Love Letter

I can't believe that all I wrote about last time I was in San Diego was the KOA!
This time I was flown down for an interview for a Kindergarten job, something I had definitely not seen myself doing, but somehow it was worth looking into.
When I stepped off the plane and into the covered walkway (what is that called?) the ocean soaked air wrapped me in a delicious embrace! There was a little fog, but sun filtered through and eventually burnt it off. I was taken to a funky little coffee house for lunch. I had a curried chicken salad on a bed of greens and sprouts on a table covered in Mediterranean tiles. The whole visit I was waited on by one parent after another. My lunch hostess took me to the beach after the meal and we had a long walk, barefoot in the silky sand. The waves made infinite patterns of black sand on tan; stripes, spots, argyle! Next we strolled around botanical gardens, complete with a Hawaiian-inspired waterfall-scape. Then I was dropped off at my host family for the visit. They are yoga instructors and the house was full of beautiful Eastern treasures. Their daughter, who is in the class in question, and I became instant best friends! We played with her dollhouse, until a delicious supper of home-made pizza.
The visit was a whirlwind of meetings and class observations, but in between, they were careful to give me moments of tranquility, like an hour or so at the Meditation Gardens. The children were loud, but lovable, the parents were gracious and warm, the faculty was tiny and spunky. Thursday night dinner, hosted by a family the father of which is a pro skateboarder, was Caribbean burritos atop a mega ramp out in Vista, watching the sky turn purple over the inland hills. This is not something I would ever expect to do while visiting a Waldorf school, but it was perfect!
Everywhere I looked were vivid complementary colors, turquoise ocean and orange tile roofs, exotic red and pink blooms emerging from spiky green foliage. My feeling throughout the visit was that I was in paradise and elated! Whether they offer me the position or not, I belong in North County! I'll be there in a matter of weeks...or days!

Tidbits

I went to put on my favorite comfy, well-worn jeans this morning and found they had finally worn through in the seat. I am wearing them anyway. I had an unsuccessful visit to the Salvation Army to find new ones. Sniff!
My hair has been wild lately! There's just nothing to be done so I just stick a clip in the top of the mess to hold it out of my face and figure I look eccentric. When I want to look a little more chic, like today, I straighten it. That seems to take the fight out of it for a time.
In my very first post I gave credit for this blog's name to singer/songwriter John Mayer. Now I'm embarrassed! You may have seen him recently gracing the front pages of supermarket tabloids as the new romance in the life of...Jessica Simpson! I'm sure she's a lovely girl, but this is the person who asked on national television if Chicken of the Sea was chicken or fish! I am disillusioned and would change the name of this blog if it weren't so totally descriptive of my current state.
I said to my mom the other day that one of my chief complaints about the world is that it is too darn big! I want to sit down to a table piled full of my mom's healthy and deliscious cooking. I want to be able to sit on my sister's couch and chat with her and snuggle my niece. I want to go swimming in the river with Gwyneth and go for ice cream in Fort Collins and watch piles of romantic movies and make disgustingly sweet desserts. I want to go meet Alysoun's new baby Sophie and have a ramble through Tablehurst Farm in the moist English air. I want to sit around the table at Sarah and TR's on a Saturday morning, nibbling scones and listening to what Birchrunville used to be like before I was alive. I want to play board games and drink cocktails with my childhood buds. And I want to be able to do any of these things, and so many more, any time I want. My mom says I must be waiting for space travel to get more affordable.

Gardening Day

This morning I ate a fig fresh from the branch. There were only two ripe so far. Gwinnie had the other one. They always remind me of Siddartha. They are always comparing women’s mouths to ripe figs in that book. It’s beautiful and quite true!
I have been generally disdainful of the leaf blower and until this morning would have sided with the good old fashioned broom any day! But I had the walkways and the patios cleared in no time, and was free to put my hands to other good uses. I also blew off the driveway, which at first seemed slightly ridiculous, but boy did it look nice when I was done!
I wrestled the errant arms of some of the garden’s climbing inhabitants into submission. The roses needed to be pulled back from where they pinched at you whenever you went to the potting shed and the wisteria was slowly but surely campaigning to bind shut the garden gate. That was fun!
Then I took over at the lawn mower and laid waste to a massive stretch of lawn. That felt great, although I was wobbly kneed and resembling a tomato in the face when I was done.
At lunch I had a fresh peach straight from the tree; the perfect frame to a morning in the garden.
Somebody recently asked me to fill in this blank: In five years I could see myself… I wrote, “Tying back my own wisteria instead of someone else’s”. I am classically viewed by my family as the impractical one. I’m afraid of power tools. I don’t like to get my hands dirty. But somehow here I am magically transformed. Diana appreciates having someone to work with and its nice to be appreciated. It does not cross her mind that I am incapable, and so I’m not (except that I couldn’t start the mower and had to call her for help). In my formative years, there was always somebody around who could do it better than me, so I didn’t try. I also felt pretty useless and unnecessary. It is nice to have people around who know you and who you don’t have to explain yourself to, but it is also nice to have a chance to step out from under the mask you’ve worn and try on anybody you’d like to be.

Hard Workin' Dog

When I last left you I was going to check on the escaped dog who turned out to be sitting outside the neighbor's house serenading them. She seems to like to bark for the pure melodious tone of her own voice. To silly humans, it grows old. I dragged her back and then went about the nightly animal duties. I found that the cow had gotten through the fence and into the orchard and I tried to lure her back through with a bucket of grain. She had been willing to squeeze through the wires to get over there, but didn't seem to want to relive it quite so soon. I struggled with her for a good 1/2 hour and had nothing but a mud-caked boot to show for it. A call to the professionals said she'd find her own way back through in the night. I ached all over from weeding and cow wrestling and was so looking forward to sleep, but my eyes wouldn't close, and even lying down my joints hurt. I was just relaxing into slumber when Heavenly (the escaping dog) began to sing me a lullaby; she sleeps in the same room. We had encores every few hours. I was actually glad when the alarm went off at 7:15. It was sunny but crispy cold. 2 minutes after I served Heavenly her breakfast on the porch, she had escaped again, despite the furniture I had piled against the off-limits dog door, and off I went to give the neighbors back their quiet Saturday morning. Buttercup (the fence defying cow) was still in the orchard. This morning however she had grown tired of greens and had a yen for that molasses in her grain bucket, and accompanied by my cheerleading, she made it through. I was feeling pretty powerful as I cleaned out the chicken waterers. Llamas and cow were grained and hayed (I got a dramatic alfalfa splinter on the inside of my wrist, you know I'm proud of a good wound!)! I am old hat at chickens. I raised a whole batch for a 4H project. Back inside I thought I would never get warm, but eventually made a venture to town and baked myself in the car on the way. In the afternoon I took the boat out on the lake. It is a cool little solar-powered electric dingy. Evening chores were infinitely smoother this time around. I have just emerged from a soak in the hot tub where I aimed the jets at the knot in my neck that has kept me unable to turn my head to the right all day (a la Don Ironsides). That knot has four-legged, singing Houdini written all over it!
Aches and pains aside, it feels good to have handled all these things by myself. I am noticing how citified I have become, how little a modern person can participate in the things that sustain her, and how satisfying simplicity can be.

It would appear that my malaise of several days ago was due to my habit of holding myself outside of an experience out of, I suppose, an inability to imagine that it will be better once I am inside it. Its like standing at the edge of the ocean, each new wave making your feet ache anew with cold. But once you are in and used to the frigid water, it actually brings your skin alive!
Last night I babysat for a nearby farm family. All the way home I reflected on these amazing children! Ben is I think 10 and Maura is 4. Ben can tell you anything you want to know about fishing, livestock, or biodiesel. I had a full tour of their family's operation. He held the gate for his sister and me and has promised to give me a bass next time he's fishing on the lake. Maura can take fly masks off horses twice as tall as she and jump a creek in her good shoes without falling in. These children are the most grounded people I have ever met in my life! It was a school night for Ben, so he had to go to bed after we played a cooperative cat and mouse board game. I think most ten year old boys might have found that game simple; so the cat catches the mouse, whatever. But he applied all his logic, which was more than mine to bring the game off perfectly. Words don't do justice to observing how he was able to think. After he was in bead, Maura and I must have read 25 books. We had a few good giggles too, not baby, peekaboo giggles but genuine, isn't-life-hilarious belly laughs. It was a totally enjoyable evening!
I have some brilliant observations from my day in the garden but I am hearing a far off barking that may be one of the dogs in my charge. She is given to wandering. I'll keep you posted!

The Healing Power of Cows

In the kitchen, I feel it borders on a religious experience to watch silky, runny cream turns into clouds under the whisk, or spreadable yellow butter in a jar jostled in your hands. A tall glass of real, fresh from the cow, undefiled raw milk is my idea of nature's perfect food. I have long reveared the cow for her part in creating such miracles. I even helped milk once, long ago. I've been in the barn with cows, but I realized the other day when Buttercup the "miniature" bread Jersey weighing around 700 pounds almost slammed me against the side of the barn, that I had some bridges to build. Today while Diana was mucking cow pies, it was my job to brush Buttercup. Animals know when you are afraid and it makes them nervous and apt to act rashly, so I knew I had to stop looking at her as a steamroller and start being her caretaker. It came right back to me how you keep one hand on a large animal at all times, so they know where you are and that you're friendly. I know this from taking care of horses. I was the Pony Camp Champion! I also experienced the origin of the word cowlick. Her hair grows in a straight grain in places and then it swirls into a vortex, changing direction without rhyme or reason.
Other things I learned today are: how to put together a beehive, that bees will only cause trouble with you if you are angry, aggressive or wearing read, that llama droppings can go straight to fertilizing while cow manure needs to cook on the compost pile, that tree trunks need room to breathe, and that they make electric lawn mowers.
I've heard it said for years that practical work with the earth is one of the most effective therapies for the speed and isolation of our times and I thought that was very wise. This morning totally slowed down my racing mind and made me feel connected and sufficient.
After all our work, I joined Diana, her daughter Gwynnie and Gwynnie's babysitter (the word is not sufficient, this woman is a total pro) Karen for lunch. We made a delicious lentil soup together and had it with bread and butter.
I guess I'll stay for a while.

Hey, haven't I been here before?

I find myself in a very familiar situation. It is just like my first months in France and my first weeks in England. Sleeping a lot, reading, living for phone calls with familiar voices, and yet the phone system is complicated. And, like those adventures past, I am giddy with delight one minute and wretchedly depressed the next. I'd like this to be the last time I do this to myself. I will learn this lesson if it kills me, which I doubt it will!
Anyway, today I am up. I saw a pair of hummingbirds in the trees above my deck/dining room and yesterday a pair of flickers. These are surely good omens! My nest is so nice that I would be content never to leave it if I had some conversation, live or otherwise to fill it with. I know my mom would love it, and my sister too for that matter. And any number of my friends. But again, I have chosen to go it alone. What is that about?
This is my new mantra: I can have whatever my heart desires and I don't have to wait for it! Say it with me!

Choking on Steak

As a writer, I struggle with longer pieces. I'm not as much a storyteller as a photographer. My plot lines become contrived about one 1/2 to 2/3 of the way in, even if I'm writing from life.
I've noticed a parallel between my writing and my life. Life is an epic novel, at least, and I am forever trying to capture it in a short essay. It is as painful a process to read aloud a hideously malformed attempt at a short story as it is for me to explain myself to another human being. Maybe as a society we value the short personal statement above the artfully lived life.
To add to my frustration, I am trying to explore several subjects at once so to speak. I don't know where I live, what I do, or what's coming next. These are all complex themes and probably deserve separate epics! In the early spring, when I was trying to decide how the change in my life would take shape, I struggled with the combination of work and address. I could look for a job somewhere new doing the same thing, I could stay put and look for new work, or I could uproot entirely. I chose the third and most difficult.
Now comes the new question: when you are at a dinner party and accidentally take a huge bite of tough, chewy steak, do you a) smile and chew even though the meat is making you gag b) somehow extract part and work on the more manageable portion, or c) spit the whole thing out right on your plate to the awe and disgust of your fellow guests? I am currently chewing on that too large bite. If I continue to chew, it will not kill me, but I will be exceedingly uncomfortable. If I remove part, I might be embarrassed because the person sitting across from me will see my foolishness. If I spit it out, I will go hungry. There is no perfect way to deal with biting off more than you can chew.
However this is a lovely dinner party! (Alright, the metaphor is over now.) I have left noisy Sacramento for Grass Valley. My landlords/employers, are lovely, calm, friendly, and wise. Their daughter, 3, is a character in the best sense of the word! Their house is called the Tree House and my little cottage is the Nest. It is quiet and peaceful. I the windows that span a whole wall of my bedroom look out on a lake. Directly behind the cottage is the swimming pool. I will be helping in the garden, helping take care of the llamas, chickens and cow, and watching their little girl sometimes. I also need some supplemental income, for which I had pictured working in a cafe, but I might just do what I know best and babysit my way around town.

Gramma

Gramma is my last living grandparent. She has always seemed younger than her years. She has always worn smart tailored suits, discussed current world events with enthusiasm and intellect and loved southern writers. When I was little and we would travel to Columbia, Missouri to visit her, my parents would stay at my aunt's house and Jamie and I would stay with her. Her house was impeccably clean and smelled like cosmetics. Every morning she would lay out a feast for us of stewed prunes or canned figs and cereal and orange juice and sometimes a coffee cake. She surrounded herself with characters like her neighbor who tamed wild animals and had a congregation of squirrels and raccoons that came to her house at mealtime, or the two sisters who were famous in the community for the tiny, costumed mice they sewed by hand and sold at the church bazaar. When She came to visit us, she and I would play Mrs. Kelly in my playhouse that was basically a cloth-covered cardtable. I don't remember whether she or I was Mrs. Kelly, but I loved that my grandmother would get down on her hands and knees and have tea under a card table with me. It was not easy for her to have us live so far away. I was not a very good correspondent and she pined for news of me. It made me feel guilty not to be able to give her her simple wish.
I visited her on my way west and I am so grateful that I did. A couple of weeks ago she fell and has been back and forth between the hospital and the health care center at her retirement community. Yesterday when the doctor asked her what he could do for her she said "Take care of King and Anne". In our far corners of the country, we are holding her tight in our hearts.

-less

Well, now not only am I homeless and jobless, I'm toothless. I was not chewing violently or wrecklessly. It was just a soft tortiila with melted butter and brown sugar. I bit down on something unexpectedly hard. Upon examination I found that it was a piece of my very own tooth. My first thought was that I would have to drive back across the country to Dr. Condos because I have never been to another dentist. My next thought was that I might have to turn to prostitution to afford getting the tooth fixed.
I talked to Gwyneth who reminded me that everything happens exactly as it should. She also said she'd heard that teeth represent control. I guess the universe decided I needed a little help letting go and took out half a tooth. Just to make sure I got the picture, it timed the tooth loss to coincide with a holiday weekend, turning up the anxiety volume to blaring.
I have risen to the challenge. I will continue to trace the jagged empty space with my tongue until Tuesday when I will somehow find, visit and pay for a dentist. Shortly thereafter I will know which stepping stone of life will next host my confused feet.

Unclean

I realize that it's been a little while since I wrote and I would love to have something interesting to share, but the fact is that I'm treading water here. More like treading cat litter. I keep stepping on little escaped grains that rode to freedom on the underside of a feline paw after it's owner had made a deposit. It makes me want to vomit. I vacuum some section of this small apartment pretty much every day.
On the first day of every month, since some time in childhood, my family tries to remember to say "rabbit rabbit" first thing when they wake up. Its supposed to give you good luck all month. Last month I believe the first word I said was "shit" because I thought my little tent was about to be pummeled by a thunderstorm. Last night I put out the little reminder sign by the bed. I awoke several times in the wee hours to neighborhood noises and every time I said "rabbit rabbit". I said it again when I finally rolled out of bed. I will have good luck! I feel lucky already because as of tomorrow, I will only have to feel like cat fluff is constantly floating up my nose for one more week. That's one more week of constant spot vacuuming, one week of fearing that I am catching dirty cat parasites, one week of smelling the odor of cat leavings mixed with new age incense.
I have learned something from this. I cannot promise someone to love their cat's in exchange for a roof over my head. It is a lie. I can respect that they are God's creatures, but I cannot love them, and so my career as a pet sitter comes to a glorious end. In a week.
My horoscope said that I would prove to be wildly resourceful in the coming weeks. While this does not sound comfortable, it will be necessary because as overjoyed as I am about my stay here drawing to a close, I have no idea what is coming next. This, for a person of phlegmatic tendencies, is a sizable challenge!
I leave you with a picture from my reconaissance mission down south that seems to describe perfectly how I feel about the future at this moment.

Hermitude

Note: I was reviewing my archives when I discovered that I never published this, written some time in August 2006>

I have often thought that I was surely a monk in at least one past life. The rhythm and quiet and beauty of an imaginary religious life seems calming and comforting In a world where things seem always to be wizzing past us at lightning speed. I am having something of a monastic experience here in Sacramento. I see virtually no one, my days are built around a few familiar, monotonous activities (okay so eating and watching tv aren't exactly devotional!). But the thing that the monks had is eachother. Even if they had vowed silence, they were a part of something intentional, they were working alone together to build something that none of them could accomplish singley.
I of all people should be aware that this is a highly romanticised view of the situation. You know there still are monks? I found out recently that someone for whom I suffered silent and unrequited heartache years ago had joined the religious life, which he had long been drawn to. I should be happy for the attainment of his goal, but with monkery, both ancient and modern, you are also required to die as an individual in order to be reborn into the body of the church. So I have lost someone dear to me, and he chose to be lost.