headed

one, so i dismounted the swing and

walked to the nurses office where a

huge knot the size of a golf ball formed

on the left side of my forehead....

to make a long story short, i often wonder

if the damage to my left brain (the place

where linear thinking occurs) has left

me predisposed to experience life more

from a right-brain perspective.

having watched the scientist in

the video (linked above) describe

the expansive sensations of her spiritual

awakening and realizing her descriptions

perfectly echo some of my most profound moments

of spiritual enlightenment reached through

meditation, i'm left in awe and also feeling

perplexed by the idea that my brain function

can so intensely affect my perception of reality...

which in turn makes me realize the zen buddhist

concept of everything being an illusion is

is for me a deeply true wisdom.

barefoot pajama gardener

fair morning light blinks me awake
through green jasmine leaves...
gardening barefoot in my pajamas

tending to the garden
was my spouse's thing
now he's gone and
taken his green thumb
to more exotic gardens

i'm almost shy getting
to know my garden here
timidly coaxing it to
become my new friend

asking it to accept
my imperfection, my
clumsy attempts to provide
what things it needs

nobody but a garden
wakes as early as i do
nobody but a garden
has enough life to take
up all my morning energy

(um... wait, that's not exactly,
completely true...i have to admit,
there've been some times when
a man drew bliss from all my
good morning energy)

i'm reminded of this
noticing how kfog's acoustic sunrise
seems to be featuring songs
i'd interpret as encouragement
to those of us stepping into
springtime without a true love
by our side... songs like
csny "carry on"
the who "bargain"
chris isaak "solitary man"

all these make me
relax and let go of the idea
that i am alone in being alone,
make me realize i'm really
pretty happy here by myself
gardening barefoot in my pajamas

go out and love the world

one profile question on a buddhist dating service asks "what three people would you like to have dinner with?" my answer was: jesus because he was a rebel for love, leonardo da vinci because he was a visionary inventor and artist, and laurie, my writing teacher because she is brilliant, courageous and would ask tough questions that would set the conversation on fire... (i didn't choose the buddha because i imagine him to be an enigmatic man of few words, and who wants that at a lively dinner party?) anyway... one guy responds to my profile saying he liked that i would invite jc to my dinner party. and i thought "wow. i never think of jesus as having a nickname, but yeah" and then this morning i notice that my favorite columnist in the sf chronicle (who's agnostic by the way) shares the same initials: jc. i see a lot of similarities between the two jc's... they are both outspoken they both preach love and they both are/were very charismatic. so i read jc's article this am after my beautiful swim on this gorgeous spring morning and he's talking all about torture... not exactly the same groove i was in but that's what i also like about both jc's... they shake things up and make you think, they take risks and encourage us to open ourselves to love one another... here's the link to jc's article: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/ now go out and love the world.

seen

the winter sun, low in the sky
baking a coral glaze onto bare branches
of tan birch trees lined up waiting for
this moment of benediction
_____________

young sepia skinned girls gathering
under cypress trees on the cliffs
above the ocean, waves crashing
against the earth, their soft voices
speaking in their mother tongue,
headdresses woven with stones,
shells and urchin quills rest like
crowns on their glossy black hair,
the shells dangle and clatter in the wind
their fathers walk by with their flutes
and stringed instruments, playing a
song that weaves itself between the
sound of their voices and the sound
of the waves...
this was my beautiful dream
last night
___________________

the curve of my son's neck, his
face drifting downward to kiss his
beautiful girlfriend goodbye with
the glow of the tiny porch light mightily
holding back winter's darkness

good mom

your sixteen year old kid goes to bed
feeling intense pain in his stomach
you give him tums, remind him to
drink water, put a bowl by his bed
and tell him you'll check on him later

you sleep until 1:30 am and do as
you promise... he's still in pain, you ask
about his symptoms, you put a thermometer
in his mouth, you describe to him your zen
breathing techniques, describe how to go into
the pain bringing his full attention to it, you tell
him not to resist the pain, to accept it in as though
it was his new best friend, you tell him to breathe
into his belly and then to push the breath down
through his leg into his big toe and then exhale from
his big toe, you tell him to keep breathing that way
into the next toe and the next and the next and the next
and keep doing that slowing breathing through all
the parts of his foot, then up the leg and continue
all the way through every part of his body,
then you leave him and go online to check out
the meaning of his symptoms, you return to him
and take the thermometer, he stands up and a
bewildered look crosses his face... he says:
"the pain's gone! it's completely gone!"
you smile an inward smile,
thinking silently to yourself:
"you're a good mom"

bad mom

that moment that you
get angry at your kid for
everything all at once;
all of the stuff that
you've been holding inside
and stewing over
is not a good moment...

your heart fills up with poison
and you hear the angry words
start spewing out your mouth
all about attitude, self-centeredness,
lack of communication, disrespect,
the consequences of his careless
actions landing on your shoulders
instead of on his, where they belong....

it really sucks to let yourself
come unglued and become so
intense, but man, when i was his age
i was incredibly responsible...
i was raising cattle and chickens,
always did my farm chores and homework
pretty much getting all A's in school....
but it was out of fear of the
consequences: getting hit or shunned,
and out of having no social life
outside of school hours...
so there's a big difference
between his life and mine.

aauuuuggghhhhhh!

maybe i'm just angry
that he takes the good
things in his life for granted

or maybe i'm angry at myself
for not helping him learn how
to really appreciate what he has

not to be cheesy

ok, so i admit my new photo
seems a little over the top....
one friend said it reminded him
of those cheesy power tool calendar
photos you'd see in hardware stores
in the 70's, which is not at all the
image i want to create for myself,
so a little explanation is in order:

i am an outdoor gal who loves to work
with her hands especially if it involves
power tools. i've always wanted a sawzall
and when i went to help my sister and
brother-in-law do some work on their
cabin, i couldn't resist his sawzall... it's
sort of symbolic of me conjuring up enough
courage to sever some ties and rebuild
my life into what i think it can be.
so to me, this image is a little more like
the Rosie the Riveter poster reminding
me that i can do it.

fling

lately i've been giving in
to sudden impulses to fling things heedlessly:

frosting from a birthday cake playfully grazing my son's hair from across the party table

q-tips at my gym into the trash from way across the room

a coin found on the floor into a narrow necked 

ceramic vase 15 feet away

a woven basket of bread from across the kitchen onto the table
landing inches in front of the tall lit candle, making the candle wobble only a tiny bit and lose just one drip of wax onto the tablecloth

these things magically make it to their targets against all odds

i view this as some sort of sign that, having madly
flung myself out of my comfortable life into the unknown,
i am sailing in midflight and i will surely eventually land
exactly where i am supposed to