Category Archives: Fun

Summer Rain (20)

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I sit in the courtyard watching a raven in the rain. He is sitting in a palm tree in the distance, moving up and down in the light wind, but he seems to be enjoying himself. I count the seconds between the lightening and the thunder. Sable goes inside, hides under the bed, the only marring of my delight. In the kitchen I hear a loud popping sound and look out the window half expecting to see a palm tree in flames. Outside again, the birds take flight in unison, and I crane my neck looking for a hawk. He lands in my neighbor’s tree, and I move the binoculars to my eyes in slow motion. He’s all wet, his neck feathers slick and clumping like the wet fur of a cat. He is gorgeous, regal, his golden eyes fiercely alive. Later, I eat popcorn in bed, my eyes closing on my book, and let sleep claim me. I drift from dozing to deep sleep and back again, the steady rain soaking through all my layers. It is this long nap in the rain on a summer afternoon, so rare here, that is most alive in me now as I write, embedded in my flesh, touched by the divine. Did I remember to thank you? After, I go for a walk in the late dusk. I place each foot with care, small frogs hopping out of my way with every step I take.

Mango Moment (19)

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I eat the best mango I have ever tasted. It wasn’t much to look at when it was still whole. It never got that lovely red blush. There was a small patch of yellow on the skin. I even put it in the refrigerator because I’d bought too much fruit. I didn’t want it to spoil. When I peel it, inside it is a rich orange, the flesh wet and firm. I cut it up in big, messy chunks, the mango slipping out of my hands. I gnaw on the big white pit. (I always want to save the pits, make art with them, but I resist.) I eat it in the courtyard with a small pile of Brazil nuts. I eat with my fingers, savor each bite. The cicadas—two of them, I think—begin buzzing in the Palo Verde when I am chewing the last piece. I don’t know how long I sit there, mesmerized by the lingering taste of sweet, delicious mango and the exotic summer song of the cicadas, the bowl propped against my belly. I come to with my hand still poised over the empty bowl, my fingers slick with mango juice.

Oceanside (18)

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Today I take Amtrak to Oceanside. According to some schematic of the Peaceful Warrior, this year for me is about adventure. (Last year was stability.) Unwilling as I am to leave the cats for long, I am determined to embrace the small adventures, day trips across town, across the state, over the border. When this one is complete (I am about an hour and a half away from Palm Springs as I type this), it will have been a 12-plus hour trip for two and a half hours in Oceanside, but it is worth it. I spend travel time writing and working on my blog, my breath caught short when I first see the ocean through the train window.

Colorful beach umbrellas north of Oceanside and small shining wave

I talk for a long time to a man with a Catalan accent who lives blocks from me. In Oceanside the tide is in, so I can only walk for a short stretch on the beach, but I relish it, the untamed rush of water that splashes my thighs, the frolic of my fellow beachgoers, bright umbrellas clustered everywhere. I love every minute of walking through the town. The air is clean. I study each street as I walk, dream about living in the old apartment building with the tangled bottlebrush lining the sidewalk, windows thrown open to the sea only a short block away. I am not here long enough to get a sense of the community, but nothing rubs me wrong. Already it feels like a new friend, that first blush. I look forward to more visits, to the getting-to-know-you process, to finding the warts, discovering the underbelly. Back in Riverside County in the middle dusk, the fresh sea air and the shimmer of sun on water seem like a dream, like a thousand miles ago. But it’s a good dream, the kind of dream you want to wake up from slowly, the kind you want to savor, wet sand beneath your bare feet, the warm air salty on your tongue.

Just as I Am (12)

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auqua aura pendant on black cord

Going to the dentist makes me vulnerable. When I lived in Sebastopol I endured a long stretch of dental work. After each visit, I walked to Putto and Gargoyle. (It is now P&G Art.) I would breathe the sweetness and whimsy of this airy shop, take home a fat round mug or a big glazed candlestick to comfort me after my ordeal. It became a tradition. So when I had pre-crown work done earlier this month, I went to Crystal Fantasy and bought myself a pendant, an aqua aura, clear quartz infused with gold. They gave me a black cord, so I can wear it around my neck. Today I do my sun salutations in the courtyard. When I hold plank pose, the aqua aura dangles below my face. It has never looked so blue. I wonder if it’s picking up the sky, or if it’s the way the light reaches it when it hangs free like this. I move to downward dog and the crystal comes to rest against the tip of my nose. I want to giggle. I am a little kid with a magic stone glued to my nose. When I surrender to chavasanah I’m in tears. I am crying and laughing at the same time. It comes to me that I am doing good work. I know I am okay, even though I didn’t get up early to weed the tecoma bed beside the road, even though I still haven’t started my fall prep. I am crying and laughing because these things are true and still I know I am okay. I am doing good work. I am finding small ways to be easier with myself, kinder to myself. And maybe all my tiny efforts have added up to this small window of knowing I am enough just as I am. I sit up on my knees, my feet tucked under me, hands together in front of my heart. “Namaste,” I say. I touch my forehead to the mat, bowing to the light in each and every one of us. After, I roll up my yoga mats, and I am singing. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” I sing. My voice is quiet, tender, dear to me. I am enough just as I am. I keep singing. “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”

Too Many Lonely Dogs (5)

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I read in the newspaper there is now a “movement” to have one day each week free from technology. (It also said most people in the United States check their cell phones 150 times a day. Gasp. Choke.) Because of time spent engaged with technology, the article went on, kids feel their parents aren’t present. I tend to see this in the grocery store, the child trying (and failing) to get their mother’s attention while they wheel the cart down the isle one-handed, talking on the phone. This isn’t anything new. It’s been going on for a long time now. I see dogs suffering when they’re out for a walk. The people on the other end of the leash are on their cell phones, talking or texting. The dog walks beside them. You can feel their sadness, their loneliness, their longing for their human. It’s supposed to be a special time to be together, connected in those quiet moments of mutual pursuit. Instead, I watch the dog walking alone, their human miles away. I’ve watched this for years with my students, too. The moment they step out of the classroom, their cell phones come out. If they have ten minutes to get to their next class, they fill it up. “Hi,” they say. “Where are you?” Too many people are never alone with their thoughts. They are listening to music, talking, texting. It’s rare to see people sitting on the bus just taking things in. Once in a while I see someone reading a real book, and it makes me glad. The act of reading is alive with imagination, and it can be looked up from, left in intermittent moments to become immersed in the environment. It doesn’t separate us in the same way. If there is truly a movement to leave technology behind one day a week, I’m all for it. I’ll even vote for two days. Because this trend has worried me for years. If we can’t be alone with our thoughts, can’t be comfortable in silence, what kind of life does that leave us? And I don’t think it’s only troublesome in terms of its toll on heart and soul. What about the vanishing attention span? I’m afraid we’re creating people who won’t be able to focus on one thing long enough for complex thought. And, well, too many lonely dogs.

Naked (54)

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statue of quan yin with fan palms behind her

I am sitting naked in Desert Hot Springs. Not sitting about in the center of town, no—in a small, modest resort with natural mineral springs. The warm wind has been whipping about me for hours, loud in the fan palms beside the pool. A statue of Quan Yin presides poolside. I’m in the shade now. I’ve been reading most of the day. I go into the hot mineral pool until I’m sated. The wind makes me cold when I emerge, and I wrap myself in my sarong until my skin is dry and the warm air heat seeps into me again. This morning I did yoga. I did qi gong in the early afternoon. I faced northeast, a potted bougainvillea beside me, the low slung hill visible over the bamboo fence. It has been one of those days that go on and on, the quiet stretching of time, summer days in childhood. I feel relaxed, lucky. I am grateful I’ve found this place. My eyes feel sore, a lingering fever. This morning before the wind began, there was a cactus wren laughing from one of these palms. There was a loose dog in the street when I walked here from the bus stop. I look forward to the day when coming here will feel familiar, like visiting someone I know well. I close the door behind me when I leave and walk away. I look back and see the waxing moon hanging above the roofline in the late afternoon sky as though it’s guarding the place. The moon follows me all the way home.

Frog Fun (45)

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Last night I chased our resident frog around the courtyard. I didn’t mean to, but I surprised him on his evening rounds, and I’m sure it seemed like I was following him, the crazy woman with the hose. I like to water earlier, but sometimes I just run out of daylight. Then I miss seeing the bursting colors of the nasturtiums, or the new shoots on the fan palm starts I brought from our Avenida Ortega home, kin to our huge beloved tree there. And I don’t get to enjoy it in the same way after everything is clean and wet, sitting outside in the midst of it all, soaking it all up, relieved and expanded like the garden itself. I always feel a little silly out there watering in the dark, but I can manage because the courtyard is small and light spills from the windows. It was just enough to let me glimpse our frog hopping out of my path. I was afraid I was terrorizing him. By the time I’d worked my way to the front, I could see he’d circled back around to the shed. So, I thought, he wasn’t too afraid after all, or he would have gone into hiding. Maybe he understood my apologies. Or maybe the wet yard was irresistible. I wonder now if I’ll need to make a point of watering more often at night. It must be frog heaven. When I was done, I found him sitting on my cat sculpture underneath the Palo Verde, nestled up against her neck. I left the two of them resting there together, companions in the wet dark.