Category Archives: Life

The First of March, Afternoon (54)

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On the way home from the farmer’s market, I take a detour on my bike to see how much water is in the creek. I see two men, one standing very still with a big brown dog sitting at his feet, the other wielding a camera with a large telephoto lens. I slow way down as I ride past them, not wanting to disturb his shot. Then I see the egret standing in the middle of the creek. I keep going, afraid if I stop he might decide to leave the camera’s eye. I turn around at the bridge and stop to see the egret on the way back. The photographer and his companions are gone, but there are two men watching the egret from the path on the opposite side of the creek. One is wearing a red hat. I think I get almost as much pleasure looking at them as I do the egret. It makes me feel so good to know they treasure him, too. We all stand watching for a long time. The men move off, and the egret leaves, too. I watch him fly south, weaving his way between the fan palms. I turn my head for a moment when a bicyclist comes by, and when I look back the egret has disappeared. I wonder if he’s my morning egret. The day feels like it’s come full circle.

The First of March, Morning (53)

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snow on mountain

The first thing I see this morning when I raise my head from the pillow is the new snow on our mountain. The sun is shining and the mountain lies beneath the shadow of a big cloud, so the snow stands out even more against the darkness of the shadowed earth and rock. I revel in the glory of it, our impressive mountains capped in white, like holiday gear, and I watch a lone egret flying west, sunlight on his large white wings, stark against the shadowed mountain. Is this “my” egret from the golf course? I put my head back down again. I’m glad for these two white wonders. What a sweet way to begin my weekend.

Agradecimiento at the Kitchen Window (52)

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view from the kitchen window (palo verde, mountains, lime green umbrella)

I am standing beside the pine table in front of the kitchen window mixing the tuna and medicinal herbs for Sofia. My own watermelon juice was first, the jars full of pink clustered together now on the top shelf of the fridge. I move the blender through its speeds, my body on automatic with the familiar steps. I stand looking outside but not seeing. I am glad I’m finally taking care of this. I’d put it off for too many days, something always getting in the way, robbing the time or the inclination. I flip the lever to slow the speed, turn the other to shut the blender off. I am still staring out the window when I come to. I see Serena, adorned with her yellow palo verde blooms. I see the lime green umbrella, the mountains in the distance, doves in both the tray feeders, late morning snack. Pleasure washes through me. I take it in all at once like a song. I really, really love our new home. Gratitude pours out. This appreciation comes often now, slipping in at odd moments, seeming quieter and deeper than I’ve known before. Maybe that comes with age. Maybe it’s tied to the fact that this one belongs to us more fully than before. Or maybe it’s just her own magic working on me, her spot on the planet, her mountains nearby, her birds, her sky, now her palo verde, her bougainvillea, her human, her cats. I feel like we belong here. And so lucky. I hope she’s glad we came.

Sunday Air (51)

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close-up of a sunflower in sunlight

I roll over on the bed, extend my arms out, flex my hands. It’s Sunday morning, and I relish lounging in bed, indulging in that sweet place between sleeping and wakefulness, soft dreamy half thoughts floating through me. I stretch again, spread my fingers wide. When I arch my back, I see the tiny crescent of the waning moon framed in the clerestory window. I love to see the moon in daylight, and this feels like the perfect beginning. I get out of bed, and I see the sun has already reached the courtyard. The two tallest of the volunteer sunflowers are alive in their namesake’s light. My movement at the window startles doves from the ground. More doves take flight when I open the door, and Boo charges out. I remember it’s the one day of grace from the construction site across our little road. I scurry back inside to do what I revel in doing once each week—I open the louvered windows at the front of the house. The Sunday quiet is the only thing that enters. I stand for long moments looking out the open window in the gentle air.

The Woman in the Waiting Room (50)

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I am not so naive or so bigoted to believe all doctors are assholes or all nurses are saints. I know both groups have their fair share of both. But when my stepfather was in the hospital, it was the doctors who were the challenge and the nurses who helped to get us through. It was the nurses and the other family members of patients on the floor. There is something that happens between strangers sitting together in a room when each of you faces losing a loved one. I remember sitting in the little alcove on the eastern side of the oncology floor in the Newport Beach hospital. And I remember a short blonde-haired woman whose husband was dying. I remember seeing recognition when our eyes would meet across the small space. I think we came to love each other a little bit sitting in that room together.

I was sitting there one afternoon, slouched against the blue fabric chairs, when I heard her voice and looked up. She was standing in the hallway, head tilted up toward the oncologist. “You want to understand?” his voice now, loud against the white tiles. “Then you go back ten years,” he growled at her, “and go to medical school.” I don’t remember what came next, only the way the bottom fell out of me for her in that terrible moment. I knew it had already been almost impossible to remain upright, to keep limbs and torso stitched together, and here she was bludgeoned now by his mean, defensive arrogance. I wanted to scream at him on her behalf. I may very well have gone after him, spoken my mind. I was 24 and had a habit of doing so. But I hope I went to her instead. I hope I offered comfort when she needed it. And I hope my eyes spoke those same volumes to hers whenever we met in the alcove or passed each other in the hallway. Brave, kind stranger—que le vaya bien.

Three Goldfinch (48)

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One little bird flies into our courtyard garden, alights on the tip of the palo verde, then perches on the wooden fence. He is making a sweet sound, but I am not sure I can place him. He hops from the fence to the tube feeder. I think he might be a verdin, but I don’t even know if they can cling like this, don’t know if they can reach the thistle seeds through the wire mesh. In case it is a goldfinch, I tell him I hope they will be coming back. “I miss you,” I say, and he flies away. Later I see a flicker of movement, and there are two goldfinch at the feeder. I think, how cool is that? I am sure this time they are goldfinch, and females. I picture them living down the street somewhere, just popping in for a bite to eat in the middle of the afternoon. Hope rears its head. I imagine this idea might spread. The two of them are eating now with gusto. “You go, girls,” I say. Maybe word will get around.

A Jolt from the Universe (47)

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When I am posting the little flyers I’d made for the drop-in writing circle, I send off little hopes and prayers with them. May it be sweet and safe, I ask. When Laurie tells me she felt safe in our first circle, I hear that echo, send my thanks. And before we begin yesterday, the universe gives me a bit of a jolt I am pretty sure is tied to that same prayer, that same hope: sweet and safe. We’d opened the back doors of the hall, moved the big round table in front of them, sun and air beside us. It is just before eleven. I light a candle in the center of the circle. Laurie and Sharon are sitting at the table, and I’m standing beside it. A woman marches across the long hall, plants herself near Laurie’s elbow.

“Are you coming to join us?” I ask her.

“No,” she says. She stands where she is, a soldier at attention.

“Well, did you think you wanted to watch us?” I ask.

“Maybe,” she says.

“Well,” I say, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.” I’d thought about this earlier. We were not looking for an audience.

I haven’t finished my sentence when she does an abrupt about-face and marches back across the hall. She has her arms at her sides, and she is flapping her hands back toward me as she walks, as though she can swat away my words, keep them from following her.

“Um, what is the flapping of the hands?” I ask. And, “Are you really not going to talk to me?” She keeps walking away, keeps flapping her hands in my direction. “I’d be happy to have a conversation with you about this,” I say.

She reaches the door at the other end. “Maybe,” I think I hear her say as she walks out again.

We are all a little stunned. I have to check. “Was I inappropriate in my response?” I ask. They say I wasn’t. I have to shake it out of me then, a kind of invasion I feel in my body. I wave my arms around in the air above the table. “Whoosh whoosh whoosh,” I say. A different flapping of hands, I think now. As best I can figure, this odd jolt is a message. I take it as encouragement and a reason to trust. Maybe it says we can keep our space safe no matter who comes along. And maybe it says, “Certain beings will be led away.”