Category Archives: Gratitude

Earthquake (43)

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new snow on the mountains with shadows and clouds

I wake up this morning to an earthquake. It is a long, gentle trembling of our world, the first one in my trailer home. It feels familiar, like I dreamed it or slept through another unknowing during the night. I wait in bed, poised to spring up, grab my clothes and sprint for the door if it becomes violent. After, I sit up to see fresh snow on the mountain, wisps of clouds, all tinted pink by the rising sun. My heart thuds, my own aftershock, but it calms soon, looking out the window. Later, the birds come and the sunlight touches the courtyard, slants through the clerestory windows, gift of the winter sun. I hear the heater, smell my walnuts toasting in the oven, appreciate warmth, electricity, running water, all still here after the earth shakes. I remember the quick leap of terror and am soothed again by the memory of that quiet pink mountain, the exquisite clear air and the truth that all is well.

Christmas Card Letter 2015 (42)

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red Christmas ornament in snow

Yesterday, the tenth day after my cat Sable died, I woke up happy for the first time in a long while. Today I wake up in the almost dark, Venus still vibrant in the southern sky and the solar Christmas lights glowing on the guayaba tree outside my window. It’s the first morning I don’t cry. The shock has lessened, though in moments I still reel. Sofia died in September. It’s hard to believe it’s only me here now, our little family of three gone. I glimpse things I’ll be able to do now without them, visits to friends, to Wilbur, to Mami, even just here in town, gone long hours, nothing tugging me home. Small snatches of excitement spark in me, mixed with a kind of guilt it’s easy to brush aside. I know I would gladly have stayed put to care for them forever. I miss those gentle tethers. Now it’s just me and the birds and the field mouse I met the other day in the shed. The house finch are loud and cheerful through the open kitchen window as I write. It makes a difference. My best truth today is knowing how much I cherished them, knowing I didn’t take them for granted. Sitting under the umbrella in the courtyard, the two of them napping on their pillows nearby, their furry forms relaxed in boneless cat abandon, and me knowing life didn’t get better than this. The sound of Sable clomping down the hallway, a galloping horse, the only way to run on this laminate flooring, and my heart lifting for his mad cat glee. And waking on a cold night warm beneath the down blankets, their small weights pressed against me making me feel like the luckiest woman in the world. I feel it still. And I know sweet things lie ahead. I cradle my big loss low in my arms, soft against my belly, grateful and alive. May the year ahead lie easy and dear to each of us.

[written on December 19th]

Holding Hope (38)

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My black cat lying on the bed

Yesterday I made a wish on Venus, the morning star caught in the early half light through the louvered windows above my bed. Coming home last night I saw the southern cross hanging in the dark sky, and I stopped in the middle of the road near our home. I stood there for a long time talking to the heavens, beseeching the cat gods. Both times I was stunned by how big hope is, how core to humankind. And so, again and again I banish my fear and turn away from the draw of agonized remorse. I open to hope. I want to grab hold wth both fists, hang on for dear life, but I know it doesn’t work that way. We have to open to hope even when it hurts. We hold our arms out wide while feathers brush across our open palms. My little one is poised between the worlds, so I open to hope, to true dreams of having him home again, playing with his ratty catnip toy I have waiting on the pillow, racing across the courtyard in mad cat abandon, happy and well. When I visit I send him mental pictures of just that, and of sleeping curled together on our bed. I open to hope, and beside the deep sweetness and the ache of it sits the knowing I may lose him, the knowing I may need to let him go. So, I hold them both and pray. And as I write, it feels important to send this out into the world, my prayer made manifest, like a kite breaking free of its tether, or a bright red balloon drifting across the sky, whispering to the gods. I whisper, too. “I love you, Boo.” And, “Please stay.”

Grateful (37)

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For the way our palo verde flung herself at a diagonal when she blew over in the last fierce wind so she didn’t hurt my neighbor’s carport or our wooden fence, and she didn’t block my front door. The mango and palm trees in pots beneath her felled form came through unscathed. The vet didn’t find an ear infection. Two people have responded to the writer’s guild post about doing spontaneous writing. I’m spending Thanksgiving tomorrow with Mami and Auntie Gardi and her family for the first time ever. I get to choose a new tree to plant, maybe that one I’ve had my eye on with the big pink flowers in the fall. For the bare branches it will have in the winter so I can see the mountains. For the mountains themselves. For my new yoga teacher and the new meditation center I can ride my bike to, sidewalk all the way. For the good headlight on my bike so I feel comfortable riding in the dark. For my zafu. That I finished grading all the summaries and essays late last night, so the next four days sit clear. That cleaning up the shambles of our courtyard after they cut our tree in pieces and took her away had me paring everything back to pure clean beginnings. For time this weekend to put the Christmas solar lights up, lay down a few small pavers, put the sweet finishing touches back in new places, life breathed into it all. For this afternoon when I hauled Boo back to bed with me, and he stayed on my belly and let me pet him for a long time, tears rolling down my face. For the promise of belonging to the sangha, the promise of Sable becoming well again, the promise of a wet winter. For the house finch and the goldfinch at their feeders today in our naked courtyard, flitting, chattering bits of sweetness in the warm, clear day. For the big full moon rising out my shower window in the cold night, water hot against my skin. For you, for me, for words and meaning, for long lives lived well.

Heart Forward (36)

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I’ve begun taking a yoga class again. I chose the beginning class, and still the first day I felt like a big, heavy weakling. But I didn’t make myself feel bad about it. I am only glad I’ve begun, knowing I’ll get stronger, lighter. I believe that because two decades ago I did yoga for the first time at a retreat. After three days, I felt amazing. I fully inhabited my body for the first time in my life. There was energy between my toes. I haven’t touched that exact feeling since, as though all of my being reached the edges of my skin, but I know it’s possible. I do yoga at home, but I don’t push myself the way I am pushed in a class. I seem to have become better, too, at protecting my back, my hip. I am paying more attention. And when I can’t do something, or it is really hard, I am not beating myself up. These two changes alone are immense, gratifying. Add working in the yoga studio full of clean autumn light with a teacher who emphasizes the spiritual aspects of the practice—well, it becomes almost more than I can hold. I can feel it moving against my breast bone, and I remember yesterday I learned I push my ribs out too far. I need to move my heart forward. And so I will.

Altar Peace (34)

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my altar with candles and pumpkin and marigolds

My day of the dead unfolded without effort, my altar growing little by little over the past week, my ritual organic and unplanned. I bought a big bunch of orange marigolds at the farmers market, and yesterday I plucked them from their stems, added them to the altar. Now it is a living, breathing thing beside me, candles at the heart of it. I wish I could let you see it the way I see it. The changing light adds a kind of sharpness, a clarity. It makes the colors dazzle, the flames dance. Every time I look at it it makes my heart dance, too. I have a big grin on my face, and I feel so lucky I could burst. And the smell—that spicy, earthy scent. I won’t need food if I can just keep breathing it in. Sunday in the late dusk I watered the plants here in the courtyard, went through the long list of my dead. They’d been coming to me bit by bit, but this time I started at the beginning, worked my way through each one in order, from my dog Grunt and my Oma almost 50 years ago to my cat Sofia, my newest dead. I ended up standing in the dark beside the glowing altar talking to each one, wanting them to know they are well loved and well missed, asking for blessings on them at this time when the veil between the worlds is thin, midway through these months when the moon holds sway. Today while I write a bee comes to grace the altar, touching each blossom in turn, messenger of the gods. Feliz día de los muertos. Happy turning of the wheel.

My Day of Poetry, My Poem (32)

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Today I had the great honor and gift of taking a class titled “Ways Poetry Can Enliven, Illuminate, and Improve Your Prose” with poet and professor Julie Paegle. At one point, she gave us each a poem on a small sheet of paper that we can carry with us out in the world to memorize. Mine was “The Reassurance” by Thom Gunn. (I think it may have been her intention or prayer to participate with the universe when she handed them out. Each one was different, and more than one person said she must be psychic.) In one exercise we were told to read the poem she picked for us, choose something we loved or hated about it and take that with us into a poem we wrote ourselves. This is the poem that came to me.

I remember
the first time you came back
after you died.

We were sitting
outside a prison
at a round stone picnic table
near a chain link fence.

I said,
“What are you doing here?
You’re supposed to be dead.”

You smiled,
nodded.

I remember waking up
still shocked by your presence
not sure if I was glad
or annoyed
to know you could appear like that
so alive
anytime you wanted.