Start Where You Are Today

Today, I’m feeling soggy—absolutely done-in by days of unrelenting rain. It’s the kind of weather that could bum me out if I let it There’s a very real condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder that actually does “do-in” those who suffer from too much meteorological gloom (and a lack of vitamin D). Those of us who are not biologically impaired by weeks of gray skies and saturating rain, however, stand a better chance of turning around those bummed out feelings.

Still basking in the afterglow from the recent performance of my metaphysical blues song, Start Where You Are Today (if not from the “glow” of the sun), I’m reminded that by changing our thinking we can change our experience of life. Sounds simplistic, but is not for the faint of heart. Borrowing from the lyrics of the song, we perhaps can’t change our circumstances (or the torrential rain outside my window), but we can change the way we experience them. It also reminds us that we need to start somewhere—preferably today. Corny as it sounds, today really is the first day of the rest of our life. Just try changing yesterday.

There are examples too numerous to site of people overcoming seemingly unendurable circumstances by shifting their perspective—Viktor Frankl comes to mind (Man’s Search for Meaning), a prisoner of war with no real prospects of survival who became an esteemed philosopher and inspirational teacher. But, that’s a really big example. What about us regular-folks?

What about those of us who feel weighed down by an elongated season of rain? Day after day of no sunshine, temperatures that never rise above fifty degrees, ruts in the driveway that get deeper and deeper with the onslaught of water, potted plants that have drowned and hopefully gone on to a better place—we become morose, lethargic, eat more carbs than we know we should. We drag ourselves to work with a lack of enthusiasm and an attitude befitting Eyore. Can we just “snap out of it”? Possibly not—but perhaps we can think our way through it to a less stressful experience of it.

To look at our thinking, we have to notice the stuck spots, the places of self-sabotage. Back to the song—a guy is sitting at a stop sign waiting for the light to change—talk about self defeating—with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake, wondering why nothing is happening. Have you ever been there?

His question of angst is “Why try, we’re all gonna die anyway.” Well, yes, it’s true—we are all going to die. A whole generation of kids who grew up in the era of the bomb shelter in the back yard held the same question. I guess the focus should be on what would you like your quality of life to be between right now, and then? The guy in the song rails about the role of fate, and the admonishment to not push the river—it flows by itself. Again, this is not about controlling the outcome, but rather influencing the process by which we get there. The journey—not the destination is our focus.

So, what are the good things that can come out of all this rain? Even though the ground water is backed up like a bad sewer right now, over time it will seep deeper and deeper into the earth, reaching those tree roots and dormant plants that have been waiting for this miracle of nature to kick-start their growth cycle. My lilac bush has burst into bloom, despite the torrential rain weighing down it’s branches. Trees and plants are good. Imagine a world without them. They need rain.

On rainy days, I’m less likely to busy myself out in the world. I become more introspective; I move at a slower pace; I rest my body more deeply than when I’m running about “getting things done.” Slowing down is actually good for our health.

Natural beauty is its own reward. The dusty greens and musty yellows of the dry season are pretty in their own subdued way. But, the vivid colors that emerge after spring rains are enough to make me dizzy. The neighbor’s plum tree glows with pink flowers snuggling close to its formerly bare branches. The lavender color of my lilac along the back fence soothes my senses. The dust-free green of the vines that will soon spout clusters of purple wisteria, glisten as they gracefully drape from the tree boughs. The deep rust of the redwoods, saturated with water, are not seen anywhere else in nature’s colors.

I’m sure you can make your own list that will help add some balance to the scale of coping. For me, I’m still looking forward to sunshine—which I know will arrive, eventually. In the meantime, I feel a little less hostile as I pop an extra vitamin D, grab my umbrella, and head out into my day. Hmm. The air actually smells pretty good.

It’s That Time Again. . .

As autumn sneaks in the back door to the summer I didn't get, and winter looms dark and heavy just beyond the fence, doing nothing for long periods of time feels easier than doing something. My bear-self is preparing for hibernation—I can feel it in my bones.

Most people run about ridiculously happy to be done with the hot, sticky, summer weather. They ooo and aah about the change of seasons, the touch of crispness in the air, the leaves shifting from green to the red-gold spectrum. They use words like invigorating. They’re out and about—they exercise and stretch those muscles that went dormant with lazy summer days. They even jog, for heaven sake. Dinners are laden with root vegetables and stews, pastas and breads. Pumpkins are popping up everywhere. I even saw an artificial Christmas tree at Costco over the weekend. I mean, really?

I have an atavistic response to autumn—maybe because I grew up in the Midwest, where autumn is short-lived, and is followed by months of bleak, colorless days of unbelievably cold weather. My bear cells begin to multiply as I take on extra weight, experience a bleary-eyed lethargy that comes with the change of seasons. I eat more than I’m hungry for in preparation for the next five months of hibernation when I lose my appetite. I move less, and lumber when movement is required. It wouldn’t surprise me if one day I sprouted a full body of thick fur.

My human experience is one of losing my words. My brain slows down, and word retrieval is sketchy at best. New ideas have to wait until spring, when the blood flows more smoothly to my brain. My heart takes up a hypnotic thump-pause, thump-pause rhythm. My extremities are always cold. I crave the quiet, solitude of my little cave-cottage, and get cranky at a life that yanks me out of my comfort zone daily. I would be blissfully happy sitting in one spot, wrapped in a blanket—just point me toward a blank wall. And, turn up the heat, please.

Fortunately, this response lasts only a matter of days. I can feel it creeping about the perimeter of my psyche, like an old bear sniffing out a warm, dry cave to hole up in. If you need to reach me, and phone, e-mail, and snail-mail haven’t been effective, perhaps you could leave a note under a rock just outside my cave. I’ll get to it.

Door to the Center of the Earth

Ever since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by the thought of finding a door in the trunk of a tree. I imagined coming upon a tree in the woods with a small door that only I noticed. There would be a brass doorknob or latch, and once inside, I would follow a path down to a magical world in the bowels of the earth.

I’m not sure where I got that idea, as most of the timberland trees in my small Iowa hometown were no more than eight-to-ten inches in diameter. But I remember looking, when we’d take Sunday afternoon walks through the woods.

In my 40ies, a friend took me to visit a camp, nestled in a redwood forest above the coast of the Pacific ocean, where she spent summers. We wound our way through the camp to the far edge of the property where there was a huge redwood tree. To my delight, there was a door in the hollowed-out trunk. Stepping through the door, I found myself in a tiny room, with a small bed, a chair, and a table with a oil lamp. I had visions of a Hobbit coming to reclaim the space. But for the moment, I was able to live at least part of my childhood fantasy—minus the bowels of the earth adventure.

Little did I know that fifteen years later, I would revisit the idea of the hollow tree, through shamanic journeying, to find a spirit guide.


Shamanic journeying is a spiritual practice prevalent in many indigenous earth-based cultures, of entering into an altered state of consciousness, or trance, with the purpose of finding guidance in the spirit realm. In trance, we search for a totem animal or guide to bring back with us to our daily reality.

The ritual lasts close to an hour and is usually done in a darkened room with closed eyes to the beat of a drum. The drum cadence guides us deeper and then returns us to our normal realm. Minimal verbal instructions are given at the beginning of the journey.

I lay on my back listening to the quiet of the high-beamed room in the lodge. Huge glass windows reflected darkness, broken only by an occasional star peeping through the redwood trees surrounding us. The only sound was an occasional pop or crackle from the glowing fireplace and the rustle of shifting bodies. Our guide, barely illuminated by the glowing embers, gave us our instructions. To the sound of a drumbeat, she asked us to go to a place in nature where we could enter the earth—a pond, an animal burrow, or a hollowed tree. We would descend that tunnel until we came to the underworld where we would step out, experience this new place, and ask its inhabitants who among them would be our guide. When we made contact, we were to ask them to return in the palm of our hand to the middle world. When the drum beat quickened, we should re-enter the tunnel and return quickly with our guides.

I remembered the hollow tree image from childhood. This evening I knew it would be my entrance to below. In my mind I traveled into the woods, found the magic tree with the secret door, and entered the hollowed trunk. I let go, and fell gently down, down, down. The earthen tunnel was quiet and strangely warm. Roots twisted and turned to define the tunnel through which I fell deeper into the earth. At last, I felt my feet touched the bottom and I got my footing again.

The tunnel continued, dimly lit by some unknown source. Following it, I saw that it opened into a shimmering, silver-gray luminous light, which reminded me of headlights back-lighting a fog bank.

As my eyes grew accustomed to the strange light, I stepped from the tunnel onto a beach of finely grained, oatmeal-colored sand, which was soft and cool to my bare feet. This beach was unlike any I had ever seen. I was in awe of the vast stillness, broken only by the gentle lapping of ocean waves, when I became aware of nearby life. I saw amazing animals, amphibian-like, ancient and puzzling—a huge turtle creature that was part bird, a crocodile-like snake without legs. I wandered among them, feeling strangely safe in their presence.

I told them that I had come to find my totem, a guide to take back with me, to escort me through the middle world where I lived. I sensed disinterest, a turning away, a “no” in another language that I was somehow able to understand. Confused, I stood pondering this strange land and its inhabitants, resting my hand against something dusty-green, leathery, dry, and scaly to the touch. I felt a ripple of muscle, an increment of movement beneath my hand. I withdrew it quickly and realized I had been resting against one very large talon belonging to an enormous creature.

I jumped back, my eyes moving upward, following the contours of a gigantic body that resembled a dragon. Grayish-brown bat-like wings seemed to stretch out forever and a long, pointed tail swept into the distance. Amazingly, I felt no fear.

“Are you my guide?” I asked, my Virgo mind already grappling with the improbable detail of carrying this creature back in the palm of my hand.

“Yes,” the creature answered in a disarmingly gentle voice, “but you know me in a shape-shifted form; look at me carefully.”

For a stunned moment, I considered where I might have met a flying dragon creature such as this before. As I studied it, I was aware of something slightly familiar about the legs, the tail, perhaps without the wings. My inner sight shifted and I suddenly saw my salamander guide from the creek banks.

The humor and irony of this washed over me. The salamander is small, not physically imposing, even fragile appearing, and can be seen as weak and easily intimidated. What I saw in my trance, however, was the heart and soul of the dragon inside, fierce, protective, courageous, and definitely not to be messed with.

I asked my guide to shape-shift into my hand so that we might return together to the middle world. I felt the small, dry, leathery figure of the salamander in my palm. Her eyes were bright; her head bobbed up and down in anticipation.

As if from another world, I heard the cadence of the drum increase, calling us back. Moments later I opened my eyes in the safety of the lodge, the drum silent, my journey ended, but the gift of my guide just begun.


Fifteen years have passed since that time. I live in the middle of the city now, in a neighborhood—still among the redwoods, cedars, oaks, and maples, but the more genteel version of nature, the urbanized version. Imagine my delight and surprise as I took a stroll at sunset down one of the oldest streets in town, lined with turn-of-the-century estates and formal gardens—it was one of those warm, cross-over nights where late summer elbows its way into autumn—only to find an ancient tree just off the sidewalk, the bark peeled away, revealing what appeared to be a door carved into the trunk, with a brass knob that beckoned to be turned.

Would I? I’m now 65, old enough to have outgrown thoughts of magical worlds, right? Of course I tried to turn the knob. It was someone’s idea of a joke. On closer inspection the knob had been nailed to the exposed bark, giving the illusion—to those of us with old eyes, young hearts, and a belief in magic—of an actual door. I’m still not convinced. I think maybe there is a secret passage word that would open the door. The next time I pass that tree, I’ll try a couple of them out, and let you know.

I Am My Mother’s Daughter After All

Do you remember when you first heard those words slip out of your mouth? You know the ones—the ones you swore you’d never say, the ones that would define you as “just like your mother.” Or gestures, manners of speech, inflections of voice, stride—anything that would cause you to say, “Oh my God, I’m channeling my mother.”

As a child, it was funny, endearing. As a teenager, nothing could be worse. As a young adult, it was cause for mirth and the raise of an eyebrow. As an oldster, missing my mother who died almost three years ago now, it brings nostalgia and a wish that I could share these musings with her.

After her death, my siblings and I had the task of going through her personal items, sorting, keeping, tossing, donating. If you’ve lost a parent, you know just what this is like. Mom collected things—Hummel statues, plastic containers, cards and letters (according to the boxes, I don’t think she ever threw any of them away). And she made notes in journals—cryptic entries that left us scratching our heads, furrowing our eyebrows, casting furtive looks at one another as we would read aloud from the pages. Long lists of names, not people she knew, just names. The temperature on different days. Words and phrases that caught her fancy. Numbers. Medical terms, without definition.

I was in my office the other day, between clients—someone had canceled with short notice, leaving me time to file a nail that had chipped earlier when I banged it on the bathroom counter—rifling through my bag to find an nail file, when I dislodged a miniature journal made of rice paper, bound with raffia, that has been a constant companion in my bag for however long I’ve had that bag. I keep the journal handy to jot down ideas for writing, capture snippets of conversations that amuse me, and to my astonishment, lists of words or phrases that I didn’t want to forget. Here’s a sampling:

There’s acute depression, and then not so cute depression; death, as a period to your life sentence; there’s no bottom to dumb; just a raggedy-ass guess; the smell of extinguished Jack-o-lanterns; she sat still as a slab of alabaster; and from a Facebook entry, “You used to be muchier. You’ve lost much of your muchiness.”

And lists of words:

Enwombed, oblique, lugubrious, transubstantiation, sartorial, oubliette, malodiferous, overmuch, pugugly.

And on one page, just sitting there all by itself:

Cucumber and ginger facial peal.

These are the sort of things I can “write off” as practical tools of a writer’s life, right? Defensible, right? You never know when one of those words or phrases will wind up in a story.

Or perhaps, I am, indeed, just my mother’s daughter after all.

You Can’t Go Home Again

You’ve heard the words, “You can’t go home again,” usually indicating that things change, that what you remember from your childhood will look—and actually be—different than how you experienced it oh-so-many years ago.

There’s a story that’s been niggling around in the back of my mind wanting to be told, of a decrepit, miserly old man from my childhood and his rickety old mansion that took up the better portion of a town block. I’ve started the story many times only to set it aside, and finally delete it weeks later. Yet, it lingers in my mind like one of those menopausal thoughts you can’t quite bring to consciousness during waking hours, but you know will reveal itself at 3a.m. when you wake tossing sheets and blankets off your sweat-drenched body.

I’ve waited, I’ve woken, I’ve tossed—still nothing. I thought that perhaps my recent trek back to my hometown to bury my parents (see April blog) might shake something loose. My cousins, siblings, and I spent a goodly amount of time driving and walking through the Midwestern summer drizzle I-spying all our old haunts—schools, former family homes, old soda fountains, the library, the parks, spending hours sharing our “do you remember when . . .” stories.

The two houses I’d grown up in, more or less recognizable, sported some needed upgrades. My grandmother’s house was missing the garden and back yard where we spent much of our childhood, running up and down the cellar door, and making dancing dolls of Hollyhocks and clothespins. My aunt’s house, the hub of our family’s activities, was missing the wrap-around porch, and the hand pump that would deliver icy, mineraly tasting water to our waiting cupped hands on a hot summer day, was no longer there. My elementary school that also housed the high school when I was little, was gone. An empty lot remained where children, including my father, had received their education, romped in the playgrounds, rooted for the home team in the football field out back. My old church was there, but surrounded by so many new buildings that it seemed as out of place as big mole on a fair-skinned child.

I asked my cousin to drive us by the rickety old mansion that plagued my writer’s mind, hoping it would inspire a rush of memory, a flood of words, an outpouring of story line so that I could finally get this tale out of my head.

The house was empty. Not abandoned, shuttered, falling to the ground empty as I’d expected, but a newly remodeled, newly landscaped, freshly painted, not-yet-sold empty. The house of my memory doesn’t even exist. If it weren’t for the location, I’d have driven right on by, not recognized it.

Staring at the big house on the corner lot, I felt tears brim, the hot, stinging, unfair, doesn’t make any kind of sense tears that I refused to let fall. I blinked back my grief at the loss, although I wasn’t sure exactly what the loss was.

Was I grieving the loss of the home of an old curmudgeon from my childhood? Or was I grieving the loss of my childhood, my innocence, my belief that the world was safe, and people were good and always did the right thing, that nothing would ever harm me, and things would be the same forever? That the President knows best, the police can always be trusted, doctors have the answers, teachers are beyond reproach, and that there would be freedom and justice for all? Or was I finally grieving the loss of my family of elders—now all dead?

Maybe it was just the loss of a good story, after all.

My Suitcase

Two little words around which I came unglued, and that offered me a new perspective on life. Of course, there’s a story—perhaps one you won’t even be able to relate to, if you’re lucky; or if you can relate, I’m sorry. I hope you’ve recovered.

As a good little Virgo, I began making my packing list(s) weeks in advance of traveling back to Iowa for a combination cousins reunion and the laying to rest of my parents’ (the last of their generation) ashes in the family plot of our small town cemetery. I hadn’t been back home in decades, the last visit being my aunt’s funeral. The cousins that were expected this trip, were the kids I’ve known since birth—there were a clump of us all in the same age range who grew up more or less together, and stayed in close contact over the years, as modeled by our parents, when life flung us to the far corners of the U.S. I couldn’t wait to see them again in their adult forms (knowing that just under the surface were the youngsters we all knew and remembered, along with nicknames and embarrassing stories from our youth).

Packing (and re-packing, and ironing, and re-packing again until everything I needed for four days away from home was snugly in its spot with not an inch to spare) had become a pleasant ritual of expectation and daydreaming about the return to “home base,” the place where all of our parents grew up. I chuckle at the sense of noblesse oblige I carried into my adulthood, haling from a small pond where my ancestors were the big fish—founding families actually meant something back in those days. It wasn’t until I moved to a slightly larger city as a pre-teen, where no one had ever heard of my family, did I realize the moral obligation I felt to act with honor, kindness, and generosity as a family imperative, was now a matter of choice. I’m straying from the story.

Suitcase packed, the day had come, the bus schedule that would transport me from home to airport memorized, I looked forward to a leisurely two-hour ride where I would watch the last of a vibrant sunset, followed by time to read one of the paperbacks I’d chosen earlier in the week for my trip. I would arrive with lots of time to casually check-in for my red-eye flight, through which I would sleep soundly and arrive refreshed in Chicago for my connector flight the next morning. You know where this is going, right? How apt that the novel I’m working on now is called Best Laid Plans.

Sunset was stunning, back lighting the dark clouds left over from days of stormy weather. The paperback held my attention which pleased me, because I do choose books by their cover—you never know. As the bus traveled down 19th Avenue in San Francisco, lined with Victorians and two-story railroad flats, I entertained myself by imagining how I would decorate those lovely high-ceilinged vast apartments.

The bus was fairly empty; I had a row of seats to myself. Actually, I had several rows to myself. Along with a handful of passengers, I got off the bus at San Francisco International Airport. Night had settled in and the lighting was dim overhead. The driver set the suitcases on the sidewalk. I grabbed mine and slipped him a tip and a thank you, and headed to the monitor to check for my boarding gate (having thought ahead to print out my boarding pass from home to save time). Hmm. My flight was not listed. I hadn’t counted on that. Looked like a trip to the ticket desk was in order. The line was long, and people were murmuring about cancelled flights, missed connections, etc. We stood in line for an hour like restless cattle at an empty food trough, swaying back and forth from foot to foot, throwing our heads about looking over-shoulder at the monitors hoping to see the magic flight numbers appear. The extra time I’d allowed to make my flight with time to spare, was slowly being eaten away. If I missed this flight, I’d miss the connector flight in Chicago, and arrive who-knows-when in Iowa.

I didn’t miss my flight. It was canceled. The re-booked flight left three hours later. Weather. This was a portent of things to come. I watched people who were flying north, or south, or even west on our airline move through the line and disappear to waiting gates. Those of us fated to travel east sighed heavily, tapped our feet, rolled our eyes in a non-verbal sharing of our collective exasperation.

After two hours, I figured I might as well go through Security, take care of the take-your-shoes-off thing, the put-your-liquids-in-the-baggie thing, even the pat-down thing, while I awaited my assigned gate—at least there would be chairs to sit in. I dragged my suitcase through the maze created by post-and-rope configurations that seem ridiculous when there is no crowd to control, handed the guard my ID and ticket, and was ushered through to the rolling pins on which you send your personals through x-ray to make sure you’re not concealing terrorist materials in your luggage.

I stooped down to fish out my quart-sized baggie of shampoo, toothpaste, eye drops, and other contraband. The top zipper compartment of my suitcase where I keep such things, was empty. I blinked, trying to let the impact of this hit my brain (I don’t know why I thought blinking would help). The compartment was still empty. Don’t panic, I warned myself—there’s a logical explanation, and I still have time. Lots and lots of time, as it turned out. Perhaps at the last minute I stuck the baggie in the lower compartment where I usually carry my books. Ugh. That compartment was empty, too. Where the heck were my books? Okay, you can panic a little bit, I gave myself permission. Next, I tried the main part of my suitcase, where all my clothes were neatly packed. What the heck? Black Levis, a yellow sweatshirt, a pair of huge running shoes, socks I wouldn’t be caught dead in, and a bottle of booze? This is not my suitcase. I looked around wildly, fighting an urge to burst into tears.

“This is not my suitcase,” I said to the x-ray machine attendant. She stooped down, picked up the bottle of Whisky, and said, “Is this your alcohol?” I smacked my head in frustration and panic.

“It’s not my alcohol. It’s not even my suitcase,” I stage-whispered, to avoid shouting at her.

The woman called two more guards over, who eyed the alcohol and then me with raised eyebrows. The woman explained that it wasn’t my suitcase.

“You brought it through Security, right?” one guard asked. I nodded. “So, it’s your responsibility. What do you want to do with it? You can’t check it through, you know.”

By now, my body was shaking. I was supposed to be sound asleep on my red-eye. Instead I was facing a wide-awake nightmare. “It’s. Not. My. Suitcase,” I said again, very slowly. “I don’t want it. I want my suitcase, but I don’t know where it is.”

What happened next, was a Keystone Cops routine of going from Security, back to the ticketing agent, to the Lost and Found, back up to Security, several times over. No one knew what to do with a tired, weepy old woman who was carrying illegal alcohol and someone else's suitcase.

Slowly, it dawned on me what I was facing. My eyes hurt; I wanted my eye drops. Oh, right—they were in my suitcase. While I was waiting at one counter after another, I could have distracted myself with a book—oh, yeah, it was in my suitcase. I would have changed shoes to better navigate the miles I was putting on, but they were in my suitcase, too. Crap. I feebly hoped my suitcase was having a better trip than I was. Maybe it was on its way to a sunny state where people’s minds weren’t soggy from too many days of rain and gray weather.

If this was a suitcase switch when we got off the bus several hours ago, and the guy who owned the suitcase I was now responsible for discovered he was headed wherever-he-was-headed and would be faced with a week’s worth of women’s shorts, some cute little tops, a dress or two, and several pairs of sandals to wear, wouldn’t he make every effort to contact me and get this straightened out?

I’ll spare you the next hour’s worth of details and skip to the resolution. There was a name on the suitcase—the suitcase that looked just like mine, that even had the same red satin ribbon tied to the same handle (what are the chances of that?). He was a passenger on the same airlines, but flying south. His plane left an hour ago. Lost and Found would page the airport where he would land and ask him to call SFO. They would fly my bag back to SFO, and forward it to the Iowa airport which was my last stop of this adventure gone wrong. They would send his bag, for which I had somehow just been relieved of the responsibility, down south. But what if . . .

What if he didn’t have my suitcase? Where was my suitcase? Would I ever see it again? No time to wonder, my rescheduled flight was being called. I ran back to Security, flashed my ID and ticket (by now, the guard and I were on familiar basis from my many trips back and forth), sent my purse and shoes through x-ray, got patted down (do I look like a terrorist?), ran to my gate and boarded my plane to Chicago.

I couldn’t sleep. I was so wound up, my body ached, and I was squished against the side of the plane in the window seat by a massive man with elbows that poked me in the side as he snored loudly next to me. After circling and extra twenty minutes over O’Hare Airport waiting for the fog to clear enough to land, I realized why they call this the red-eye. I felt a particular kinship to those green-faced, red-eyed monsters of the horror movies who you just know have terrible breath.

Once on the ground and in the airport at O’Hare, I signed up for ten more hours of canceled and rescheduled flights. It was that, or take up residency in Chicago. With my feet on firm ground, and at least closer to Iowa than I’d been before, my mind was relieved enough to think through my suitcase dilemma. Perhaps, just perhaps, the guy headed south noticed that he was left with the wrong suitcase before the bus left. Maybe, if the gods hadn’t totally deserted me, my suitcase never left California. I suppose it could have set on the curb all night, or someone could have carried it off hoping for some salable treasures inside (their bad luck!). But what would be the harm of calling the transit office just on the outside chance the driver had returned my suitcase to their home office?

Thank goodness for cell phones. Remember those old banks of telephones that used to be in airports? Where did they go? There wasn’t a (what I refer to as) real phone in sight. I waited until the west coast would be awake, and dialed the commuter bus office. I gave them the abbreviated form of the last many hours, and asked—more like begged—if they might have had a brown suitcase with a red ribbon returned from their 8:30 pm bus.

Why, yes, they did. They’d hold it until I returned the next week and could come pick it up, right there in my town. Tears of gratitude leaked from my raw little eyes. Never mind that I’d be forced into a late night shopping excursion at the nearest Wal-Mart so I’d have clothes for my body. Never mind that everything I thought I absolutely must have to travel turned out to be a fallacy, and that what I wound up buying to get me through the week fit nicely into a small book bag I’d scored for free at the Chicago airport. Never mind any of it.

My suitcase was safe (albeit, in California). Many hours later, I was on board the last plane to my destination. My family was waiting on the other end. My resolve to never fly again would surely be broken by the time I was due to hop on my flight back to California. But that’s another story.

Don’t Go Numb

Once again, technology trips me up. On January 18, I saved a blog entry along with a video on vulnerability, connection and the role of shame, to be posted this week. It seems that when I tried to bring it out of the Edit file and post it today, it chose to cling tenaciously to its January 18th original date. Please scroll down to January 18th and check out this inspiring video.

Words-worth

I’m genetically predisposed to be a words person. My mother collected words that fascinated her by their sound or spelling or unusual length. She would repeat these words with reverence, carefully enunciating each syllable as if they were her personal mantra. Onomatopoeia, the formation of words by imitating their sound, like buzz; tintinnabulation, the ringing sound of bells; palindromes, words that are spelled the same or series of numbers that are the same whether you start from front or back, like mom and 103212301; anthropomorphize, the representation of objects as having human form or traits—the words would roll off her tongue and be absorbed by my hungry little ears.

She had an uncanny ability to tell you immediately how many syllables were in any word. It became a game to try and stump her—never happened. Elephantitis, we’d say; and she’d say five before we even finished the word. After she died, and my siblings and I were clearing out years of her life stored in boxes under her bed and crammed in closets, I came across several notebooks with pages of words that seemed unrelated except for this fascination she had with the words themselves.

One morning this week I awoke with the word anthropomorphize stuck in my head. You see a lot of this on television, especially in advertisements. Little squares of cereal dance about a child’s backpack excitedly celebrating the first day back at school; happy cows in California crack jokes about their bovine companions; crows cackle with mirth as a homeowner smacks into a sliding glass door that’s been cleaned to spotless transparency; M&Ms stand stubbornly on the shelf and refuse to jump in the snack bowl—the list goes on.

Not only do we ascribe traits to inanimate objects to sell products, but we use this tactic to teach morals. In my day, The Little Engine That Could taught me about fortitude, hanging in there (“I think I can; I think I can”), giving it your best and being greatly rewarded for your effort (“I thought I could; I thought I could”). There’s a character now called Sponge Bob Square Pants—I had to consult with my daughter about this one—a sponge that lives under the sea in a pineapple (?). He’s good natured, eager, and passionate about life. As do humans, he occasionally frustrates the heck out of his friends. Taking people as they are, perhaps developing tolerance and an appreciation for idiosyncrasies may (or may not) be the message in this cartoon. As you think back over your lifetime, I’m sure myriad examples come to mind.

What is this anthropomorphizing all about? Is it an extrapolation of Carl Jung’s writings on the animus mundi, or world mind? Is it a modern day example of the philosophy that we are all One, united in spirit? I have a feeling that a child in Africa, or China, or India would get a good chuckle at the antics of Snoopy or Woodstock, and would shed tears over Bambi losing his mother. Human traits we can relate to, ascribed to inanimate objects, brought forward by that wonderful word, allow us to connect in a greater community beyond the limitations of our daily lives. I guess that’s worth something.

More Bits and Pieces

Update: Occasionally I get feedback on my posts—I love it! Regarding my July 10 posting on Spirit Guides, my friend Nancy down near Los Gatos writes, “I loved reading this! Did you know that scientists have found that when cats & dogs look at you intently like that and then consciously blink, they are acknowledging a connection to you? It's like the animal kingdom's way of saying "Namaste."

This morning’s bits and pieces, those moments I try to capture before they’re gone in a flash (see July 3 posting), is about my bicycle. I got it from my grandparents when I was seven, and through many seasons of cousins learning to ride on it, several paint jobs (thanks brother Bill), and years of retirement in my folks potting shed in Colorado, we were reunited a few years ago. We are inseparable now, as we were in my childhood.


I pedal my antique Schwinn through midday autumn. The scent of burnt wood from fireplaces wraps its invisible tendrils of smoke around currents of air. Against a backdrop of cloudless blue hang orange, gold, green and crimson leaves that glitter hypnotically as the sun teases the shadow branches. An updraft of breeze at my back hurls a tornado of colorful leaves that spin crazily about my head, around my body, through the spokes of my bicycle wheels. Clickety, clickety, clickety—like the playing cards fastened with clothespins from a childhood over five decades ago. I laugh aloud. A crow cocks its head from a telephone wire at this old lady on her bicycle. Caw, it chortles.

Past Life Regression

Whether you’ve had this experience or not, whether you believe it’s a form of creative imagination or brain chemistry in action, or just a lot of "hooey" (a term that lives in the cobwebs of my Iowa childhood), I have what I choose to think of as past lives recall. My friend Nancy is a hypnotherapist, and offered to lead a small group of friends in a journey backwards to connect with other lifetimes we may have experienced. Her protocol was gentle, and nothing was suggested in the way of information or material; the format was more about posing questions for our subconscious to ponder while in a light hypnotic trance. For example: Are you male or female? What is the year? How old are you? etc., getting more specific as we move deeper into recall, and adding any noticed sensory experience.

I’ve had other spontaneous recall experiences in my life—one while sitting at a stop light downtown during the Christmas rush. I “saw” myself as a forty-ish matron in a dark coat, a pillbox sort of hat, and black sensible shoes like the ones my grandmother used to wear, standing on a flight of steps under a clock tower. The afternoon sky was chalky gray, the weather was cool and slightly drizzly, and a flock of pigeons were flying overhead. The clock bonged and I said to myself, “I guess it’s time to go pick up the children.” I sense my position was as a nanny, somewhere in Europe—England, most likely. All of this happened between the change-over from red light to green.

In another recall, I was a woman in my early twenties, wearing a long plain dress, barefoot, and being dragged by men at either side of me down a path toward scaffolding where I was to be burned as a witch. As I was bound to a post, a looked out over the gathered crowd and saw their looks of pity, excitement, fear, lust, sadness. I remember the smell of smoke, the early lick of flames, and then nothing. I’ve often thought this may be the reason I’m not called to do fire walking at the various spiritual retreats I’ve attended over the years.

Here is what I recall from the experience with Nancy:

I am a woman either in my late twenties or early thirties—hard to tell, certainly of the age to be considered a spinster by current standards. Years don’t seem too important, they just pass. My name is Jesa—something—Jesamine, maybe? I don’t hear my name spoken often. The date is early 1800s, maybe 1802.

I seem resigned to life. I am standing in a meadow of fairly high golden, tawny field grasses. It’s hot, but the breeze is blowing making the grasses sway. My complexion is ruddy from too much sun. I can feel the swollen patches on my cheeks, my forehead and chin. We’re on the plains, somewhere west of where I came from, which is slightly east of the center of the country (which would later be called the Ohio valley area).

We’ve gotten this far by covered wagon, which is sitting off a short distance from where I stand. It wasn’t my idea to travel this way, or to even travel at all. This trip has been hard, hot, and dirty. I’m standing next to my horse which has a riding blanket thrown over her back. I lean my cheek against her flank. She’s hot and sweaty. She smells of dusty horse and dry weeds. There’s something very comforting about her physical presence.

Somewhere not too far away in the field is the carcass of a buffalo. The cooking meat has been removed, but the smell of blood and the sound of flies buzzing around the remains makes my skin crawl.

There is a man I am traveling with. I don’t feel love towards him; I’m not sure I’m married to him, but he is the person moving me across the country. Perhaps I’m to be a mail order bride? To be delivered into a fated future somewhere west of here? I sense there are others traveling with us, but they’re not present at the moment. I prefer being here by myself. What I learned is that I can survive; I can make it through adversity; I am strong.

What I need to do before I leave this place is move ahead in time and see what lies before me.

I am not yet at my destination. I am on the porch of a wooden shanty. There’s a wood railing around the porch against which I lean. I look out on the dusty dirt streets. It’s a small community of settlers. I am still on my own, but I have this little house. I’m still not sure why I am here, why I left my home. I need to do something with my days, so I create a library of sorts in an abandoned shack, where people can bring any books they’ve brought with them to exchange with others. Perhaps I’ll meet people that way.

About an hour has passed when we are called back by Nancy’s voice, back to the present, back to the room, back to the circle of friends to reflect silently for a moment on our journeys. Later, we will share our stories along with food we’ve brought. “Traveling” seems to have left us ravenous.

To reach Nancy please see her blog at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/reluctant_earthling