Category Archives: Reflections

Kicking into High Gear (17)

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For this last week I’ve been struggling with wanting to get more done. Coming off of vacation is never easy for me, and now I have a week to get ready for the next semester. I tell myself, too, after this past summer when I fell so spectacularly apart, it’s been a long time since I worked steadily at my peak. Last semester I did what I needed to do and little else, letting myself retreat to Netflix or a book when those must-dos were done, glad to just be functioning at all, I think, and precarious in it. I tell myself now it isn’t fair to expect to be able to flip a switch, to begin doing not only all sorts of extra things, but to be doing them all quickly. And besides, I point out with a wry grin, it just ain’t happenin’. But I’m not giving up hope. And maybe this is a good experiment. Because I’ve never figured out how to get into high gear without engendering more stress than I want in my life. So, maybe if I keep making this transition like molasses, I’ll get where I want to be without bricks for shoulders. When I begin cataloging what I need to accomplish my body clenches, even though I know I’ll get it all done. Still, my mean voice mutters about all the other things besides schoolwork I’ve been neglecting, nags me about the weeds in the driveway, the dirt from the construction site that’s piled up on the little shelf in the shower where the spray doesn’t reach. My mean voice has a long list, but I don’t want to listen, don’t want to even let the voice live in me. I pause with my pen above the page, take in a deep breath, let it out again. I see the hunter green umbrella poking out above the back fence, a happy reminder my neighbors are back from Canada. I hear a house finch singing in their tree, but I can’t see him. I scratch my head, yawn, grin. I’m going to focus a bit more on my writing today, then move on to some school prep. I’m going to sneak up on this full throttle stuff, I tell myself, and find a way to keep my peace.

Wedded by the Rain (16)

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The first time it rained last summer made our trailer home in some subtle, indescribable way. I lay in bed in the early morning listening to the rain falling on the metal roof. I reveled in the sound and the smell of it, fresh dirt and wet pavement coming through the open louvered windows. It’s been one of my secret hopes that global warming will mean Palm Springs gets to have monsoon season like Arizona and parts of Mexico. Lying there in bed, listening and breathing, something loosened in me. The rain outside our metal shell made us one, somehow, the rain falling on us together. Later I went for a walk with my lime green umbrella. I stood for a long time beneath a big tree at the school listening to raindrops falling on the leaves. The rain woke me up, had me walking through the rock labyrinth on the way home, each step on the wet dirt slow and deliberate, my lungs outside my body, the wet air breathing me.

Bird Visits (or House Finch Fantasy) (15)

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I love birds. But I’ve always been extra fond of the house finch. Maybe in part it’s because this was the first bird I identified on my own, sitting on our wide stone porch in Hopland watching them busy at the feeders. I combed my little book of California birds page by page more than once until it clicked for me, until I recognized my own birds in the photograph. I remember the childlike glee, the thrill of figuring it out on my own, that dumb grin I get on my face when I’m falling in love. But more than being my first birding victory, there is something so present about them, an awareness I don’t sense in some of the other small birds, a feeling of taking stock of things, of taking their time. I see a kindness in them, too. I think that, more than anything, makes me want their company. I love it when they sit in our palo verde or nibble during a quiet moment in the tray feeder. We have one male house finch who shows a golden orange instead of red, an aberration of some sort. (Did I read once it’s caused by nutrition?) I love the vibrant color, this oddness of his. It makes him familiar, the one I can recognize each time he arrives, and it lifts my heart to see him. I dream of the day when I’ll look up into our palo verde and see a score of house finch sitting there in their calm, considering way, when the bougainvillea will have grown lush and bushy and three score more will be chattering from deep inside their shade. And in the meantime, I’ll be glad each time one comes to visit our courtyard garden, odd or otherwise.

My Palo Verde (11)

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picture of palo verde with green umbrella

When they planted my palo verde before we moved into our new home, I prayed to know her name if she had one. Days later when I was weeding near her base I saw her name in my head. It was typed on thick white paper with pink and blue fibers woven through it. The lines were single-spaced, like part of a letter written on an old manual typewriter. Serena. Really? Serena? It wasn’t something I would have chosen. Then I heard it in my head, spoken with a Spanish accent, the long letter “A” sounds, the furred, rolled “R.” I liked it. She was in full bloom when they brought her, and she grew fast. The first fierce wind we had knocked her over, and I became hysterical. I’d never had my own tree planted in the ground before, only Christmas trees who lived in pots. Gus came and righted her, tied her up, but he said she was still too top-heavy. After, I bought a saw. I’ve been removing her limbs little by little, feeling like I’m cutting off my own arms, terror alive in me each time. The last time I had the wrong angle on the cut, had to go in again from the side, made a big gouge in her main trunk I haven’t forgiven myself for. I pray she’ll be okay, that her roots will grow deep and wide now, her remaining limbs thick and strong. I can see her tall and broad, our shelter from the summer afternoon, her branches filled with birds sitting quiet in the early evening. The first morning we lived here, a little yellow bird came to sit in her, tasting her tiny leaves (or maybe eating bugs I couldn’t see). “Ah,” I said. “You are nibbling on my companion.” It felt like a good omen, that visit. Yesterday I looked up and there were more than half a dozen goldfinch perched in her, their little calls and yellow bellies music on a winter day. My palo verde. My Serena. May you be blessed for long, luxurious decades. May you never lack for water, for company, for blue sky, for love.

Are They Real? (10)

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Flowers and metal watering can

I planted violas and marigolds beside my fence along the road. I say violas because that’s what it said on their six packs. I thought they were miniature pansies when I bought them. Planting is my favorite part, when the earth is clean and moist, the flower starts fresh and full of promise, full of hope. In those first days, I am drawn back again and again to feast my fill of them. On Thursday I was in my courtyard taking pictures of the evening sky, when I heard the jingle of a dog collar. People like to walk their dogs along our little road, in the habit, I think, from when the open field still lived on the other side of it. I heard a man’s voice ask if those were new flowers, a woman say something in reply. I stood still then, camera in hand, listening. There was a pause as they walked by, then the man’s voice again. “Are they real?” he asked. I didn’t know whether to be amused or offended. The woman who lived here before me had fake red tulips hanging off the front of the trailer. I shook my head, went back to capturing the changing clouds. The next morning, watering can in hand, I decide to take his question as a compliment. He must have wondered if they were real because their colors are so vivid, because they look so perfect, I tell myself. I pour water on them and shake my head again, amused now by both of us.

Crescendos (9)

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YellowKitchenCloth

It’s the small things that stop me, give me breath. The unbelievable yellow of the new kitchen cloth from Trader Joe’s lying in a bright wet clump on the edge of the sink, the fleeting perfection of its spotlessness. The messy lumps of peeled mango piled inside the red glass bowl, waiting for me to finish writing and open a chilled bottle of Topo Chico to go with them. The surprising thunder of the cicadas in the neighbor’s tree, filling our courtyard garden, growing louder and louder as dusk darkens to night, their wild crescendo crashing through the open windows, the abrupt silence at full dark. I still find myself rubbing my fingers against each other sometimes, evidence of my hidden anxiety. But tonight I listen to the now-quiet air and feel the kind of peace I’ve been longing for.

[Editor’s note: This was originally written shortly after “The Thinning Veil.” As I work to return to my blog, there will no doubt be a mix of things past and present, maybe off season–this was in the heart of the summer–and so on. But here I am!]

The Thinning Veil (8)

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This waiting to feel like myself again is mysterious, elusive. There are times when I forget I’m not yet normal, laughing on the phone with Colleen or glancing up from the computer to see the mountains spread before me, my fondness for our new home springing up. But other moments I feel flat, separate, behaving like the me I know but not feeling like her. There is still wonder everywhere. I know this. The big grasshopper on the sunflower, the mourning doves pecking at the fallen seed below the tray feeder, the roadrunner caught in the corner of my eye when I am working, the hummingbird alighting on the guava tree outside the window–gemstone through glass. A veil between us, I think, a muting of wonder. Unbelievably thin, subtle. Even the coyote watching me with his mouth full of raven, gossamer fluttering between us.