A New Year - A New Adventure

Hello, My Dears -

It's been a long, long time since my last post. I've been teaching out of town, healing a couple of discs in my back, and getting over the loss of my Mother, Ann Clouse, and my wonderful dog, Buddy. It's been kind of a ruthless year.

(By the way, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has a new Rye out called "Ruthless". I'm scared to try it!)

In the meantime, I started my new business, Forget Me Not Memories professional video services. We want to help businesses make their websites more effective and fun. Check out my website at:

http://www.forgetmenotmemories.net

We are really excited! This business brings together all my talents and experience, from writing, marketing, visual communication and just plain brilliance (!) into one finely tuned package. If we can help clients tell their story with a well-crafted video, they will be far more memorable and competitive on a lot of levels. So... here goes - Everything!

Retail Relapse

I didn't want to give the wrong impression of my step-dad, Bob, in my last blog. When he grabbed my mom by the throat at the dinner table, it was completely unprecedented and out of character. Bob was the calmest, gentlest man I have ever known, which may not be saying that much. But he was. He was so calm and steadfast that his violence toward Mom was shocking.
The argument had gone on for days, and, as usual, revolved around money. We were at that point of being broke where Left Over-Left Over Stew had been on the table for more than a week. To this day I cannot abide Left Over Stew.
Bob had been working directing commercials, and Mom had been designing sets. You can make a lot of money in Hollywood, but it generally comes in spurts. If you don't save during the good times, you're sunk during the bad times. We were in a bad time. And there were no savings.
Mom had this thing with money. I got it, too, and apparently so does my oldest son Matt. We tend to spend every last dime of what we have on hand, as well as part of what we're expecting to show up. Mom would spend more than Bob had coming before it ever got there, keeping us ever behind. It didn't matter how much he made, she would spend more. And when money was getting tight, she'd it spend faster. It's very stressful living like that.
I understand all this now, partly because of all the counseling I've been through, but also because I do it, too. See, when the money is almost gone, you get this little warning bell in the back of your head. I don't have to keep a running balance in my checkbook because my subconscious keeps track. I'll be driving along when all of a sudden, a little voice says, "We NEED to go to the Thrift Store..." Translation: "We're about to overdraft our account, so we'd better spend what we have NOW before there isn't any to spend at ALL." Completely illogical, very immature, totally compulsive. Very hard to fight.
That voice is the inner child who is fearful of not having what she needs or wants this minute. Mom's inner child was desperate, and she was powerless against it. So was Bob, especially since his inner child was a lot more mature than Mom's, which only made her inner child dig in harder.
When he tried to reason with her, she battled with her amateur psychology. When he tried to be the Man of the House, she ridiculed and chastised him. Even a logical discussion that resulted in a joint decision would become fodder for the next argument. But, when he tried to cut off her access to the money, she would go into emotional distress and become dangerously unhinged.
One time, she was furious at Bob for trying to corral her spending. First she got angry, then she got depressed. She threatened divorce, then suicide. Then she disappeared for 3 days. We were all freaked out. Then one afternoon, I got home from school, and she was back, surrounded by packages. She'd been in San Diego, it turned out, at a hotel, on a shopping spree. Because we were broke.
Bob just sat smoking his pipe, watching her. She was giddy, happy, loving, and completely out of touch with reality. Insane, really.
And Bob never yelled, or recriminated her. He just watched her, hugged her, told her he loved her, and went off to putter in the garage, and figure out how to make the mortgage payment.
We watched her, too, because a spending binge was usually followed by a guilt-rage binge, and that would probably fall on us.
That night that Bob grabbed Mom by the throat? It was scary, but even at the time, we didn't blame him. Not one bit.

Mom and Determinism

It's been awhile, and I've been thinking. Why not tell my own stories? After all, those are the best ones...

My mom says we’re Heinz 57 – that means our people come from all over, from Scotland, Ireland, France. Probably England, too, and she always claims some Indian, usually Iroquois. That’s because the French must have mixed it up with some locals when they were trying to conquer what is now New England. You can see how well that worked for them from the name which is not “New France”.

She says our Iroquois ancestor was called, “Shimmering Water”, clearly an Indian princess or some one high up. Couldn’t be something like, “Mud in Face”,  or “Snores While Sleeping”.

Then on my dad's side we're Spanish, German or Dutch, English, and I'd swear Apache. All together it's quite a mix from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, but completely normal. With all the mixing that's been going on, who can say what we are, except maybe human.

Both sides of my family like to go on about our ancestors who had it better and harder than we do now from all accounts. Mom says another long-lost ancestor was none other than Ulysses S. Grant, although he has never shown up in any of my ancestral searches. Mom used to say he was our, “Great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather", and talk with disparaging intimacy of his drinking and womanizing and mood swings. He was definitely Irish, so Mom says.

No one ever dared contradict our Mother when she was on a roll, telling stories and holding court. No one. That would be dangerous, if not deadly. My step-dad did once in so many words. It was memorable.

They had been arguing at the dinner table, and even after he had reached up and turned off his hearing aids so he couldn't hear her, she kept going. My brother and I were just trying to get through the meal, when all of a sudden my step-dad's hand shot out, across the table, and grabbed my mother by the neck. Then he started to get up, his arm rigid, and my mom suspended from his fist like a fish, turning all red, and kind of sputtering. Rick and I bolted out the front door into the driveway, screaming for help. I guess my step-dad had reached the end of his patience. He was pretty patient. He was Belgian and Welsh. Mom called him either "The Belch", or "The Blemish". (Flemish - Belgian... get it?)

My mom had a bit of a temper, due to the Irish in her, she would claim. She says she once got so mad at her father that she went down into the basement where his long-johns were hanging to dry and cut off the legs and arms of each set with her scissors. Why any one would have let my mother have scissors is beyond me.

Mom went to Sunday School, at her mother’s insistence. Nanny was a tried and true Catholic, a fact that irritated the hell out of my grandfather Frank, who was himself a Protestant at best. Nanny ruled on religion, so Mom had to go, never mind her heathen father’s opinion. She was given money for the collection plate and the bus, and was sent off on the streets of Trenton, New Jersey. This would have been around 1940, when it was relatively safe for kids wandering around big, industrial cities alone. Mom was about 9.

One day when the nuns were teaching Determinism, my mom dared ask a question. I don’t know how long she had been going there, or what had happened up till then, but I know my mom and it’s hard to believe she had been quietly sitting there all along. Speaking up runs in our blood, so to speak, probably the Scottish in us. So they started in on Determinism, about how everything is already set by God forever to go a certain way.

Mom thinks about this, and then raises her hand: “If everything is pre-determined, and God has everything all planned out, then why do I have to sit here?”

The nuns, after a brief argument, decided to leave my Mom to God, and sent her home, telling her not to come back without her mother.

She took the money for the collection plate and the bus and started going to art classes at the local YMCA. She never told her mother about her lesson at Sunday School. She did indeed continue with her art, which she decided was what God had in mind all along. Not that she believed in God, as such.

But that’s another story. 

The Path is My Teacher

The path along which I walk twice daily is well worn. It varies from the width of a truck to no more than a mere few inches, or the length of my foot. There is a small creek alongside to the north that meanders darkly beneath alder, willow and oak. Every morning and some afternoons for more than a month now I walk my young dog for his relief and mine, finding a small moment of peace and beauty amidst this noisy and busy suburb.

Every day there is some small or large change, though the path itself never leaves its course.
A few weeks ago, I noticed for the first time a meadow of blue chicory glowing in the morning sun. Just a few days ago, though, someone mowed them all down, and I was hugely disappointed to see mere stubble in its place. Nothing stays the same amidst a universe in motion.
There are however some things about this path that do not seem to change, at least not in human time. The broad, hardpacked beginning is sure beneath my feet. But there is a point, not far along, that must be attended to, each and every passing, with absolute clarity. There is a point at which the path narrows to little more than 6 inches where it falls off some 15 feet or so to the creek below. The slide is littered with broken branches and rocky outcroppings. The soil is loose and there are no foot or handholds. At this point, all wandering of the mind must halt while I carefully watch each and every step so as not to slide down to end a muddy, bleeding mess.
I have shepherded my daughter along this path, and always take care to remind her of the narrows. One day, we walked along with her friends, and were very certain to warn them of the dangers at this particular point. We all fared well, and went on to find insects, toads, and a small beaver dam further down.
On the way back, though, one of her friends, excited by our finds, paid no attention to our warnings, and was only saved at the last minute from a nasty accident by my daughter's quick thinking and deft hand.
Since then, whenever I pass this way, I remember that day, the rush of adrenaline at thinking how badly her misstep could have gone.
When I was a working naturalist, leading young students through the oak woodlands, redwood forests and marshes of San Mateo's coastline, we would call back, "Trail Hazard", when coming to such a potential danger. The call would be repeated, student by student to ensure that no child, wondering at the immense or minute beauty around them would misstep and be injured. But there is no 'leader' on my daily sojourns, and usually no followers. But for the trail itself, I am on my own. The path is my teacher now, and I have become  its student.
Now as I walk, I am especially mindful of my steps at this point. I do not wonder at the Universe and how it spins eternally, nor fret about future concerns. I turn my mind fully to the exact task at hand: step by step I navigate this treacherous passage thinking of one thing only, and that is this narrow strip of earth and safely getting by.
It is a reminder of life, and the paths we tread moment to moment and year by year. At times the path is well-worn, clearly marked and free of obstructions and dangers. But there is always a point at which the path gets tricky and our safe passage comes into question. It is then, through attention to our steps and the nature of potential danger, that we take a risk so that we might walk into our future more assured. While I look forward to the place where the trail provides me with a higher vantage point of a lovely bend in the creek, where I might sit in quiet meditation, or of returning home to the things that must be done this day, upon reaching this particular place, I stop all other thoughts but of this exact moment and tread with intention.


Image courtesy: http://iamagonistes.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/rocky-path.jpg

Amends in a Teabag

Since we rescued the puppy now known as ‘Buddy’, I am compelled to walk, early, each morning for his comfort. He will not relieve himself in the patio, for which I am actually very grateful. Our daily ritual includes time for me to microwave a cup of English Breakfast tea, drag on walking clothes, slip into flip flops, wrap the leash around my waist, and then bolt out the door to skip down the stairs for a first pee (his, not mine) at the base of the nearest young redwood. From there, we walk the short length of pavement, cross the parking lot, and happily wind our way down the slippery gravel-lined driveway that ends at the creek trail.


On most mornings I am still groggy as I watch Buddy light out at a racetrack pace down the packed dirt trail, stopping here and there to sniff and mark various other claimants’ weeds and shrubs.(I no longer pick fresh dock to munch in the mornings along this or any other public trail for this reason. Lesson learned by observation, not experience.)


On a particular morning I might be happy or sullen or cranky or expectant. Moods come and go lately, none sticking for very long as they used to, except for the growing sense of contentment and general calm that has recently settled into place. On this morning I was quite happy, to the point of quiet joyfulness as I wandered behind my exuberant friend, noticing today’s offerings of freshly shed wild turkey feathers, flitting black phoebes, clouds of blue chicory blossoms, and the glint of morning sun off the trickling brook.


Coming upon my usual sitting spot – a high bank overlooking a charming bend in the creek – I sat to finish my dwindling cup of tea and light a cigarette (gross, I know, but easy does it...) I was mulling over events of recent days, events which had caused a stir in my group of friends; my ally and her sometimes-enemy had crossed swords over the issue of inappropriate overtures toward new members of the group, me in particular. As my mind wandered over what had been said and by whom, wondering at what it all meant in the grander scheme of our work together, I began to notice the trash left behind by human visitors to ‘my’ spot.

There were empty plastic water bottles, beer cans, broken bottles, a cardboard beer case that had been flattened for a seat, cigarette butts and gum wrappers. Moments before, in my calm, the litter and trash had been nearly invisible, but having returned to the turbulent thoughts and emotions of yesterday, the garbage now loomed enormously in front of me.
 Full of self-righteous indignation, I chastised my fellow citizens for their insensitivity and irresponsibility in this place of natural beauty. Worst of all, right next to me, in my own special spot, at the base of a young oak that served as my personal backrest, was trash! Not down below, or hidden away in the brush, but right next to me.


What idiot, I thought, was such a useless waste of flesh as to be so lazy as to cast off garbage in a shared public idyll such as this? What selfish, mean-spirited urbanite had so little respect for nature and their neighbors that they would carelessly toss their bits of paper and plastic to the side as if this were a dump, not a park for the serenity it might gift its visitors? Why, this was the very proof and evidence of Man's utter lack of respect for the sacred, and I didn't need much more than that to condemn us all to an enternity of rag-picking in some hideous slum in some horrible third world country.
 But then, looking closer, I began to see the bit of refuse not 2 feet from me more clearly, and suddenly recognized the offending bit of paper and string, dangling there on the bent blades of grass. It was a teabag. It was an English Breakfast teabag to be exact. It was, in fact, my English Breakfast teabag from the day before.


The day before, embroiled in the emotional turmoil, in a fit of pique and outrage, my anger with myself for my part in the controversy had been expressed in anger and disrespect turned outward toward any one careless enough to enter my sphere of influence. I remembered the morning before, sitting here, cursing God and the Universe for turning on me, for creating this unwanted disturbance in my fragile sense of right and wrong, of betraying my trust in this newly acquired internal peace, of allowing other people to violate boundaries I had just now learned to identify and was barely able to defend.


I remembered plucking the worn bag from my cup, and casting it aside as if to say, “To hell with you, to hell with nature, to hell with my fellowship, to hell with God!” My embarrassment, my humiliation, my ego in an uproar, I had done unto others that which I felt had been done unto me: I violated the sacredness of the very nature I had claimed to protect and serve. And here, a day later, I was again, perturbed, upset, angry with the world. How easily this sense of contentment can be shoved aside by trivial events! How in the world will I deal with the next major upset in my fragile little corner of the Universe if this is all it takes to send me teetering into an emotional tizzy?


Suddenly, my mood shifted. My perspective shifted. Suddenly, the air around me seemed to glow, the sound of the creek’s waters, musically roiling across rocks and fallen logs, the flight of birds from limb to limb, all surrounded me with a quality of light and beauty I had completely missed just seconds before. It was as if a scrim had been rolled away, and a giant spotlight had appeared from the heavens above. Illumination, insight, understanding.


I laughed! I laughed out loud. Then I apologized to God and Nature, the creek and its’ inhabitants, my fellow human beings, my ally and her sometimes enemy, my working group, and finally myself for my foolish part in creating both the original disturbance, and its ongoing effects.


I plucked the offending teabag from its grassy hook, placed it in my pocket to carry home to my garbage where it rightfully belonged. And then, I asked God, “How else can I make amends for my foolish ego?”


The answer was immediate and unmistakable. My attention was drawn to the creek’s edge where a discarded white plastic grocery bag rustled in the breeze amidst the strewn empties and flattened cardboard and stinky cigarette butts. "Done," I said, and ambled down the steep bank, picked up the bag and began filling it with everyone else’s garbage. Some of those butts might even have been mine...


“Thank you, God, for the opportunity to so soon set right my wrongs,” I thought and said aloud, as I and my faithful Buddy made our way home, cleaning up the messes of yesterday.

Today, with a teabag, I began my amends.

Season to Taste

Sobriety. It's interesting. Waking awake. Hearing my own thoughts in clear stereo, overlaid with ongoing revelations and realizations. Complicated yet simple. Motion pictures of emotions sensed in multiple layers of resonance.

Did you know you can 'hear' music through your teeth? It's true, we learned, we experienced, at the Exploratorium this weekend. There's an interactive display with speakers wired through a narrow rod: you slide a plastic straw over the rod, put earphones on to block out ambient sounds from the crowd, grasp the rod between your clenched teeth, and voila! music can be heard via the bones in your head transferred from your teeth.

What else have I been missing?

Did you know you can almost drown in your sleep? And that if your cat is astute, he will wake you before you suffocate? Were you suffocating in your sleep and so he woke you, or were you drowning in your dream because you were in actuality suffocating because your cat insists on sleeping as near to your face as possible? Did he save you, or was he the cause?

These are the thoughts of the sober. I can't remember the thoughts of the inebriated. The thoughts of the sober are confusing enough for both of us.

After hearing music with my teeth, I began to wonder what I've been missing with the rest of my body. Can I see color with my toes? What if I could? Would I wear open-toed shoes? Wear toenail polish? Trim my toenails? Sand my callouses with more pumice? Place the soles of my feet against the Van Gogh? Would I dance in red or blue?

What if, like some other species, we had antennae that could not only collect information, but send messages as well? Would you have antennae if that were the case? Would you want to collect and send information via wavering appendages on your skull? Perhaps we do already, though it seems strange to consider. Are our mouths not strange enough as it is?

Lips, teeth, tongues: the conveyors, the purveyors of meaning, of emotion, of intention. Do not our mucous membranes absorb chemicals, and hence our brains transform simple compounds into pure pleasure: brown gravy, chocolate caramel cream sauce, merlot reduction.

When you listen to my words, do you watch my eyes? or my mouth?

When you clench your teeth, what do you hear?

What is the sound of one jaw dropping?


Photo courtesy: Bright Sides on Flickr: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3512/3224830310_51d592ccec.jpg

Here is the only Where

After publishing my post, "It's 1969: Do You Know Where Your Mother Is?", it occurred to me that some of my students might just find and read it from my Facebook posting. Not so good. As a (former) teacher, I am/was supposed to be a paragon of virtue, behavior above and beyond reproach, with impeccable manners, if not timing. No runs in the pantyhose. Well, that's not me. Won't do at all. I am simply too complicated. Ergo, no longer a teacher. In public school. In California. Which is a shame, if you know me at all. Or not, if you know me well.
One of my favorite saying is, "You can't get lost if you don't know where you're going." Likewise, "You can't get there from here." That says it all.

I was in Borders looking for, of all things, a book. Seems like Borders has been Walmarted, carrying everything from chocolate and coffee, to pens and wrapping paper. I started looking for the hardware section, but ran out of time. I was also looking for a toolbelt.
The book I needed was for Danno's birthday, a good book on home repairs for his new job as Maintenance at a large apartment complex in Ashland. Large meaning 160 units. Maintenance meaning what they don't do in my apartment complex.
Storming in through the double doors after searching for parking for 10 minutes, after driving for half an hour searching for the right mall in a city apparently composed of malls surrounded by suburbs, the nouveau feudal American landscape, and clearly running out of time to shop in any meaningful way, I accosted the nearest Borders employee from 20 feet away, "Where are your handyman books?"
I had clearly startled her, no doubt. She jumped, and almost took her eyes off her computer monitor. She tipped her head in a very professorial mode and scanned me over her bi-focals. The wind I had created coming in rustled the pages of the magazines at the front of the store, which was deserted at 10 am on Good Friday.
She glanced to the left, and started giving directions, but I was already moving, having quickly located her focal point, and noticing the gigantic signs pinpointing specific genres. I could here her voice over the vague musical background in summation, "...But you can't get there from here."
That caught my attention.
You can't get there from here.
What an interesting notion.
I stopped mid-aisle.
"That's a great title," I called over my shoulder, en route to Home Improvement.
And so it is, if you Google it: books, stories, music, you name it. It clearly has fascinated better minds than mine in the past.
It wasn't until I had passed Western Fiction that it occured to me what a misnomer that statement is. If you can't get there from here, where can you get there from? Obviously you can only get there from here. Here is the only where to get anywhere from. (Grammar police, back off!)
It might not be easy. It might not be efficient. You might have to make a lot of turns. You might even have to back track, or get out a map, or even ask directions. But you certainly can get anywere from here.
No wonder it's such a popular title.

Picture credit: http://www.johnlund.com/images/JL-interchange__2FG.jpg