Second Bloom

It’s December, the month I sit down with my current calendar and transfer notes, birthdays, reminders onto the pages of the new year’s calendar. The space heater is on, the steam rises from a cup of ginger tea that sits next to a warmed-up biscuit on an antique plate from my grandmother—the one with tiny pink roses circling the edge. The sky is blue, and deceptively sunny. No warmth reaches the ground.

I’m on July, 2012 now, and in careful lettering with my special blue-ink pen, I write “Wisteria, 2nd bloom,” on the calendar page. I smile in anticipation as I mark this reminder that summer will come again, regardless of the weather at the moment. I feel excitement knowing that next July I will inhale the scent of these beautiful clusters of fragrant purple blossoms that will drip from the greenery overhead, just outside my window.

I have two azalea plants. One blooms in the spring, big, bright, beautiful red blossoms. This I’ve marked in May. The other, with smaller, perfect pink petals, blooms mid-September. Why? I haven’t a clue. I planted them the same time in celebration of a novella I had just published, Waltzing With the Azaleas. The flowers continue to bloom—the book has stopped selling. Such is life.

The days, months, years go so much faster now than once they did. Babies are born, friends and family die, the cycle of life spins along as it did before I arrived, and as it will after I’m gone. I’ve buried both parents, an event I spent the better part of a lifetime dreading. From the vantage point of being old(er) myself now, it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. There’s an order to life, and death is part of it.

The leaves have mostly all dropped like deflated parachutes from the trees that border my cottage. With sadness, I remember a story about someone waiting to die until the last leaf falls from the tree. I can’t remember how it ends, but the poignancy stays with me—I keep thinking that someone glued the last leaf, but the person died anyway. Some things are unavoidable, despite our best attempts at controlling circumstances.

And, as the leaves drop, turn brown, and become mulch, the new pale green buds on my lilac bush dare to raise their heads in careless optimism. As the last of my basil blackens in the early morning frost, the primary colors of the primrose defiantly beam their radiance up at me from their terra cotta pots, undaunted by the winter wind and rain, or the expectations of the season.

At The Whim of the Muses

Some writer friends and I were talking about what drives us to write. We agreed that for whatever reason, we cannot not write, but the motivations were varied. For one writer, there are definite stories she wants to tell. Crafting the storyline, inter-weaving the plots is ultimately satisfying for her. For another, he wishes to create an income doing something he loves—something he’s proud of. He searches for stories that have not been told, many times the behind the scene stories of a headline news article.

We agreed that there were probably as many reasons to write, as writers. “And you?” they ask me.

It seems that I am at the whim of the muses. I write stories out of the universal consciousness as the characters call to me. For one of my novellas, I was shown a mental picture of a small boy standing in front of a mirror, drizzling strands of Christmas tinsel over his head to make him a beautiful woman. He needed me to help him through a sex change later in his life. Before that, the word reincarnation wrapped itself around my brain and wouldn’t let go until I finished a book about an unrequited lesbian love affair in the1700s, England. In a short story, a woman with multiple personalities needed a hand it getting out of an abusive relationship, and begged me to write her an escape route. In a collection of short stories, the theme of returning home kept emerging. In one of those, a young girl from the bayou hitchhiked across country to “find herself” in San Francisco so she could return home to take over the business she was to inherit. Without that quest, she would have lived a quietly miserable life, trapped in a go-nowhere existence. In another, a young Miwok girl beckoned me with mental picture of herself and her younger brother picking blueberries in a field. The girl is stolen and raised in another tribe, and fights for her life to return to her people. It amazed me how many versions of returning home there actually were when I began listening to the characters.

There appears to be no rhyme or reason to what I write—I just show up when I’m called.

Creative Manifestation

There was a time in my life when I was faced with quitting a particularly physical job for the sake of my pregnancy. Everything about my life was about to change with the birth of my daughter, so it seemed like a good time to re-evaluate the space into which I was bringing this new life-form. In hindsight, I think of this as my hedonist period.

It started with bag balm. For those of you who’ve been pregnant, you know the relief this can bring to stretching skin. For those of you who haven’t, imagine cow udders massaged in a balm that would relieve the pressure and swelling of constant milk production and extraction. Yeow. Bag balm spawned the desire for other body pleasure/necessity products: soothing oils, lotions, gentle soaps, herbal toothpaste, scented shampoo. . .

One of my favorite spots on earth was the Berkeley Body Shop. I had moved up from Berkeley a couple years earlier, and when homesick for the chaos of city living (at that time, we were living on the side of a mountain, miles from anything, next to a burbling creek, surrounded by trees), I’d drive a couple hours south and spend the day in my old Berkeley haunts. The Body Shop was a place that met the needs of all my senses (yes, there were even edible massage oils). I used to dream of having a life surrounded by this sort of luxury, as I would pay for one bar of exquisite smelling hand-milled soap, or one carefully chosen bottle of scented lotion.

Pregnancy for me was a hugely inspired, creatively filled endeavor. When I quit my job, I decided to open my own retail business, selling all those scrumptious products I was driving to Berkeley to buy, one at a time. I’ve always been a learn-by-doing sorta gal, so with the help of my then-husband, I launched into a mad information gathering quest, learned how to do business proposals, a fictitious business statement, advertising, how to deal with wholesalers, keep records, price and display products.

We were putting the final coat of stain on the double Dutch shop door the day before I went into labor. Three days after my daughter was born, we opened up shop. My daughter had a special place on top of the counter, and a small quiet room for uninterrupted naps as needed. We were surrounded by luxury. In good weather, the top doors were open, allowing scents to waft seductively onto the street. New Age music welcomed people into the shop. Incense, music, scented soap, thirty different fragrances in bulk that could be used to scent lotions, shampoos, massage oils, shaving lotions, bubble bath, individual essential oils, jewelry, East Indian clothing, baskets, gift packages, lip balms, natural make up, hair brushes, foot massage products, Reflexology charts—virtually everything to soothe or stimulate the senses—could be found in this little haven of hedonism.

It became a hub, a center, a gathering point for like-minded people, breaking the isolation that often comes with new motherhood. Local artists displayed their work. It became an information distribution center for events in the community. It became a drop-in, safe and welcoming haven for patients from the nearby state hospital who were on day pass. It became “that place where the baby is growing up.” By the time my daughter was two, I was known about town as, “the Scent Shoppe baby’s mother.”

Fast forward a few decades. I sold the shop when my daughter was five, and returned to the university to finish my education. My life reinvented itself, as life does, although I didn’t lose touch completely with the word of scents. I went through a period of fascination with medicinal essential oils for healing. I’m partial to using Frankincense for removing skin tags. You want to know what you’re doing before you try this, or you’ll damage your skin. Geranium oil is good for those pesky fungal conditions and antibacterial needs. My favorite is an oil (blend) that reportedly was used back in the days of the Black Plague to boost the immune system.

Life moved on, and I got distracted with a host of other interests. I gave away my collection of oils and books on healing.

Recently, a friend passed along a recipe for foaming hand soap using essential oils, and I found myself returning to this old passion, the desire to bring a little luxury into my life. If you’re feeling particularly hedonistic and adventurous, here’s what you’ll need:

A foaming pump bottle. The only place I could find these where you didn’t have to order in lots of 1,000 was BottlesandFoamers.com on-line. They’re very reasonable—a little over a dollar each. Into this bottle, fill ½ your container with Dr. Bronner’s unscented liquid soap (most health stores carry this, some in bulk); ¼ your container with filtered water, and 1/8 your container with an oil of your choice (jojoba, olive, almond, etc.). Add your favorite essential oil—a few drops or more, your choice. Shake gently to blend. The pump will do the rest. It creates a luxurious, scented, foaming soap worthy of anyone on your Christmas gift list. Or, perhaps, just for yourself.

The Next Step

In my post dated Aug 26, 2011, I mentioned a sequel I was working on, The Next Step, the follow-up story to the novel I’m STILL shopping, Best Laid Plans.

In The Next Step, the residents of a recovery house for female ex-felons have relocated their digs from San Francisco to the rolling vineyards of Santa Rosa, CA. As much as they are moving away from a lot of bad karma and potentially dangerous legal entanglements in the city, they are moving to the peaceful, slower country life that intuitively seems to lend itself to deeper healing. They’re off to a rough start, however. Let me share a little of their journey(and, yes, I have wi fi in the cave):

Madigan, all two-hundred and eighty pounds of her, was stuffed into a red and white polka-dot swimsuit. It was mid-afternoon, the day after the women of The Next Step recovery house for female ex-felons, of which Madigan was one, had moved into their newly built digs in Santa Rosa. Their two-story farmhouse, on two acres of non-productive vineyard land, had been gifted to them as a tax write-off—a win/win for the vineyard owner and the women as well.

“Hey there, old woman,” Madigan turned her pudgy brown face downward, in the general direction of hell, to address the memory of their former benefactress, Florence, a wealthy octogenarian, who had run off with their bank account, gone into hiding, and put their original recovery house in San Francisco at risk. “Turns out your crazy old self is responsible for me havin’ a new swimmin’ pool. Hah!” she slapped her thigh for good measure. She stood at the edge of the lap pool and dipped her toes in. The California summer had warmed the water to a pleasant enough temperature, if you didn’t lollygag. Temperatures could reach the high nineties mid-day, and then drop to forty-six overnight.

Madigan tossed her beach towel onto a nearby lounge chair and lowered herself step by step, into the water. Squinting against the sun, she noticed a mass on the bottom, at the far end of the pool. She back-stepped herself quickly out of the water and glanced around frantically. “Hey! Help! Somebody. . .” she shouted back toward the main house.

Alarmed by the pitch of her voice, Shalese, the director of the recovery house, and Chandra, a street-wise resident with a bad-ass mouth, who’d been raking up construction debris, came charging around the corner of the house. “Effin’-A, girl, you better be drowning or something, yelling like that,” Chandra admonished.

Shalese, seeing that Madigan was safe, cut her pace back to a walk, and stopped where the two women stood, poolside. She followed Madigan’s finger which jabbed frantically toward the other end of the pool. “Come on, let’s go take a look,” Shalese said.

“Right behind ya—w-a-y behind ya,” Madigan muttered. Chandra jogged to the end of the pool, knelt down, and peered into the water. “Looks like rats, three of them,” she said.

“Rats? I almost went swimmin’ with rats?” Madigan crossed her hands over her ample breast, holding her heart. Madigan grew up in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco—she knew rats. It didn’t mean she wanted to swim with them.

“No problem,” Chandra commented, “they’re dead.”

“That’s strange,” Shalese said, squatting next to Chandra. “If they just fell in, you’d think they’d be farther apart. They seem almost tied together.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Madigan called out plaintively as she crossed herself.

“You’re not Catholic,” Chandra said over her shoulder.

“Can’t hurt,” Madigan said.

“I’ll go get the net and scoop them out, unless either of you has a better idea,” Shalese said to the women.

“I ain’t jumpin’ in to haul their sorry asses out of the pool,” Madigan said. “You could get the plague or something. We gonna have to drain the water out. . .” She rocked herself from foot to foot.

That evening, even though it was a weekend, and their regular house schedule was suspended, the ten residents and three staff met in the group room to process the afternoon’s events. Jenny, Shalese’s partner and second in command at the house, spoke quietly with Mab, Shalese’s ex-girlfriend and current staff member.

“We’ve been here a grand total of a day-and-a-half, and already something creepy happens. I thought we left all that behind us in San Francisco,” Jenny said.

“Along with our hearts,” Gabriella, who had overheard her, commented with a smile at her own cleverness. She spoke for all of them—no one had wanted to leave the city.

The suspicious deaths of several men who were coincidentally the ex-husbands of women in the recovery house, was one reason The Next Step had relocated. It seemed likely, but still not proven, that Florence and a band of her wealthy sociopath compatriots—with an agenda of righting perceived wrongs according to their own twisted form of urban justice—may have been responsible for those deaths. Florence’s vanishing act had brought the unwanted attention of law enforcement to the recovery house. The residents, as a group of formerly battered women, did not believe that the policeman is your friend.

“Baby girl, let’s not jump the gun,” Mab addressed Jenny’s concern. “We don’t really know what happened yet.”

“There were three rats, tied together by their tail, tossed into our swimming pool!” Jenny’s voice rose a notch on the panic register. “This was no accident.”

“No, not an accident,” Mab agreed. “Could be a nasty prank though. All the vineyard workers are guys. Maybe they just wanted to see if they could get a rise out of a houseful of women. You know, sort of like a hazing or something.”

“If this is their welcoming ritual, I’d hate to see what they’d do if they wanted to get rid of us,” Jenny said.

Ponderings From the Cave: On Tortillas and Toothbrushes

I had a tortilla the other day that stuck to my teeth like a bat to a cave. Got me to thinking about toothbrushes—I know, the mind is a terrible thing to waste. Nevertheless, I wondered just how long we as a species have been obsessed with removing food from our teeth. This created another Ask Jeeves moment (see post dated 8/6/11).

Apparently, excavations done all over the world since before recorded history point to some kind of oral hygiene. The chew stick, the first toothbrush made in 3000 BC, was the frayed and splayed ends of twigs from the Banyan tree, and the Arak tree, which has antiseptic properties.

In 1223, monks in China cleaned their teeth with brushes made of horse-tail hairs attached to an ox-bone handle. How do you spell pteuw?

William Addis of England is believed to have produced the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780. He was in prison at the time, and this had something to do with bribing a guard.

Natural animal bristles were replaced by synthetic fibers, usually nylon, by DuPont in 1938. The first electric toothbrush was invented in Switzerland in 1954.

Just in case you wondered. Now, you can go enjoy a tortilla. I’m going back in my cave (and I’m takin’ my toothbrush with me).

Still in my cave. . .

Still in my cave, waiting for motivation to rejoin the world. I slipped out long enough to photograph the new neighbor’s Halloween decorations. I haven’t met them yet, but I like their taste. The one I labeled “Save the Last Dance for Me” makes me terribly sad in a lovely, nostalgic way. Reminds me of the 50th wedding anniversary parties for my grandparents back in Iowa, and then later my parents in Colorado, where each couple had their special moment on the dance floor. All four of them are gone now.

Going to crawl back in my cave now and rest my bones. Don’t give up on me, I’m bound to emerge at some point.

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.