Self Help

This morning I woke up with a feeling I haven't had in a long time. I always described it as the feeling of having been hit by a truck. It is a heaviness of soul and body and a strong but slow pounding of the heart. I used to feel it regularly when I was teaching full time in Philly. It went away a little bit when I went to part time.
Now its back, but I have the strengthened vision to see just what it is made of. Not that I always use it.
I spent most of the day engaging in avoidance; driving, shopping, then I tried to go to a movie. Those who know me know that I never have cash, a habit that has been nurtured by the prevalence of credit card-accepting vendors. Well, the universe had conspired with this theater not to accept credit, so I turned away desperate and irritated.
Having no money, I went to the best free entertainment in town; the ocean. I took off my shoes and walked slowly in the cool, damp sand until I found the perfect driftwood bench. There I sat and let all my frustrations bob to the surface. There in the clear light I could see that all I the expectations that were weighing on me were placed there by my own hand. All the judgments were mine too. I saw the girl who is me, forever struggling to reach the top of an endless ladder of her own creation and I just loved her. There was no point in scolding her for all her mistakes, she makes her life difficult enough. Once I had held her and rocked her in my arms for a bit, I could see, instead of all the things I thought I should do, the things that I could do and that would serve me and my class.
I walked back to my car, the ocean chasing me ever higher up the beach, with the strength to do the little things that had once seemed so ominous. No practice this long-held is washed away by an half hour of surf. I have to love that girl every day and I know I will forget again. But then I know I will remember.

Candy

When I was a kid, my Dad traveled a lot for work. When he came home, what we mostly heard about was the food he enjoyed on the road. Now, this was not fancy stuff! His territory included such highlights as upstate New York and rural Minnesota. When he traveled to New York in the winter, he sometimes brought us back a heavenly confection known as angel candy. Apparently they didn't make it in the summer. Humidity. It was a cube of hardened burnt-sugar sponge covered in chocolate. We shaved off the chocolate with our teeth and then chipped away at the insides, which lodged in our teeth for hours. The legendary Wegman's grocery store was the source of this miracle food.
A couple of years ago, the Wegman's chain oozed down into Pennsylvania and we found angel candy growing in our back yard, but it wasn't as fun.
Last week while perusing the bulk bins at Henry's Farmers Market, I found it again. They call it chocolate covered honeycomb candy, it comes not in cubes but in organic, multi-faceted solids, and the chocolate layer is four times thicker, but it still tastes like my Dad bringing the world home to us. Far away from anything familiar, it is again like nectar.

Globalization Frustration

Today as I rambled through Target, I discovered what I consider to be the stupidest thing ever and the major hitch in the chain retail idea; chain stores do not cater to varied climates. Although it is still in the upper 60's to mid 70's here and not expected to dip below 50 ... ever, Target is full of sweaters and jackets. When a person just needs a few simple, white, short-sleeved t-shirts to dilute the multiple shades of pink that make up her professional wardrobe, she is left to chose between work-out wear and pyjamas. All other t-shirts on offer are long sleeved.

Commercial

I am very much in between these days, so posts of length will have to wait.
This evening I was sitting on my bed, reading through a book of finger plays and and my little friend Leela came in to visit. I came across the words for Piggy Wig and Piggy Wee, which I had been struggling to remember and we sang it together. She sighed when we were done.
"I think I'd prefer if you were in a commercial" she said.
"For what?" I asked.
"For Piggy Wig and Piggy Wee! You have such a pretty voice."

An Affair to Remember

As I drove into town this afternoon to run a few last minute errands and say goodbye to my favorite hangout, I thought to myself that for all intents and purposes, I have been cheating on The Tree House with Jason's Studio Cafe. The Tree House was where I lived, worked, got a few pieces of mail and I am happy for its service to me and happy to say goodbye. But almost everyday, I would slip away, for some reason usually not admitting to where I was going, covering up with tales of the bank and the library, to sit in this cool green and white space, sip nectar, eavesdrop on conversations, and write. And this I am sorry to leave.
The owner and one of the baristas know me on sight (she did the Spatial Dynamics training at Kimberton). I sometimes recognize fellow customers. I definitely recognize the tunes on the air, an oddly pleasing mix of jazz, classical and motown, with a little steel drum action thrown in on odd days. One can usually expect at least one animated discussion of local politics, environmental issues, or the deplorable state of our federal government. I think what I like most is that here I feel connected. My nest has been a wonderful place to consider the true state of my being, free from the distractions of phone, email, tv, and people. But, my soul well inspected and tended to, I am looking forward to a life of connection again. Next week I will be going to work everyday, I will be able to use the phone when I need to or when I like and I hope I will still have of time to write. So farewell to the seclusion and the connection of Grass Valley, and thank you for both.


Solitude

Cheery Welcome!

Homesick

Yesterday I was so homesick I almost cried. The person I missed most in the world was... Dr. Condos, my dentist since childhood!
You will have read how I broke a tooth a month ago. I found a dental clinic in Sacramento specializing in the poor and uninsured and took the first apointment they had, almost a month away. The apointment finally arrived yesterday. I realized that morning that I didn't know where they were, so I called and left a message asking for directions and headed for the address on the answering machine, 6950 65th Street, having never been past about 1900 30th Street. As I pulled into the parking lot, the receptionist called my cell phone to give me directions, oh well!
I waited for close to 2 and a half hours, watching disturbing day time tv, reading People magazine, and listening to the bilingual receptionist answer most of her calls in Spanish. Finally I was shown to a room, the kids koom, walls hung with encouraging messages about keeping away mouth bugs and pictures of CareBears. Somehow this made me more scared. I have never been to a dentist besides Dr. Condos in my life, except maybe his old partner once or twice. His cozy Main Line waiting room looks like a beach house, and the walls of the exam room are full of paintings of baseball stadiums and photos of his children, who are about my age. He helped ween my sister off her pacifier, rewarding her with Barbie paper dolls, and he rebonded her front tooth for free as a wedding present. He still asks about our goat who died easily 15 years ago. And he always explains to you just what he's going to do and why.
It did not help that this strange dentist had a thick accent and I could only understand about every 7th word. I decided to just pretend I was in Mexico and be glad there weren't chickens running loose in the hallway. He told me I had a very deep cavity and I might need a root canal. With desperation in my voice and visions of bloody dental massacre, I told him I was traveling and I just wanted something temporary. It may have been wasteful not to just get a permanent filling, but I felt better thinking that the next dentist down the road might speak clearer English.
Then I realized I was going to get novocaine. I hate needles, especially in my mouth! I have only had it once before. My breathing was shallow and every muscle in my body was a knot and it felt like everyone in the world who had ever loved me was dead, I was that alone. I lived through the novocaine and then came the drilling. I was sure he was going to hit a nerve and I was going to lose consciousness, you know how you can feel the drill coming close? Finally that was over and they shoved some stuff into the gaping hole and I was released.
I held my cheek to keep it from falling off. When I went to pay the receptionist looked worried and said "Does it still hurt?". "It just feels funny," I said.
I was so relieved to get out of the cold, unfriendly clinic (in all fairness, the receptionist was really very nice, but she couldn't overcome the pervading gloom of the place), but I was just so sad for my poor face, unable to feel or protect itself. I clenched my jaw just to feel that no part of my mouth was going to get lost.
I had to go right to a babysitting job when I got back to Grass Valley, and it was a relief to talk to someone who cared that my tongue was a useless slab of meat inside my mouth and my smile drooped on one side. Ruth dropped baby Adrian and I off at the park and over the next hour my face returned to me. It reminded me of when I used to model for art classes, limbs were going to pins and needles all the time, and it was sometimes painful to get them back, but there was always something I could do to help them along. With this all I could do was wait.
I had a whopping headache from all the clenched muscles, and I went to bed about 7:15. Today I am just fine and can hardly believe I suffered such trauma just yesterday. This past spring, I had a wisdom tooth removed (the other incidence of novocaine) and it ached for a couple of days, and it took my jaw a little while to realign. A nurse held my head through the whole extraction, my mom drove me, and stopped at Whole Foods to stock me up on ice cream afterwards, and my sister attended me through the night.
Yes, I survived alone, but I prefer to survive with assistance.

(editor's note: spellcheck on the fritz!)

1st of the month

I woke up at 8:00 this morning because I thought the woodpecker on the roof was a person at my door. Luckily I noticed the sign by my bed and said "rabbit rabbit" before I could ruin the magic with a careless "shit" or "who is it?". I got promptly back into bed and spent the next 2 hours curled in a frozen ball, in and out of dreams about freezing. I'm wearing socks. And a big sweatshirt. The sun is actually not shining and summer is gone. It's not as sad as it would be if I was expecting to stick it out while old man winter crumbles the life out of trees and people. It seems like a kind of novelty because I can see the sun ahead of me.
I am waiting in the cafe for a matinee movie, so to pass the time I'll tell you what I'm reading:
Elementals is a collection of short stories by the incomparable A.S. Byatt. I dug my teeth into it last night and couldn't let go!
The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I like that she is writes and speaks and guides people in things that she is in constant struggle with herself. The Dance is about being ok with who and where you are instead of wearing yourself out trying to make yourself into something you're not. Um, how many of you are currently working on this very thing? Seems like everybody I know practically! Go team!
I just finished the entire Anne of Green Gables series. I never read them as a child, but I adore the movies. The books are even sweeter and lovelier. I love how Anne manages to bring out the best in everyone by refusing not to see it. A good example to all. I did feel the series lost some excitement once she and Gilbert got together. I think the books about her children would be better enjoyed by those who are themselves children in body as well as mind.
For most of you Fall has settled in and I urge you to welcome it by curling up under a giant blanket with a great read. Or get your ass out to San Diego!