Tuesday, February 20, 2024
December 24, 2017
December 23, 2017
Arrive early at the airport (the flight got in at 10:12 - which was also early). Habit takes us to departures instead of arrivals, but we park and get in with plenty of time. Abe and I take a spot close to Terminal 2 and line up with other expectants where most people are coming through to baggage claim.
Several individuals wearing Tampa sports team jerseys go by. We wait. Still, we wait. I text, unsure, only to find moments later that they've taken a different route and are waiting, with bags, at baggage claim a few steps to our left.
My Dad is in a wheelchair. I can see in his face his concern about my reaction. He wants to get out, but the individual with them has offered to take us all the way to the car and that is what Robbie wants. Several times on the way to the car his foot slips off. Robbie takes it as him not understanding or not obeying, but I can see it's just him wanting to get out of the chair. He has always been very physically affectionate and animated. I'm sure it feels unnatural for him to greet his daughter seated.
We get to the car and it is difficult to get in. He is tall and the car is low to the ground. Robbie has to squeeze in the back, but we make it work.
After a drive (in which Robbie complains to me in the back seat about how difficult he's been - well within his earshot) and jokes that he has selective listening (he doesn't hear her when she asks him to do things, but can hear me fine, etc), we arrive home.
He notes the rose bushes and is incredulous when I tell him they're mine and I've been tending them.
The veggie plate, cheese & crackers come out. Arizona Mango. We snack in the kitchen and talk. Robbie brings up how she thinks we need to tell his family about his condition and he tunes out. It's too serious and she's being pushy. Sort of like "Mommy knows best." At some point, Robbie tells me he "doesn't understand anything anymore." In the short space of our time together it is already apparent to me how untrue this statement is, how insensitive, and unfair. This upsets me, but I try not to contradict her. I have to keep the peace.
We move into the living room and talk for longer, then realize it's getting late. We're back in the kitchen, Robbie asks what time it is: 12:30 am our time, 3:30 am theirs. He says, "That must be why I feel so funny." Some jokes around this. It was a light moment, and one I could relate to - that trippy feeling of being jet-lagged and underfed at the same time.
Dad lets a few farts out accidentally. I wouldn't mention it, except that I noticed this accidental habit stopped happening by the following afternoon (there were a few in the morning) and never returned. I also remember his mother and the joke he made (she probably can't hear it!) when we visited shortly before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She had been showing us around the garden.
They settle in eventually. We go to bed.
Monday, November 7, 2022
what it is like to be under so many laws
Thursday, October 27, 2022
On suggestibility II
I went through a period where I played darts, quasi-competitively in my mid-30s. As an aside, Paul R. is the person I credit with introducing me to darts. For the duration of our companionship in Atlanta, he never once let his poor, competitive girlfriend win. What a gift. It is a beautiful game, with lots of opportunities to learn.
In any case, there was a player here, in Los Angeles, who could reliably throw off my game. He was a large, squat, angry sort of man - the kind you weren't surprised to find was unhappily divorced and also racist. He would walk up to the board and chuck his darts, unceremoniously, one after the other, thunk thunk thunk, in quick succession. He seemed not to care where they hit, but they did more often than not.
At some point I noticed when playing him I spent less time finding my footing, less time aiming, and was hurrying my throw (thunk thunk thunk). I was unconsciously imitating this man's rhythm and his attitude as well - and it wasn't working for me. I only began playing better against him when I reclaimed my own personal rhythm and took my time aiming again, but it took work.
Friday, February 19, 2021
Monday, November 30, 2020
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Little Passenger
a dormant part waiting to meet
another to make us both complete.
I'm more than just a little scared
of the changes that you bring but,
each day you grow inside so grows
a Mother's bravery.
Monday, July 8, 2019
ROTR Observation
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Monday, February 11, 2019
Clarence James Wigger 1941-2019
Monday, October 29, 2018
departures
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
all my lost fathers
I'm joined by a homeless man. His white-yellow beard reaches down to his chest. He sits on the same kind of walker my grandmother used. She called it her Red Racer. When it's not aiding in that unutterably tedious task of walking, it substitutes quite well for a chair. I watch him gently pull a blanket from beneath his seat, unfold, and place it neatly across his lap. When it slips askew moments later my impulse is to righten it for him.
I am not repulsed by your sunburnt fingers or back-alley cologne my fellow music enthusiast, my friend. Nor am I frightened at the prospect of another thwarted act of love.
I have not forgotten you, John Denver. I have not forgotten you, Bob, Paul, Art, Cat, Leonard, or James. I have not forgotten you all, my lost fathers.
Sunday, April 16, 2017
slings and arrows
This is the dual life of the scapegoat. You are the honorary symbol of dysfunction, yet the only one who gets credit for having any agency. Someone points a finger and says she made me do it, or better yet, I would never do that. While I get to remain responsible for my own choices, everyone else involved is just a puppet.
In this black and white world, I am the black, the wrong, the bad. And as the bad one, I lost the right to feel hurt. I became invisible behind a screen on which others projected their fears (and formed alliances behind). People secretly love a villain. It validates what they always suspected to be true, that they are better than others. Disregard a person's total hypocrisy in numerous other ways - their transgressions big and small - on this count, they are fucking pious and will scream it from the rooftops.
Forgiveness is a slow process. Being human isn't enough, you have to deserve what you get. Well, I've decided I get to hurt. My gift to myself. I won't pretend the slings and arrows don't still land because they do. But I would rather sit with my grief rather than run to new dependencies. I will sit with my imperfections because I am ashamed. Not for all the debts I'm accused of owing, the pound of flesh, but for trading my love, my sense of self-worth for a lie.
"When we allow ourselves to be irritated out of our wits by something, let us not suppose that the cause of our irritation lies simply and solely outside us, in the irritating thing or person. In that way, we simply endow them with the power to put us into the state of irritation, and possibly into one of insomnia or indigestion. We then turn around and unhesitatingly condemn the object of our offense, while all the time we are raging against an unconscious aspect of ourselves which is projected into the exasperating object." ~ Carl Jung
Baba Yaga
skirts, but you're still scared of me. And you should be
for I've shed my earthly status for the realm of fantasy.
In the funhouse mirror of your eyes, I'm difficult to read,
as deformed as Baba Yaga sharpening her teeth.
But the bony one is hard to kill, I won't die easily.
Not because I'm supernatural or impervious to your swing.
It's simply hard to win a fight against your own psychology
(and it began long, long before I was ever on the scene).
Monday, January 30, 2017
Sunday, January 29, 2017
one, two
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
don't stop the music
I take a seat between them without asking and am thankful when they don't object. An 80's mix of R&B plays on Dominic's phone. They are guys and I'm a girl, but there's no flirtation. People are people and right now I need it to be as simple as that. We commiserate over our crappy parking spots and swap stories of scratched car panels. We talk about Los Angeles. How it has changed and how it has stayed the same. Dominic's friend leaves.
Yarbrough and Peoples' Don't Stop the Music begins to play. I know this song from a disco tape my sister and I used to dance to as children. I don't have to think about it too much. The space hangs there between us, suspended by a few bars of music. I sing. And I let my voice carry. There have been so few moments lately, so little room for the heart. It doesn't lessen or even dislodge my hurt (which hangs somewhere between my ribs, sticky and unforgiving as tar). But I know I've been witnessed in some small way. And my idiot self is made easier to live with by it.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Saturday, June 13
Some insecurity about whether commentary from me would be supportive or disruptive to the group. I felt I couldn’t quite hold the space. A wish to see what is needed for the Intros post-performance.
Private lessons:
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Friday, June 12
7:20 - Sitting in cabin
8:00 - Breakfast
9:30 - Staff Meeting
Gave short, private AT lessons to Julian, John, William, and Igor
I frequently lack an emotionally clear response to being thanked. Where the polite thing to do would be to acknowledge it, thus acknowledging the person giving it, I am sometimes uncomfortably-speechless instead.
A flight back up to the cabin. On our way to the dining room MB and I spy Michael Hendrix, shoeless, hot-stepping it through the grass back to the ballroom. He looks like a wood nymph. I find out later he runs without shoes. This is a thing.
1:00 - Lunch
I'm asked to join a ladies circle outside where a song is being presented. It is a spiritual. The idea is to sing together at dinner. An intention for the performance is suggested.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Thursday, June 11
Acted on a gut feeling and wounded a friend's feelings.
7:15 - Did my sitting on the picnic table outside our cabin with birds.
Apologized.
On the way down the hill, thinking on how to manage AT in Sandra's absence and also honor and include Kim's AT experience/offer to teach on the course, a solution arrives. I've been wanting to work with the BNI kitchen team and she has a presentation on tensegrity that will take 15 minutes. We can split the BNI group at OM's regular time, making sure everyone gets a chance to work with both of us and relieving each of us of having to present individually for more than 15-20 minutes. This idea was met favorably by Kim.
8:00 - Breakfast was especially good.
I missed an opportunity to sign up for a personal meeting.
9:30 Staff meeting
10:30 AT in dining room w/ Kim and Erin
I go overtime with both groups. There is much we can work on when it comes to being present in the kitchen and my enthusiasm sometimes causes me to run long. Something to be aware of.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Wednesday, June 10
7:15 - Morning Sitting
Passing into the Ballroom I notice several Intros in the Ratty Room. I join them, thinking RF will be presenting the exercise. When he doesn't arrive, I worry. This is, by far, the shortest-feeling 45 minute sitting I've ever had. After raising a false alarm, I find I had either misunderstood or failed to hear that he was presenting in the Wonder Room this morning.
Breakfast of slimy, tepid porridge.
9:30 - Staff meeting
10:30 - Orchestral Maneuvers
10:30 - Guitar Mechanics Intro team in Ballroom with Curt and I
"Curt, are they allowed to breath?"
Afterward, a moment's rest is stolen in the cabin.
1:00 - LUNCH - Borscht
Short meeting with Sandra regarding tomorrow morning, short meeting with Joe regarding a good time to work with the kitchen team.
During housework, a table is moved to the patio just outside the Ballroom for my use teaching private lessons. It has a view of the lake.
Have I mentioned it's bloody hot? And humid.
3:00 - Intro team in Wonder Room (using our arms and legs, looking around the room from the occipital joint, etc) / BNI repertoire in ballroom
It is a tight squeeze in the room (which is bright, with hardwood floors, a green chalkboard on one end and windows lined pleasantly with rainbow-colored curtains). As with the previous day's teaching, there is a moment where I wonder what the hell I'm going to do and whether or not anything I'm saying is making sense to anyone. I stick with it. This is a responsive group who are, for the most part, holding open a space for the teaching. Several great questions at the end of the session by several students who have hung back. In some ways, this moment is the most instructive. I see how one good question from a student can change things for the entire group. Some hesitation and curiosity about what the BNI team is doing in the adjoining room.
4:00 - Tea
Curt skipping stones.
Sitting on the bench with Frank overlooking the lake. This is the closest I've gotten to the water. He's interested in the fish - how they cross from their world into another the moment they break the surface going after a bug. He's hard of hearing, but can understand me. Have I been trained? No, but in the last few years I finally got up the guts to sing karaoke. Which songs? Julie London, Cry Me a River and Stray Cats. Would I translate for the meeting? Of course.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Tuesday, June 9
7:15 - Morning sitting
A moment walking in, a choice is made to sit on the right-hand side of the room. I realize as I am following my feet that there is sunlight falling on this side of the room while there is still darkness in the corners of the other. I take a seat, feel the cool air from the open window behind me on my shoulders and back. 45 minutes. First, circulation of attention through the body, two rotations of LHM and once through the 60-point exercise. A very asleep left foot needs awakening and I'm up.
8:00 - To breakfast. Eggs and oatmeal with strawberry yogurt. Silence visited, but I was not there to greet it.
Aim: Allow myself to follow the right impulses as they show up and support the presence of AT on the course.
The meeting is underway. Several scheduling bits and pieces are called out. I have a clear sense that the right place for me is with the Intro team at 3:00 pm but, I hesitate. I feel unsure. Is this the right time? Perhaps I should save it for after I've had a chance to get Sandra's feedback. Lunch maybe?
The meeting adjourns and, as we walk out, I realize I have just missed an opportunity to follow through with my Aim. I mechanically move to fix this mistake. I pull aside PG, who is in charge of the scheduling and let him know my 3:00 p.m. intention to work with the Intro team. TG overhears this and seems to assume responsibility for my mistake.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Change is coming.
And the small community of friends and teachers I've had over these last three years has already begun transitioning from the old to the new. These relationships will never be the same. I find this reality difficult to face without some measure of sadness and feeling of loss. I do, however, recognize how necessary all the steps to get to this point have been and am trying not to get too sentimental about the next one, wherever it takes me.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
out of darkness
The summer I went from church to church like a beggar and none would admit me. Even the last (whose doors I thought would open) left me stranded outside the sanctuary. But I stayed. I knelt. And through a crack in the door I felt the slow leak of heavenly air-conditioning on my face and caught how the mingled scent of wooden pews and Frankincense filled the place. How can I tell you this? That I was born impoverished? That I was born from horrifically glorious moments of utter certainty that nothing I can do is right. That I was born as light is born - out of the darkness of night.
where the action is
I'm not complaining, but too much sunshine lends an invisibility to things after a while. Weather changes can inspire us to look at the same things differently, or look somewhere else entirely. Driven indoors I remember that, while California is endowed with great weather and an abundance of natural beauty, not everything worthwhile happens outside.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
The Viewing
his face had been round,
not sallow and oval.
recognizable; their rough
strength knew the way
the Gardener’s secret:
casement broken,
the tree is the blossom is
the apple is a glass of
last jar of preserves.
of these nothing is lost
we step forward unsure,
are unconvinced
of the two, death
is the greater deceit.