YOUR STORY MATTERS
Living Your Life in the Most Awesome Way Possible
By
Jo Davis
Copyright © 2024 by Jo Davis All rights reserved.
Written by Jo Davis in the memoir, self-help, mind, body, spirit, personal growth genre.
Published by
The Frog’s Song Publishing LLC
Junction City, OR 97448
ISBN (epub): 979-8-9906076-0-6
Cover design by Joyce Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of The Frog’s Song Publishing.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
3. A Tweety Bird, a Father, and a Water Fight 18
6. On a Zig, or Was it a Zag?. 29
13. My Mother Kept Hiding Anything Sexual from Me. 68
14. You Can't Edit a Blank Page. 71
20. What about Your Life?. 102
21. The Grand Canyon of Our Mind. 116
22. We Aren't in Kansas Anymore. 122
27.A Blubber of a Balloon. 146
28. What a Difference 40 Years Makes. 150
32. What in the Heck is a Channel?. 169
36. A Star Fell on Junction City. 186
37. "This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake"*. 189
38. A Six-Foot Rattlesnake. 193
42. Did the Big Bang Bang?. 202
43. What on Earth Have I Done?. 204
52. A Well-Written Miserable Story. 245
55. What We Need is a Wise Grandmother 254
57. Art is Anything You Can Get Away With.”*. 264
60. May 31, 2023—50,000 Words and a P.S. 278
“Find out who you are and live it on purpose.”
-- Dolly Parton
YOUR STORY MATTERS
Living Your Life in the Most Awesome Way Possible
YOUR STORY MATTERS
Living Your Life in the Most Awesome Way Possible
By
Jo Davis
Copyright © 2024 by Jo Davis All rights reserved.
Written by Jo Davis in the memoir, self-help, mind, body, spirit, personal growth genre.
Published by
The Frog’s Song Publishing LLC
Junction City, OR 97448
ISBN (epub): 979-8-9906076-0-6
Cover design by Joyce Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of The Frog’s Song Publishing.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
3. A Tweety Bird, a Father, and a Water Fight 18
6. On a Zig, or Was it a Zag?. 29
13. My Mother Kept Hiding Anything Sexual from Me. 68
14. You Can't Edit a Blank Page. 71
20. What About Your Life?. 102
21. The Grand Canyon of Our Mind. 109
22. We Aren't in Kansas Anymore. 115
27.A Blubber of a Balloon. 139
28. What a Difference 40 Years Makes. 143
32. What in the Heck is a Channel?. 162
36. A Star Fell on Junction City. 179
37. "This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake"*. 182
38. A Six-Foot Rattlesnake. 186
42. Did the Big Bang Bang?. 195
43. What on Earth Have I Done?. 197
52. A Well-Written Miserable Story. 238
55. What We Need is a Wise Grandmother 247
57. Art is Anything You Can Get Away With.”*. 257
60. May 31, 2023—50,000 Words and a P.S. 271
“Find out who you are and live it on purpose.”
-- Dolly Parton
1.Your Story Matters
When I told a friend that Natalie Goldberg (in Old Friend from Far Away) said that a memoir doesn't have to be an old person's story; it can be for those moments that take our breath away, my friend asked what such a moment would be for me.
"My first kiss," I said.
I was a tall girl and felt self-conscious about it in high school when all the cute little girls were making out with their boyfriends in the hallways, but one summer a young man came to our church saw me in the choir. He didn’t care that I was tall, and he quickly turned his attention off the girl he had seen at church camp and turned his attention on me. He later told me he would scan the church, pause when he came to me, they look around some more. He didn’t want to stare. He was in town to spend the summer with his sister our minister’s wife. His next move was to come to our fruit farm to pick cherries. He invited me to the traveling carnival and wrote sonnets about me being five feet nine with eyes that shine. He gave me my first kiss.
His sister, about ten years older than him, bet he would kiss a girl before he was sixteen. He held out as long as he could, kissed me, and said, "There goes five bucks."
We know individuals who have accomplished great things and become famous or notorious. They lived illustrious lives. Yet, as they have walked through fire, so have you. As surely as they have lived notable lives, so have you. Therefore, I am encouraging you to write about your life. Your life is important. You are important. But first read this, for you will be a different person at the end. Not that my words will have changed you, but your introspection will.
After accumulating a life of observations, teachings, and study, those learnings shouldn't be locked up in a trunk and buried 150 feet down. (I’m thinking of the treasure supposedly buried at Oak Island.)
Maybe you didn’t bury the Arc of the Covenant, but you accumulated a lifetime of insights, observations, and teachings, and have a story to tell and information to bestow. You need to tell it and we need to hear it.
I began this as a memoir, but I didn’t want it to be all about me. I’m into advancing my life and sharing information. So, this morphed into a How-to, a self-help book, on How to live your most awesome life possible.
I speak of ordinary things imbued with great magic. Now, don’t get me wrong about magic—I use the word metaphorically. I know physics is at work. I also understand that something divine is swirling around us.
Lynne McTaggart, in her book, The Field, says that "Science is put together piece by piece. We build on what we learned before." It was the same in writing this book—piece by piece. It’s the same about life, and it’s the same with spiritual study. Sometimes, one of our theories needs a facelift. Sometimes, they just need fine-tuning or additional information. Sometimes they are spot on.
What I am calling magical, Psychologist Abraham Maslow called, "Peak Experiences."
I believe magic dropped on my little dog and me the day we came to our present house when it was newly purchased and empty. I came to deliver some delicate glassware.
After I filled the cupboard, I walked into the back bedroom, and from the window, I was astounded to see a peacock sitting on the fence. I yelled for Sweetpea. "Sweetpea!" "Come look, a Peacock! I can't believe it. There's a peacock on our fence!"
Sweetpea ran around trying to figure out why I was so excited and probably doubting my sanity.
That peacock was my third peacock associated with a newly purchased empty house—one was under construction.
I am not near a luxurious estate where peacocks grace the grounds, or on a tropical island where a peacock might fly in from a hotel. It was a frosty December day, in the quiet little neighborhood of Junction City, Oregon. I don’t care where he came from, who owned that magnificent bird, or if he belonged to a neighbor. He was on my fence shortly before Christmas, a time, I learned later, that he normally has no tail and stays hidden.
More about peacocks later on.
Today is May 1, 2023. I'm in my office looking out the window at a Pink Dogwood tree in full flower. When we moved here 6 years ago, that tree was cut down to its bare bones, a trunk, and five branches. I wondered why the previous owners had cut that tree so severely, and I had no inkling what sort of tree it was. For the last couple of years, it has branched, leafed, and revealed itself to be pink dogwood, one of my favorite trees.
It's an old tree; the truck is large, and its blossoms are smaller than the young trees I see about town. But it is gorgeous, alive, and flourishing. I love it.
That tree tells me something about age and how living creatures can bounce back and thrive again. It doesn't worry. It just keeps growing and going through its cycles.
I curtained off an area for an office in the outbuilding beside the dogwood tree. The building was once a dance studio and still has mirrors on one wall and around a corner. We used it for storage until my daughter placed a desk there for herself and used it for a time. Now, in my curtained area, I have a comfortable little office. The heater under my desk keeps my feet warm, and my little dog, Sweetpea, sleeps in front of it. My computer is in front of a window, and my view is of the pink dogwood and the main house's backyard.
I have decided to write while the blossoms are on the tree. I'm aiming for 50,000 words. It will be a race between the flowers and me.
2. Reboot
When I say, "Your story matters," I mean the real story, not the excuse stories—you know, the ones, "I'm not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, and I don't know the right people."
Those are the "Ain't it awful" stories that some people repeat until it fixes them in their brain so powerfully it would take an excavator to dislodge them."
Write your story to honor your life but look at it all so you can make sense of it and readjust it when needed. You can see where you've been and the people who influenced you. You might find out they were better than you thought. And you are better than you thought.
You will find that you have picked up beliefs that no longer serve you. After all, you formed your fundamental belief systems when you were a wide-eyed little babe, taking in everything, smiles, frowns, words, laughter, tears, winks, eyebrow twitches, and shouts, with no filter system.
These beliefs, impressions, and observations became locked in the subconscious mind. And although the conscious mind thinks it's in control, it isn't.
The subconscious mind is.
However, the subconscious mind is there to be utilized. We could think of it as our friend, not our enemy. One of the best explanations of the subconscious mind I have read came from the actress Angelia Lansbury:
One day, on a movie break, she launched into one of her favorite subjects: believing in her destiny.
"Ah," she said, "I think perhaps I've phrased it badly. I don't mean anything magical or occult. Perhaps faith in the power of the subconscious mind would be a better way of saying it."
"How do you go about tapping your subconscious mind?" an interviewer asked.
"Heavens! I don't want to sound stuffy or highbrow, but it's awfully simple. If you tell yourself over and over again that there's no limit to the creative power within you, that's about all there is to it. Honestly, that's true."
"It's there for everybody, like light and air."
She explained that it isn't a cut-and-dried formula for success. You must keep plugging away, adding to your skills to be ready when an opportunity presents itself.
At age 92, Angelia Lansbury was performing on Broadway.
The people mentioned in this book deserve to have their stories told: June, the most upbeat person I have known; Jack, the war hero, shot down 3 times, twice the only survivor; Bill, my writing buddy, and Peace Corp volunteer.
A story not told becomes like an exquisite movie; when lost, becomes forgotten.
I chose my parents. That's my belief, anyway. My dad might have felt shanghaied, but he seemed willing to contribute to making my body.
One of my daughter's friends told her mother she believed she was conceived in the back of a Ford.
"No," said her mother, "It was a Chevy."
I didn't mean for Mom to feel guilty her entire life for getting pregnant at 16; I was happy she had me. I love the little girl I once was who ran while the breeze, soft as a eiderdown, brushed away the light skim of sweat from her skin. And older, she and her horse, Boots, pole-vaulted the orchard's cherry trees—not too close to the branches, but while doing it, she and Boots were at one with each other.
I am curious how my mother's conversation with my dad when she confronted him with her pregnancy.
Dottie, Mom’s best friend, told me long after Mom was gone that she went with Mom to tell my dad he would be one. You see, the friend kept the secret, too, until I told her I knew I was conceived before marriage. I wish that friend was still around so I could ask about that conversation. I didn't realize Mom needed backup, but, hey, she was only 16.
My mother didn't look like a 16-year-old. She looked like a healthy, voluptuous peasant from the hills of Switzerland. And since we lived with my grandmother, our family of grandmother, mother, father, me, and little dog Tiny it worked out well.
Didn't we all come in as innocent little spark plugs ready to party? No wonder we get disillusioned when the party gets canceled. Or if our parents don't tell us that we need to sit down and shut up, the world does, "Who are you to question? Who are you who think you can be great? Many are called and few are chosen."
Who are you, indeed?
You are a magnificent child of God, like everyone else. So, stop denying your greatness, and live an exemplary life. That's what we came here for.
Let's reboot.
The voices of the world come in on us like pungent smoke. It coats our hair and lingers on our clothing.
Why is that?
Well, who wants a bunch of Badasses running around thinking they are grand and, on top of that, knowing they can create the life they want?
We do. That's who.
3. A Tweety Bird, a Father, and a Water Fight
On a day long ago, when murmurings at the kitchen table were not understandable to little ears, I knew something was brewing. A war was raving in Europe and my father knew he would soon be drafted.
He enlisted so he could choose his branch of service which would be the Navy. However, they discovered he was color blind—a surprise to him and the family, thus he ended up in the Army. Maybe that was why he usually sketched in pencil or charcoal, a.k.a. black and white. I learned that during the war, he drew portraits for the soldiers, and I remember he said, "You can't put too many lines on a face."
Once, he wrote, "You thought I would only be gone for a short time, didn't you?" I don't remember ever knowing he was going to be gone. If there were any goodbyes, I don't remember them. If there were any tears, I didn't see any. He was just gone. He must have slipped out while I was sleeping.
He survived the war, but not his marriage or his fatherhood with me.
The war probably didn’t have much to do with my parent’s divorce, except that it took my father away from the family for 3 years, and that gave opportunity.
We could blame it on the fact that my mother was 16 when she had me. I figure Mom didn't want to get married in the first place, but it was shameful to be pregnant and not married, so she made sure she was married.
Mother kept the secret of her unmarried pregnancy from me her whole life. She couldn't hide that she was young, though.
When I was 7 or 8, on Mother's Day, we went to a protestant church for the first time, and she got the prize for the youngest mother. That made her only 23 or 24. She received a plant potted in a ceramic baby shoe as a prize, and there I was, a big kid standing beside her. I knew she was pregnant before she married my father, but I didn't say anything because I knew I wasn't supposed to know.
My father came to see me after the war—once. We went to the Carnaval, where he bribed a hawker for a little horse statue I wanted. I was 6 years old, and it was the last time I saw him until 38 years later.
I'm sure he didn't mean for me to see the bribe, but I knew. And I love him for it.
While growing up, I thought that the divorce hadn't affected me much and that I didn't need a father. (I had a stepdad.) During the war, my mother went to Texas, where she met my father on furlough and came home divorced. That was it. I wondered why I didn’t get to see him.
On the first Christmas after the war, Dad sent a box camera to me as a gift. After that, nothing.
For 38 years, I wondered if he cared about me. Why wasn't he in my life? Why didn't he contact me? Why had he never visited me?
Finally, I wrote my feelings on a page. I was furious. He abandoned me. He didn't care. I put positives and negatives on the page. I let er rip with complaining.
My Father lived in Chicago, Illinois, and we lived in San Diego, California. I had often said that if I was ever in Chicago, I would look him up. Within a couple of months after writing that complaining page—I didn't see this coming—my husband was sent from San Diego to Chicago to show an instrument at an Optics show. I decided to go along, and I did find my father, and we remained in touch until the end.
That taught me that, hey, "This stuff works."
What "stuff?"
The writing exercise I used to clear out the mind junk. After I wrote it, I put my ranting aside and almost forgot about it.
You know how the cycling mind works. It just keeps repeating its problems, concerns, and irritations. It's easy to repeat oneself when thinking or speaking, and it's easy for the mind to do its endless cycling. However, it is NOT EASY to write the same story over and over.
So, complain, whine, and write out your fears. Don't worry about positive thinking; this is for your eyes only, and your heart needs to express it. "I'm worried about paying my bills; I need to pay the rent; I hate Tom for standing me up. He's a bastard and a pain in the ass. My mom spent her life depressed, and my daddy was a drunk. I had a lousy childhood."
Write it, then put a period at the end of the last sentence.
Other people, teachers, and mentors can be facilitators and guides along our journey. Don't discount them. Neither discount the self-help avenues you venture into, for no matter what book you read, course you take, seminar, or workshop you attend, you will invariably find something of value in it. Be reasonable, though, question, and be a discerning person. Use input as motivation, not as gospel.
Here is one of my favorite quotes:
"They say that motivation doesn't last. Neither does bathing, that's why we do it daily."—Zig Zigler.
4. Meeting My Father
Before meeting my father, I carried with me remembrances of him. I remembered his "Can House," a workshop he built in our backyard. The cans weren't little soup cans. They were drums he had carried home from the shoe factory where he worked. He filled them with cement, so if anyone wanted to remove that house, he might have to blow it up.
We lived in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, with my grandmother—my mother, my father, my little dog Tiny, and me. Besides liking to draw, my dad was an amateur taxidermist; thus, he needed a workshop. Luckily, I didn't have to build my office out of cans.
I only saw stuffed squirrels and birds in his workshop, and Mom wasn't happy to see animal parts in the refrigerator.
The only time I know of that my dad captured a live animal was when he tried to chloroform a little owl. I don't know how he got it. He put the owl in a coffee can with a cotton ball filled with chloroform and closed the lid. A few minutes later, he opened the lid. The owl poked his head out, looking a little hung over. My father tried again with a fresh cotton ball and closed the lid.
Upon opening the lid, the owl looked as perky as ever, so Dad released the owl, who then went home reeking of chloroform and with his wife berating him. "What in the world have you been up to?"
Mom, Dad, and I went to a circus where I dropped peanuts into an elephant's awaiting trunk. I thought the elephant ate them with her trunk. I ate peanuts, too, and awakened at night, yelling, "Momma, there's something in my bed!" I had thrown up in the night.
Dad bought me a Tweety bird at the circus. It was a Paper Mache bird on a string attached to a stick. When I whirled the stick, the bird flew and tweeted. Dad wanted to know what made the bird tweet, so he performed abdominal surgery and took out its Twitter. He put the bird back together, but it never tweeted again.
One time, Mom was so angry at Dad that she threw whatever was handy—a precious item, my Bambi comic book. Bambi was the first movie I saw, and I loved the characters—the fawn Bambi, Thumper the bunny, and Flower, the skunk. ("You can call me Flower if you want to.”) However, killing Bambi's mother and watching that little fawn Bambi wandering around calling M-O-T-H-E-R impacted me such that if I see the beginning credits of that movie, I start to cry.
Dad put the comic book back together then, on stiff paper, drew Bambi as a grown-up stag and his mother a little dewy-eyed doe. He colored them and cut them out like paper dolls with little tabs at their feet so they would stand up. I wish I had them.
I vaguely remember sitting at the kitchen table drawing with him.
I had a Whooping Cough. I don't remember being sick, but I would cough until I threw up. So, when I began coughing, I would fly across the room—carried by some adult—and placed in front of a container. Once, not getting there fast enough, my dad caught the vomit in his hands. I marveled that he would do that and considered it a loving gesture.
Grandmother made a cough syrup for me that helped the whooping. First, she soaked a raw egg in vinegar overnight. In the morning, the shell had dissolved into the vinegar, leaving behind a round egg encased in its membrane. She added honey to the concoction, and it tasted good—it was a little scratchy going down through.
Around Halloween, I excitedly ran to greet my dad, who was coming in the front door. However, he was wearing a mask they had given him at the grocery store. I screamed bloody murder, and to this day, I do not like masks. I don't scream bloody murder when I see one, though. And then at Christmas time, a store Santa Claus wore a mask. We called them false faces. The mask told me that man was not the real Santa. There was no way I would ever sit on that man’s lap.
I heard that when I was a baby, my father would come home from work and wash my face with a washcloth, for he wanted me to be awake when he was home.
Often, I heard stories of the mentally challenged boy next door who liked my dad and loved it when Mom and Dad had a water fight. On hot summer days, they would throw a bucket into our open well, collect the water, and toss it on whoever they could catch. I do remember Mom squealing and running and Dad chasing her. The boy would egg Dad on, "Glenn, I'll draw the water, I'll draw the water."
One day, after we had been gone for the afternoon, we came home to find that the boy had drained the well.
My dad was thin and had stomach problems, so he got a nanny goat because he had heard that goat's milk was good for what ailed him. He would fashion a chain on the goat's collar and lock the chain to a stake. That way, he could move the goat around the neighborhood to graze.
However, no matter how strongly he drove in the stake, that kid could pull it up and drive the goat. She got so nervous that Dad gave her to someone who could give her some peace.
5. Stories
When my mother was twelve years old, a friend of her father saw him staggering down the street. The friend chuckled, thinking Frank had too much to drink, but Mom's father never drank. He had had a stroke, went home, and died.
Mom said her mother told her to "Go, kiss daddy goodbye," his skin was cool when her lips touched his cheek.
Grandma apparently had money from the farm since she bought the house in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where I was born.
Your parents probably told you stories of your youth before you could remember them. Then you wonder if you remember their account or the real thing. However, there are two first memories I'm sure are mine.
It was Christmas Eve. My father walked with me down a dark street where every snap, crunch, or crackle was the snort of a reindeer or a hoof on a roof. We had no fireplace at our house, so Santa had to come in through the door, and he wouldn't come if a child was awake. It was all right for an adult to be inside if they hid.
Upon entering the house, what would appear, but a tree so festooned with sparkle—mirrored bulbs, icicles, and lights so bright, they sparkle in my eyes to this day. Beneath a Christmas tree decked out in all its glory were toys and presents wrapped in colorful paper. There was a tricycle and items I don't remember. I could hardly take it all in. There was a stocking with small things and an orange—that orange mystified me.
Seven months later came the Fourth of July: Some might say, "Words can't describe it," but dig into it. What was it like on your first Fourth of July? You've seen many fireworks but think about how they look to a two or three-year-old. A winding strip of light spirals into the sky. Then, "BOOM!" Stars fall on Illinois. And when the finale came, it involved a framework I didn't know existed. Once ignited, that frame exploded into an American flag, all hissing, sparkling red, white, and blue.
I remember our dog Tiny playing with me in the backyard. And when she had puppies, I accidentally sat on a plate of oatmeal Mom had placed on the back porch steps for them. And my dad tried to hide from me that he was cutting off the puppies' tails. I don't know how I knew. I think I ran around a little crazy.
Tiny took care of them, and the puppies recovered. They had little docked tails like their momma, a Fox Terrier who came into the family before I did. I don't know her story. The puppies disappeared, leaving Tiny and me. When she got tired of me, she would hide under the porch. That intelligent lady knew how to take care of puppies.
When anyone in the family sat with their legs crossed, Tiny would sit under the dangling foot, ready for a back rub. If anyone farted, they blamed Tiny.
“Live your life as if nothing is a miracle, or everything is a miracle.”
—Albert Einstein
6. On a Zig, or Was it a Zag?
It's fascinating, isn't it, that we spend the first year or two, maybe three, soaking up information, putting together a picture of the world we live in and the society we are born into, but we don't remember those years. And then we begin to remember. Some say it's all in our memory, even the lost years.
Dr. Gabor Mate,' of Polish descent, said his mother called the pediatrician and said, "Little Gabor is always crying." The doctor responded: "All the babies are crying. They are picking up the anxiety from their mothers." Germany was about to invade Poland. Dr. Mate' believed that experience had something to do with his addictions. And they came from no fault of his mother. They came from her anxiety. And now, as a psychologist, he treats addicts, a specialty with the worst success rate.
As time passes in this writing endeavor, I remember little things like V-Mail. For years I had such a letter from my father when he was in the war. But after repeated searches, I believe it went with our wedding pictures when we were packing to move to Hawaii. You know how it can be; you put things away for safekeeping, and they are the ones that get lost? In the flurry of packing, having a friend help us, and a man there taking things to sell on eBay, some of our best things became lost in the shuffle.
V-mail is short for Victory-mail, and few know of it now. During the war, since mail was stacking up with letters from soldiers to home and from home to soldiers, someone devised a brilliant plan.
The sender would write their letter on a specified sheet of paper—it would only hold so many words. Hence, the writer needed to write precisely and large. A reader would check for secrets and, if found, black them out, and the letters would be on their way.
The plan was OO7-inspired.
It was microfilmed and sent by airmail.
When the mail arrived, it came as a photographed letter, about 4 or 5 inches.
With this method, they saved much-needed room in the airplane. Contrast microfilm to bags upon bags of mail. Online, it says they don't think they ever lost a letter using that method.
Over the years, I repeatedly read my two little letters from my dad. One was from Italy, "You thought I would only be gone for a while, didn't you?" He had beautiful printing and drew bunnies along the bottom of the page. And he called me Princess, although I never knew he called me that.
After her divorce, she got a job at the shoe factory where my dad had worked. It was across the street from the Horace Mann school, where I began my first grade. Across another street was a hamburger diner, and often, Mom would pick me up after school. We would have a hamburger at the diner.
I remember sitting on a counter stool munching a 5-cent burger while my mother had a larger 10-cent one. Mom liked Cokes, and I was allowed a Coke up to the waist of the she bottle, that squeezed in a portion of the bottle about an inch and a half from the bottom. She would fill the rest with water, or I could have it straight. I preferred straight.
Grandma joined us once and ordered a beer, the one and only time I had ever seen her drink one.
Mom usually went out on the weekends, for there was a troop of soldiers stationed in our town, and the girls and guys would mix at the RX, which I think it was called, where they danced to swing music. One of the songs she loved was Begin to the Beguine. I would sit on the bed and visit as she dressed and primped before going out. She never brought a boyfriend home until Mike, one of the soldiers. Maybe Grandma didn't like him because she could see what was coming. (And she and my biological father got along great.) After the war, Mike wanted to go home to Oregon, and Mom lived in Illinois. He praised Grandma's fried chicken to her and for years after. And while at our house, he made a rabbit hutch for me.
When my father came home from the war, he took me to a carnival in our little town of Mt. Vernon, Illinois. There, I had my heart set on a little horse statue from one of the games. I saw my dad bribe the Hawker to allow me to win it; maybe he won it and gave it to me; either way, I got the horse. I'm sure he didn't want me to know about the bribe, but it's an odd thing about kids—they know.
Adults try to hide things from kids, but we know of it and keep quiet, for we are not supposed to know. Like my mother, at sixteen, "had" to marry my father, and that is how I got here.
The strange thing is, while my mother carried guilt her whole life, I didn't care. Why would I fault her for giving me life? I was glad she had me, and I never felt I was a burden to her.
As a teenager, I suddenly awakened at night and heard my mother tell my stepdad, "I hope Joyce never finds out."
I suppose the Universe wanted to give me verification. Shortly before her death, I thanked her for having me.
Dad must have taken me to a horse race earlier. I remember that a jockey fell off his horse, and a girl had lockjaw and was holding a handkerchief to her mouth. I wondered why people were so fragile. I felt they were falling apart around me. There was a little girl on our street who wore braces like Forrest Gump did in the movie. I hope she eventually lost them, too, as he did.
Later, I thought of the jockey, "For crying out loud, a kid goes to their first horse race, and you fall off your horse." And I don’t remember seeing any difficult riding situation.
During our visit after the war, my Dad promised me a toy, a Pekingese dog made of yarn. Still, Mom didn't like him taking me anyplace without her. She feared he might want to take me, so that was the last visit. After we moved to Oregon, I hounded her for the yarn dog. It was not the most beautiful of toys, but I wanted one because my dad said he would get one for me.
As I wrote earlier, thirty-eight years later, I met him.
I played and drew that first year and a half of school at Horace Mann. I remember one room holding a huge doll house on a platform in the center of the room where kids could gather on all four sides. I remember that I was not in the school play, and to my way of thinking, it was because I stood head and shoulders above the other little girls.
Whether she was making it up to me or what, it appeared I was the teacher's pet, for I carried notes from her to the other teachers. She took exceptional care in exhibiting my large butcher paper drawings, about four feet by four feet, and taping them to the chalkboard like a series of comic strip panels. They were from the book Little Black Sambo, where Sambo outwits a tiger by having it run around and around a tree until it turns into butter.
My father was an artist, and either by genes or association, I became one after him, but never one of any note.
It was a shock when I met kids better than me. Biology drummed drawing out of me, for we drew so many microscope images it became drudgery. I love artists and am not jealous of their abilities or successes. Of course, when one paints a solid red canvas, and it sells for five million dollars, I get a little miffed.
7. And Then Came the Day
When I was seven years old, my mother and I boarded a train and left my grandmother and Tiny, my little dog, behind. We traveled for five days from Illinois to Oregon. Our traveling companions were young men going home after the war who gave me pennies. Mother was going to Oregon to marry Mike, the soldier she chose. He had presented a good story of his little hometown of the Dalles, Oregon, and how he wanted to go back after the war, and he convinced Mom to follow him.
Mom enthusiastically explained the trip to me, how much fun it would be, and we would ride a train, and I would get a new dog.
Grandmother cried when we left—the first time I had seen her cry. She knew something I did not.
We would never see each other again.
We lived with Grandma from the day I was born until we left for Oregon. She was gone briefly, although I don't remember the separation. I remember her lovely white house in the country and her new husband, who had a mustache. I had never seen anyone with a mustache and observing him wipe it with a napkin fascinated me. He seemed like a lovely man and would take me with him when he filled his car with gas, as the gas station gave away peppermint sticks.
Before Grandma married Mr. Dicus, Dad drove the four of us through the countryside, where Grandma saw a lovely large white house on a farm. She casually commented that she married for love the first time; the second time, she wanted to marry for money.
My father somehow got the farmer's ear and introduced them. Mr. Dicus invited Grandma, Ma Bertsch, we called her, out for ice cream. They got married. That's all I know. Except that he died a short time later, his kids took the farm and the money, and Grandma returned to our little house.
Grandmother was a great cook. She basted fried eggs; I have never had an egg soak into toast as she prepared them. I remember sucking on pork chop bones, and when I first learned to talk, I called all meat "Bone." I loved chip beef on toast. Do you know that you cannot buy chip beef the way we had it as kids? When I found that it didn't taste as it did when Grandma prepared it—Mom did too after we moved to The Dalles, and I did later. Suddenly, the meat looked different; it was pressed into around shapes and not shredded as it had been. I Googled it and found you can't buy what we had earlier, although it comes in the same-looking little glass jar. Just thinking of the saltness of that dish makes my mouth water.
I had a friend who believed chip beef on toast was so Bourgeoise. That was not a compliment, although the Bourgeoisie don't sound bad to me—merchants, political activists, artists. However, they were highly maligned by the hoity French. And I won't tell you what the soldiers called chip beef on toast. SOS, you figure it out.
Everything Grandma made was delicious, even a sandwich made of mustard and onion, which seemed odd, but I liked it. Her dill pickles were the best I've ever tasted, and pickled crabapples were so perfect, even Mom couldn't match them.
I don't remember playing with Grandma much; I went shopping and to church with her and to funerals. Once shopping, she got so mad that a clerk short-changed her that we found something of equal value and took it. They were a pair of panties for me. I was shocked.
I remember lying in bed with her, looking up into a tree, and finding animal shapes in the branches.
After the supposedly fun adventure of our trip to Oregon, the reality of it sank in later.
I remember crying in bed at night because I missed Grandmother. And thinking about it, I can't imagine what Grandma felt like losing her only grandchild after living with her for seven years.
Mike was my stepdad. I always called him Mike, never Daddy; I just couldn't do it.
In December of my second grade, I found myself in front of a nun, sitting all prim and proper in a white blouse and navy skirt, with the other students. I wasn't prepared for the structure of a Catholic School, and I was expected to write cursive, but didn't know how. I had an artistic eye, so I drew writing by copying the alphabet printed on eight by-twelve-inch pages that encircled the room. They had a printed letter and a cursive one on each page. I didn't read well either, and I was embarrassed to stand beside my desk and read aloud. One poor little girl standing in front of the room peed her pants.
When I was reading and stumbling over the words, the nun threatened to keep me after school; I was humiliated. She didn't make me stay, though; perhaps she realized she had pushed a bit too far.
My fourth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Michael Francis, was an exuberant young woman. She was an artist who exhibited her paintings in the room where I copied them. She would tie up her long black skirt during recess and play baseball. I never liked baseball, but I liked Sister Mary Margaret Francis. And I believe she liked me because we were both artists.
Once I commented to someone that I had a crush on Sister Mary Michael Frances, and I remember the look that flashed for one second.
I never considered my attraction to Sister Mary Michael Frances anything but fan based. I didn't know about Gays. I knew I was a girl, and I liked little boys. I never questioned my sexuality. I fear that nowadays, with all the Gay, Trans, BI's, and questions of what pronouns are, you have confused many young people who have a hard enough time with life anyway. I'm not saying people of various persuasions ought not to be honored; it's just that there is more in our culture than one would biologically expect.
I left the Catholic church before the church affected me much. I had my first confession at the Priest's knee in the confessional; it was not such a good idea considering what had transpired since then, but he was a gentleman. I was innocent enough to think that was all right. I did wonder why, though; I was in there while most of the people went to confession on the other side of the divider.
And then came Protestantism and the doubting years.
Those were the growing-up years, the questioning years, the molestation years, and the headache years. I thought I had a beautiful childhood, for I loved the little girl I was who ran, played, and rode horses and was mentored by the neighbor girl who owned King.
Now I see that those years did affect me. I was an innocent thrust out into the real world of questioning. Why did we leave Grandma? Why did we leave Tiny? I was disappointed in Grandma because she didn't take care of Tiny after we left. Mom's sister, Marie, told Mom a lady down the street had taken her in, so she was better off there. She must have felt abandoned—she was. People sometimes disappoint you, but then maybe I expect too much.
I never grieved over what I lost by leaving Illinois—my Father, Grandma, Tiny, Aunt Marie, and the Metcalf Family—feeling happy. Instead, I joined the great unwashed horde of people who think they aren't good enough.
What a motley group we are, and so wrong. We are good enough. We just need a little help in this process of life.
Mom and Mike were married on December 21, two months before I turned eight. I specifically remember the date as Mom suggested they not buy presents for each other that year. Mike had already purchased a stereo system, so he gave it to her on December 21.
One day, Mom got a call from Mike, or so she thought. They were newlyweds, and apparently, so was the caller. He said, "Hon, what have you been doing?"
"I was on the scaffolding."
"What?!"
It was not Mike, and Mom had been fixing up the house.
I had almost forgotten about the war rationing. For a time, certain critical items, like shoes, were in short supply and in great need, so the US rationed them and sent coupons to the citizens, which indicated how many they could buy. It didn't affect me much, and I never hear of it anymore, so probably many people don't know of it. That first year in Oregon, rationing was still in effect. It was Christmas time, and my mother wanted to make candy as a gift for Mike's family, so Mike's mother donated her sugar coupons to the cause.
Grandma wrote that she was happy I was in Catholic school as she was Catholic, but Mom had nothing to do with the Catholic Church after the nuns questioned why her last name and mine were different. Mom's second marriage was not honored by the church; thus, she never attended mass again.
I wanted the same name as my mother, so we changed it to Willett, although not legally. The people who knew me thought Willett was my name until I graduated high school and felt that legal representation should be on my diploma. Then, the kids wondered who Glenda Joyce Metcalf was because I went by Joyce Willett throughout school.
Since Willett begins with a W, and in school, we sat in alphabetical order (dumb), I usually sat in the back of the room. There, I drew pictures whenever I could get by with it. I remember seeing some boys sitting up the aisle from me, drawing planes in aerial fights.
Kindred spirits.
8. A Mentor
Every child should have a mentor.
After completing my second and third year of school and into my fourth, living in The Dalles, my folks bought an acre of land outside of town next door to the Oaks farm.
And there, the Oak's oldest daughter, Lois, took a little nine-year-old under her wing. She would pull me up behind her on their big, part draft, part saddle house King, and we would take off.
We would ride to the little quick-purchase grocery for a soda or play around an earthen track near the house. In the summer, we wear swimming suits under our jeans, take the horses to the creek, and play in the water.
Her little sister always rode King's elderly mother and was a shy, withdrawn girl, so there was no contest between her, Lois, and me. I'm amazed that Lois didn't get tired of me, for I was often there and loved her and King.
The Oak's house was where the action was. Mrs. Oaks was a buxom woman, a Ma Kettle sort if you remember that movie character, with bosoms that could hold a dozen baby chicks—sometimes farm women would hold baby chicks in their bosoms if the weather got too cold. She invited anyone who came into the house for dinner, even a stray dog or girl from next door.
Four children were in the family, two older boys who were really men by then but still lived at home. They teased us occasionally but left us alone, except when we all climbed onboard a Case tractor. A Case has metal covering the body of the tractor and fenders covering the wheels. We kids hung onto that tractor for dear life while the driver, one of the brothers, tried to knock us off. In my way of thinking, it was not the safest thing to do, but in those days when we didn't have padded playgrounds, and if you went down a metal slide in the summer, you were likely to get blisters.
We thought nothing of standing in the bed of a speeding pickup with our hands on the vehicle's hood. And when riding the horses, we didn't let fences stop us. See the things Lois taught me. The Dalles was built on basalt, so the ground was rocky interspersed with good ground soil. Farmers, to limit digging post holes, would sink a post, not the standard 6 or 8 feet, but leaving a long gap between the posts. The wires between the posts were held apart by floating posts.
Because of that long expanse of wire, we could usually find a place where the wire was limp enough to lie down.
Being farm kids, I wasn't really, but I was learning; we respected fences and always ensured they were secure behind us. (”I wasn’t born in a barn, but I got there as soon as I could.”—from Pinterest.)
At the Oaks' house, I helped in the kitchen after the evening meal. Mrs.Oaks fixed the meal and it was the girls job to wash the dishes. I remember Mrs. Oaks peeling potatoes sometimes 3 times a day.
One day, Mrs. Oaks saddled King-- the first time I had seen a saddle on him. That lady was going to climb aboard that big horse and protect her daughter. Lois had gotten Lydia, a new mare that was prone to bucking.
There would be no bucking on Mrs. Oaks' watch. And there wasn't. That mare's brain saved her behind.
I just love those farm women who could fry up the bacon, handle the house, the farm, four kids, and an errant horse and still have time to make taffy, which we kids pulled, and donuts, which we kids dipped in powdered sugar.
When hay season arrived, I joined in raking the rows of hay, called windrows, into piles so the boys could load the piles into the truck and drive home to store them in the barn for the winter. In the cool evenings, we girls would run the horses through the field, trying to get them to jump the piles of hay. Usually, they plowed into them, scattering our hay out again.
Those kids would catch mice with bare hands as one scampered from beneath a pile the boys had picked up to throw into the truck. I learned to hold one by the tail. I tried that once after my dog Silver caught a ground squirrel, and I thought I was rescuing the squirrel by grabbing its tail. It swung around and bit me. I was afraid I would get rabies, but I never told my mother because I knew it was a stupid thing to do, rather like putting scissors in a light socket.
9. Hog Heaven
I Was in Hog Heaven Next Door to The Oaks. However, One day, an event changed my view of life again.
I was nine years old.
Mike and I were wrestling on the floor when he lifted my shirt and ran his mouth over my small, budding breasts. I held them and ran to my bedroom. He had been fun. He had played with me, and now I was faced with something I knew wasn't right.
He invited me into his bed one night when Mom was gone and touched me, and I would never go there again. Some mornings, I would awaken with his hands under my pajamas. What is this big fat deal? Is it titillating to push yourself onto someone? I didn't want it. I didn't initiate it. I wasn't a temptress. I was nine years old.
A psychiatrist once told me I needed to get in touch with how much I enjoyed it. I thought over my dead body.
Now, I would tell that psychiatrist to go F himself.
I know enough about psychology to know that often, even unwanted touching can feel good, and that sets up a girl for even more trauma.
When I was twelve, Mike needed me to drive the truck through the orchard while he loaded tree prunings or boxes of fruit. In the truck, he would try to kiss me.
He liked to take me on fruit runs. Get the kid away from mom, right?
On one such attempt to kiss me, I flew a rage, flapping my arms, swinging and spitting on him. He backed off and never touched me again.
That day, I took back my power.
Sadly, however, we moved away from the Oaks to the tune of a terrible stomach from me. Mike had gotten a job in Hood River as a bartender at an exclusive Country Club. Mike never drank. When he was in the service, his buddies would tease him that he could get drunk on Pepsi. The owner of the Club liked that about him and convinced him to move. And mom worked waiting tables for the one month we were there. I don't know what happened to break the alliance between Mike and the owner, but after one month of attending the fifth grade in Hood River, we moved back to The Dalles, and I was next door to the Oaks for another two years. That broke my association with the Catholic Church as I began conventional school as a fifth grader.
The summer I graduated 6th grade, Mom and Mike bought a 32-acre fruit farm. I often visited the Oaks and rode King, but it was always different from living there. And then, when I was 12 years old, I received the most precious gift of my life.
Whether it was out of guilt or generosity or if Mike was buying me off, I don't know. I didn't care. The gift was my horse Boots. How I loved that horse. Mike never touched me again, except he wanted a good night kiss before he left for work, as I often fixed his lunch for his night shift. I exited the room before he left.
Mike had many endearing qualities, like his generosity and fun nature. He would brag about me and compliment my efforts or accomplishments. He accepted me as a daughter, and back in Illinois, I suspect that Grandma didn't like him because she saw something we didn't. Of course, he would soon take her daughter and only grandchild away from her forever. I hesitated to put the negative aspect in this book, but would my story be complete if I didn't?
I had written of it in the book Mom's Letters… and mine by Joyce Davis. I thought I was done with it. And it is true that when you stop telling the story, it drifts away, not completely forgotten, but no longer irritating you. It becomes a dim memory. You've done it. You've completed it. I fell off a horse once (more than). I got a concussion once when Boot fell with me. I had strep throat once. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, it's over. Gone. I don't want to dwell on it anymore.
It is a challenge to know when you are avoiding and when you are complete with an issue. You must notice how you feel. Your body will tell you, although I know you might wallow in the mud for a while.
I know many girls are pressured by a man, an authority figure they like or love and trust, only to have that trust broken. It is so prevalent that I felt mine was simple. Still, we should not trivialize such an event or make it insignificant. It can affect women for life. And usually does. Many women I know had some uncomfortable advances or experiences with men. One of my friends was forcefully placed head-first in a garbage can when she wouldn't let that man touch her. While upside down in the can, she saw rats. She feared rodents, mice, and rats for the rest of her life, yet she lusted after men. Displaced phobia, I suppose. I once heard of a horse who developed a fear of black hats after a man wearing a black hat abused him. Strangely, it wasn't the man he feared but the hat. With my friend, it wasn't men she feared; it was the rats.
And girls keep quiet.
As I did for years.
I have put those years behind me, for I know Mike's neurosis and see his flaws. It had nothing to do with me. I was there, convenient.
But I tell you, it was hard to confront him, and I never did it face to face. It was a love/hate relationship. When we depend on that person, when they are an authority figure, when our livelihood depends on them, we are in a bind. Yet the groping makes us hate them. Even at age nine, I knew what he was doing to me wasn't right.
From my view as an adult, I see the dynamics. I know the pressure and how it feels to be torn. A time after Mike had passed away, a few of the young family members got together and discussed that there was a sexual problem among most of the boys of that family. Somebody blamed the father. I believe there was one man, a straight shooter in the bunch, a trusted one. I felt betrayed by the family if they knew such was going on. However, after Mike was gone, most people in that room were younger than me. And more apt to talk about such things than the previous generation.
When I complained to my daughter that we need angst in a book, she said, "Without it, you have no story." With that encouragement, I wrote this episode.
My daughter is wiser than me.
I thought I was protecting Mom by not telling her how Mike had treated me. Mike never warned me against it, neither did he threaten me. I thought Mom would divorce him if she knew, and then where would we be? And she would blame me for breaking up the family. I only told people once I was grown.
My sister, Jan, was wiser than me, and when she was older, she told her stepmom. The stepmom told her to "Forgive and forget." Jan told both Mike and the stepmom that unless they agreed to therapy, she wouldn't have anything to do with them. They didn't, so she didn't.
Many so-called experts say that the mother knows. I've thought about it and can accept it if it is true, but I sincerely believe she didn't. Once, she heard that a little girl's mother discovered her daughter had been touched when the bath water stung, and Mom had a fit.
I was on my way home after a trip to attend a Ramtha week-long event, and while in a hotel room, I decided it was time to confront Mike. By then, I knew about screaming into a pillow, often used in our training at the World Healing Center in San Diego, California. So, a pillow caught my scream and provided a pressure release valve. I told Mike I was calling about the sexual issue.
He said, "Forgive me, my innocence."
I didn't know what to say, so I let it go.
My therapist said he was sweeping it under the rug and to write a letter to him.
I sent him a letter saying if he ever touched my girls, I would rip his face off, and if he ever touched my sisters, I would have him arrested.
He had already touched my sisters, but I didn't know that until years later.
When Mom and Mike were ready to adopt a little girl, I foolishly thought that Mike wouldn't do that, not to his child, not his own baby. I rationalized that I was older when I came into the family. It was different. We weren't related.
But Jan told me years after Mom's death that he took her on the fishing boat, giving him an opportunity.
Men who do this don't see how it robs girls. I felt guilty that I had not protected my sister. I was off living my life across the country and in college. Mike wasn't a terrible person. He was deluded, confused, and flawed. He had probably been damaged in childhood, for I know his oldest brother was worse. One hopes their flaws don't hurt others, but Mike hurt my sister.
10. Silver
One night in Hood River, I was home alone when one of Mike's brothers came barreling in on his motorcycle. He was a good man, nobody to fear, but my dog, Silver, thought differently and rushed to protect me. He didn't harm the man, but it became fun for the brothers to pretend to come after me to rile Silver.
After I learned that Silver was so protective, I was never afraid when Silver was with me, even on a country road in the dark.
Silver was a medium-sized Australian Cocker Spaniel mix. I thought he was the most intelligent dog in the world, and I loved that dog with unbridled passion. He had the herding instinct of an Australian Shepherd—and was colored like one, silver, white, and black—but was about the size of a Cocker Spaniel with ears tipped over at the top.
Lois and I found him when we were riding King. The owners said they had too many dogs and would put Silver down.
I ran home as soon as I could and cried to my folks that they were going to kill that dog. We had to get him. They drove over the following day, and Silver was my dog for the rest of his natural life.
He would guard the two baby ducks I kept in a box one summer when my mother was visiting her sick mother (when Grandma died). That was over Easter, as I recall when my mom sent me a big box filled with green paper grass, candy, and little figurines.
I was staying with our best friends, Dottie and Eddie. And while I was with Dottie, she got three duck eggs from I don't know where, and we hatched them under one of Dottie's sitting hens. A chicken egg incubates in three weeks, a duck egg takes four, and that faithful hen stayed the course.
I would occasionally take the hen off the eggs and dribble water on the eggs as a mother duck would after a swim. Two eggs hatched, one little duck died, and that left one. I named him Peanut because he looked like one as a baby.
I realized later that the duck had probably imprinted on Silver, for he would grab the long fur under Silver’s neck, and they would romp. Peanut grew up to be a beautiful Mallard drake with a brilliant green head and curly tail, their defining features.
Dottie and Eddie were a constant in my life from when I was nine years old until I married. We were always friends—just separated for a while. When my family lived in San Diego, I could drive the two hours to visit them in Edwards, California. It was there that Eddie died, leaving Dottie devastated.
Their union was sweet; they called each other "Bubba," but it was marred by Eddie's drinking problem. Luckily, he was a happy drunk. He was the sort of man who would have you laughing one minute after you met him, and everybody took notice when he walked into a room. But he had demons we didn't know about. Strange, isn't it? Those apparently happy souls have something we don't understand. The have fears, guilt, or we don't know the cause, and sometimes neither do they.
While Dottie and Eddie lived in The Dalles under the church's influence, Eddie was sober. When they moved to another environment, he entered in with the boys.
Alcohol was not a part of my family. Mom might accept a drink if someone offered, but other than that, it was not an issue.
Mom and Dottie had been friends since junior high, and Mom introduced Dottie to Eddie. When Dottie and I took a trip to Hawaii together, I learned that Dottie had accompanied Mom to visit my father when she told him she was pregnant.
After Mom and I moved from Illinois to Oregon, and Mom and her best friend were separated, Dottie wrote to Mom that Eddie was looking for a new job. Mom suggested they move to The Dalles, and they did.
Eddie was a welder. During the war, he was an underwater welder who worked under a diving bell and repaired ships. The Dalles had a shipyard, and he quickly got a job there as a welder.
During my stay with Dottie, she kissed me goodbye as I left for school in the mornings. I know she felt that Mom wasn't very demonstrative, but I don't think she was trying to compete with her. Dottie was just being Dottie.
I loved both Dottie and Eddie. Eddie would tease me relentlessly but good-naturedly, and in the early years, he let me comb his hair and pin-curl it. He would play-box with me but left me to my own devices when I fell into a raging creek.
While fishing, I slipped off a log following Silver over a stream. The water was so swift it swept my legs out from under me, but I had managed to grab a root on the bank as I fell. I was left holding that branch while my legs were flapping in the current. I yelled for him, and he arrived like the movie cops did after the hero solved the crime. He appeared the moment I flopped myself onto the bank.
I know he was watching to see if I could pull myself from the water.
I took some pleasure when we waded across that stream, and Eddie was shocked when every time he lifted a foot, the current was so strong he could hardly put it down.
Luckily, Silver could manage that log.
I was talking about Silver, which morphed into discussing Dottie and Eddie. It emphasizes again how the mind works.
One subject brings up another. I don't know if this zigzagging needs to be organized; I hope not, for I like its organic nature. It flows like that stream; it hits rocks and redirects. Logs sometimes fall into the water, damming it up.
To my disappointment, Mike ended my visit with Dottie and Eddie. Whether he missed me as he said he did or was embarrassed by Dottie, I don't know. He would come home from work at 7 am and crawl in bed with me. Dottie thought that wasn't appropriate and told him so. And he took me away.
The glory of that situation was that I stayed at his mother's house within walking distance of Dottie's. At Mike's folks' place, we learned of Silver's excellent herding ability as Silver began guarding that one remaining baby duck from my Uncle Al's dog. Later, when we had chickens on our fruit farm, and one would escape the pen, we would send Silver to catch it. He would hold it down with his paws and lick its face until we retrieved it.
I remember little of that stay except that I sat under the tree in their side yard and sewed doll clothes. By then, I had grown out of paper dolls into a grown-up lady doll (I never liked Barbie because I thought she was ugly, and the company made all the slick, professional-looking clothes for her. All you had to do was put them on and take them off. I liked the designing and sewing of the clothes. As I called her, my lady doll made the designing and sewing easy because she was small, and I had abundant scraps of cloth left over from Mom's sewing.
Mike's youngest brother, Al, lived at home while I was there. He was only four years older than me. We didn't have much to do with each other then, but Al had two Shetland ponies. They were mid-sized horses, not little things, and he and I would ride together. My horse would kick up his heels in a little buck if tickled at the top of his tail, and Al would sneak up on me and tickle the horse's tail.
Al also taught me to swim at the town's Auditorium swimming pool. During that time, Al was somehow giving his folks a hard time, and they threatened to take away his dog. I thought that was the meanest thing I had ever heard. Thank God they didn't.
Over the years, Al and I went into and out of each other's lives. He became a helicopter pilot, followed by a Commercial pilot for Pan Am. He called himself a big machine operator and said flying was ecstatic, interspersed with moments of terror.
After his death, I awakened one night to the call of my name. I saw a close-up of Al's face as if I were staring straight at a computer screen. "Joyce," he said, "it doesn't hurt to die." I was struck dumb and failed to ask him anything else, and he left.
During the winter after my grandma's death, and we were all back home in Chenoweth beside the Oak's farm, we had a snowstorm that filled the driveway to over a foot of snow. One night, I went outside to check on Silver. I found him wandering in a daze down our long drive from the house. I carried him back to the house, where his neck was pulling his head back, and he couldn't stand. Mom said he would be dead by morning.
I went to bed and prayed and prayed that he would live. Come morning, I crept out into the living room, afraid of what I might find. There was Silver alive, lying in a chair.
However, he was one sick dog and became paralyzed. We believed he had distemper, and daily, my folks would try to convince me to have him "put to sleep."
He continued to lie paralyzed with my folks, trying to convince me he would never recover. I refused and tenderly cared for him, spoon-feeding him broth, and as he was so well house-trained, he didn't or couldn't eliminate, so we gave him castor oil, which forced the issue. Sorry, Silver, it was necessary.
He lay unable to walk for weeks until he wagged his tail one day. We cheered for that, which meant he was regaining feelings in his hindquarters. I held him and assisted his walking until he fully recovered—well, not entirely; he had a quiver in his hind quarters for the rest of his long life, mainly when he had gone on long walks or ran alongside Boots and me.
Mike realized that you don't allow a dog in the house during the day to play with your kid, so make him sleep outside at night, not during a severe winter like the one we had that year.
Silver and Suzi, another dog we had for a short while, produced puppies. One beautiful, almost white puppy went to a family. Later, the family's father told Mike that the dog had saved his little boy's life.
As the father was about to drive out of the driveway, not knowing his son was behind the vehicle, the dog somehow alerted him.
11. Boots
They say a writer writes about their obsessions; growing up, I was obsessed with horses. I loved horses. I drew horses, made horses for my paper dolls, prayed, and wished for a horse. And when our school assignment was, "What would I do with a million dollars?" I put "A horse" first on my list. Second, a saddle and bridle.
The summer I was 12, we had moved away from the Oaks, as my folks bought 32 acres; half was in orchards—cherries, peaches, and apricots. The other half was wild and hilly. Close by the house were a couple of apple trees: one Bing cherry tree—the big black-eating species of cherries—and a pie cherry tree producing tart cherries for baking.
Our front yard sported a peach tree. When in season, it often produced my breakfast of fresh peach slices. I added cream from Sandy, our cow.
Then, there was the crab apple tree that stopped traffic when it was in blossom. We sold the fruit to a co-op where the peaches went to be canned, and the cherries became Maraschino cherries.
I have never tasted an apricot or a peach as delicious as ours.
Mom pruned the trees so they could be picked from the ground and thinned the fruit until those apricots were almost as large as a baseball.
Occasionally, I visited the Oaks and would get to ride King.
An auction yard existed across the back pasture where the Oaks kept their animals. The road from the auction house wound through a residential area, but it put the two within walking distance.
On one particular Saturday, I was surprised to see my mother walking up their drive, smiling like she had a secret—which she had. What in the world…Behind her, Mike led a beautiful 5-year-old golden gelding named Boots. "Make friends with him," he said and handed the reins to me.
It was more than friendship that happened that day.
How I loved that horse. That first day, Lois and her sister rode their horses partway to our house, about ten miles from theirs. We rode up that long Cherry Heights hill. Halfway up the hill, they determined Boots was trustworthy and left him and me to ourselves.
Boots was a perfect horse, neck reined, could turn on a dime, and could run at least 24 miles an hour. I knew he could run at least that fast and on a slight incline, for one day, my uncle clocked us as he was driving up our hill, and I was racing Boots alongside the road to meet him at the house.
Being with Boots, my buddy, friend, and companion for many years, made me think horses are gentle, agreeable, and perfect partners. Later, I found that not all horses are as pleasant or agreeable as Boots, like people.
No matter the quiver in his hind quarters, Silver would hike with us as Boots and I traveled the countryside.
On Sunday mornings, Mike would deliver a few newspapers on our hill as a favor to his mother. She had a paper route servicing another area, but on Sunday mornings, she delivered the Sunday papers on our hill. I mentioned that Mike worked the graveyard shift, 11 pm to 7 am. He worked at the Round House, a place where the tracks allowed an engine to turn around, and there he did maintenance on them. So, as a favor to his mother, and coming home after 7 am, it was easy for him to deliver the last few papers for his mother.
One Sunday morning, he awakened me and asked if I would take Books and deliver the last few papers up the hill from us. He didn't know if the car would make it, as it had snowed about a foot and a half during the night.
I bundled up, tucked the last few rolled-up newspapers into my jacket, went out for Boots behind our shed, and jumped on his warm bare back. He was as frisky and excited as I was, doing a little dance as we ventured into the pristine snow.
There is a particular sound, a squeaky scrunch, as snow compresses beneath footfalls. The air glistened and snapped. Minute ice crystals sparkled in the sunlight and pinged my face like rock salt. Boots pranced like a charger, and we were the first to mark an otherwise perfect blanket of white.
Come spring, Boots, and I touched heaven again.
I had taken Boots further than usual, down a road leading to another road where I came to a gate.
The gate was not locked, so I opened it and almost lost my horse when he saw the open expanse of flat ground before him. We were in a springtime prairie where water had collected in low areas, creating ponds and watering wildflowers that dotted the grasses. After the barren winter and the landscape around our house that was home to scrub oak, poison oak, and straw-colored grasses most of the year, to my eyes, this was heaven.
We were standing on a packed dirt road that ran through that area. I didn't know how far that road ran, but we took advantage of it. Boots liked to run—a quarter horse has a lot of Thoroughbred (a breed, not meaning a purebred) mixed into their lineage, so maybe that was it.
We tore down the road until I felt he would run right out from beneath me, so I turned him in a circle and gradually shortened the circle until he slowed, and I felt in control again.
We investigated the area, and when I saw Silver leap into the air, run a short distance, and jump again, I rode over to see what had caused such bizarre behavior. A huge King snake was stretched out in the grass, and a few feet away, another. We left the snakes and eventually went home.
I returned to my secret prairie several times but never caught it in the condition I found that first day. It was such a moment when you stopped alongside the road, stripped off your pantyhose, waded in a mountain stream fresh off an ice flow, and felt alive.
Such are the moments that take our breath away.
Later, I found that my flat prairie was a mesa. If you ride far enough to the north, the prairie will end at a cliff, and below it will be the valley holding the town of The Dalles and the Columbia River.
If you drive through the Columbia River Gorge until you come to The Dalles and look to the South, you will see a cliff. At the top of that cliff are shallow caves called Eagle's Caves. If you climbed to the top of the caves, you would see the backside of my prairie.
And if you stand on that prairie, you will see little but grass, a mile or more of it, and the only sound you will hear is the wind rushing past your ears, and you will feel as the natives did when they came upon such a scene: that the earth, the mountains, the rivers, and the rains are home to The Great Spirit, and there for you to take from and give back to.
12. C-r-a-c-k
It was Saturday. I washed my hair, pin-curled it with bobby pins as was my style during high school, put a scarf around my head, and went out to find Boots.
By then, we had fenced in a few acres of land, and he was beyond the hill behind our house. We always found each other. Usually, he found me first, and I would hear a nicker, or he would just walk up to me. I hopped on his back, and we gently lopped down the path toward the house when suddenly I didn't have a horse beneath me.
My chin collided with the ground with a "C-r-a-c-k."
I hopped up in a daze and grabbed Boots as he was scrambling to his feet. I should have gotten back on, for they say to always get back on your horse, but I was a bit dazed and walked to the house while Boots ran ahead of me, kicking up his heels. Oh yeah, now you are sure-footed. My heart sank when, in the bathroom mirror, I discovered I had broken a few teeth, but not any front ones; thank heaven. The blow had split open my chin, jammed my jaw to the side, and shaved off a few cusps. I suffered a concussion, was in the hospital for a day, and ended up with a couple of crowns on my teeth. Thus, the gold in my mouth.
And it did build some fear in me. I still ran boots, but newer downhill. I would feel the ground coming up to meet me.
I am thankful for this day that the fall didn't break my neck. I know I shouldn't have been loping Boots through a forest on uneven ground. I suspect there was a root in his path, and he didn't want to fall any more than I did. I never liked to ride a trot, so he and I developed a technique where he would transition immediately from a walk to a lope. I should not have used it that day.
I mentioned the pin-curls because when I got to the hospital, I sat and removed all of the bobby pins before a head X-ray.
The nurse commented on what a mess that would make on film.
My hair looked good for the two days I was in the hospital, though.
13. My Mother Kept Hiding Anything Sexual from Me.
She was uncomfortable, so she avoided anything that had to do with sex. When the cat dropped kittens on the kitchen floor. Mom was awkward because I was there. She seemed worried that I might see something.
Even then, I wondered what the big deal was. I was a girl. I would grow into a woman. I ought to know such things. Those kittens had to get out somehow. I didn't see anything except a kitten drop from behind the cat. It turned out they were premature and didn't live. After that, we adopted a little white kitten and gave it to the momma cat, who was a wet nurse for the kitten. We lost the Momma from a box we had tied shut and placed in the back of the pickup when we moved back from Hood River. The white kitten was still there; the momma cat was gone. I hope she survived a leap from a moving truck and found a home.
I always wondered what Mother's problem was. When Sandy, our cow, was pregnant, Mom said something to Mike, worrying that I would stumble upon Sandy delivering, and again I wondered, why?
By then, I was over twelve years old and had learned to milk Sandy. Mike milked her in the morning, and I took the evening shift so he could sleep and be rested for his night shift.
I did stumble upon Sandy giving birth. I could see a protrusion from her birth canal, and she was clearly uncomfortable, lying down, getting up, lying back down again. It bothered me to see her hurting, and I knew I shouldn't be there. So, I went into the shed to give her some time. When I returned to her, the calf was on the ground, and I missed the opportunity to witness a complete birth. Since then, I've known parents who deliberately brought their children to see an animal giving birth. Mike would have encouraged it had he known what was happening.
I've seen several births since then, including watching my firstborn making her debut in the world. I was so excited to see that little head pop out of my body, and everything worked out beautifully.
I wonder how mom handled her next generation of kids. Long ago, when I asked her where babies came from, she asked me to tell her what I knew. I didn't know much; babies grew in the belly, and I thought they came out of the belly button. What else is it for?
Somehow, I blew off the question and decided not to go to Mom for answers.
I learned eventually. It helps to have animals, and while no animal except for chickens gave birth while I was at the Oaks farm, I knew Lois would have handled it with aplomb. The only delivery I saw was from a chicken egg. Lois showed me that when a chick is too weak to break through the shell, you can gently chip the shell a bit for them.
That knowledge blew up in my face once. When a hen hatched a clutch of eggs, and one egg didn't hatch, I thought the chick inside was too weak to peck through the shell. So, holding it close to my chest, I gently chipped at the shell. Pow! It blew up in my face!
It was rotten, and the stench was awful. I washed my face three times.
14. You Can't Edit a Blank Page
I was Catholic until I wasn't. That one-month break and the move to Hood River did it.
That move took me out of the Catholic school and into the public school system. Thus, I was a new kid at the Hood River school, and back in Oregon, I was a new kid at the Chenoweth grade school, where I completed the 5th and 6th grades. However, happy day, we were back in Chenoweth, next door to the Oaks.
The novelist Boo Walker writes a newsletter every so often. In the last letter, Walker Whoopie do'ed about completing a first draft for another novel. "The trouble was," he said," it stank." But he knew he would fill the dull action, spark the dialogue, and add light and activity to his descriptions later. He, too, emphasized you can't edit an empty page. And then, to his horror, he wrote that his wife said his wardrobe was as bad as his first draft, and she was taking him shopping." Nooooo!"
Anne Lamott talks about "shitty first drafts." Don't let anyone see them." She also emphasizes that writing will give you what having a baby will,
"It will get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, and wake you up."
That is why I am emphasizing the process of writing out one's feelings, fears, anxieties, concerns, and dreams.
Publishing, on the other hand, will do none of those things. Yet, for many who take writing classes, such as those taught by Lamott and Julia Cameron, their primary goal is to be published. A teacher can go on and on about writing, the skills, the trials of it, and then a student will raise their hand, as though they haven’t been listening, and ask, "How do I get published?"
However, think of it this way, while art/being creative sustains you, art not seen is just a picture stuck in a closet.
But first, the first draft.
Or the 150th one, which brings us here:
We have it backward.
Instead of saying, "I wish I knew then what I know now, how about we say, "I wish I had the wild abandon now I had then."
Was there a time when you felt totally alive?
Did you ever do stuff simply because you felt like it?
After being inspired by Natalie Goldberg's Old Friend From Far Away, I felt I had found a good thing, like chocolate mousse, and I'm offering you a taste. So, write your own story. If it is tragic, write that.
Shakespeare made a name for himself by writing them.
Yes, that's what novels and dramas are for. Not only are they teaching machines—there is nothing like a parable to offer a message--they are entertainment, and perhaps an avenue to work out the trials of life. That reminds me of a tribe in Africa who were non-waring, yet the children played war. That sounds strange, but maybe they worked out that urge to overpower, to take charge, and to conquer at a young age.
Drama aside, I don't think we came here to live a suffering life—although I've heard that a writer should write about suffering, people like suffering. It sells.
Yet, as little souls, did we really come here to suffer?
Read about angst, write about it, and show how people overcame adversity and learned from it, but when it comes to living your live adjust some of your settings.
When we look at the little souls arriving all wide-eyed, expecting fun and good times. They smile, giggle, kick up their heels, are eager to learn new things—like walk and talk, and run and play with wild abandon. Don’t we want happy times for them? But then the voices of the world, from institutions, culture, parents, although well-meaning, say such things as: "You know you can't have everything you want."
The little soul would say, "Yes, I can, yes, I can."
"You are not the center of the Universe."
"Yes, I am, yes, I am."
That's who you really are.
15. Green Apples and Salt
I began the first grade when I was six years old.
We had no head start, preschool, or kindergarten. I remember my mother taking me to school that first day and sitting in one of those first-grade-sized desks, looking uncomfortable and silly.
As I said, I don't remember any lessons, we played at the big doll house, and I drew.
I got sick in class one day, for which the teacher excused me, and I walked home across a field at the end of our street. I'm not still lying in that field, so clearly, I made it.
When not in school, the kids in the neighborhood played together; we ate sour gooseberries that hung over someone's fence and green apples with salt under the apple tree. On summer days, when the ice man came, he gave us shards of ice that were a treat, and on summer nights, we caught fireflies—lightning bugs, we called them.
We played in the ditches after the rain. We played Kick the Can in the cool evenings until the sun went down, and we couldn't see the can anymore. Do you know how Kick-the-Can works? Someone is it, and he counts while the rest of the kids hide. Whoever can sneak in without being caught is safe if he can kick the can before being tagged.
All this sounds very old-time, and it is, but while we had an out-house and an open well (I shouldn't put both of those in the same sentence), my Aunt Marie, 6 years older than Mom and married before I knew her, lived in an apartment in town with indoor plumbing.
I wasn't entirely a wild child, at least not in Illinois, for someone—one of the three adults—dressed me for church. I had curls that my mother or Grandma rolled around their fingers, making perfect finger curls like Shirley Temple. I liked sitting beside Aunt Marie in Church, for she played with my hair while the Priest conducted Mass in Latin. We got up, sat down, and kneeled so often that it kept the congregation awake.
When I went to mass in Oregon, I was older and would sit fixated on the beautiful statues at the front of the Church. The old Catholic Church in the Dalles is an art piece now. They use it only for special occasions like weddings, but when I went to the Catholic School, the school was across the street from the Church. It was at the old Church with a tall steeple. You could see all over town that mass was conducted. Now, I think seeing a crucifix daily and the stations of the cross every time you go to church numbs the viewer to the horror of it and is not suitable for the eyes of a child or an adult, for that matter.
We usually went to my Metcalf Grandparents' home for Christmas dinner in Illinois. That was why we always celebrated our Christmas at home on Christmas Eve. (I tried switching to Christmas mornings with my kids, but it never felt right.)
I remember running with the other kids, cousins, at Grandma Metcalf's house, laughing, sweating, and running some more. Grandma Metcalf must have allowed kids to run wild in the house, and she kept a box of little toys, figurines, and such that I liked to play with when we visited.
The parents of a cousin a little older than me would make her stop running, for they didn't want her to exert herself. I thought that odd. She had straight hair and envied my curls. I envied her dolls that had rooted hair. My dolls had glued-on wigs. (Her father was the editor of the town newspaper. Fascinating that in that family one brother was a writer, the other was an artist who expressed himself through drawing. It makes me wonder, once again, how much is nurture and how much is genetics.)
There was a boy who seemed so grown up to me, maybe about 12, whose parents always told him they carried a hairbrush. (The threat was not to brush his hair.) I thought he was so cool and the funniest kid. I adored him. I didn't understand why they would threaten him with a hairbrush. He would put a flower behind his ear and entertain me. (Hey, maybe my cousin is Jim Carey.)
On Christmas Day, we kids were expected to entertain after Christmas dinner. I remember I sang Jingle Bells.
In Illinois I began drawing on whatever scrap of paper I could find and continued it in Oregon.
My Aunt Marie, mom’s only sister, still lived in Illinois, and Neil and I spent a spectacular Christmas with them on Christmas break one school year when we lived in Oklahoma. Their daughter, Kathleen, had an early morning paper route, and I would go with her, the two of us slipping down snow-packed streets throwing Newspapers to houses. Marie took us to lunch at McDonald's, the first time I had ever had a McDonald's hamburger. She apologized for it, but I thought it was great. We had a super stacked hamburger with French fries. It was a special treat.
Marie told me that once her husband got sick out of town, and she was at a strange hospital, so she called my dad, and he came and sat with her. It was probably Aunt Marie who gave the pictures of me to my dad.
Years later, my half-sister, my father's other daughter, who lived in the Midwest, called from Portland. I drove to meet her and found that we were of similar ilk. I couldn't believe she was a biologist—Dad's two daughters were biology majors, and her name was Jan, the same name as my Korean sister. What are the chances? I wonder if I told her our father dissected a Carnaval cardboard Tweety bird.
Since Jan, my half-sister, liked the out-of-doors, as I do, I suggested we go to one of my favorite places, Multnomah Falls, a short drive up the Columbia River from Portland. We had lunch at the lodge and hiked the trail up to the bridge that spans the falls. When I first saw that astonishing phenomenon of water falling from an enormous cliff, I was awestruck. Remember, I was born where it was flat, flat. Oregon is mountain mountain. I was like a native seeing a ship for the first time.
16. Tomatoes
Mom grew big, fat, juicy, succulent tomatoes in a little fenced area behind their backyard on Chenoweth Road in The Dalles, Oregon. I never lived there. She and Mike bought the property after I married, but my little two-year-old daughter, Lisa, and I stayed there for a few days when I learned that my mother was terminally ill.
Her sister, Marie, came from Illinois, and mom cried because we were all under the same roof; her children, there were four, three adopted, two Korean girls and a boy, Bill, the miracle child she thought she couldn't have. Bill was ten years old.
When I was nineteen out of high school and working for a local dentist as a dental assistant, Mom and Mike drove to Portland to meet the plane arriving from Korea that held several Korean children who had been Proxy adopted, a process my mother helped establish. Proxy adoption means that the children were adopted in Korea by proxy, that way they already belonged to American parents when they arrived in the United states.
I'm sorry I didn't go that day. I didn't take off work for a dentist depends largely on his assistant.
Mom told of meeting the plane and how it seemed magical—each child appeared to recognize their new parent. Jan, however, had a meltdown that evening, crying and calling a Korean name we didn't understand. Small wonder that she would be disheartened, for she had flown that day from Korea, rode the 90 miles from Portland to The Dalles and was thrust into a new home where there was a friendly dog she was afraid of.
Someone later thought the name she was calling was "Grandmother."
Jan spent her life believing her parents had been killed, that she was hidden in a closet, and that she was taken to the orphanage by her grandmother. That was all she remembered from her Korean life. And unlike many Korean adoptees, she never wanted to visit Korea. She was an American.
Jan was a darling and so tiny. We didn't know if she could walk. We were told that she was 3 years old, but later, a dentist determined by the eruption of her permanent teeth, that she was probably older. That first night, when Mom set her on the floor, she just stood sobbing.
The bubble bath in the kitchen sink worked its charm. When mom placed her in it, the smile that broke upon Jan's face was like the clouds opening to the sun.
When Jan was dressed and snugly warm, Mom took that sweet little child to bed with her, and it was a love affair that lasted a lifetime—for Jan, Mom, and me. When I was away for the day at work, Jan would wander through the house, asking, "Where Jo?"
On the last August of her life, I feasted on Mom's tomatoes, eating them like apples with salt and pepper. And for lunch, I added a slab of bologna rolled into whole wheat bread.
Mike had a van, and he chauffeured Mom, Marie, the kids, Lisa, and me on an outing to Lost Lake, one of our favorite picnic places. There are no power boats allowed on the lake. However, they rent oared boats and canoes. If you paddle to the middle of the lake, you see the mountains dip so that Mt. Hood is framed between them. As you sit in a boat in the middle of the lake with the framed snow-capped mountain reflected in the lake you wonder if God had Her sketch pad out the day she created that view.
It was Mom's last outing.
Later, with Mom in the hospital, Mike took the kids, Lisa, and me to a drive-in movie, where we saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Mike knew someone from the concession and they gifted us with a huge cardboard box of popcorn. Lisa fell asleep before the child-stealing thief appeared in the film, so she always had sweet memories of the film.
Jan was attending a church camp when Mom died, much to her dismay, for she felt, as teenagers often do, that Mom had something more to tell her. I don't think so. Losing her mom was a deep sadness for her.
About three days before Mom died, I cleaned her house, loaded the kids into their Van, and drove to the hospital to visit her. Walking in the front door, I felt a liquid trickle down my legs and rushed to the restroom. "Oh, no!" I blurted out.
From the next stall came, "What's wrong?"
"I'm pregnant, and I'm bleeding!"
A nurse rushed me to a doctor who didn't treat me. Instead, he told me to go home and stay in bed. I did for about a week while my mother-in-law cared for Lisa and me. There, I got a call from the hospital that Mom had died.
Three days later, my doctor back in California said I could get up for the funeral. At the funeral, I held that little 6-year-old recently adoptee's hand. More for me than for her probably, for she never really got to know my mother, as she had come into the family only a year before. But I felt sorry for her that she was losing a mother for the second time. I said I didn't cry easily, but I cried for my mother.
My mother-in-law felt she could better serve the day by keeping Lisa for me instead of going to the funeral. My favorite memory of those days with my mother is her sitting on the couch talking to my two-year-old. Both talked with their hands and as they spoke, I don't know of what, my picture of them is of hands waving, chatting, gesturing, and talking up a storm.
At the church, I stood in the pew and mentally declared to the Universe that I was not losing another one, meaning my mother and the child I was carrying.
The Universe complied, and my baby was born healthy. I've always believed that my mom and my daughter met as mom was leaving and my daughter was coming in.
17. You Know What?
My first boyfriend still owes me a brand-new Mercury automobile, pink and black, the version we were drooling over that year.
On our first trip to a bowling alley, my first throw was a gutter ball.
My boyfriend laughed and said, "If you get a strike, I will buy you a new Mercury."
The next time I threw the ball, I had a strike.
We had a long-distance romance as he lived ninety miles from The Dalles but often came to town, stayed with his sister, and visited me. One summer, he picked cherries in our orchard, and we played and kissed a lot.
One particular night he and I wanted to go to the movies, but we needed a vehicle as Mike had taken the car to work. However, the flatbed truck was in the driveway, loaded with boxes of cherries. We unloaded the truck and drove it to the movie. Come morning, Mike said it wasn't good for a girl to lift so many boxes, so the boy had to load it all by himself.
His sister encouraged our romance. She was a force to be reckoned with. She wanted me to become a teacher, as she was, and asked that I be excused from school one day so I could assist with her class. She was also our minister's wife, who didn't keep the patronage in tip-top shape as the previous minister's wives had done; neither did she have prayer meetings there. She would take her brother and me on adventures, one to Seattle to meet their parents. (They knew them, I didn't.) Shortly after that, the boyfriend's family moved from Seattle to Portland—those 90 miles away. His father had a high position in the church, and yes, they were PKs, Preacher's Kids.
I adored his sister, who could play a gospel song on the piano like ragtime. She dressed flamboyantly but often in black as that suited her and silhouetted her svelte figure. She wore stiletto heels with pointed toes—the rage at the time. Imagine the staid congregation of a conservative church watching that woman walk up to the piano.
The boy was fun, and we found things to do—drive-in movies, church camps, once I took him on my driving paper route that Ma Willett, my stepdad's mother, had given me for a summer job. I became proficient at driving one-handed, rolling papers, and slipping them into their round boxes on the fly. However, the time I took my boyfriend with me, we horsed around so much I forgot some customers, they complained, and Ma Willett punished me by taking away part of the route.
Once, he and I decided to take an excursion out of town. We drove on a logging road into the forest, where we got stuck. Try as we might, we couldn't get the car out.
We were miles from town, with no phone or car, so we walked...down the middle of a farm road—for half the night. When we heard sounds, we imagined we were being stalked by a cougar. We made it to town and called my folks.
The following day, Mike drove us to rescue the car, and he got it out easily.
My boyfriend once bought me a pink rose corsage when we went to a Church event in Portland. He liked 'bling' in the form of rhinestones, so I had many rhinestone necklaces.
Our romance lasted three years; by then, I was out of high school and working as a Dental Assistant for a local Doctor. The last time I saw him, he was boarding the train for his 90-mile-away home. Soon, he would be moving across the country to attend a prestigious University on the East Coast. There were no arguments, no fights, just my knowledge that it was over. One reason was that he wanted to be a minister, and I was not cut out to be a minister's wife. Two, it's doubtful our romance would have lasted through his college years, with him on the East Coast and me on the West. And I knew that a big University guy and a farm girl back home wouldn't likely make it, plus I was finding other fellows interesting.
I stopped halfway up our Cherry Heights hill at a spot that overlooked the valley, the town of The Dalles, the Colombia River beside it, and the Klickitat Mountains on the Washington side of the river. I watched a little black train, his ride home, make its way through autumn parched dry grasses and snake its way out of town.
18. Ode to Tuna Fish
I'm eating a tuna fish sandwich with a dill pickle and a slice of sweet Walla Walla onion. There is also a good amount of Kettle potato chips, giving the plate a finished look.
I look up and see that beyond the pink dogwood, there is a rhododendron bush budding pink. So, now I have the pinkness of the dogwood, plus a pink rhododendron as a backdrop. I've heard to never eat rhododendrons, which are toxic to humans. However, a tea made from its leaves can counteract the itching rash of poison oak.
I am susceptible to poison oak and lived with one rash after another during my high school years, for poison oak was abundant in our area. I didn't know that rubbing one's face in your dog's fur was a sure way to encounter the plant's urushiol oil. Finally, my high school biology teacher asked me if I had a dog and said that's how I got poison oak on my face.
Well, well, a smart teacher.
When we lived in Eugene, in a wetter climate than The Dalles, a poison oak plant didn't care what the environment was; it snuggled up next to a rhododendron. I developed a rash from working in the yard, so I gave the rhododendron tea a chance and as an experiment. It did relieve the itch, but good old Ivy Dry finished the job.
Folk medicine says that for every ailment, there is an antidote, which emphasizes, once again, that we need to preserve our diversity of plants.
While our high school English teachers taught us to develop our paragraphs, as a blogger, I learned to use short, succinct sentences, with maybe two sentences to a paragraph. Thus, I set up this book that way.
Large blocks of print scare some people. However, people still read. Books are still being written and bought, and Natalie Goldberg commented that the brain doesn't follow a reasonable pattern. That gave me permission to follow my zigzag mind.
Whew, finally.
Without tuna fish, I wouldn't have reached adulthood. (Now I wonder how much mercury I got.) Those sandwiches, interspersed with peanut butter and jelly, served as lunch for many years. I carried them to school in a brown paper bag, often with an apple or orange. By lunchtime, the fruit had carved out a nest for itself in my sandwich.
I never particularly liked school until I got to college where I discovered the thrill of learning and found that studying and applying myself was a totally new adventure, and it made a tremendous difference in my grades. Drawing pictures in the back of the room didn't work anymore.
I'd been out of high school for five years when I started college. During that time, I worked as a dental assistant, first for three years for Dr. Brogan in The Dalles—bless him for hiring and training me. After I married, I got a job with Dr. Gibson in McMinnville, Oregon, where Neil attended Lindfield College.
During his senior year, Neil was accepted into the master's program at Oklahoma State University. He was given an assistantship for Physics labs and to teach freshman Physics. Thus, he had a job. So, we packed our old Ford with all our worldly possessions. Neil is an excellent packer, and the backseat was packed up to the rear window. We were off to Oklahoma, where the lightning strikes were so monstrous and grand that Neil was stupidly out photographing them.
We lived on 3,000 dollars for the school year. Fifty dollars a month on rent, five dollars a month for gas—we drove the car to church and the movies. Oh, and the laundromat, I forgot about that. Going to the laundromat was an adventure, for it was pretty, painted lively colors, and had a Pepsi machine. I grew up thinking having a soda was a treat. Our splurge was sending Neil's white shirts to the cleaners, so he always had a crisp white shirt for teaching class.
We walked to school from our apartment, home for lunch, back in the afternoon, then home. I carried books and sprinted across campus for many of my classes, and I always lost weight at the beginning of the year.
"For lunch we usually had a sandwich and a bowl of good old Campbell's soup. We often ate pork steaks for dinner as they were the cheapest cut of meat. When we left Oklahoma, I declared I would never eat another pork steak again, but then, when we left Oregon, I declared that I would never eat venison again. Neil's folks used to give us care packages of venison when we lived in McMinnville, as Neil's father was a hunter. I never liked venison. And I dislike hunting more. (If I was lost on the tundra and hunting was my only choice, that would be a different story.)
The people in Oklahoma thought it was funny that we, Oregonians, liked beans and cornbread. One day after school, Neil and I opened the apartment door and walked into a wall of smoke and a stench that almost knocked us on our keisters.
A pot of beans had been cooking since lunchtime. The pot containing the black blob that was once beans was a Revere Wear saucepan we got as a wedding gift. It survived and has lived through many scorching’s since then, and it still survives.
After two years in Oklahoma, Neil earned his master's degree, but the Vietnam draft was breathing down his neck. He had already taken his physical and required test—and scored second in the state. He dropped the Ph.D. idea and became a civilian employee physicist with the Navy. It's a shame he abandoned the Ph.D. program, but he didn't go to war; he's alive, and doesn't have PTSD.
Oklahoma State University was an awakening. They revered their liberal arts program. Yes, at a "Cow college." When my freshman biology professor boomed over a class of around 200, "This is the study of life!" I signed up for a biology major.
Contrast Oklahoma to The University of California, Riverside, where I transferred after my sophomore year and worked my butt off for the next two. They required a language, and I have an anvil, hammer, and stirrup made of tin. (Bones of the inner ear.) See, I remember biology, but I can't pronounce arbole (tree in Spanish) I keep hearing an i in it).
I loved my science classes at Oklahoma, but it was the Humanity class that changed me.
For the first time, I learned about myths, ancient cultures, and religions, and read the Bible as literature. There I was, a protestant, studying evolution, frowned upon by my Christian siblings and parents, had an atheist humanities professor, and went to a Christian Church. I avoided the atheist professor when I decided to take philosophy, as he was the professor, so I took the class from someone else. And then what happened? I walked into my humanities class and guessed who the professor was. The atheist.
I came out of Stillwater, Oklahoma, a Unitarian.
While in Oklahoma, we were practically adopted by the EUB (Evangelical United Brothern) Church Minister and his wife. It was a small church. We sang in the choir and were the new kids on the block—former EUBers from Oregon. I had entered that denomination on my college application, and they gave my name to the minister. Surprisingly, they had such a church in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
After the Sunday evening service, we often went to the minister's house to watch TV and snack on apples and popcorn. Someone from the church felt sorry for us that we had no television. Of course, we didn't need to be distracted from our studies, but we took what they offered: a large console that, when stuffed into our car's truck, the lid wouldn’t close. We tied it and somehow got it into our apartment. The TV screen was only about 12 inches, but it was fun, and we lost sleep to the tune of "H-e-r-e's Johnny."
When I began my second semester of Humanities, to my horror, the minister also took the class, and we were both invited to be on a panel discussion.
With my newfound sense of the world, I didn't have the will to go up against my minister. I asked the professor to please take me off as I had been on a panel last semester, and when I told him about the minister, he excused me.
I remembered the panel of the semester before, not what we discussed, but the night before. Neil and I had attended the movie West Side Story, and my stomach was cramped with anxiety throughout the film.
When Neil got a job in Corona, CA. I transferred to the University of California, Riverside, about a 25-minute drive away. And there I met Sylvia, who became a lifelong friend. We were both older than most of the students, and she, older than me, already had a little girl. Later, she had a baby boy six months older than my second daughter, and they all remained friends throughout grade school. With them, a trip to Disneyland became an annual event. Her husband was an engineer, so that worked well for our husbands.
While still in McMinnville, we sold the car I brought into the marriage, a blue Nash Rambler Convertible. (Neil's mother said, "Neil finally got a car.”) We bought a closed-in four-door Ford, ugly as sin but reliable. Neil walked to school, and I drove to work daily past the police station until a policeman stopped me and told me to get my muffler fixed. I did, and that car carried us to Oklahoma twice and into California, where I drove it to school for another two years.
Leaving for class in the mornings, I started that car by letting it drift down the slight incline from the carport onto the driveway and popped the clutch so that the motor started. At school, I parked on a hill and started it at the end of the day by letting it roll downhill and again popping the clutch. It never let me down. See, I said it was reliable.
Why didn’t we fix it? That’s a mystery. Perhaps I wouldn’t let it out of my sight for I needed it for school. We ended up selling it as is to our property manager, who, with a friend, had fun starting that thing—I cold hear them laughing in my apartment.
The irony was that after I had driven those two years from Corona to Riverside, we bought a house in Riverside, and my husband commuted from Riverside to Corona. By then we had purchased another car that our daughter later named "Go Somewhere."
While in Oklahoma, I tentatively dreamed of becoming a Vet. I was told by a professor, a friend from the church, that the Veterinary Department rarely took women. "They will just get married and start having babies." I was married. I was five years out of high school and had no babies. Now, more women are graduating from veterinary school than men.
At UCR, I suffered through dissecting a cat in comparative anatomy. My problem was that it was a cat, not that I was squeamish about dissection. Already, I had seen dental surgery. I didn't intend to become a doctor, but comparative anatomy was a part of my curriculum. To be fair, another student and I shared the cat for an entire semester. He would dissect in one class, and I would dissect in another—our only connection was the cat. People often think of dissecting as charging through with a scalpel. You don't. You only use a scalpel to cut through the skin. The rest is done with a dissecting needle that has a blunt tip.
With the needle, you can carefully separate the tissues. And to my surprise, the circulatory system was injected with blue latex for the arteries and red for the veins. I came home reeking of formaldehyde more days than not.
Each year I was in college, Ma Willett, Mike's mother, sent fifty dollars to me. It was always a blessing that came mid-year at book-buying time. I greatly appreciated her for including me in her list of grandchildren. She told me that she always supported any grandchild who went to college. When I graduated in January, I lacked some credits and took an extra semester, and thus graduated in the middle of the school year. I got $25.00 for the half year. No "Congratulations, you finally made it," just half price for half a year. She was a no-nonsense woman.
A line from one of our favorite movies, The Jerk starring Steve Martin, applies to Ma Willett: "Is Grandma still farting?" Going for a walk with her sounded like a little choo-choo train. Am I being disrespectful? No, it added to her eccentricity. She had five sons and lost one to an appendix rupture at age 14. That death scared Mike, who worried about belly aches.
Years later, I learned from another grandchild that Ma Willett sat with my mother during her last days, for she believed that a person should never die alone.
19. Licorice
When my eldest daughter was a few months shy of turning three and my second daughter was a few months shy of being born, we bought a little black poodle puppy and named her Licorice.
A groomer owned her; thus, when we went to see her, she was perfectly coifed with a pink ribbon in her hair—an adorable puppy sitting perkily on a couch. Her muzzle had a tinge of gray, the tell-tale sign that she was beginning to turn silver/gray, as the ad said she was. But the name Licorice stuck.
It was the first time in my life I had gone for eight years without a dog, and we thought a puppy might introduce our upcoming baby to our two-year-old daughter.
Both girls loved that little dog. They would dress her in DD's baby clothes, those stretching one-piece outfits that were popular then, and they fit Licorice perfectly, with her walking around on springy stretch-fabric legs. She grew up as predicted to be silver/gray with perfect conformation, long legs, and about 15 inches tall. She was a beautiful dog. She looked like a standard poodle, only small.
For a few Christmases, we drove from San Diego, California, to The Dalles, Oregon, to visit grandparents, and we always took Licorice. Not many motels were pet-friendly then, so we smuggled Licorice in with the stuffed toys.
When my second daughter was seven years old, and my first-born was ten—see moms tell time by their children's ages—we took a three-day vacation, driving from San Diego to Los Angeles, and decided to leave Licorice with a pet sitter—at the pet sitter's house.
I only remember some of what we did in LA, except for taking the kids to see Star Wars at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
We decided to go home earlier than planned, for we missed Licorice, and both girls talked about it most of the way home. "Won't Licorice be happy to see us!"
The trouble was, when we got to the sitter's house, Licorice was gone.
She had escaped the backyard.
We were devastated.
Quickly, we searched, scanned the neighborhood, called her name, and asked whomever we met if they had seen a little gray poodle.
All day, we searched, and I had called the pound—No little gray poodle.
Dejected, we went home without our dog.
The following morning, I awakened early, got up before the others, and set off to find Licorice. I went to the Pound and into the back to search cages.
There, opening a cage, was a man with a little gray poodle under his arm.
"Licorice!"
She turned—amazed as I was, and we flew into each other's arms, her yapping and having a wiggling fit. We carried on until the lady told us to quiet down. Hey, this dog was lost for three days! I hugged her until we were released from lock-up, for I had to wait to purchase a license.
Somehow, we heard the story; the policeman must have told the Pound people how he found her. She had left Mission Hills, traveled through an underpass beneath the I-5 freeway, and made it to Mission Beach. There, she picked up with a surfer/drifter until he was stopped by the policeman. The surfer said the dog didn't belong to him, and thus, Licorice was escorted to the pound by a policeman.
The surfer? He had to be a good guy, for Licorice trusted him. (You know how lost dogs can get disoriented, scared, and will not let a stranger catch them.) Licorice, however, found a friend, and because of him, we found our dog. Licorice's little foot pads were worn from all her walking. The man? I don't know what happened to him. To me, he is an unsung hero. Finding our dog in a city the size of San Diego was a miracle.
As I recall, I never paid the dog sitter.
Licorice remained with us for the rest of her life, my almost constant companion, and the wearer of baby clothes.
I was convinced that Licorice's purpose in life was to love and be loved. And it scares me when I read this, thinking of what could have happened to her. It was Divine intervention.
Thirty years later, we got another poodle who had the same purpose--to love and be loved. That was Peaches, the Pink Party Poodle for Peace, the little dog who moved to Hawaii and back with us.
Remember, all dogs go to heaven. I expect to see the ones who called me their pet sprint down a hill as green as the spring grasses of Oregon to wiggle all over me and cover me with kisses.
20. What About Your Life?
My mother believed in spanking her children, but only she was permitted to do it.
She told me that once she spanked me for so long, she felt guilty. I had scattered shoe trees my father had brought home from the shoe factory about the yard but wouldn't pick them up. No matter how much she hit me, I wouldn't do it. Finally, she took my hand, and we picked them up together. Which is what she should have done in the first place. I was so young I don't remember it.
I slightly remember being switched on the legs with a cherry tree twig, but I don't know what I did to deserve it. I vaguely remember the dancing and stinging. The only spanking I remember was when I was 7 or 8 after our move to the Dalles. I was horsing around with a cereal box and a bowl stacked on top of it. The bowl fell and broke. Mom grabbed me, and me being a big kid by then, she clumsily turned me over her knee and whacked me on the butt. It was kind of funny, really, and I realized it didn't hurt. Spankings always hurt my feelings, though, and I never believed I deserved them.
And they teach children to hit.
Once, when I was new to Mike and Mom's family and playing with paper dolls, the cat, thinking that paper looked like a fun plaything, pounced into the pile of paper and stirred it around, as cats are apt to do. I hit the cat. Immediately, Mike hit me.
Shocked, I ran to my room. Mom talked with Mike; he came into my room, apologized, and never struck me again. I believe Mom thought a man should never hit a girl, and I agree—neither should a woman. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" caused many a blistering.
Once, when my two girls and I had been biking, I don't remember what precipitated the tantrum, but my oldest daughter threw herself to the ground, and I smacked her thigh.
My youngest daughter exclaimed, "Mother! How could you?!"
My mother must have been spanked. I don't know about it. She adamantly believed you should never slap anyone. And with children, you only swat them on the butt…or legs.
(Oh my, could it be that I have trouble with my lower extremities from those days? I called my daughter and apologized for smacking her.)
I don't know why it is embarrassing to be spanked and why it is also embarrassing to be bullied, molested, or unloved.
The moment I wrote the above sentence, I got the answer.
When Joseph McClendon was sleeping in a box in Lancaster, California, after somebody tried to kill him because of the color of his skin, he thought, "If someone would do that to me, there must be something wrong with me."
That's it.
As McClendon erroneously thought something was wrong with him, kids probably believe something is wrong with them that they deserve such treatment.
Nothing was wrong with McClendon, as there is nothing wrong with kids who get hit for some infraction. They're kids, remember? It's a quick, lazy fix for a parent.
Although I remember a group of mothers, a continuation of a childbirth class, who got together for a time afterward. One said, "Maybe a swat isn't worse than being yelled at."
Indeed, are those the only choices?
I wonder how much spanking contributes to the prevailing "I'm not good enough syndrome," which is rampant in our culture. I'm not good enough to be loved, find a mate, write a good book, a play, a symphony, paint a picture, or start a business.
"I've been bad and deserve to be hit. I am a girl, a less desirable weaker sex, and must keep my mouth shut. Boys will be boys, you know."
Auugh.
That's the biggest Bullshit I've ever heard.
When Joseph McClendon lived in the box, a man gave him a book.
The book was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
He read it and returned it to the man who had given it to him, understanding that when someone offers you a gift, you should give them something in return.
The man said to pass it on, not the book specifically, but the principles. Now McClendon is a neuropsychologist in LA and a presenter at some of Tony Robbin's events. "It isn't the motivation," he says, "it's the 'Do."
When you have the idea—take immediate action to make it work.
Okay, here goes:
I have an issue with asking people for money. I want to write professionally, and I'm happy to serve readers. Yet, given how much hype, pressure, cajoling, bribing, and trickery (like fake fonts that look like you have gotten a personal letter when it's an ad, for heaven's sake), I have the impression that people pay only when they get cajoled into it, or have to.
I, too, pay for things because I have to. You don't get a beer at a ball game without paying for it. If I order a meal, I must pay for it. I buy groceries, pay the mortgage, pay the electric bill, the phone company, the Internet service, and the garbage collection company because those things would disappear if I didn't pay them.
But what about giving freely?
Once, I got $100 from my dad and decided we should do something outrageous with it. So, a pile of kids climbed into my daughter's Rabbit convertible. She drove us to La Jolla, California, an affluent community—because we wanted to support abundance. I had purchased A Course in Miracles Cards, and we stapled a dollar bill to a card, drove down the street, and gave away all 100 one-dollar bills.
The kids had a blast and said, "When you feel like doing something outrageous again, call us."
They probably wanted that money but gave it freely and had fun doing it.
I notice I strayed from my process by saying something contradictory to my previous statement that I wouldn't pay unless I had to. It's fascinating how the mind wants to distract us.
Giving my writing away for free lets me avoid rejection. That's my belief, but it's only a belief. Beliefs can be rock-solid, so the trick is to replace them with a different one.
The trick is to let go of tired old excuses and to go for what you want.
Now, what about your life?
21. The Grand Canyon of Our Mind
Isn't it strange the moments we remember and those lost in the black hole of forgetfulness? Neil says some events are like writing them on paper and throwing them into the Grand Canyon.
That's how I wrote this, not like a novel, as some suggest, but on scraps of paper.
Moments plop into my mind, such as the topless swimmer in Greece, a young girl with small pointy breasts who stood proud, gorgeous, and not self-conscious.
We were the strange ones wearing tops to our swimming suits. Locals must have said, "There go a tourist."
Did I tell you we rented a Yacht in Greece? After hiking to the Acropolis at sunrise—beautiful—and as we were on jet lag up before the restaurants were open, we hiked up that hill and walked the steps of the ancients. Sunrise on the stones, and we were photographed by another tourist with a video camera, a rarity in those days.
I stood at the window overlooking the rooftops of Athens and weirdly thought they looked like Tijuana, Mexico. When my eyes fell onto a brochure sitting on the coffee table titled "Rent a Yacht," I pointed it out to the girls.
Sounds like a plan.
Knowing me and my propensity to be seasick, I came prepared with seasick ear patches, so I decided to chance a water voyage.
Within a couple of hours, with the food we had chosen loaded onto the boat and roses for me, we were boarding The Alexandria, named after the owner's daughter.
Before boarding, I had placed an ear patch on each ear. Within the hour, while walking to the boat, my mouth was so dry I could hardly pull my tongue off my cheek.
I slept on the way to Hydra, where Mary awakened me to what looked like Shamgri-La. Orange, ochre, and burnt sienna houses crept up the hillsides in an awe-inspiring display of artistry. I sat up and declared, "I'm not seasick!"
The captain drove straight into the center of the town and docked the boat among others. He put down the gangplank, and we were in the center of town.
However, when I packed my bags, thinking I was leaving the hotel and not on a yacht, Mary said, "Those patches are too strong for you; take them off and wash your ears."
I did, but double vision lingered for two days.
Later, I found that those patches contained scopolamine, a drug they used to give women during labor so they would forget the pain.
I remember a few things, how we had a perfect parking place and time to shop and walk the white stone steps of Hydra. As we lounged on Alexandria's rooftop deck, a cruise ship arrived, poured out passengers, and a short time later, sucked them back in, and left. We believed we had the better deal.
The following morning, in Hydra, I was awakened to the clanking of soda bottles as donkeys carried them up the hill to shops. There were no vehicles. I remember the steward stacking up glasses, pouring champagne into the top glass, and letting it avalanche into the others.
Strange that we weren't hungry in Greece—that would come when we got to Italy—good timing, as we all loved Italian food. But Greece had the best yogurt, and someone served us fish on the wind-swept banks of the Mediterranean Sea. We bought a watermelon and carried it onto the boat. And the steward was insulted if we got our own glass of water.
A crew of three served the yacht: the captain, his wife, the cook, and the steward, who had a motorboat on board. The steward took us body surfing. Since none of us knew how to water ski, he dragged us body surfing on our backs.
We couldn't sink in the Mediterranean Ocean, a fact I didn't know and had never experienced, plus the water was warm.
I remember the song of the Mediterranean.
It came faintly on the breeze at first. As we approached an island, the sound rose to astounding heights. It was a singing, ringing, buzzing sound that vibrated, riding the heat waves that shimmered from the island.
It appeared that the air was vibrating. As we got closer, I could identify the sound. It was the cicadas strumming their legs, and I wondered if the sound the Greek sailors of old thought that sound was the songs of the sirens, luring them onto the rocks.
One night, when the kids were asleep on the upper deck, their chosen sleeping arrangement, the Captain and Steward invited me for a drink. We walked a trail along the edge of a cliff and came to a pub perched on its rim. We couldn't converse well as they didn't know much English, and I didn't know any Greek, but I learned that it snowed occasionally, and there, perched on the rim of that cliff, I had the worst drink of my life.
Four girls visited Venice, where we stood on a bridge overlooking the Grand Canal. Leaning over and looking into the water, we saw a gondola floating toward us, carrying Liza Minnelli and Walter Matthau. We yelled, "Hi Walter!" like teenagers, which one of us was. It probably wasn't anything to him, but it was astounding to us.
Wonderful how miracles happen when you least expect them. My miracle happened this morning when I searched for a book from a stored box in the Wayback. I came upon an article I had written on Venice thirty years ago.
You know you can get rummy on a trip, whether on a plane, train, taxi, or, in the case of Venice, a canal boat. We stood on a platform in Venice, spelled Venezia on the map, expecting it to drive away with us when a boat appeared.
Oh.
Walls of buildings surrounded us, buildings in ill repair, siding chipping away, facades careworn, green moss clinging to the foundations, and stairways going nowhere or disappearing into the water—ghosts of an elegant past.
I thought, "How beautiful and elegant it would be if all was repaired, cleaned, and shored up." I felt like protecting it as I would a baby bird. It seemed so delicate a shudder of the earth would send it crumbling to the ground.
Magnificent Venice. It must consider me an infant, for it has existed for centuries; I am only a fraction of one. But I hear it calling for help. I hear it whispering its secrets. How could anyone not love Venice?
We rode a gondola that first night, relaxing with no traffic sounds, only the whisking of gondolas, and off in the distance, a baritone voice sang an Italian serenade. We replaced travel clothes with dresses, and rode in luxury, and from a bridge above us came the complementary hoot from a young Italian.
Some think Venice is ramshackle and falling down. It is sinking, but if one only sees the crumbling facades, one misses the magnificence of Venice.
The following afternoon while the girls went shopping, Mary and I sat at the edge of the Piazza San Marco, St Mark's Square, the center of Venice, drinking iced tea and champagne. A fellow beside us asked, "Do Americans always drink iced tea and champagne in the afternoons?"
We laughed and responded, "When in Venice, they do."
After we left magnificent Venice, with its gold leaf ceilings, we would see through windows as we toured the canals in our gondola, and there were the four beautiful bronze horses of Venice. Legend says they were made in Greece during the time of Alexander the Great, the four horses of a chariot. They are a testament to survival. They had been stolen, survived emperors and conquerors, and returned to Venice, where they are magnificent still. I took a perfect picture of them, which I no longer have.
We left on an early Tuesday morning aboard a speed boat to our next destination, the train depot, and eventually Rome. I stood on deck and watched the peeling buildings that appeared perfect. In two days, they had repaired themselves. The bridges and canals and pigeons were there, the little balconies with geraniums, the moss, and vine-covered buildings, and I wouldn't allow myself to feel sad, only the thought that I'm coming back, for I don't believe Venice exists except when I'm not there to see it.
We took the train to Florence and visited the Accademia Gallery, home of Michelangelo's David. He is the size of a two-story building, meant initially to be placed on a rooftop. And he stands on a pedestal, putting his feet at eye level. His feet seemed immense. He was a beautiful youth with determination in his eyes, and how Michelangelo carved such a fearless-looking figure is beyond me. I read someplace that he had first carved a wax model and placed it in water, and that day, he would carve the portion that floated above water.
After visiting David, we had dinner where the chefs were in full view of us, and they could see us.
One of the chefs prepared a heart-shaped pizza for my thirteen-year-old daughter. And many of the clerks often called my 16-year-old red-haired daughter "Bella Rosa."
From Greece to Rome:
The contrast of it.
From the Islands in Greece, where there were no vehicles, the sounds were the tinkling soda bottles in the mornings as donkeys carried them uphill to the café, to a roaring Metropolis where sirens sounded off and on daily.
We entered a church, and as I was wearing a sundress with spaghetti straps, a lady motioned to me to cover up. Mary, my traveling friend, offered the scarf she was using for a belt so I could hide those embarrassingly bare shoulders.
But then, I remember that Catholic women used to be required to cover their heads in church. If the ladies wanted to pop into a church for a moment but had no hat or scarf, they would lay a handkerchief over their heads.
Would a Kleenex work? Who has handkerchiefs anymore?
Am I being disrespectful? But for crying out loud, folks, be reasonable. God loves your beautiful hair and your beautiful body, and sex is not only for making babies.
We have sparkling moments, but if we bump into pain, we should address that, too.
Why?
Because it's all life.
I am swiping the page--red, pink, and yellow, and yes, weeds grow among the flowers--the weeds are beautiful, too—they are life. And with the passing of years, I understand that life isn't all manicured and perfect.
We visited the Colosseum, and Mary and I visited the Vatican, where we saw the Sistine Chapel. I was astounded to see that the paintings surrounding Michelangelo's famous painting of God bestowing life (or knowledge) onto Adam did not have the finesse of the central one of God reaching out to Adam. I'm sure someone else painted them, or Michelangelo did after he was bone tired from having paint rain on his head all day.
And then the immensity of the Vatican hit us.
It was too much.
There were too many religious artifacts, references to death and dying, filigrees, frescos and gold leaf, and paintings covering every square inch. It was, to us, an assault on the spirit.
We ran.
My zigzag brain conjures up images of tomatoes, Hawaii, and a zigzag spider that lived in our lanai. She had a zigzag design on her back and one woven into her web. I never swept her down, for I felt she had seniority.
I was fascinated by the zigzag images painted on Hilo's Airport terminal walls and the tattoos wrapped around Hawaiian men's arms. I wondered what the Zig Zags meant. (Sometimes they mean water. Indeed, the Hawaiians have an affinity for water. Some believe the Hawaiians were the first refugees of a lost continent that erupted one night and fell into the sea. Some people escaped and traveled the sea until they were saved by Pele's lava. When hot lava pours into a cold ocean, it sends up great plumes of steam that can be seen miles out at sea. It told the people that land was ahead.
The lanai was our favorite room in our house. It was screened on three sides, maybe 20 feet on a side, and painted white. It was cool in temperature and appearance. A tree-shaded it on the southern side, while its trunk supported the most beautiful pink bromeliad, which grew on the tree's bark. Someone pointed out that that plant would be worth about $500.00.
We ate our meals at the dining room table in the center of the lanai, and Neil's desk and computer were there. The room had no electricity except for the electrical plugs where the room was attached to the house. Thus, Neil had electricity for his laptop, but we had no light fixtures. During the day, we didn't need them. At night, we ate our dinners by candlelight. We lit candles on the table, sometimes in the candelabra hanging over the table I had purchased for Lisa's tented wedding reception and carried from home. It was a true candelabra, for it only held candles. It had four cups for candles, and I had planted an orchid in the vase at its center.
That Hawaiian lanai had a plywood floor when we bought the house and a tiled one when we left. I never wiped down the spider, as I figured she had seniority.
Running into a spider web outside was another matter. I would do the spider dance, slapping at prickling spots. I didn't want to kill the spider; I just didn't want to wear it.
During one torrential rainstorm, three feet of rain fell onto the lanai on the eastern side. Luckily, I had moved the computer into the center of the room when it began to rain. That rainstorm scared the bejesus out of me, and I'm generally not afraid of rainstorms. Still, while that one raged, coconuts plopped to the ground, sounding like bombs.
Zoom Zoom, our elder cat, commanded the western unit of my desk that was put together in three parts and wrapped around the corner of the room. I took the portion under the window. He wouldn't venture outside where frogs or wild boors might get him.
Hope, our other cat, was a wild child. She would race up that bromeliad tree and hop onto the roof, and we would hear her kitty feet scamping across the metal. She was fearless. No mongoose, wild hog, or rat would dissuade her. We left a torn screen in the living room unpaired so she could come and go at will. She was a charcoal gray cat with eyes as green as the vegetation around our house. When she hid in the bushes, the vegetation appeared to glow through her eyes.
One of my favorite things about living in Hawaii was becoming one with the weather and the sun. Hawaii has a twelve-hour day and a twelve-hour night. We had limited solar power and would overuse it occasionally. It would suddenly go off, leaving us in the dark. Thus, I guarded our electricity like a Hottentot guards his tot.
We needed electricity for the computers. A computer was necessary for Neil's job, and DD needed it for her mail-order business. I wanted it for my writing, so to ensure I had electricity for my computer and thus save it for others, I often ran an electrical cord out the bedroom window to the carport and gave the Prius the job of keeping my computer running.
We didn't watch TV, as DD had sworn off it before we moved, and we didn't miss it. But we watched movies.
I loved the mornings at my desk in front of the window, where I could watch the morning's first light as it sneaked over the trees and painted a glow on the field of green grass that grew between the main house and the Tiki Room. It became enlightened like the Sun Goddess was slowly turning up her rheostat.
On one airplane trip, Little Boy Darling became so excited about the sunrise that we heard someone say, "I've never seen anyone so excited about a sunrise," and wanted a high five. Soon, everyone around us wanted a high five. And I thought we needed to get that child off the island and into the world.
At the Hawaiian City of Refuge, a native Hawaiian told the story that further solidified my intention to leave the Island. The storyteller said that when he was a boy, an elder would sit the children down and ask them, "What lies beyond the horizon?" They hemmed and hawed. Some said, "The ocean," And another, "The sky." They thought the island was their entire world.
"No, said the elder, "Life exists beyond the horizon."
That is one of the reasons we left.
icate glassware.
After I filled the cupboard, I walked into the back bedroom, and from the window, I was astounded to see a peacock sitting on the fence. I yelled for Sweetpea. "Sweetpea!" "Come look, a Peacock! I can't believe it. There's a peacock on our fence!"
Sweetpea ran around trying to figure out why I was so excited and probably doubting my sanity.
That peacock was my third peacock associated with a newly purchased empty house—one was under construction.
I am not near a luxurious estate where peacocks grace the grounds, or on a tropical island where a peacock might fly in from a hotel. It was a frosty December day, in the quiet little neighborhood of Junction City, Oregon. I don’t care where he came from, who owned that magnificent bird, or if he belonged to a neighbor. He was on my fence shortly before Christmas, a time, I learned later, that he normally has no tail and stays hidden.
More about peacocks later on.
Today is May 1, 2023. I'm in my office looking out the window at a Pink Dogwood tree in full flower. When we moved here 6 years ago, that tree was cut down to its bare bones, a trunk, and five branches. I wondered why the previous owners had cut that tree so severely, and I had no inkling what sort of tree it was. For the last couple of years, it has branched, leafed, and revealed itself to be pink dogwood, one of my favorite trees.
It's an old tree; the truck is large, and its blossoms are smaller than the young trees I see about town. But it is gorgeous, alive, and flourishing. I love it.
That tree tells me something about age and how living creatures can bounce back and thrive again. It doesn't worry. It just keeps growing and going through its cycles.
I curtained off an area for an office in the outbuilding beside the dogwood tree. The building was once a dance studio and still has mirrors on one wall and around a corner. We used it for storage until my daughter placed a desk there for herself and used it for a time. Now, in my curtained area, I have a comfortable little office. The heater under my desk keeps my feet warm, and my little dog, Sweetpea, sleeps in front of it. My computer is in front of a window, and my view is of the pink dogwood and the main house's backyard.
I have decided to write while the blossoms are on the tree. I'm aiming for 50,000 words. It will be a race between the flowers and me.
2. Reboot
When I say, "Your story matters," I mean the real story, not the excuse stories—you know, the ones, "I'm not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, and I don't know the right people."
Those are the "Ain't it awful" stories that some people repeat until it fixes them in their brain so powerfully it would take an excavator to dislodge them."
Write your story to honor your life but look at it all so you can make sense of it and readjust it when needed. You can see where you've been and the people who influenced you. You might find out they were better than you thought. And you are better than you thought.
You will find that you have picked up beliefs that no longer serve you. After all, you formed your fundamental belief systems when you were a wide-eyed little babe, taking in everything, smiles, frowns, words, laughter, tears, winks, eyebrow twitches, and shouts, with no filter system.
These beliefs, impressions, and observations became locked in the subconscious mind. And although the conscious mind thinks it's in control, it isn't.
The subconscious mind is.
However, the subconscious mind is there to be utilized. We could think of it as our friend, not our enemy. One of the best explanations of the subconscious mind I have read came from the actress Angelia Lansbury:
One day, on a movie break, she launched into one of her favorite subjects: believing in her destiny.
"Ah," she said, "I think perhaps I've phrased it badly. I don't mean anything magical or occult. Perhaps faith in the power of the subconscious mind would be a better way of saying it."
"How do you go about tapping your subconscious mind?" an interviewer asked.
"Heavens! I don't want to sound stuffy or highbrow, but it's awfully simple. If you tell yourself over and over again that there's no limit to the creative power within you, that's about all there is to it. Honestly, that's true."
"It's there for everybody, like light and air."
She explained that it isn't a cut-and-dried formula for success. You must keep plugging away, adding to your skills to be ready when an opportunity presents itself.
At age 92, Angelia Lansbury was performing on Broadway.
The people mentioned in this book deserve to have their stories told: June, the most upbeat person I have known; Jack, the war hero, shot down 3 times, twice the only survivor; Bill, my writing buddy, and Peace Corp volunteer.
A story not told becomes like an exquisite movie; when lost, becomes forgotten.
I chose my parents. That's my belief, anyway. My dad might have felt shanghaied, but he seemed willing to contribute to making my body.
One of my daughter's friends told her mother she believed she was conceived in the back of a Ford.
"No," said her mother, "It was a Chevy."
I didn't mean for Mom to feel guilty her entire life for getting pregnant at 16; I was happy she had me. I love the little girl I once was who ran while the breeze, soft as a eiderdown, brushed away the light skim of sweat from her skin. And older, she and her horse, Boots, pole-vaulted the orchard's cherry trees—not too close to the branches, but while doing it, she and Boots were at one with each other.
I am curious how my mother's conversation with my dad when she confronted him with her pregnancy.
Dottie, Mom’s best friend, told me long after Mom was gone that she went with Mom to tell my dad he would be one. You see, the friend kept the secret, too, until I told her I knew I was conceived before marriage. I wish that friend was still around so I could ask about that conversation. I didn't realize Mom needed backup, but, hey, she was only 16.
My mother didn't look like a 16-year-old. She looked like a healthy, voluptuous peasant from the hills of Switzerland. And since we lived with my grandmother, our family of grandmother, mother, father, me, and little dog Tiny it worked out well.
Didn't we all come in as innocent little spark plugs ready to party? No wonder we get disillusioned when the party gets canceled. Or if our parents don't tell us that we need to sit down and shut up, the world does, "Who are you to question? Who are you who think you can be great? Many are called and few are chosen."
Who are you, indeed?
You are a magnificent child of God, like everyone else. So, stop denying your greatness, and live an exemplary life. That's what we came here for.
Let's reboot.
The voices of the world come in on us like pungent smoke. It coats our hair and lingers on our clothing.
Why is that?
Well, who wants a bunch of Badasses running around thinking they are grand and, on top of that, knowing they can create the life they want?
We do. That's who.
3. A Tweety Bird, a Father, and a Water Fight
On a day long ago, when murmurings at the kitchen table were not understandable to little ears, I knew something was brewing. A war was raving in Europe and my father knew he would soon be drafted.
He enlisted so he could choose his branch of service which would be the Navy. However, they discovered he was color blind—a surprise to him and the family, thus he ended up in the Army. Maybe that was why he usually sketched in pencil or charcoal, a.k.a. black and white. I learned that during the war, he drew portraits for the soldiers, and I remember he said, "You can't put too many lines on a face."
Once, he wrote, "You thought I would only be gone for a short time, didn't you?" I don't remember ever knowing he was going to be gone. If there were any goodbyes, I don't remember them. If there were any tears, I didn't see any. He was just gone. He must have slipped out while I was sleeping.
He survived the war, but not his marriage or his fatherhood with me.
I don't think the war had much to do with my parent’s divorce, except that it took my father away from the family for 3 years.
We could blame it on the fact that my mother was 16 when she had me. I figure Mom didn't want to get married in the first place, but it was shameful to be pregnant and not married, so she made sure she was married.
Mother kept the secret of her unmarried pregnancy from me her whole life. She couldn't hide that she was young, though.
When I was 7 or 8, on Mother's Day, we went to a protestant church for the first time, and she got the prize for the youngest mother. That made her only 23 or 24. She received a plant potted in a ceramic baby shoe as a prize, and there I was, a big kid standing beside her. I knew she was pregnant before she married my father, but I didn't say anything because I knew I wasn't supposed to know.
My father came to see me after the war—once. We went to the Carnaval, where he bribed a hawker for a little horse statue I wanted. I was 6 years old, and it was the last time I saw him until 38 years later.
I'm sure he didn't mean for me to see the bribe, but I knew. And I love him for it.
While growing up, I thought that the divorce hadn't affected me much and that I didn't need a father. (I had a stepdad.) During the war, my mother went to Texas, where she met my father on furlough and came home divorced. That was it. I wondered why I didn’t get to see him.
On the first Christmas after the war, Dad sent a box camera to me as a gift. After that, nothing.
For 38 years, I wondered if he cared about me. Why wasn't he in my life? Why didn't he contact me? Why had he never visited me?
Finally, I wrote my feelings on a page. I was furious. He abandoned me. He didn't care. I put positives and negatives on the page. I let er rip with complaining.
My Father lived in Chicago, Illinois, and we lived in San Diego, California. I had often said that if I was ever in Chicago, I would look him up. Within a couple of months after writing that complaining page—I didn't see this coming—my husband was sent from San Diego to Chicago to show an instrument at an Optics show. I decided to go along, and I did find my father, and we remained in touch until the end.
That taught me that, hey, "This stuff works."
What "stuff?"
The writing exercise I used to clear out the mind junk. After I wrote it, I put my ranting aside and almost forgot about it.
You know how the cycling mind works. It just keeps repeating its problems, concerns, and irritations. It's easy to repeat oneself when thinking or speaking, and it's easy for the mind to do its endless cycling. However, it is NOT EASY to write the same story over and over.
So, complain, whine, and write out your fears. Don't worry about positive thinking; this is for your eyes only, and your heart needs to express it. "I'm worried about paying my bills; I need to pay the rent; I hate Tom for standing me up. He's a bastard and a pain in the ass. My mom spent her life depressed, and my daddy was a drunk. I had a lousy childhood."
Write it, then put a period at the end of the last sentence.
Other people, teachers, and mentors can be facilitators and guides along our journey. Don't discount them. Neither discount the self-help avenues you venture into, for no matter what book you read, course you take, seminar, or workshop you attend, you will invariably find something of value in it. Be reasonable, though, question, and be a discerning person. Use input as motivation, not as gospel.
Here is one of my favorite quotes:
"They say that motivation doesn't last. Neither does bathing, that's why we do it daily."—Zig Zigler.
4. Meeting My Father
Before meeting my father, I carried with me remembrances of him. I remembered his "Can House," a workshop he built in our backyard. The cans weren't little soup cans. They were drums he had carried home from the shoe factory where he worked. He filled them with cement, so if anyone wanted to remove that house, he might have to blow it up.
We lived in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, with my grandmother—my mother, my father, my little dog Tiny, and me. Besides liking to draw, my dad was an amateur taxidermist; thus, he needed a workshop. Luckily, I didn't have to build my office out of cans.
I only saw stuffed squirrels and birds in his workshop, and Mom wasn't happy to see animal parts in the refrigerator.
The only time I know of that my dad captured a live animal was when he tried to chloroform a little owl. I don't know how he got it. He put the owl in a coffee can with a cotton ball filled with chloroform and closed the lid. A few minutes later, he opened the lid. The owl poked his head out, looking a little hung over. My father tried again with a fresh cotton ball and closed the lid.
Upon opening the lid, the owl looked as perky as ever, so Dad released the owl, who then went home reeking of chloroform and with his wife berating him. "What in the world have you been up to?"
Mom, Dad, and I went to a circus where I dropped peanuts into an elephant's awaiting trunk. I thought the elephant ate them with her trunk. I ate peanuts, too, and awakened at night, yelling, "Momma, there's something in my bed!" I had thrown up in the night.
Dad bought me a Tweety bird at the circus. It was a Paper Mache bird on a string attached to a stick. When I whirled the stick, the bird flew and tweeted. Dad wanted to know what made the bird tweet, so he performed abdominal surgery and took out its Twitter. He put the bird back together, but it never tweeted again.
One time, Mom was so angry at Dad that she threw whatever was handy—a precious item, my Bambi comic book. Bambi was the first movie I saw, and I loved the characters—the fawn Bambi, Thumper the bunny, and Flower, the skunk. ("You can call me Flower if you want to.”) However, killing Bambi's mother and watching that little fawn Bambi wandering around calling M-O-T-H-E-R impacted me such that if I see the beginning credits of that movie, I start to cry.
Dad put the comic book back together then, on stiff paper, drew Bambi as a grown-up stag and his mother a little dewy-eyed doe. He colored them and cut them out like paper dolls with little tabs at their feet so they would stand up. I wish I had them.
I vaguely remember sitting at the kitchen table drawing with him.
I had a Whooping Cough. I don't remember being sick, but I would cough until I threw up. So, when I began coughing, I would fly across the room—carried by some adult—and placed in front of a container. Once, not getting there fast enough, my dad caught the vomit in his hands. I marveled that he would do that and considered it a loving gesture.
Grandmother made a cough syrup for me that helped the whooping. First, she soaked a raw egg in vinegar overnight. In the morning, the shell had dissolved into the vinegar, leaving behind a round egg encased in its membrane. She added honey to the concoction, and it tasted good—it was a little scratchy going down through.
Around Halloween, I excitedly ran to greet my dad, who was coming in the front door. However, he was wearing a mask they had given him at the grocery store. I screamed bloody murder, and to this day, I do not like masks. I don't scream bloody murder when I see one, though. And then at Christmas time, a store Santa Claus wore a mask. We called them false faces. The mask told me that man was not the real Santa. There was no way I would ever sit on that man’s lap.
I heard that when I was a baby, my father would come home from work and wash my face with a washcloth, for he wanted me to be awake when he was home.
Often, I heard stories of the mentally challenged boy next door who liked my dad and loved it when Mom and Dad had a water fight. On hot summer days, they would throw a bucket into our open well, collect the water, and toss it on whoever they could catch. I do remember Mom squealing and running and Dad chasing her. The boy would egg Dad on, "Glenn, I'll draw the water, I'll draw the water."
One day, after we had been gone for the afternoon, we came home to find that the boy had drained the well.
My dad was thin and had stomach problems, so he got a nanny goat because he had heard that goat's milk was good for what ailed him. He would fashion a chain on the goat's collar and lock the chain to a stake. That way, he could move the goat around the neighborhood to graze.
However, no matter how strongly he drove in the stake, that kid could pull it up and drive the goat. She got so nervous that Dad gave her to someone who could give her some peace.
5. Stories
When my mother was twelve years old, a friend of her father saw him staggering down the street. The friend chuckled, thinking Frank had too much to drink, but Mom's father never drank. He had had a stroke, went home, and died.
Mom said her mother told her to "Go, kiss daddy goodbye," his skin was cool when her lips touched his cheek.
Grandma apparently had money from the farm since she bought the house in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where I was born.
Your parents probably told you stories of your youth before you could remember them. Then you wonder if you remember their account or the real thing. However, there are two first memories I'm sure are mine.
It was Christmas Eve. My father walked with me down a dark street where every snap, crunch, or crackle was the snort of a reindeer or a hoof on a roof. We had no fireplace at our house, so Santa had to come in through the door, and he wouldn't come if a child was awake. It was all right for an adult to be inside if they hid.
Upon entering the house, what would appear, but a tree so festooned with sparkle—mirrored bulbs, icicles, and lights so bright, they sparkle in my eyes to this day. Beneath a Christmas tree decked out in all its glory were toys and presents wrapped in colorful paper. There was a tricycle and items I don't remember. I could hardly take it all in. There was a stocking with small things and an orange—that orange mystified me.
Seven months later came the Fourth of July: Some might say, "Words can't describe it," but dig into it. What was it like on your first Fourth of July? You've seen many fireworks but think about how they look to a two or three-year-old. A winding strip of light spirals into the sky. Then, "BOOM!" Stars fall on Illinois. And when the finale came, it involved a framework I didn't know existed. Once ignited, that frame exploded into an American flag, all hissing, sparkling red, white, and blue.
I remember our dog Tiny playing with me in the backyard. And when she had puppies, I accidentally sat on a plate of oatmeal Mom had placed on the back porch steps for them. And my dad tried to hide from me that he was cutting off the puppies' tails. I don't know how I knew. I think I ran around a little crazy.
Tiny took care of them, and the puppies recovered. They had little docked tails like their momma, a Fox Terrier who came into the family before I did. I don't know her story. The puppies disappeared, leaving Tiny and me. When she got tired of me, she would hide under the porch. That intelligent lady knew how to take care of puppies.
When anyone in the family sat with their legs crossed, Tiny would sit under the dangling foot, ready for a back rub. If anyone farted, they blamed Tiny.
“Live your life as if nothing is a miracle, or everything is a miracle.”
—Albert Einstein
6. On a Zig, or Was it a Zag?
It's fascinating, isn't it, that we spend the first year or two, maybe three, soaking up information, putting together a picture of the world we live in and the society we are born into, but we don't remember those years. And then we begin to remember. Some say it's all in our memory, even the lost years.
Dr. Gabor Mate,' of Polish descent, said his mother called the pediatrician and said, "Little Gabor is always crying." The doctor responded: "All the babies are crying. They are picking up the anxiety from their mothers." Germany was about to invade Poland. Dr. Mate' believed that experience had something to do with his addictions. And they came from no fault of his mother. They came from her anxiety. And now, as a psychologist, he treats addicts, a specialty with the worst success rate.
As time passes in this writing endeavor, I remember little things like V-Mail. For years I had such a letter from my father when he was in the war. But after repeated searches, I believe it went with our wedding pictures when we were packing to move to Hawaii. You know how it can be; you put things away for safekeeping, and they are the ones that get lost? In the flurry of packing, having a friend help us, and a man there taking things to sell on eBay, some of our best things became lost in the shuffle.
V-mail is short for Victory-mail, and few know of it now. During the war, since mail was stacking up with letters from soldiers to home and from home to soldiers, someone devised a brilliant plan.
The sender would write their letter on a specified sheet of paper—it would only hold so many words. Hence, the writer needed to write precisely and large. A reader would check for secrets and, if found, black them out, and the letters would be on their way.
The plan was OO7-inspired.
It was microfilmed and sent by airmail.
When the mail arrived, it came as a photographed letter, about 4 or 5 inches.
With this method, they saved much-needed room in the airplane. Contrast microfilm to bags upon bags of mail. Online, it says they don't think they ever lost a letter using that method.
Over the years, I repeatedly read my two little letters from my dad. One was from Italy, "You thought I would only be gone for a while, didn't you?" He had beautiful printing and drew bunnies along the bottom of the page. And he called me Princess, although I never knew he called me that.
After her divorce, she got a job at the shoe factory where my dad had worked. It was across the street from the Horace Mann school, where I began my first grade. Across another street was a hamburger diner, and often, Mom would pick me up after school. We would have a hamburger at the diner.
I remember sitting on a counter stool munching a 5-cent burger while my mother had a larger 10-cent one. Mom liked Cokes, and I was allowed a Coke up to the waist of the she bottle, that squeezed in a portion of the bottle about an inch and a half from the bottom. She would fill the rest with water, or I could have it straight. I preferred straight.
Grandma joined us once and ordered a beer, the one and only time I had ever seen her drink one.
Mom usually went out on the weekends, for there was a troop of soldiers stationed in our town, and the girls and guys would mix at the RX, which I think it was called, where they danced to swing music. One of the songs she loved was Begin to the Beguine. I would sit on the bed and visit as she dressed and primped before going out. She never brought a boyfriend home until Mike, one of the soldiers. Maybe Grandma didn't like him because she could see what was coming. (And she and my biological father got along great.) After the war, Mike wanted to go home to Oregon, and Mom lived in Illinois. He praised Grandma's fried chicken to her and for years after. And while at our house, he made a rabbit hutch for me.
When my father came home from the war, he took me to a carnival in our little town of Mt. Vernon, Illinois. There, I had my heart set on a little horse statue from one of the games. I saw my dad bribe the Hawker to allow me to win it; maybe he won it and gave it to me; either way, I got the horse. I'm sure he didn't want me to know about the bribe, but it's an odd thing about kids—they know.
Adults try to hide things from kids, but we know of it and keep quiet, for we are not supposed to know. Like my mother, at sixteen, "had" to marry my father, and that is how I got here.
The strange thing is, while my mother carried guilt her whole life, I didn't care. Why would I fault her for giving me life? I was glad she had me, and I never felt I was a burden to her.
As a teenager, I suddenly awakened at night and heard my mother tell my stepdad, "I hope Joyce never finds out."
I suppose the Universe wanted to give me verification. Shortly before her death, I thanked her for having me.
Dad must have taken me to a horse race earlier. I remember that a jockey fell off his horse, and a girl had lockjaw and was holding a handkerchief to her mouth. I wondered why people were so fragile. I felt they were falling apart around me. There was a little girl on our street who wore braces like Forrest Gump did in the movie. I hope she eventually lost them, too, as he did.
Later, I thought of the jockey, "For crying out loud, a kid goes to their first horse race, and you fall off your horse." And I don’t remember seeing any difficult riding situation.
During our visit after the war, my Dad promised me a toy, a Pekingese dog made of yarn. Still, Mom didn't like him taking me anyplace without her. She feared he might want to take me, so that was the last visit. After we moved to Oregon, I hounded her for the yarn dog. It was not the most beautiful of toys, but I wanted one because my dad said he would get one for me.
As I wrote earlier, thirty-eight years later, I met him.
I played and drew that first year and a half of school at Horace Mann. I remember one room holding a huge doll house on a platform in the center of the room where kids could gather on all four sides. I remember that I was not in the school play, and to my way of thinking, it was because I stood head and shoulders above the other little girls.
Whether she was making it up to me or what, it appeared I was the teacher's pet, for I carried notes from her to the other teachers. She took exceptional care in exhibiting my large butcher paper drawings, about four feet by four feet, and taping them to the chalkboard like a series of comic strip panels. They were from the book Little Black Sambo, where Sambo outwits a tiger by having it run around and around a tree until it turns into butter.
My father was an artist, and either by genes or association, I became one after him, but never one of any note.
It was a shock when I met kids better than me. Biology drummed drawing out of me, for we drew so many microscope images it became drudgery. I love artists and am not jealous of their abilities or successes. Of course, when one paints a solid red canvas, and it sells for five million dollars, I get a little miffed.
7. And Then Came the Day
When I was seven years old, my mother and I boarded a train and left my grandmother and Tiny, my little dog, behind. We traveled for five days from Illinois to Oregon. Our traveling companions were young men going home after the war who gave me pennies. Mother was going to Oregon to marry Mike, the soldier she chose. He had presented a good story of his little hometown of the Dalles, Oregon, and how he wanted to go back after the war, and he convinced Mom to follow him.
Mom enthusiastically explained the trip to me, how much fun it would be, and we would ride a train, and I would get a new dog.
Grandmother cried when we left—the first time I had seen her cry. She knew something I did not.
We would never see each other again.
We lived with Grandma from the day I was born until we left for Oregon. She was gone briefly, although I don't remember the separation. I remember her lovely white house in the country and her new husband, who had a mustache. I had never seen anyone with a mustache and observing him wipe it with a napkin fascinated me. He seemed like a lovely man and would take me with him when he filled his car with gas, as the gas station gave away peppermint sticks.
Before Grandma married Mr. Dicus, Dad drove the four of us through the countryside, where Grandma saw a lovely large white house on a farm. She casually commented that she married for love the first time; the second time, she wanted to marry for money.
My father somehow got the farmer's ear and introduced them. Mr. Dicus invited Grandma, Ma Bertsch, we called her, out for ice cream. They got married. That's all I know. Except that he died a short time later, his kids took the farm and the money, and Grandma returned to our little house.
Grandmother was a great cook. She basted fried eggs; I have never had an egg soak into toast as she prepared them. I remember sucking on pork chop bones, and when I first learned to talk, I called all meat "Bone." I loved chip beef on toast. Do you know that you cannot buy chip beef the way we had it as kids? When I found that it didn't taste as it did when Grandma prepared it—Mom did too after we moved to The Dalles, and I did later. Suddenly, the meat looked different; it was pressed into around shapes and not shredded as it had been. I Googled it and found you can't buy what we had earlier, although it comes in the same-looking little glass jar. Just thinking of the saltness of that dish makes my mouth water.
I had a friend who believed chip beef on toast was so Bourgeoise. That was not a compliment, although the Bourgeoisie don't sound bad to me—merchants, political activists, artists. However, they were highly maligned by the hoity French. And I won't tell you what the soldiers called chip beef on toast. SOS, you figure it out.
Everything Grandma made was delicious, even a sandwich made of mustard and onion, which seemed odd, but I liked it. Her dill pickles were the best I've ever tasted, and pickled crabapples were so perfect, even Mom couldn't match them.
I don't remember playing with Grandma much; I went shopping and to church with her and to funerals. Once shopping, she got so mad that a clerk short-changed her that we found something of equal value and took it. They were a pair of panties for me. I was shocked.
I remember lying in bed with her, looking up into a tree, and finding animal shapes in the branches.
After the supposedly fun adventure of our trip to Oregon, the reality of it sank in later.
I remember crying in bed at night because I missed Grandmother. And thinking about it, I can't imagine what Grandma felt like losing her only grandchild after living with her for seven years.
Mike was my stepdad. I always called him Mike, never Daddy; I just couldn't do it.
In December of my second grade, I found myself in front of a nun, sitting all prim and proper in a white blouse and navy skirt, with the other students. I wasn't prepared for the structure of a Catholic School, and I was expected to write cursive, but didn't know how. I had an artistic eye, so I drew writing by copying the alphabet printed on eight by-twelve-inch pages that encircled the room. They had a printed letter and a cursive one on each page. I didn't read well either, and I was embarrassed to stand beside my desk and read aloud. One poor little girl standing in front of the room peed her pants.
When I was reading and stumbling over the words, the nun threatened to keep me after school; I was humiliated. She didn't make me stay, though; perhaps she realized she had pushed a bit too far.
My fourth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Michael Francis, was an exuberant young woman. She was an artist who exhibited her paintings in the room where I copied them. She would tie up her long black skirt during recess and play baseball. I never liked baseball, but I liked Sister Mary Margaret Francis. And I believe she liked me because we were both artists.
Once I commented to someone that I had a crush on Sister Mary Michael Frances, and I remember the look that flashed for one second.
I never considered my attraction to Sister Mary Michael Frances anything but fan based. I didn't know about Gays. I knew I was a girl, and I liked little boys. I never questioned my sexuality. I fear that nowadays, with all the Gay, Trans, BI's, and questions of what pronouns are, you have confused many young people who have a hard enough time with life anyway. I'm not saying people of various persuasions ought not to be honored; it's just that there is more in our culture than one would biologically expect.
I left the Catholic church before the church affected me much. I had my first confession at the Priest's knee in the confessional; it was not such a good idea considering what had transpired since then, but he was a gentleman. I was innocent enough to think that was all right. I did wonder why, though; I was in there while most of the people went to confession on the other side of the divider.
And then came Protestantism and the doubting years.
Those were the growing-up years, the questioning years, the molestation years, and the headache years. I thought I had a beautiful childhood, for I loved the little girl I was who ran, played, and rode horses and was mentored by the neighbor girl who owned King.
Now I see that those years did affect me. I was an innocent thrust out into the real world of questioning. Why did we leave Grandma? Why did we leave Tiny? I was disappointed in Grandma because she didn't take care of Tiny after we left. Mom's sister, Marie, told Mom a lady down the street had taken her in, so she was better off there. She must have felt abandoned—she was. People sometimes disappoint you, but then maybe I expect too much.
I never grieved over what I lost by leaving Illinois—my Father, Grandma, Tiny, Aunt Marie, and the Metcalf Family—feeling happy. Instead, I joined the great unwashed horde of people who think they aren't good enough.
What a motley group we are, and so wrong. We are good enough. We just need a little help in this process of life.
Mom and Mike were married on December 21, two months before I turned eight. I specifically remember the date as Mom suggested they not buy presents for each other that year. Mike had already purchased a stereo system, so he gave it to her on December 21.
One day, Mom got a call from Mike, or so she thought. They were newlyweds, and apparently, so was the caller. He said, "Hon, what have you been doing?"
"I was on the scaffolding."
"What?!"
It was not Mike, and Mom had been fixing up the house.
I had almost forgotten about the war rationing. For a time, certain critical items, like shoes, were in short supply and in great need, so the US rationed them and sent coupons to the citizens, which indicated how many they could buy. It didn't affect me much, and I never hear of it anymore, so probably many people don't know of it. That first year in Oregon, rationing was still in effect. It was Christmas time, and my mother wanted to make candy as a gift for Mike's family, so Mike's mother donated her sugar coupons to the cause.
Grandma wrote that she was happy I was in Catholic school as she was Catholic, but Mom had nothing to do with the Catholic Church after the nuns questioned why her last name and mine were different. Mom's second marriage was not honored by the church; thus, she never attended mass again.
I wanted the same name as my mother, so we changed it to Willett, although not legally. The people who knew me thought Willett was my name until I graduated high school and felt that legal representation should be on my diploma. Then, the kids wondered who Glenda Joyce Metcalf was because I went by Joyce Willett throughout school.
Since Willett begins with a W, and in school, we sat in alphabetical order (dumb), I usually sat in the back of the room. There, I drew pictures whenever I could get by with it. I remember seeing some boys sitting up the aisle from me, drawing planes in aerial fights.
Kindred spirits.
8. A Mentor
Every child should have a mentor.
After completing my second and third year of school and into my fourth, living in The Dalles, my folks bought an acre of land outside of town next door to the Oaks farm.
And there, the Oak's oldest daughter, Lois, took a little nine-year-old under her wing. She would pull me up behind her on their big, part draft, part saddle house King, and we would take off.
We would ride to the little quick-purchase grocery for a soda or play around an earthen track near the house. In the summer, we wear swimming suits under our jeans, take the horses to the creek, and play in the water.
Her little sister always rode King's elderly mother and was a shy, withdrawn girl, so there was no contest between her, Lois, and me. I'm amazed that Lois didn't get tired of me, for I was often there and loved her and King.
The Oak's house was where the action was. Mrs. Oaks was a buxom woman, a Ma Kettle sort if you remember that movie character, with bosoms that could hold a dozen baby chicks—sometimes farm women would hold baby chicks in their bosoms if the weather got too cold. She invited anyone who came into the house for dinner, even a stray dog or girl from next door.
Four children were in the family, two older boys who were really men by then but still lived at home. They teased us occasionally but left us alone, except when we all climbed onboard a Case tractor. A Case has metal covering the body of the tractor and fenders covering the wheels. We kids hung onto that tractor for dear life while the driver, one of the brothers, tried to knock us off. In my way of thinking, it was not the safest thing to do, but in those days when we didn't have padded playgrounds, and if you went down a metal slide in the summer, you were likely to get blisters.
We thought nothing of standing in the bed of a speeding pickup with our hands on the vehicle's hood. And when riding the horses, we didn't let fences stop us. See the things Lois taught me. The Dalles was built on basalt, so the ground was rocky interspersed often with good ground soil. Farmers, to limit digging post holes, would sink a post, not the standard 6 or 8 feet, leaving a long gap between posts. The wires between the posts were held apart by floating posts.
Because of that long expanse of wire, we could usually find a place where the wire was limp enough to lie down.
Being farm kids, I wasn't really, but I was learning; we respected fences and always ensured they were secure behind us.
At the Oaks' house, I helped in the kitchen after the evening meal as Mrs. Oaks fixed the meal and the girls washed the dishes. I remember Mrs. Oaks peeling potatoes sometimes 3 times a day.
One day, I saw a saddle on King. It was the first time I had seen him saddled for Lois, and I rode him bareback. Mrs. Oaks would ride him as a protector, for Lois had gotten a new horse, Lydia, who was prone to bucking.
There would be no bucking on Mrs. Oaks' watch. And there wasn't. That mare's brain saved her behind.
I just love those farm women who could fry up the bacon, handle the house, the farm, four kids, and an errant horse and still have time to make taffy, which we kids pulled, and donuts, which we kids dipped in powdered sugar.
When hay season arrived, I joined in raking the windrows of hay into piles so the boys could load the piles into the truck and drive home to store them in the barn for the winter. In the cool evenings, we girls would run the horses through the field, trying to get them to jump the piles of hay. Usually, they plowed into them, scattering our hay out again.
Those kids would catch mice with bare hands as one scampered from beneath a pile the boys had picked up to throw into the truck. I learned to hold one by the tail. I tried that once after my dog Silver caught a ground squirrel, and I thought I was rescuing the squirrel by grabbing its tail. It swung around and bit me. I was afraid I would get rabies, but I never told my mother because I knew it was a stupid thing to do, rather like putting scissors in a light socket.
9. Hog Heaven
I Was in Hog Heaven Next Door to The Oaks. However, One day, an event changed my view of life again.
I was nine years old.
Mike and I were wrestling on the floor when he lifted my shirt and ran his mouth over my small, budding breasts. I held them and ran to my bedroom. He had been fun. He had played with me, and now I was faced with something I knew wasn't right.
He invited me into his bed one night when Mom was gone and touched me, and I would never go there again. Some mornings, I would awaken with his hands under my pajamas. What is this big fat deal? Is it titillating to push yourself onto someone? I didn't want it. I didn't initiate it. I wasn't a temptress. I was nine years old.
A psychiatrist once told me I needed to get in touch with how much I enjoyed it. I thought over my dead body.
Now, I would tell that psychiatrist to go F himself.
I know enough about psychology to know that often, even unwanted touching can feel good, and that sets up a girl for even more trauma.
When I was twelve, Mike needed me to drive the truck through the orchard while he loaded tree prunings or boxes of fruit. In the truck, he would try to kiss me.
He liked to take me on fruit runs. Get the kid away from mom, right?
On one such attempt to kiss me, I flew a rage, flapping my arms, swinging and spitting on him. He backed off and never touched me again.
That day, I took back my power.
Sadly, however, we moved away from the Oaks to the tune of a terrible stomach from me. Mike had gotten a job in Hood River as a bartender at an exclusive Country Club. Mike never drank. When he was in the service, his buddies would tease him that he could get drunk on Pepsi. The owner of the Club liked that about him and convinced him to move. And mom worked waiting tables for the one month we were there. I don't know what happened to break the alliance between Mike and the owner, but after one month of attending the fifth grade in Hood River, we moved back to The Dalles, and I was next door to the Oaks for another two years. That broke my association with the Catholic Church as I began conventional school as a fifth grader.
The summer I graduated 6th grade, Mom and Mike bought a 32-acre fruit farm. I often visited the Oaks and rode King, but it was always different from living there. And then, when I was 12 years old, I received the most precious gift of my life.
Whether it was out of guilt or generosity or if Mike was buying me off, I don't know. I didn't care. The gift was my horse Boots. How I loved that horse. Mike never touched me again, except he wanted a good night kiss before he left for work, as I often fixed his lunch for his night shift. I exited the room before he left.
Mike had many endearing qualities, like his generosity and fun nature. He would brag about me and compliment my efforts or accomplishments. He accepted me as a daughter, and back in Illinois, I suspect that Grandma didn't like him because she saw something we didn't. Of course, he would soon take her daughter and only grandchild away from her forever. I hesitated to put the negative aspect in this book, but would my story be complete if I didn't?
I had written of it in the book Mom's Letters… and mine by Joyce Davis. I thought I was done with it. And it is true that when you stop telling the story, it drifts away, not completely forgotten, but no longer irritating you. It becomes a dim memory. You've done it. You've completed it. I fell off a horse once (more than). I got a concussion once when Boot fell with me. I had strep throat once. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, it's over. Gone. I don't want to dwell on it anymore.
It is a challenge to know when you are avoiding and when you are complete with an issue. You must notice how you feel. Your body will tell you, although I know you might wallow in the mud for a while.
I know many girls are pressured by a man, an authority figure they like or love and trust, only to have that trust broken. It is so prevalent that I felt mine was simple. Still, we should not trivialize such an event or make it insignificant. It can affect women for life. And usually does. Many women I know had some uncomfortable advances or experiences with men. One of my friends was forcefully placed head-first in a garbage can when she wouldn't let that man touch her. While upside down in the can, she saw rats. She feared rodents, mice, and rats for the rest of her life, yet she lusted after men. Displaced phobia, I suppose. I once heard of a horse who developed a fear of black hats after a man wearing a black hat abused him. Strangely, it wasn't the man he feared but the hat. With my friend, it wasn't men she feared; it was the rats.
And girls keep quiet.
As I did for years.
I have put those years behind me, for I know Mike's neurosis and see his flaws. It had nothing to do with me. I was there, convenient.
But I tell you, it was hard to confront him, and I never did it face to face. It was a love/hate relationship. When we depend on that person, when they are an authority figure, when our livelihood depends on them, we are in a bind. Yet the groping makes us hate them. Even at age nine, I knew what he was doing to me wasn't right.
From my view as an adult, I see the dynamics. I know the pressure and how it feels to be torn. A time after Mike had passed away, a few of the young family members got together and discussed that there was a sexual problem among most of the boys of that family. Somebody blamed the father. I believe there was one man, a straight shooter in the bunch, a trusted one. I felt betrayed by the family if they knew such was going on. However, after Mike was gone, most people in that room were younger than me. And more apt to talk about such things than the previous generation.
When I complained to my daughter that we need angst in a book, she said, "Without it, you have no story." With that encouragement, I wrote this episode.
My daughter is wiser than me.
I thought I was protecting Mom by not telling her how Mike had treated me. Mike never warned me against it, neither did he threaten me. I thought Mom would divorce him if she knew, and then where would we be? And she would blame me for breaking up the family. I only told people once I was grown.
My sister, Jan, was wiser than me, and when she was older, she told her stepmom. The stepmom told her to "Forgive and forget." Jan told both Mike and the stepmom that unless they agreed to therapy, she wouldn't have anything to do with them. They didn't, so she didn't.
Many so-called experts say that the mother knows. I've thought about it and can accept it if it is true, but I sincerely believe she didn't. Once, she heard that a little girl's mother discovered her daughter had been touched when the bath water stung, and Mom had a fit.
I was on my way home after a trip to attend a Ramtha week-long event, and while in a hotel room, I decided it was time to confront Mike. By then, I knew about screaming into a pillow, often used in our training at the World Healing Center in San Diego, California. So, a pillow caught my scream and provided a pressure release valve. I told Mike I was calling about the sexual issue.
He said, "Forgive me, my innocence."
I didn't know what to say, so I let it go.
My therapist said he was sweeping it under the rug and to write a letter to him.
I sent him a letter saying if he ever touched my girls, I would rip his face off, and if he ever touched my sisters, I would have him arrested.
He had already touched my sisters, but I didn't know that until years later.
When Mom and Mike were ready to adopt a little girl, I foolishly thought that Mike wouldn't do that, not to his child, not his own baby. I rationalized that I was older when I came into the family. It was different. We weren't related.
But Jan told me years after Mom's death that he took her on the fishing boat, giving him an opportunity.
Men who do this don't see how it robs girls. I felt guilty that I had not protected my sister. I was off living my life across the country and in college. Mike wasn't a terrible person. He was deluded, confused, and flawed. He had probably been damaged in childhood, for I know his oldest brother was worse. One hopes their flaws don't hurt others, but Mike hurt my sisters.
10. Silver
One night in Hood River, I was home alone when one of Mike's brothers came barreling in on his motorcycle. He was a good man, nobody to fear, but my dog, Silver, thought differently and rushed to protect me. He didn't harm the man, but it became fun for the brothers to pretend to come after me to rile Silver.
After I learned that Silver was so protective, I was never afraid when Silver was with me, even on a country road in the dark.
Silver was a medium-sized Australian Cocker Spaniel mix. I thought he was the most intelligent dog in the world, and I loved that dog with unbridled passion. He had the herding instinct of an Australian Shepherd—and was colored like one, silver, white, and black—but was about the size of a Cocker Spaniel with ears tipped over at the top.
Lois and I found him when we were riding King. The owners said they had too many dogs and would put Silver down.
I ran home as soon as I could and cried to my folks that they were going to kill that dog that I later named Silver. We had to get him. They drove over the following day, and Silver was my dog for the rest of his natural life.
He would guard the two baby ducks I kept in a box one summer when my mother was visiting her sick mother (when Grandma died). That was over Easter, as I recall when my mom sent me a big box filled with green paper grass, candy, and little figurines.
I was staying with our best friends, Dottie and Eddie. And while I was with Dottie, she got three duck eggs from I don't know where, and we hatched them under one of Dottie's sitting hens. A chicken egg incubates in three weeks, a duck egg takes four, and that faithful hen stayed the course.
I would occasionally take the hen off the eggs and dribble water on
the eggs as a mother duck would after a swim. Two eggs hatched, one little duck died, and that left one. The one Silver guarded. We named him Peanut because he looked like one as a baby.
I realized later that the duck had probably imprinted on Silver, for it would grab the long fur under his neck, and they would romp. Peanut grew up to be a beautiful Mallard drake with a brilliant green head and curly tail, their defining features.
Dottie and Eddie were a constant in my life from when I was nine years old until I married. We were always friends—just separated for a while. When my family lived in San Diego, I could drive the two hours to visit them in Edwards, California. It was there that Eddie died, leaving Dottie devastated.
Their union was sweet; they called each other "Bubba," but it was marred by Eddie's drinking problem. Luckily, he was a happy drunk. He was the sort of man who would have you laughing one minute after you met him, and everybody took notice when he walked into a room. But he had demons we didn't know about. Strange, isn't it? Those apparently happy souls have something we don't understand. The have fears, guilt, or we don't know the cause, and sometimes neither do they.
While Dottie and Eddie lived in The Dalles under the church's influence, Eddie was sober. When they moved to another environment, he entered in with the boys.
Alcohol was not a part of my family. Mom might accept a drink if someone offered, but other than that, it was not an issue.
Mom and Dottie had been friends since junior high, and Mom introduced Dottie to Eddie. When Dottie and I took a trip to Hawaii together, I learned that Dottie had accompanied Mom to visit my father when she told him she was pregnant.
After Mom and I moved from Illinois to Oregon, and Mom and her best friend were separated, Dottie wrote to Mom that Eddie was looking for a new job. Mom suggested they move to The Dalles, and they did.
Eddie was a welder. During the war, he was an underwater welder who worked under a diving bell and repaired ships. The Dalles had a shipyard, and he quickly got a job there as a welder.
During my stay with Dottie, she kissed me goodbye as I left for school in the mornings. I know she felt that Mom wasn't very demonstrative, but I don't think she was trying to compete with her. Dottie was just being Dottie.
I loved both Dottie and Eddie. Eddie would tease me relentlessly but good-naturedly, and in the early years, he let me comb his hair and pin-curl it. He would play-box with me but left me to my own devices when I fell into a raging creek.
While fishing, I slipped off a log following Silver over a stream. The water was so swift it swept my legs out from under me, but I had managed to grab a root on the bank as I fell. I was left holding that branch while my legs were flapping in the current. I yelled for him, and he arrived like the movie cops did after the hero solved the crime. He appeared the moment I flopped myself onto the bank.
I know he was watching to see if I could pull myself from the water.
I took some pleasure when we waded across that stream, and Eddie was shocked when every time he lifted a foot, the current was so strong he could hardly put it down.
Luckily, Silver could manage that log.
I was talking about Silver, which morphed into discussing Dottie and Eddie. It emphasizes again how the mind works.
One subject brings up another. I don't know if this zigzagging needs to be organized; I hope not, for I like its organic nature. It flows like that stream; it hits rocks and redirects. Logs sometimes fall into the water, damming it up.
To my disappointment, Mike ended my visit with Dottie and Eddie. Whether he missed me as he said he did or was embarrassed by Dottie, I don't know. He would come home from work at 7 am and crawl in bed with me. Dottie thought that wasn't appropriate and told him so. And he took me away.
The glory of that situation was that I stayed at his mother's house within walking distance of Dottie's. At Mike's folks' place, we learned of Silver's excellent herding ability as Silver began guarding that one remaining baby duck from my Uncle Al's dog. Later, when we had chickens on our fruit farm, and one would escape the pen, we would send Silver to catch it. He would hold it down with his paws and lick its face until we retrieved it.
I remember little of that stay except that I sat under the tree in their side yard and sewed doll clothes. By then, I had grown out of paper dolls into a grown-up lady doll (I never liked Barbie because I thought she was ugly, and the company made all the slick, professional-looking clothes for her. All you had to do was put them on and take them off. I liked the designing and sewing of the clothes. As I called her, my lady doll made the designing and sewing easy because she was small, and I had abundant scraps of cloth left over from Mom's sewing.
Mike's youngest brother, Al, lived at home while I was there. He was only four years older than me. We didn't have much to do with each other then, but Al had two Shetland ponies. They were mid-sized horses, not little things, and he and I would ride together. My horse would kick up his heels in a little buck if tickled at the top of his tail, and Al would sneak up on me and tickle the horse's tail.
Al also taught me to swim at the town's Auditorium swimming pool. During that time, Al was somehow giving his folks a hard time, and they threatened to take away his dog. I thought that was the meanest thing I had ever heard. Thank God they didn't.
Over the years, Al and I went into and out of each other's lives. He became a helicopter pilot, followed by a Commercial pilot for Pan Am. He called himself a big machine operator and said flying was ecstatic, interspersed with moments of terror.
After his death, I awakened one night to the call of my name. I saw a close-up of Al's face as if I were staring straight at a computer screen. "Joyce," he said, "it doesn't hurt to die." I was struck dumb and failed to ask him anything else, and he left.
During the winter after my grandma's death, and we were all back home in Chenoweth beside the Oak's farm, we had a snowstorm that filled the driveway to over a foot of snow. One night, I went outside to check on Silver. I found him wandering in a daze down our long drive from the house. I carried him back to the house, where his neck was pulling his head back, and he couldn't stand. Mom said he would be dead by morning.
I went to bed and prayed and prayed that he would live. Come morning, I crept out into the living room, afraid of what I might find. There was Silver alive, lying in a chair.
However, he was one sick dog and became paralyzed. We believed he had distemper, and daily, my folks would try to convince me to have him "put to sleep."
He continued to lie paralyzed with my folks, trying to convince me he would never recover. I refused and tenderly cared for him, spoon-feeding him broth, and as he was so well house-trained, he didn't or couldn't eliminate, so we gave him castor oil, which forced the issue. Sorry, Silver, it was necessary.
He lay unable to walk for weeks until he wagged his tail one day. We cheered for that, which meant he was regaining feelings in his hindquarters. I held him and assisted his walking until he fully recovered—well, not entirely; he had a quiver in his hind quarters for the rest of his long life, mainly when he had gone on long walks or ran alongside Boots and me.
Mike realized that you don't allow a dog in the house during the day to play with your kid, so make him sleep outside at night, not during a severe winter like the one we had that year.
Silver and Suzi, another dog we had for a short while, produced puppies. One beautiful, almost white puppy went to a family. Later, the family's father told Mike that the dog had saved his little boy's life.
As the father was about to drive out of the driveway, not knowing his son was behind the vehicle, the dog somehow alerted him.
11. Boots
They say a writer writes about their obsessions; growing up, I was obsessed with horses. I loved horses. I drew horses, made horses for my paper dolls, prayed, and wished for a horse. And when our school assignment was, "What would I do with a million dollars?" I put "A horse" first on my list. Second, a saddle and bridle.
The summer I was 12, we had moved away from the Oaks, as my folks bought 32 acres; half was in orchards—cherries, peaches, and apricots. The other half was wild and hilly. Close by the house were a couple of apple trees: one Bing cherry tree—the big black-eating species of cherries—and a pie cherry tree producing tart cherries for baking.
Our front yard sported a peach tree. When in season, it often produced my breakfast of fresh peach slices. I added cream from Sandy, our cow.
Then, there was the crab apple tree that stopped traffic when it was in blossom. We sold the fruit to a co-op where the peaches went to be canned, and the cherries became Maraschino cherries.
I have never tasted an apricot or a peach as delicious as ours.
Mom pruned the trees so they could be picked from the ground and thinned the fruit until those apricots were almost as large as a baseball.
Occasionally, I visited the Oaks and would get to ride King.
An auction yard existed across the back pasture where the Oaks kept their animals. The road from the auction house wound through a residential area, but it put the two within walking distance.
On one particular Saturday, I was surprised to see my mother walking up their drive, smiling like she had a secret—which she had. What in the world…Behind her, Mike led a beautiful 5-year-old golden gelding named Boots. "Make friends with him," he said and handed the reins to me.
It was more than friendship that happened that day.
How I loved that horse. That first day, Lois and her sister rode their horses partway to our house, about ten miles from theirs. We rode up that long Cherry Heights hill. Halfway up the hill, they determined Boots was trustworthy and left him and me to ourselves.
Boots was a perfect horse, neck reined, could turn on a dime, and could run at least 24 miles an hour. I knew he could run at least that fast and on a slight incline, for one day, my uncle clocked us as he was driving up our hill, and I was racing Boots alongside the road to meet him at the house.
Being with Boots, my buddy, friend, and companion for many years, made me think horses are gentle, agreeable, and perfect partners. Later, I found that not all horses are as pleasant or agreeable as Boots, like people.
No matter the quiver in his hind quarters, Silver would hike with us as Boots and I traveled the countryside.
On Sunday mornings, Mike would deliver a few newspapers on our hill as a favor to his mother. She had a paper route servicing another area, but on Sunday mornings, she delivered the Sunday papers on our hill. I mentioned that Mike worked the graveyard shift, 11 pm to 7 am. He worked at the Round House, a place where the tracks allowed an engine to turn around, and there he did maintenance on them. So, as a favor to his mother, and coming home after 7 am, it was easy for him to deliver the last few papers for his mother.
One Sunday morning, he awakened me and asked if I would take Books and deliver the last few papers up the hill from us. He didn't know if the car would make it, as it had snowed about a foot and a half during the night.
I bundled up, tucked the last few rolled-up newspapers into my jacket, went out for Boots behind our shed, and jumped on his warm bare back. He was as frisky and excited as I was, doing a little dance as we ventured into the pristine snow.
There is a particular sound, a squeaky scrunch, as snow compresses beneath footfalls. The air glistened and snapped. Minute ice crystals sparkled in the sunlight and pinged my face like rock salt. Boots pranced like a charger, and we were the first to mark an otherwise perfect blanket of white.
Come spring, Boots, and I touched heaven again.
I had taken Boots further than usual, down a road leading to another road where I came to a gate.
The gate was not locked, so I opened it and almost lost my horse when he saw the open expanse of flat ground before him. We were in a springtime prairie where water had collected in low areas, creating ponds and watering wildflowers that dotted the grasses. After the barren winter and the landscape around our house that was home to scrub oak, poison oak, and straw-colored grasses most of the year, to my eyes, this was heaven.
We were standing on a packed dirt road that ran through that area. I didn't know how far that road ran, but we took advantage of it. Boots liked to run—a quarter horse has a lot of Thoroughbred (a breed, not meaning a purebred) mixed into their lineage, so maybe that was it.
We tore down the road until I felt he would run right out from beneath me, so I turned him in a circle and gradually shortened the circle until he slowed, and I felt in control again.
We investigated the area, and when I saw Silver leap into the air, run a short distance, and jump again, I rode over to see what had caused such bizarre behavior. A huge King snake was stretched out in the grass, and a few feet away, another. We left the snakes and eventually went home.
I returned to my secret prairie several times but never caught it in the condition I found that first day. It was such a moment when you stopped alongside the road, stripped off your pantyhose, waded in a mountain stream fresh off an ice flow, and felt alive.
Such are the moments that take our breath away.
Later, I found that my flat prairie was a mesa. If you ride far enough to the north, the prairie will end at a cliff, and below it will be the valley holding the town of The Dalles and the Columbia River.
If you drive through the Columbia River Gorge until you come to The Dalles and look to the South, you will see a cliff. At the top of that cliff are shallow caves called Eagle's Caves. If you climbed to the top of the caves, you would see the backside of my prairie.
And if you stand on that prairie, you will see little but grass, a mile or more of it, and the only sound you will hear is the wind rushing past your ears, and you will feel as the natives did when they came upon such a scene: that the earth, the mountains, the rivers, and the rains are home to The Great Spirit, and there for you to take from and give back to.
12. C-r-a-c-k
It was Saturday. I washed my hair, pin-curled it with bobby pins as was my style during high school, put a scarf around my head, and went out to find Boots.
By then, we had fenced in a few acres of land, and he was beyond the hill behind our house. We always found each other. Usually, he found me first, and I would hear a nicker, or he would just walk up to me. I hopped on his back, and we gently lopped down the path toward the house when suddenly I didn't have a horse beneath me.
My chin collided with the ground with a "C-r-a-c-k."
I hopped up in a daze and grabbed Boots as he was scrambling to his feet. I should have gotten back on, for they say to always get back on your horse, but I was a bit dazed and walked to the house while Boots ran ahead of me, kicking up his heels. Oh yeah, now you are sure-footed. My heart sank when, in the bathroom mirror, I discovered I had broken a few teeth, but not any front ones; thank heaven. The blow had split open my chin, jammed my jaw to the side, and shaved off a few cusps. I suffered a concussion, was in the hospital for a day, and ended up with a couple of crowns on my teeth. Thus, the gold in my mouth.
And it did build some fear in me. I still ran boots, but newer downhill. I would feel the ground coming up to meet me.
I am thankful for this day that the fall didn't break my neck. I know I shouldn't have been loping Boots through a forest on uneven ground. I suspect there was a root in his path, and he didn't want to fall any more than I did. I never liked to ride a trot, so he and I developed a technique where he would transition immediately from a walk to a lope. I should not have used it that day.
I mentioned the pin-curls because when I got to the hospital, I sat and removed all of the bobby pins before a head X-ray.
The nurse commented on what a mess that would make on film.
My hair looked good for the two days I was in the hospital, though.
13. My Mother Kept Hiding Anything Sexual from Me.
She was uncomfortable, so she avoided anything that had to do with sex. When the cat dropped kittens on the kitchen floor. Mom was awkward because I was there. She seemed worried that I might see something.
Even then, I wondered what the big deal was. I was a girl. I would grow into a woman. I ought to know such things. Those kittens had to get out somehow. I didn't see anything except a kitten drop from behind the cat. It turned out they were premature and didn't live. After that, we adopted a little white kitten and gave it to the momma cat, who was a wet nurse for the kitten. We lost the Momma from a box we had tied shut and placed in the back of the pickup when we moved back from Hood River. The white kitten was still there; the momma cat was gone. I hope she survived a leap from a moving truck and found a home.
I always wondered what Mother's problem was. When Sandy, our cow, was pregnant, Mom said something to Mike, worrying that I would stumble upon Sandy delivering, and again I wondered, why?
By then, I was over twelve years old and had learned to milk Sandy. Mike milked her in the morning, and I took the evening shift so he could sleep and be rested for his night shift.
I did stumble upon Sandy giving birth. I could see a protrusion from her birth canal, and she was clearly uncomfortable, lying down, getting up, lying back down again. It bothered me to see her hurting, and I knew I shouldn't be there. So, I went into the shed to give her some time. When I returned to her, the calf was on the ground, and I missed the opportunity to witness a complete birth. Since then, I've known parents who deliberately brought their children to see an animal giving birth. Mike would have encouraged it had he known what was happening.
I've seen several births since then, including watching my firstborn making her debut in the world. I was so excited to see that little head pop out of my body, and everything worked out beautifully.
I wonder how mom handled her next generation of kids. Long ago, when I asked her where babies came from, she asked me to tell her what I knew. I didn't know much; babies grew in the belly, and I thought they came out of the belly button. What else is it for?
Somehow, I blew off the question and decided not to go to Mom for answers.
I learned eventually. It helps to have animals, and while no animal except for chickens gave birth while I was at the Oaks farm, I knew Lois would have handled it with aplomb. The only delivery I saw was from a chicken egg. Lois showed me that when a chick is too weak to break through the shell, you can gently chip the shell a bit for them.
That knowledge blew up in my face once. When a hen hatched a clutch of eggs, and one egg didn't hatch, I thought the chick inside was too weak to peck through the shell. So, holding it close to my chest, I gently chipped at the shell. Pow! It blew up in my face!
It was rotten, and the stench was awful. I washed my face three times.
14. You Can't Edit a Blank Page
I was Catholic until I wasn't. That one-month break and the move to Hood River did it.
That move took me out of the Catholic school and into the public school system. Thus, I was a new kid at the Hood River school, and back in Oregon, I was a new kid at the Chenoweth grade school, where I completed the 5th and 6th grades. However, happy day, we were back in Chenoweth, next door to the Oaks.
The novelist Boo Walker writes a newsletter every so often. In the last letter, Walker Whoopie do'ed about completing a first draft for another novel. "The trouble was," he said," it stank." But he knew he would fill the dull action, spark the dialogue, and add light and activity to his descriptions later. He, too, emphasized you can't edit an empty page. And then, to his horror, he wrote that his wife said his wardrobe was as bad as his first draft, and she was taking him shopping." Nooooo!"
Anne Lamott talks about "shitty first drafts." Don't let anyone see them." She also emphasizes that writing will give you what having a baby will,
"It will get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, and wake you up."
That is why I am emphasizing the process of writing out one's feelings, fears, anxieties, concerns, and dreams.
Publishing, on the other hand, will do none of those things. Yet, for many who take writing classes, such as those taught by Lamott and Julia Cameron, their primary goal is to be published. A teacher can go on and on about writing, the skills, the trials of it, and then a student will raise their hand, as though they haven’t been listening, and ask, "How do I get published?"
However, think of it this way, while art/being creative sustains you, art not seen is just a picture stuck in a closet.
But first, the first draft.
Or the 150th one, which brings us here:
We have it backward.
Instead of saying, "I wish I knew then what I know now, how about we say, "I wish I had the wild abandon now I had then."
Was there a time when you felt totally alive?
Did you ever do stuff simply because you felt like it?
After being inspired by Natalie Goldberg's Old Friend From Far Away, I felt I had found a good thing, like chocolate mousse, and I'm offering you a taste. So, write your own story. If it is tragic, write that.
Shakespeare made a name for himself by writing them.
Yes, that's what novels and dramas are for. Not only are they teaching machines—there is nothing like a parable to offer a message--they are entertainment, and perhaps an avenue to work out the trials of life. That reminds me of a tribe in Africa who were non-waring, yet the children played war. That sounds strange, but maybe they worked out that urge to overpower, to take charge, and to conquer at a young age.
Drama aside, I don't think we came here to live a suffering life—although I've heard that a writer should write about suffering, people like suffering. It sells.
Yet, as little souls, did we really come here to suffer?
Read about angst, write about it, and show how people overcame adversity and learned from it, but when it comes to living your live adjust some of your settings.
When we look at the little souls arriving all wide-eyed, it appears they are expecting fun and good times. They smile, giggle, kick up their heels, are eager to learn new things—like walk and talk, and run and play with wild abandon. Don’t we want happy times for them? But then the voices of the world, from institutions, culture, parents, although well-meaning, say such things as: "You know you can't have everything you want."
The little soul would say, "Yes, I can, yes, I can."
"You are not the center of the Universe."
"Yes, I am, yes, I am."
That's who we really are.
15. Green Apples and Salt
I began the first grade when I was six years old.
We had no head start, preschool, or kindergarten. I remember my mother taking me to school that first day and sitting in one of those first-grade-sized desks, looking uncomfortable and silly.
As I said, I don't remember any lessons, we played at the big doll house, and I drew.
I got sick in class one day, for which the teacher excused me, and I walked home across a field at the end of our street. I'm not still lying in that field, so clearly, I made it.
When not in school, the kids in the neighborhood played together; we ate sour gooseberries that hung over someone's fence and green apples with salt under the apple tree. On summer days, when the ice man came, he gave us shards of ice that were a treat, and on summer nights, we caught fireflies—lightning bugs, we called them.
We played in the ditches after the rain. We played Kick the Can in the cool evenings until the sun went down, and we couldn't see the can anymore. Do you know how Kick-the-Can works? Someone is it, and he counts while the rest of the kids hide. Whoever can sneak in without being caught is safe if he can kick the can before being tagged.
All this sounds very old-time, and it is, but while we had an out-house and an open well (I shouldn't put both of those in the same sentence), my Aunt Marie, 6 years older than Mom and married before I knew her, lived in an apartment in town with indoor plumbing.
I wasn't entirely a wild child, at least not in Illinois, for someone—one of the three adults—dressed me for church. I had curls that my mother or Grandma rolled around their fingers, making perfect finger curls like Shirley Temple. I liked sitting beside Aunt Marie in Church, for she played with my hair while the Priest conducted Mass in Latin. We got up, sat down, and kneeled so often that it kept the congregation awake.
When I went to mass in Oregon, I was older and would sit fixated on the beautiful statues at the front of the Church. The old Catholic Church in the Dalles is an art piece now. They use it only for special occasions like weddings, but when I went to the Catholic School, the school was across the street from the Church. It was at the old Church with a tall steeple. You could see all over town that mass was conducted. Now, I think seeing a crucifix daily and the stations of the cross every time you go to church numbs the viewer to the horror of it and is not suitable for the eyes of a child or an adult, for that matter.
We usually went to my Metcalf Grandparents' home for Christmas dinner in Illinois. That was why we always celebrated our Christmas at home on Christmas Eve. (I tried switching to Christmas mornings with my kids, but it never felt right.)
I remember running with the other kids, cousins at Grandma Metcalf's house, laughing, sweating, and running some more. Grandma Metcalf must have allowed kids to run wild in the house, and she kept a box of little toys, figurines, and such that I liked to play with when we visited.
The parents of a cousin a little older than me would make her stop running, for they didn't want her to exert herself. I thought that odd. She had straight hair and envied my curls. I envied her dolls that had rooted hair. My dolls had glued-on wigs. (Her father was the editor of the town newspaper. I need him now.)
There was a boy who seemed so grown up to me, maybe about 12, whose parents always told him they carried a hairbrush. (The threat was not to brush his hair.) I thought he was so cool and the funniest kid. I adored him. I didn't understand why they would threaten him with a hairbrush. He would put a flower behind his ear and entertain me. (Hey, maybe my cousin is Jim Carey.)
On Christmas Day, we kids were expected to entertain after Christmas dinner. I remember I sang Jingle Bells.
I began drawing on whatever scrap of paper I could find when we lived in Illinois and continued it in Oregon.
She and her family still lived in Illinois, and Neil and I spent a spectacular Christmas with them on Christmas break one school year when we lived in Oklahoma. Their daughter, Kathleen, had an early morning paper route, and I would go with her, the two of us slipping down snow-packed streets throwing Newspapers to houses. Marie took us to lunch at McDonald's, the first time I had ever had a McDonald's hamburger. She apologized for it, but I thought it was great. We had a super stacked hamburger with French fries. It was a special treat.
Marie told me that once her husband got sick out of town, and she was at a strange hospital, so she called my dad, and he came and sat with her. It was probably Aunt Marie who gave the pictures of me to my dad.
Years later, my half-sister, my father's other daughter, who lived in the Midwest, called from Portland. I drove to meet her and found that we were of similar ilk. I couldn't believe she was a biologist—Dad's two daughters were biology majors, and her name was Jan, the same name as my Korean sister. What are the chances? And what about genes? I wonder if I told her our father dissected a Carnaval cardboard Tweety bird.
Since Jan, my half-sister, liked the out-of-doors, as I do, I suggested we go to one of my favorite places, Multnomah Falls, a short drive up the Columbia River from Portland. We had lunch at the lodge and hiked the trail up to the bridge that spans the falls. When I first saw that astonishing phenomenon of water falling from an enormous cliff, I was awestruck. Remember, I was born where it was flat, flat. Oregon is mountain mountain. I was like a native seeing a ship for the first time.
16. Tomatoes
Mom grew big, fat, juicy, succulent tomatoes in a little fenced area behind their backyard on Chenoweth Road in The Dalles, Oregon. I never lived there. She and Mike bought the property after I married, but my little two-year-old daughter, Lisa, and I stayed there for a few days when I learned that my mother was terminally ill.
Her sister, Marie, came from Illinois, and mom cried because we were all under the same roof; her children, there were four, three adopted, two Korean girls and a boy, Bill, the miracle child she thought she couldn't have. Bill was ten years old.
When I was nineteen out of high school and working for a local dentist as a dental assistant, Mom and Mike drove to Portland to meet the plane arriving from Korea that held several Korean children who had been Proxy adopted, a process my mother helped establish.
I'm sorry I didn't go that day. I didn't take off work for a dentist depends largely on his assistant.
Mom told of meeting the plane and how it seemed magical—each child appeared to recognize their new parent. Jan, however, had a meltdown that evening, crying and calling a Korean name we didn't understand. Small wonder that she would be disheartened, for she had flown that day from Korea, rode the 90 miles from Portland to The Dalles and was thrust into a new home where there was a friendly dog she was afraid of.
Someone later thought the name she was calling was "Grandmother."
Jan spent her life believing her parents had been killed, that she was hidden in a closet, and that she was taken to the orphanage by her grandmother. That was all she remembered from her Korean life. And unlike many Korean adoptees, she never wanted to visit Korea. She was an American.
Jan was a darling and so tiny. We didn't know if she could walk. We were told that she was 3 years old, but later, a dentist determined that she was probably older; he determined that from when her adult teeth came in. That first night, when Mom set her on the floor, she just stood sobbing.
The bubble bath in the kitchen sink worked its charm. When mom placed her in it, the smile that broke through Jan's face was like the clouds opening to the sun.
When Jan was dressed and snugly warm, Mom took that sweet little child to bed with her, and it was a love affair that lasted a lifetime—for Jan, Mom, and me. When I was away for the day at work, Jan would wander through the house, asking, "Where Jo?"
On the last August of her life, I feasted on Mom's tomatoes, eating them like apples with salt and pepper. And for lunch, I added a slab of bologna rolled into whole wheat bread.
Mike had a van, and he chauffeured Mom, Marie, the kids, Lisa, and me on an outing to Lost Lake, one of our favorite picnic places. There are no power boats allowed on the lake. However, they rent oared boats and canoes. If you paddle to the middle of the lake, you see the mountains dip so that Mt. Hood is framed between them. As you sit in a boat in the middle of the lake with the framed snow-capped mountain reflected in the lake you wonder if God had Her sketch pad out the day she created that view.
It was Mom's last outing.
Later, with Mom in the hospital, Mike took the kids, Lisa, and me to a drive-in movie, where we saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Mike knew someone from the concession and they gifted us with a huge cardboard box of popcorn. Lisa fell asleep before the child-stealing thief appeared in the film, so she always had sweet memories of the film.
Jan was attending a church camp when Mom died, much to her dismay, for she felt, as teenagers often do, that Mom had something more to tell her. I don't think so. Losing her mom was a deep sadness for her.
About three days before Mom died, I cleaned her house, loaded the kids into their Van, and drove to the hospital to visit her. Walking in the front door, I felt a liquid trickle down my legs and rushed to the restroom. "Oh, no!" I blurted out.
From the next stall came, "What's wrong?"
"I'm pregnant, and I'm bleeding!"
A nurse rushed me to a doctor who didn't treat me. Instead, he told me to go home and stay in bed. I did for about a week while my mother-in-law cared for Lisa and me. There, I got a call from the hospital that Mom had died.
Three days later, my doctor back in California said I could get up for the funeral. At the funeral, I held that little 6-year-old recently adoptee's hand. More for me than for her probably, for she never really got to know my mother, as she had come into the family only a year before. But I felt sorry for her that she was losing a mother for the second time. I said I didn't cry easily, but I cried for my mother.
My mother-in-law felt she could better serve the day by keeping Lisa for me instead of going to the funeral. My favorite memory of those days with my mother is her sitting on the couch talking to my two-year-old. Both talked with their hands and as they spoke, I don't know of what, my picture of them is of hands waving, chatting, gesturing, and talking up a storm.
At the church, I stood in the pew and mentally declared to the Universe that I was not losing another one, meaning my mother and the child I was carrying.
The Universe complied, and my baby was born healthy. I've always believed that my mom and my daughter met as mom was leaving and my daughter was coming in.
17. You Know What?
My first boyfriend still owes me a brand-new Mercury automobile, pink and black, the version we were drooling over that year.
On our first trip to a bowling alley, my first throw was a gutter ball.
My boyfriend laughed and said, "If you get a strike, I will buy you a new Mercury."
The next time I threw the ball, I had a strike.
We had a long-distance romance as he lived ninety miles from The Dalles but often came to town, stayed with his sister, and visited me. One summer, he picked cherries in our orchard, and we played and kissed a lot.
One particular night he and I wanted to go to the movies, but we needed a vehicle as Mike had taken the car to work. However, the flatbed truck was in the driveway, loaded with boxes of cherries. We unloaded the truck and drove it to the movie. Come morning, Mike said it wasn't good for a girl to lift so many boxes, so the boy had to load it all by himself.
His sister encouraged our romance. She was a force to be reckoned with. She wanted me to become a teacher, as she was, and asked that I be excused from school one day so I could assist her with her class. She was also our minister's wife, who didn't keep the patronage in tip-top shape as the previous minister's wives had done; neither did she have prayer meetings there. She would take her brother and me on adventures, one to Seattle to meet their parents. (They knew them, I didn't.) Shortly after that, the boyfriend's family moved from Seattle to Portland—those 90 miles away. His father had a high position in the church, and yes, they were PKs, Preacher's Kids.
I adored his sister, who could play a gospel song on the piano like ragtime. She dressed flamboyantly but often in black as that suited her and silhouetted her svelte figure. She wore stiletto heels with pointed toes—the rage at the time. Imagine the staid congregation of a conservative church watching that woman walk up to the piano.
The boy was fun, and we found things to do—drive-in movies, church camps, once I took him on my driving paper route that Ma Willett, my stepdad's mother, had given me for a summer job. I became proficient at driving one-handed, rolling papers, and slipping them into their round boxes on the fly. However, the time I took my boyfriend with me, we horsed around so much I forgot some customers, they complained, and Ma Willett punished me by taking away part of the route.
Once, he and I decided to take an excursion out of town. We drove on a logging road into the forest, where we got stuck. Try as we might, we couldn't get the car out.
We were miles from town, with no phone or car, so we walked...down the middle of a farm road—for half the night. When we heard sounds, we imagined we were being stalked by a cougar. We made it to town and called my folks.
The following day, Mike drove us to rescue the car, and he got it out easily.
My boyfriend once bought me a pink rose corsage when we went to a Church event in Portland. He liked 'bling' in the form of rhinestones, so I had many rhinestone necklaces.
Our romance lasted three years; by then, I was out of high school and working as a Dental Assistant for a local Doctor. The last time I saw him, he was boarding the train for his 90-mile-away home. Soon, he would be moving across the country to attend a prestigious University on the East Coast. There were no arguments, no fights, just my knowledge that it was over. One reason was that he wanted to be a minister, and I was not cut out to be a minister's wife. Two, it's doubtful our romance would have lasted through his college years, with him on the East Coast and me on the West. And I knew that a big University guy and a farm girl back home wouldn't likely make it, plus I was finding other fellows interesting.
I stopped halfway up our Cherry Heights hill at a spot that overlooked the valley, the town of The Dalles, the Colombia River beside it, and the Klickitat Mountains on the Washington side of the river. I watched a little black train, his ride home, make its way through autumn parched dry grasses and snake its way out of town.
18. Ode to Tuna Fish
I'm eating a tuna fish sandwich with a dill pickle and a slice of sweet Walla Walla onion. There is also a good amount of Kettle potato chips, giving the plate a finished look.
I look up and see that beyond the pink dogwood, there is a rhododendron bush budding pink. So, now I have the pinkness of the dogwood, plus a pink rhododendron as a backdrop. I've heard to never eat rhododendrons, which are toxic to humans. However, a tea made from its leaves can counteract the itching rash of poison oak.
I am susceptible to poison oak and lived with one rash after another during my high school years, for poison oak was abundant in our area. I didn't know that rubbing one's face in your dog's fur was a sure way to encounter the plant's urushiol oil. Finally, my high school biology teacher asked me if I had a dog and said that's how I got poison oak on my face.
Well, well, a smart teacher.
When we lived in Eugene, in a wetter climate than The Dalles, a poison oak plant didn't care what the environment was; it snuggled up next to a rhododendron. I developed a rash from working in the yard, so I gave the rhododendron tea a chance and as an experiment. It did relieve the itch, but good old Ivy Dry finished the job.
Folk medicine says that for every ailment, there is an antidote, which emphasizes, once again, that we need to preserve our diversity of plants.
While our high school English teachers taught us to develop our paragraphs, as a blogger, I learned to use short, succinct sentences, with maybe two sentences to a paragraph. Thus, I set up this book that way.
Large blocks of print scare some people. However, people still read. Books are still being written and bought, and Natalie Goldberg commented that the brain doesn't follow a reasonable pattern. That gave me permission to follow my zigzag mind.
Whew, finally.
Without tuna fish, I wouldn't have reached adulthood. (Now I wonder how much mercury I got.) Those sandwiches, interspersed with peanut butter and jelly, served as lunch for many years. I carried them to school in a brown paper bag, often with an apple or orange. By lunchtime, the fruit had carved out a nest for itself in my sandwich.
I never particularly liked school until I got to college where I discovered the thrill of learning and found that studying and applying myself was a totally new adventure, and it made a tremendous difference in my grades. Drawing pictures in the back of the room didn't work anymore.
I'd been out of high school for five years when I started college. During that time, I worked as a dental assistant, first for three years for Dr. Brogan in The Dalles—bless him for hiring and training me. After I married, I got a job with Dr. Gibson in McMinnville, Oregon, where Neil attended Lindfield College.
During his senior year, Neil was accepted into the master's program at Oklahoma State University. He was given an assistantship for Physics labs and to teach freshman Physics. Thus, he had a job. So, we packed our old Ford with all our worldly possessions. Neil is an excellent packer, and the backseat was packed up to the rear window. So, we were off to Oklahoma, where the lightning strikes were so monstrous and grand that Neil was stupidly out photographing them.
We lived on 3,000 dollars for the school year. Fifty dollars a month on rent, five dollars a month for gas—we drove the car to church and the movies. Oh, and the laundromat, I forgot about that. Going to the laundromat was an adventure, for it was pretty, painted lively colors, and had a Pepsi machine. I grew up thinking having a soda was a treat. Our splurge was sending Neil's white shirts to the cleaners, so he always had a crisp white shirt for teaching class.
We walked to school from our apartment, home for lunch, back in the afternoon, then home. I carried books and sprinted across campus for many of my classes, and I always lost weight at the beginning of the year.
"For lunch we usually had a sandwich and a bowl of good old Campbell's soup. We often ate pork steaks for dinner as they were the cheapest cut of meat. When we left Oklahoma, I declared I would never eat them again. But then, when we left Oregon, I declared that I would never eat venison again. Neil's folks used to give us care packages of venison when we lived in McMinnville, as Neil's father was a hunter. I never liked venison. And I dislike hunting more. (If I was lost on the tundra and hunting was my only choice, that would be a different story.)
The people in Oklahoma thought it was funny that we, Oregonians, liked beans and cornbread. One day after school, Neil and I opened the apartment door and walked into a wall of smoke and a stench that almost knocked us on our keisters.
A pot of beans had been cooking since lunchtime. The pot containing the black blob that was once beans was a Revere Wear saucepan we got as a wedding gift. It survived and has lived through many scorching’s since then, and it still survives.
After two years in Oklahoma, Neil earned his master's degree, but the Vietnam draft was breathing down his neck. He had already taken his physical and required test—and scored second in the state. He dropped the Ph.D. idea and became a civilian employee physicist with the Navy. It's a shame he abandoned the Ph.D. program, but he didn't go to war; he's alive, and doesn't have PTSD.
Oklahoma State University was an awakening. They revered their liberal arts program. Yes, at a "Cow college." When my freshman biology professor boomed over a class of around 200, "This is the study of life!" I signed up for a biology major.
Contrast Oklahoma to The University of California, Riverside, where I transferred after my sophomore year and worked my butt off for the next two. They required a language, and I have an anvil, hammer, and stirrup made of tin. (Bones of the inner ear.) See, I remember biology, but I can't pronounce arbole. (tree in Spanish) I keep hearing an i in it).
I loved my science classes at Oklahoma, but it was the Humanity class that changed me.
For the first time, I learned about myths, ancient cultures, and religions, and read the Bible as literature. There I was, a protestant, studying evolution, frowned upon by my Christian siblings and parents, had an atheist humanities professor, and went to a Christian Church. I avoided the atheist professor when I decided to take philosophy, as he was the professor, so I took the class from someone else. And then what happened? I walked into my humanities class and guessed who the professor was. The atheist.
I came out of Stillwater, Oklahoma, a Unitarian.
While in Oklahoma, we were practically adopted by the EUB (Evangelical United Brothern) Church Minister and his wife. It was a small church. We sang in the choir and were the new kids on the block—former EUBers from Oregon. I had entered that denomination on my college application, and they gave my name to the minister. Surprisingly, they had such a church in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
After the Sunday evening service, we often went to the minister's house to watch TV and snack on apples and popcorn. Someone from the church felt sorry for us that we had no television. Of course, we didn't need to be distracted from our studies, but we took what they offered: a large console that, when stuffed into our car's truck, the lid would not close—we tied it. The TV screen was only about 12 inches, but it was fun, and we lost sleep to the tune of "H-e-r-e's Johnny."
When I began my second semester of Humanities, to my horror, the minister also took the class, and we were both invited to be on a panel discussion.
With my newfound sense of the world, I didn't have the will to go up against my minister. I asked the professor to please take me off as I had been on a panel last semester, and when I told him about the minister, he excused me.
I remembered the panel of the semester before, not what we discussed, but the night before. Neil and I had attended the movie West Side Story, and my stomach was cramped with anxiety throughout the film.
When Neil got a job in Corona, CA. I transferred to the University of California, Riverside, about a 25-minute drive away. And there I met Sylvia, who became a lifelong friend. We were both older than most of the students, and she, older than me, already had a little girl. Later, she had a baby boy six months older than my second daughter, and we all remained friends throughout grade school. With them, a trip to Disneyland became an annual event. Her husband was an engineer, so that worked well for our husbands.
While still in McMinnville, we sold the car I brought into the marriage, a blue Nash Rambler Convertible. (Neil's mother said, "Neil finally got a car.”) We bought a closed-in four-door Ford, ugly as sin but reliable. Neil walked to school, and I drove to work daily past the police station until a policeman stopped me and told me to get my muffler fixed. I did, and that car carried us to Oklahoma twice and into California, where I drove it to school for another two years.
Leaving for class in the mornings, I started that car by letting it drift down the slight incline from the carport onto the driveway and popped the clutch so that the motor started. At school, I parked on a hill and started it at the end of the day by letting it roll downhill and again popping the clutch. It never let me down. See, I said it was reliable.
Why didn’t we fix it? That’s a mystery. Perhaps I wouldn’t let it out of my sight for I needed it for school. We ended up selling it as is to our property manager, who, with a friend, had fun starting that thing—their laughter carried into my apartment.
The irony was that after I had driven those two years from Corona to Riverside, we bought a house in Riverside, and my husband commuted to Corona. By then, we had another car that our little daughter later named "Go Somewhere."
While in Oklahoma, I tentatively dreamed of becoming a Vet. I was told by a professor, a friend from the church, that the Veterinary Department rarely took women. "They will just get married and start having babies." I was married. I was five years out of high school and had no babies. Now, more women are graduating from veterinary school than men.
At UCR, I suffered through dissecting a cat in comparative anatomy. My problem was that it was a cat, not that I was squeamish about dissection. Already, I had seen dental surgery. I didn't intend to become a doctor, but comparative anatomy was a part of my curriculum. To be fair, another student and I shared the cat for an entire semester. He would dissect in one class, and I would dissect in another—our only connection was the cat. People often think of dissecting as charging through with a scalpel. You don't. You only use a scalpel to cut through the skin. The rest is done with a dissecting needle that has a blunt tip.
With the needle, you can carefully separate the tissues. And to my surprise, the circulatory system was injected with blue plastic for the arteries and red for the veins. I came home reeking of formaldehyde for more days than not.
Each year I was in college, Ma Willett, Mike's mother, sent fifty dollars to me. It was always a blessing that came mid-year at book-buying time. I greatly appreciated her for including me in her list of grandchildren, for she told me that she always supported any grandchild who went to college. When I graduated in January, I lacked some credits and took an extra semester, and thus graduated in the middle of the school year. I got $25.00 for the half year. No "Congratulations, you finally made it," just half price for half a year. She was a no-nonsense woman.
A line from one of our favorite movies, The Jerk starring Steve Martin, applies to Ma Willett: "Is Grandma still farting?" Going for a walk with her sounded like a little choo-choo train. Am I being disrespectful? No, it added to her eccentricity. She had five sons and lost one to an appendix rupture at age 14. That death scared Mike, who worried about belly aches.
Years later, I learned from another grandchild that Ma Willett sat with my mother during her last days, for she believed that a person should never die alone.
19. Licorice
When my eldest daughter was a few months shy of turning three and my second daughter was a few months shy of being born, we bought a little black poodle puppy and named her Licorice.
A groomer owned her; thus, when we went to see her, she was perfectly coifed with a pink ribbon in her hair—an adorable puppy sitting perkily on a couch. Her muzzle had a tinge of gray, the tell-tale sign that she was beginning to turn silver/gray, as the ad said she was. But the name Licorice stuck.
It was the first time in my life I had gone for eight years without a dog, and we thought a puppy might introduce a baby to our two-year-old daughter.
Both girls loved that little dog. They would dress her in DD's baby clothes, those stretching one-piece outfits that were popular then, and they fit Licorice perfectly, with her walking around on springy stretch-fabric legs. She grew up as predicted to be silver/gray with perfect conformation, long legs, and about 15 inches tall. She was a beautiful dog. She looked like a standard poodle, only small.
For a few Christmases, we drove from San Diego, California, to The Dalles, Oregon, to visit grandparents, and we always took Licorice. Not many motels were pet-friendly then, so we smuggled Licorice in with the stuffed toys.
When my second daughter was seven years old, and my first-born was ten—see moms tell time by their children's ages—we took a three-day vacation, driving from San Diego to Los Angeles, and decided to leave Licorice with a pet sitter—at the pet sitter's house.
I only remember some of what we did in LA, except for taking the kids to see Star Wars at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
We decided to go home earlier than planned, for we missed Licorice, and both girls talked about it most of the way home. "Won't Licorice be happy to see us!"
The trouble was, when we got to the sitter's house, Licorice was gone.
She had escaped the backyard.
We were devastated.
Quickly, we searched, scanned the neighborhood, called her name, and asked whomever we met if they had seen a little gray poodle.
All day, we searched, and I had called the pound—No little gray poodle.
Dejected, we went home without our dog.
The following morning, I awakened early, got up before the others, and set off to find Licorice. I went to the Pound and into the back to search cages.
There, opening a cage, was a man with a little gray poodle under his arm.
"Licorice!"
She turned—amazed as I was, and we flew into each other's arms, her yapping and having a wiggling fit. We carried on until the lady told us to quiet down. Hey, this dog was lost for three days! I hugged her until we were released from lock-up, for I had to wait to purchase a license.
Somehow, we heard the story; the policeman must have told the Pound people how he found her. She had left Mission Hills, traveled through an underpass beneath the I-5 freeway, and made it to Mission Beach. There, she picked up with a surfer/drifter until he was stopped by the policeman. The surfer said the dog didn't belong to him, and thus, Licorice was escorted to the pound by a policeman.
The surfer? He had to be a good guy, for Licorice trusted him. (You know how lost dogs can get disoriented, scared, and will not let a stranger catch them.) Licorice, however, found a friend, and because of him, we found our dog. Licorice's little foot pads were worn from all her walking. The man? I don't know what happened to him. To me, he is an unsung hero. Finding our dog in a city the size of San Diego was a miracle.
As I recall, I never paid the dog sitter.
Licorice remained with us for the rest of her life, my almost constant companion and the wearer of baby clothes.
I was convinced that Licorice's purpose in life was to love and be loved. And it scares me when I read this, thinking of what could have happened to her. It was Divine intervention.
Thirty years later, we got another poodle who had the same purpose--to love and be loved. That was Peaches, the Pink Party Poodle for Peace, the little dog who moved to Hawaii and back with us.
Remember, all dogs go to heaven. I expect to see the ones who called me their pet sprint down a hill as green as the spring grasses of Oregon to wiggle all over me and cover me with kisses.
20. What About Your Life?
My mother believed in spanking her children, but only she was permitted to do it.
She told me that once she spanked me for so long, she felt guilty. I had scattered shoe trees my father had brought home from the shoe factory about the yard but wouldn't pick them up. No matter how much she hit me, I wouldn't do it. Finally, she took my hand, and we picked them up together. Which is what she should have done in the first place. I was so young I don't remember it.
I slightly remember being switched on the legs with a cherry tree twig, but I don't know what I did to deserve it. I vaguely remember the dancing and stinging. The only spanking I remember was when I was 7 or 8 after our move to the Dalles. I was horsing around with a cereal box and a bowl stacked on top of it. The bowl fell and broke. Mom grabbed me, and me being a big kid by then, she clumsily turned me over her knee and whacked me on the butt. It was kind of funny, really, and I realized it didn't hurt. Spankings always hurt my feelings, though, and I never believed I deserved them.
And they teach children to hit.
Once, when I was new to Mike and Mom's family and playing with paper dolls, the cat, thinking that paper looked like a fun plaything, pounced into the pile of paper and stirred it around, as cats are apt to do. I hit the cat. Immediately, Mike hit me.
Shocked, I ran to my room. Mom talked with Mike; he came into my room, apologized, and never struck me again. I believe Mom thought a man should never hit a girl, and I agree—neither should a woman. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" caused many a blistering.
Once, when my two girls and I had been biking, I don't remember what precipitated the tantrum, but my oldest daughter threw herself to the ground, and I smacked her thigh.
My youngest daughter exclaimed, "Mother! How could you?!"
My mother must have been spanked. I don't know about it. She adamantly believed you should never slap anyone. And with children, you only swat them on the butt…or legs.
(Oh my, could it be that I have trouble with my lower extremities from those days? I called my daughter and apologized for smacking her.)
I don't know why it is embarrassing to be spanked and why it is also embarrassing to be bullied, molested, or unloved.
The moment I wrote the above sentence, I got the answer.
When Joseph McClendon was sleeping in a box in Lancaster, California, after somebody tried to kill him because of the color of his skin, he thought, "If someone would do that to me, there must be something wrong with me."
That's it.
As McClendon erroneously thought something was wrong with him, kids probably believe something is wrong with them that they deserve such treatment.
Nothing was wrong with McClendon, as there is nothing wrong with kids who get hit for some infraction. They're kids, remember? It's a quick, lazy fix for a parent.
Although I remember a group of mothers, a continuation of a childbirth class, who got together for a time afterward. One said, "Maybe a swat isn't worse than being yelled at."
Indeed, are those the only choices?
I wonder how much spanking contributes to the prevailing "I'm not good enough syndrome," which is rampant in our culture. I'm not good enough to be loved, find a mate, write a good book, a play, a symphony, paint a picture, or start a business.
"I've been bad and deserve to be hit. I am a girl, a less desirable weaker sex, and must keep my mouth shut. Boys will be boys, you know."
Auugh.
That's the biggest Bullshit I've ever heard.
When Joseph McClendon lived in the box, a man gave him a book.
The book was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
He read it and returned it to the man who had given it to him, understanding that when someone offers you a gift, you should give them something in return.
The man said to pass it on, not the book specifically, but the principles. Now McClendon is a neuropsychologist in LA and a presenter at some of Tony Robbin's events. "It isn't the motivation," he says, "it's the 'Do."
When you have the idea—take immediate action to make it work.
Okay, here goes:
I have an issue with asking people for money. I want to write professionally, and I'm happy to serve readers. Yet, given how much hype, pressure, cajoling, bribing, and trickery (like fake fonts that look like you have gotten a personal letter when it's an ad, for heaven's sake), I have the impression that people pay only when they get cajoled into it, or have to.
I, too, pay for things because I have to. You don't get a beer at a ball game without paying for it. If I order a meal, I must pay for it. I buy groceries, pay the mortgage, pay the electric bill, the phone company, the Internet service, and the garbage collection company because those things would disappear if I didn't pay them.
But what about giving freely?
Once, I got $100 from my dad and decided we should do something outrageous with it. So, a pile of kids climbed into my daughter's Rabbit convertible. She drove us to La Jolla, California, an affluent community—because we wanted to support abundance. I had purchased A Course in Miracles Cards, and we stapled a dollar bill to a card, drove down the street, and gave away all 100 one-dollar bills.
The kids had a blast and said, "When you feel like doing something outrageous again, call us."
They probably wanted that money but gave it freely and had fun doing it.
I notice I strayed from my process by saying something contradictory to my previous statement that I wouldn't pay unless I had to. It's fascinating how the mind wants to distract us.
Giving my writing away for free lets me avoid rejection. That's my belief, but it's only a belief. Beliefs can be rock-solid, so the trick is to replace them with a different one.
The trick is to let go of tired old excuses and to go for what you want.
Now, what about your life?Not long ago, a disheartened friend sat on my couch and lamented that she didn't know what to do with her life. She would wake up in the mornings and think all she had to do was clean the toilet bowl.
What about Your Life?
21. The Grand Canyon of Our Mind
Isn't it strange the moments we remember and those lost in the black hole of forgetfulness? Neil says some events are like writing them on paper and throwing them into the Grand Canyon.
That's how I write this, not like a novel, as some suggest, but on scraps of paper.
Moments plop into my mind, such as the topless swimmer in Greece, a young girl with small pointy breasts who stood proud, gorgeous, and not self-conscious.
We were the strange ones wearing tops to our swimming suits. Locals must have said, "There go a tourist."
From Greece to Rome, we entered a church, and I was wearing a sundress with spaghetti straps. A lady motioned to me to cover up. Mary, my traveling friend, offered the scarf she was using for a belt so I could hide those embarrassingly bare shoulders.
Ah, the contrast of it all. But then, I remember that Catholic women used to be required to cover their heads in church. If the ladies wanted to pop into a church for a moment but had no hat or scarf, they would lay a handkerchief over their heads.
Would a Kleenex work? Who has handkerchiefs anymore?
Am I being disrespectful? But for crying out loud, folks, be reasonable. God loves your beautiful hair and your beautiful body, and sex is not only for making babies.
We have sparkling moments, but if we bump into pain, we should address that, too.
Why?
Because it's all life.
I am swiping the page--red, pink, and yellow, and yes, weeds grow among the flowers--the weeds are beautiful, too—they are life. And with the passing of years, I understand that life isn't all manicured and perfect.
My zigzag brain congers up images—of tomatoes, Hawaii, and a zigzag spider that lived in our lanai, the zigzag images painted on Hilo's Airport terminal walls, and the zigzag tattoos wrapped around Hawaiian men's arms. I wondered what the Zig Zags meant. (Sometimes they mean water. Indeed, the Hawaiians have an affinity for water. Some believe the Hawaiians were the first refugees of a lost continent that erupted one night and fell into the sea. Some people escaped and traveled the sea until they were saved by Pele's lava. When hot lava pours into a cold ocean, it sends up great plumes of steam that can be seen miles out at sea. It told the people that land was ahead.
I never swept down the zigzag spider that lived on one corner of our Hawaiian lanai who had a zig zag on her back and one woven into her web. I figured she had senority.
The lanai was our favorite room in our house. It was screened on three sides, maybe 20 feet on a side, and painted white. It was cool in temperature and appearance. A tree-shaded it on the southern side, while its trunk supported the most beautiful pink bromeliad, which grew on the tree's bark. Someone pointed out that that plant would be worth about $500.00.
We ate our meals at the dining room table in the center of the lanai, and Neil's desk and computer were there. The room had no electricity except for the electrical plugs where the room was attached to the house. Thus, Neil had electricity for his laptop, but we had no light fixtures. During the day, we didn't need them. At night, we ate our dinners by candlelight. We lit candles on the table, sometimes in the candelabra hanging over the table I had purchased for Lisa's tented wedding reception and carried from home. It was a true candelabra, for it only held candles. It had four cups for candles, and I had planted an orchid in the vase at its center.
That Hawaiian lanai had a plywood floor when we bought the house and a tiled one when we left. I never wiped down the spider, as I figured she had seniority.
Running into a spider web outside was another matter. I would do the spider dance, slapping at prickling spots. I didn't want to kill the spider; I just didn't want to wear it.
During one torrential rainstorm, three feet of rain fell onto the lanai on the eastern side. Luckily, I had moved the computer into the center of the room when it began to rain. That rainstorm scared the bejesus out of me, and I'm generally not afraid of rainstorms, but while that one raged, coconuts plopped to the ground, sounding like bombs.
Zoom Zoom, our elder cat, commanded the western unit of my desk that was put together in three parts and wrapped around the corner of the room. He wouldn't venture outside where frogs or wild boors might get him.
Hope, our other cat, was a wild child. She would race up that bromeliad tree and hop onto the roof, and we would hear her kitty feet scamping across the metal. She was fearless. No mongoose, wild hog, or rat would dissuade her. We left a torn screen in the living room unrepaired so she could come and go at will. She was a charcoal gray cat with eyes as green as the vegetation around our house. When she hid in the bushes, the vegetation appeared to glow through her eyes.
One of my favorite things about living in Hawaii was becoming one with the weather and the sun. Hawaii has a twelve-hour day and a twelve-hour night. We had limited solar power and would overuse it occasionally. It would suddenly go off, leaving us in the dark. Thus, I guarded our electricity like a Hottentot guards his tot.
We needed electricity for the computers. A computer was necessary for Neil's job, and DD needed it for her mail-order business. I wanted it for my writing, so to ensure I had electricity for my computer and thus save it for others, I often ran an electrical cord out the bedroom window to the carport and gave the Prius the job of keeping my computer running.
We didn't watch TV, as DD had sworn off it before we moved, and we didn't miss it. But we watched movies.
I loved the mornings at my desk in front of the window, where I could watch the morning's first light as it sneaked over the trees and painted a glow on the field of green grass that grew between the main house and the Tiki Room. It became enlightened like the Sun Goddess was slowly turning up her rheostat.
On one airplane trip, Little Boy Darling became so excited about the sunrise that we heard someone say, "I've never seen anyone so excited about a sunrise," and wanted a high five. Soon, everyone around us wanted a high five. And I thought we needed to get that child off the island and into the world.
At the Hawaiian City of Refuge, a native Hawaiian told the story that further solidified my intention to leave the Island. The storyteller said that when he was a boy, an elder would sit the children down and ask them, "What lies beyond the horizon?" They hemmed and hawed. Some said, "The ocean," And another, "The sky." They thought the island was their entire world.
"No, said the elder, "Life exists beyond the horizon."
That is one of the reasons we left.
22. We Aren't in Kansas Anymore
My mother's side of the family thought they were German. My grandparents came from Germany and joined a German community in Kansas. However, when my youngest daughter was growing up, she researched our genealogy and found we were Swiss. Maybe my grandfather was German. I never heard his story.
When I learned about Hitler, I was ashamed of being German. However, when Neil and I drove from Germany to Switzerland, I found a Pharmacy with Hertenstein on the window—my grandmother's maiden name.
While Neil and I were on his business trip in Germany, I suggested we drive into Switzerland, where blood never reached its shores—no shores; it is landlocked. At the time, I still thought I was German, and I knew that the Hertensteins had left Germany before the war because Mom was born in Kansas, and Great-Grandma Hertenstein was the first of their children born on American soil. Her mother was pregnant on the boat. Imagine.
We visited Lucerne, where we found the drugstore, and the incredible Rhine River tumbled voraciously over rocks, creating Der Rhine Fall. A glorious white swan stood at the cress of a water flow, withstanding the current. In Lucerne, Neil took his sat-upon glasses into an Optometrist's shop, where they repaired them for free.
Neil drove until we reached the end of the road facing the Alps, and coming back at twilight, we saw a little boy bringing home the cows. The air had that fresh, misty fragrance that comes after a rain. Droplets sprinkled our windshield, and through it all, we saw a little boy walking ahead of the cows with the cows following docilly behind. One of the cows trailed the others, and she was so pregnant she stopped, breathed a deep sigh, and labored on.
We drove through the green countryside of Germany, where cows stood on green hillsides and yellow flowers dotted the green. Beside the roadway, immaculately manicured farms had their morning feather comforters airing out the windows. Off in the distance, we spotted a castle.
It was Neuschwanstein, "New Swan Castle," King Ludwig's castle and the inspiration for Walt Disney's castle in the Magic Kingdom. We hiked the hill from the parking lot to the castle while a horse-drawn carriage carried other tourists. While medieval looking on the outside, that castle has state-of-the-art appliances from when it was built.
It had running water fed from a spring above and flushing toilets. The kitchen had a Leonardo De Vince-designed device for warming dinner plates. It was constructed from two pullies, with chain shelves between the two. Plates were loaded onto the chains, and the pullies pulled the contraption up behind the stove, thus warming the plates.
King Ludwig adored Richard Wagner's operas, and many of the walls inside the castle were painted floor to ceiling with exquisite murals of scenes from Wagner's operas. It is said that King Ludwig was crazy, but I don't believe it. He loved beauty too much to kill himself, and then there is a mystery surrounding his downing in the lake while his psychiatrist lived—and there was money to be made. Dum de dum dum.
I was up before Neil one morning. I walked a path until I came to a cemetery awash in May flowers. Iron fencing enclosed many of the little plots, and there were so many flowers it was as though I was in a greenhouse. I watched an old man walk shakily to a faucet, fill a sprinkling can, and carry it to a grave, where he tenderly sprinkled the flowers.
I developed a bladder infection while in Stuttgart, and Neil and I went to a hospital. A young man, an orderly who could speak English, checked me in. I was embarrassed to tell him my problem. However, he told me his story.
He said he was doing community service instead of being in the military, for he was a pacifist. After hearing that we were from Southern California, he told us that once, while surfing at La Jolla, California (right beside San Diego), he was hit in the face with a surfboard. He was taken to the hospital, where the doctors treated him so kindly that he vowed to treat others the same.
The doctor gave me medicine and said, "This is Wednesday. We'll bill you."
Imagine.
We were off to Copenhagen, Denmark (home of Legos), where I took a perfect picture of the Little Mermaid statue sitting on a rock. At night, we visited Tivoli, the exquisite mini Disney-like park under the romantic glow of a million (?) white lights. In Amsterdam, we took a Long Boat through the canals and under the lighted arched bridges, and they served us so much wine and cheese that I could hardly manage to walk off the boat.
We attended Holland's Floriade, a flower show where they asked if you wanted salt or sugar on your popcorn, and we walked around in the rain.
This morning, Neil reminded me of the black horse we saw at the Floriade in Holland. I thought that horse was the most exquisite creature I had ever seen, totally black, head high, and with "feathers" on his ankles. I asked what sort of horse he was, and the man nuzzled by the horse said, "Dutch Horse." That didn't tell me much. I was in Holland, after all, but once back home, I looked up "Dutch Horse" and found it was a Friesian, a warm blood. (Friesians were favored by Knights of old for they are heavier than a light saddle breed, easy to train, and could carry all that armor they stuck on the rider and his horse. Think of Zorro's horse. We just watched the new Indiana Jones movie, where I recognized the black horse he rode galloping through the subway and down steps as a Friesian). The Floriade horse was tied to a long rope that extended a canal boat. It was a demonstration to show how horses were used to pull the boats.
I just now looked up Friesian and found you can pick one up for $34,900.
That trip gave me a taste for travel, which I had the privilege of doing more of later.
23. “Can I Hold Fred?”
I blog regularly and post on Tuesdays.
https://www.wishonwhitehorses.com/
Last week, I was burnt out, lost, and tired. I wrote a few sentences, declared it a No-Blog Blog, and took myself on an artist's holiday.
Sweetpea and I sat in the pickup truck where she could sit beside me instead of being separated by bucket seats.
We parked by the Willamette River, close to the footbridge that spans the river. After walking across the bridge onto the park on the other side, we walked the path beside the river through the green lawn dotted with white flowers until we came to three snowy-white geese with fluffy yellow chicks. The geese were a surprise gift, as I had only seen ducks there before.
The geese were my Fred, Julie Cameron's bunny. In The Artist's Way, she encourages creatives—which we all are, whether we claim to be or not—to take an artist's holiday. Creativity is a part of us. It can only be drummed out. An artist's holiday recharges our batteries and often inspires us to the next step.
You can go to a museum, a play, a movie, a fair, or someplace grand; all of these give us a recharge.
For example, Cameron often takes herself to the pet store to hold the giant bunny.
"Can I hold Fred?" she asks the proprietor.
"I don't know; you'll have to ask Fred." (Or whatever Fred's name is)
Well, she held him, so he must have said yes.
When my girls were preschool age, and we had recently moved to San Diego, there was an aquatic store down the hill not far from where we lived. We would go there and look at the fish in the glass aquariums, and outside behind the shop, we would peruse the cement block ponds where they raised fish, large and small.
My youngest daughter remained quite attached to aquatic animals into her adult life. Right out of college, she got a job at PetSmart, working with fish. Later, she had a mail-order saltwater animal shipping service. Then, she became the store director of a PetSmart store in California.
You never know the ramifications of a fun holiday.
24. Type Faster
When someone asked Isaac Asimov what he would do if he knew he would die tomorrow.
He said, "I'd type faster."
I've adopted his philosophy.
Today, I'm sad about a plant.
It lived a block from our home, snuggled in, and touched an almost broken-down old fence with a dog behind it. The dog barked as Sweetpea, and I approached. Sweetpea, about 20 sizes smaller than he, acts like she could take him on.
The plant was a house plant someone must have tossed. I watched it last year. This spring was warm with plenty of rain, and that plant had grown almost a foot and a half in diameter. I was tempted to dig it up, but it was happy there and didn't belong to me. It was its own plant. This week, they built a new fence outside the old one, and the builder trampled that plant down to a spindly two leaves. I heard someone with a Weed-Wacker out there yesterday, and today, on Sweetpea's and my walk, the plant was gone.
I came home, washed dishes, cleaned the stove, and fixed breakfast. I only fixed cereal with half and half, and now I am at my desk—with that plant being a sad memory.
In Old Friend from Far Away, Natalie Goldberg asked, "What Will You Give up When You Die?"
I will give up life on this planet, so it seems. One person with an NDE (Near Death Experience) said she missed the breeze on her skin.
I say, "Don't teach us to love our sensory pleasures, then take them away."
When James Lipton, the MC of the TV show Inside the Actor's Studio, was asked one of the questions he asked of his guests, "If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?"
His answer: "You were wrong, Jim; I exist. But you can come in anyway."
I used to think, What? Do you mean we have to start all over again as babies, grow up, do the spiritual work we've already done, go through puberty, be young adults, but not yet mature enough to handle life, yet thrust into a world of worry, earning a living, and feeding ourselves and our family?
But now, I believe our spiritual learnings are stored in the soul. We learn and continue to learn. We have a choice to stay on the other side, come back, or go on. Someone may need what we offer, and we will return for them.
I'm hoping I won't miss my people and pets for long, and they won't miss me for long, for I believe our souls go on, and I will see them again.
I plan to see green again, rolling hills, green forests, and the ocean. I imagine Boots running to me along with Duchess, Velvet, Sierra, and the dogs, all the animals that have called me their pet. And there may even be a breeze there.
People relate near-death experiences. I have never had one, nor do I wish to. There was a time, however, when I was ready to go. I didn't have a dire illness. I had a lingering cold and a meniscus tear (of the cartilage) in one knee that was hurt so badly that I could hardly walk at all, let alone across the street. I thought dying was not so bad; Sweetpea would be all right. My children will be fine. My husband will be okay. I was in some mushy tri-light other-worldly land where I had no fear of dying.
I thought I was having a near-death experience without going near death. It passed, my knee healed, and I don't feel that way now.
But I need to type faster
25. Getting Published
I loved the publisher of my Hawaiian book, The Frog's Song. While she was doing a line-by-line edit, we got to know each other. That she published the book was an honor. I'm sorry it didn't make both of us rich.
One must note, though, not as an excuse but as a fact that first books rarely hit a home run on the first try. I have noticed, however, that if I give the book to someone, they like it and give it to someone else. That pleases me, but it bypasses both the publisher and me. And the publisher is disappointed that it didn't sell well.
If it had a subtitle, perhaps One Year off the Grid on a Tropical Island, people wouldn't mistake The Frog's Song for a children's book.
When we moved to Temecula, California, we gradually regained the confidence we had lost in Hawaii. We felt something odd there, often felt lost, and longed for home.
Strangely, the ache in our hearts, (DD's and mine) lingered in California. DD and I would drive to a beach where pelicans flew up and down the coast in groupings of twelve or so. And when they glided overhead, I felt a definite lift of energy. They slowly flew down the beach and then gradually returned over our heads again. When I looked up, I could see a fringe of feathers on their wing tips fluttering.
We performed clearing ceremonies at the water's edge to rid ourselves of the heaviness we were carrying. We were confused about what we had encountered there, how we felt "Called," and how we felt we needed to leave. Undoubtedly, negative energy existed there, and both DD and I felt it. It depended on where you were. On the Kona side of the Island, it was light and fun. Not so in Hilo.
We wrote "Goodbye Hawaii" and whatever else we wanted rid of on rocks and threw them into the sea.
In Temecula, Neil worked on a project with a fellow he had worked with earlier when we lived in California. And Neil was available to do Clinicals on their current instrument.
We were there for two years until the project was shelved. Neil contacted a Microscope company in Eugene he knew of and got a job there. Thus, we arrived back where we started. It was good. We were close to our first-born daughter, her husband, and my eldest grandson.
But Hawaii was where Coqui frogs sang us to sleep at night. And then, when we rented a house in Junction City, Oregon, we heard the not-so-melodious singing of bullfrogs at night.
"Frog sings the songs that bring the rain and make the road dirt more bearable."
--Medicine Cards, by Jamie Sams & David Carson, Illustrations by Angela Werneke.
One Literary Agent told me he hated the Coqui frogs. Hated? That's a strong word for a frog no larger than a thumbnail. The Coquis don't croak. They sing their own name and don't harm anything—except in large numbers, they can keep some people awake at night. They eat bugs and insects, and their singing is to call a mate. They were accidentally imported from Cuba on plants—some residents don't like imports.
Temecula was an excellent location to drive to the beach, LA, Disneyland, and Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, DD and I discovered Mandalay Bay's Lazy River. What fun, a quarter mile-long swimming pool that ran in a loop with a current that would push you along. It was perfect for a two-year-old to ride on mom's or grandma's back and dip under waterfalls.
The Temecula location allowed us to visit my old friend Sylvia and her husband, Greg. Sylvia and I connected in a Spanish class at UCR, remained friends, and kept in touch no matter where we were. Sylvia loved to travel and often visited us in Oregon. Our stay in California allowed us to visit and restaurant hop. Who wanted to cook at that stage? Sylvia once rented a bungalow at the Winery, where they had excellent food and the glorious countryside.
I treasured a long metaphysical talk with Greg, Sylvia's husband, while Sylvia pretended to be my grandson's second Grandma.
DD found our Temecula house when she and her son traveled from Hawaii on a house-hunting mission. Earlier on, we had looked around the LA, Burbank, and Pasadena areas where DD had considered getting a job. She chose Temecula, a central place and a lovely house, and rented it from a nice man who would allow our two dogs and two cats. A 150-pound dog is a problem for landlords who don't know and wouldn't believe that Bear was the gentlest dog who never damaged anything. He was much safer than a little twenty-five-pound dog.
Newfoundland dogs, so I’ve heard, are natural babysitters. Wendy's dog in Peter Pan was a Newfoundland. In Hawaii, Bear placed himself between the baby, walking by then, and the neighbor's Doberman, barking that Doberman bark that can curdle your blood. The Doberman must have thought we were invading his territory, for we were right over his fence line. However, he was invading ours. The neighbors rescued us and kept their Doberman home after that.
I wondered why many Hawaiians feared dogs until I found that many had macho or hunting dogs. When I took my little poodle, Peaches, with me, people went gaa gaa over her.
The Temecula house was on three acres containing a grapefruit orchard the owner didn't tend. Later, he started a turkey and chicken farm on site, but away and out of sight of the house. When those came, I offered to feed them, as I was experienced with chickens, and he agreed to give me the job plus a reduction in the rent.
The turkeys became accustomed to my voice and would gobble when I called out to them. Coyotes killed many turkeys until the owner shored up the fence sufficiently. However, some mornings, I would still find a headless turkey who got too inquisitive about who was marauding their fence line.
One day, from the front yard, I watched a machine prune the orchard across the street. They used a humongous device with a giant blade that cut the sides of the trees while traveling down a row. Coming back down the row, it cut the other side. Finally, the blade rotated to a horizontal position and cut the tops. The result? Square trees.
The property was up a long sweeping hill from town, and on the slope, vineyards stretched out in rows green with summer foliage. Wineries along the highway offered fabulous brunches, and from our house in the fresh morning hours, we would watch colorful hot air balloons drift lazily on the air currents.
As twilight fell on our Temecula home one evening, Little Boy Darling, somewhere between the ages of two and three, looked up through the Eucalyptus tree branches and said, "It's making a net for the moon." A poet in the making.
As was my habit, I often went out in the truck to write. One Temecula morning, with Peaches by my side, we happened upon a hot air balloon lying on the ground, slowly deflating but being held down by two men holding long ropes.
I could see through the opening at the bottom of the balloon to its top, where it had another hole and a closable flap. The air was streaming through the balloon and out that hole, slowly deflating it. Presently, from over the ridge came a man riding a horse with a dog loping along with them. The dog trotted up to the men holding the balloon, then padded on doggy feet from one man to the other, gathering loving scratches.
The men chatted a bit, and then the man on his horse with the dog trailing him disappeared back over the ridge.
The men continued their job, and when the balloon was flat on the ground, they rolled it into a ball, stuffed it into the wicker gondola that was once filled with adventuring people, and loaded it into their pickup.
I thought of Greg, Sylvia's husband, who died last week.
26. Ten Thousand
Oprah Winfrey said when she walks into a room, she expects people to say there goes one phenomenal lady. She says she never feels out of place, inadequate, or an impostor, for she knows she is only ONE, but she comes as ten thousand. Those were the people who made her. One, her Great-grandfather, was born a slave and could not read. However, after the emancipation proclamation, he learned to read and eventually became the first of their family to own land.
You know Oprah didn't have an easy life. After being raped as a child, she was taken out for ice cream by the person who raped her, and she stood there with her ice cream while blood was dripping down her legs. She had an illegitimate stillborn child, but she didn't let that stop her forward movement into life and success. And there she stood, proclaiming she doesn't feel out of place or inadequate.
I know that my Great-grandmother was the family's first child born on American soil.
I know her mother was pregnant on the boat ride to this country, and imagine pregnancy mixed with the rocking sea. Maybe I inherited my propensity for seasickness from her. I hope she wasn't sick on that crossing.
I know the little German community in Kansas was a close-knit community, and all through my life, I heard my mother say she cooked as though for a threshing crew—or liked to. Big family holiday meals were fun for her.
The phrase “Cooking for a threshing crew” came from the years on the farm when, during grain harvest, all the men would band together and thresh the grain first for one farm, then another, and the women would cook for them.
I know that my grandparents butchered a hog for winter and didn't let anything go to waste, including making head cheese, which mom tried to make once. I could never bring myself to eat it, and I don't know what happened to the mess she made. It disappeared from the scene.
My mother wanted to create a farm for herself, and she began with a garden and chickens. One day, a large box containing 100 baby chicks arrived in the mail. They became our laying hens. All the males ended up in the freezer. Mom had researched how to cut up a chicken. Her carving always had a wish-bone piece, her favorite, but I never see that piece of chicken anymore.
Mom praised her mother's quilting ability, for Grandma's stitches were small and her lines straight; Mom said she was the best of the quilters. The women got together for a quilting bee, which meant the quilting fabric was stretched over a frame. The women sat around the periphery of a frame that took up most of the room, and while their fingers worked, they visited. I thank my lucky stars I don't have to do some of the work they performed, like quilting, darning, and canning, and what must have been endless cooking.
Women have been credited with creating language. Not only do women like to visit, but exchanging knowledge around the evening food preparation was essential. The men, being hunters, could get by with pointing and grunting.
My mother also said her mother didn't teach her about housework, for her mother preferred to do it herself. My attitude was, "How hard is it to clean? You figure it out." However, her mother's attitude probably bothered her more than any teaching she would have given.
My grandmother liked canary birds; she had one at our house in Mt Vernon who trilled like an angel. So, the story goes, Grandma also had a canary when they lived in Kansas. One day, a cat broke into the house and killed her canary. She picked up a broom, intending to chase that cat out of the house. She accidentally hit it on the head, and to her shock, she had killed it.
Mother's sister was tall—Mom was too, but Marie was also thin and not curly-haired or as pretty as Mom. She probably looked taller and was self-conscious because people often asked her, "How's the weather up there?" People can be unkind without thinking about it, especially regarding physical traits people have no control over and feel self-conscious about.
The women in my immediate family longed for a child. Marie's husband didn't want children, so she was childless for years, but eventually, they had a son. Marie's husband enjoyed that boy so much that they had two other children, another boy, and a girl. Mom didn't have a baby for 19 years after me, and a tumor took away Dottie's ability to have children, so I worried about my fertility. Thankfully, I easily had two girls.
Mom named me Joyce after her best friend, but I don't know what sort of person she was. I'm honored to be named after someone Mom loved.
Great grandmother Hertenstein had arthritic hands, locked up joints bent at a forty-five-degree angle. It was troublesome to see her crippled, and Mom said she couldn't sew anymore, something she loved. She spoke in an accent and visited us at least once, from where I don't know. We have a picture of Mom, Great Grandmother, Grandma, and me—four generations of women. I look to be about six.
She must have visited earlier, for Mom told me that they pressed upon me to be on my best behavior before her visit. I tried hard, not knowing my best behavior, but when she asked me, "Joyce, where are your stockings?" I was dumbfounded. I didn't know about long stockings; I always had bare legs and wore short skirts.
My mother was a frustrated artist—my evaluation. I don't think she would have acknowledged it, but it showed in her yard—that looked beautiful, and how she could prune those apricot and peach trees so their fruit could be picked while standing on the ground. She spent years at the kitchen table designing the house they wanted to build but never did. She taught herself cake decorating, made my wedding cake, and then sold some cakes to other brides.
Mom liked to cook and sew, and while I was in grade school, she made many of my clothes. I remember her hand stitching the hems of those immense skirts we wore in those days. The last dresses she made for me were my bridesmaids' dresses.
On the day when I was nine months pregnant and feeling a bit off, I propped myself up in bed to open a box I had received that day from Mom. It was full of old baby clothes she had made for Bill seven years earlier.
My baby girl was born that night.
I was disappointed that the nurse wouldn't give me the phone at three a.m. so I could call my mother. I wanted to be the one to tell her that her granddaughter had arrived. I was so energized I could have run down the hall, and I was starving. But they only had a hot 7-Up, and I don't like 7-Up.
Neil called her later. That's customary, but that wasn't right, for I was awake the rest of the night.
Did I tell you that my mother was pregnant at my wedding? She was only two months pregnant, and tended to have round belly, so it was not noticeable. Bill was a surprise baby, a happy surprise. An old wife's tale says that babies bring more babies, so it was with mom. It was only about a year after Mikie came that Mom became pregnant.
My parents always scrambled for money, but they scraped together enough to adopt their first two Korean children. The little boy, Mikie, arrived a year after Jan and weighed only ten pounds at one year of age. Mom could be credited with saving his life, for he had such severe dysentery she would stay awake nights tending to him, and our family doctor would make house calls.
After that slow start, you should see him now. He is a career Military man. Currently, he teaches, but for a time, he was a paratrooper sent to South America to thwart the shipment of drugs into the United States.
After Mike's father passed, his mother gave her sons, there were four, some of the family money. She didn't want them to wait until she died. My mother had often said that if they had the money, she would adopt another child. Mike agreed, and they used it to adopt the six-year-old girl.
Mom and Grandma Holt, Bertha Holt of the Holt Adoption agency, communicated through letters. Grandma Holt liked Mom's descriptions of their family and enjoyed hearing how the children were growing and maturing. I was astounded that the agency kept those letters all those years.. many years after Mon’s death they sent Mom’s letters to Mike, Mike sent them to Jan who was an adult by them, and she gave them to me.
The letters were photocopied front and back, and many were not dated, so they were a puzzle, but I typed them and made them into a book titled Mom's Letters and Mine. It's on Amazon. (You must also type in my name, Joyce Davis, as author to find it. It’s Mom’s Letters…and mine by Joyce Davis. The quickest way to find it is by the ISBN number B00JH1PUK8.
Her communication with Grandma Holt was a bit of history and a time when she laid her soul bare on paper. Now, I may take my commentary out and republish the book from Mom's perspective only. They don't need me in there. It's her voice and her legacy. At the time, telling the rest of the story was essential, but maybe it wasn't.
(PS It's still there. I bought my own book on Kindle, reread it, and left it as is. DD said my words are essential. Okay.)
Mike went into military service at fifteen, lying about his age. His mother said she didn’t know what to do with him, so she signed for his admittance.
Putting an errant boy with a horse is about the best thing you can do for him, and Mike entered the Calvary. I don't know how he or his mother managed that, but it was a coup. I didn't think he was particularly savvy around horses, for he didn't ride, but he knew how to pick a good horse. (He chose Boots.) He said he had a teacher who couldn't ride but could teach others how. Once, he rode Boots to bring home the cow, and he told me that Boots knew what he was doing, but he was falling all over that horse. His unit in Calvary was the last one, and it was used for ceremonial purposes only. Eventually, he was transferred to the army and was stationed in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where he met Mom.
He had pictures of his unit at a swimming hole with horses and men in the water. I thought that was so cool.
He believed that the army saddle, called a McClellan, was the best and bought one for me. It was miserable, hard as a rock, with an opening down the center—for the horse, not the rider. The straps to the stirrups would slide as the horse moved, and a canter would leave nasty bruises on my thighs. So, instead, I rode bareback, which is the best way to teach a child to ride. Luckily, Boots had a perfect back for bareback riding, and that muscle behind a horse's front legs is the ideal spot to tuck your leg. You can communicate with the horse, and having your leg tucked will help you stay on the horse. Notice how many times I use the word perfect? Well, Boots was.
.
I've read since then that the misery of the McClellan saddle was the reason the Rangers were in such mean spirits and took it out on the Indians. The Indians who rode Appaloosas--claimed to be a rough ride, set them at their grumpiest. Thus, the battle was on.
27.A Blubber of a Balloon
Thank you to Dr. Brogan of The Dalles, Oregon, for hiring and training me to be a dental assistant. That prepared me for my second job with Dr. Gibson in McMinnville, Oregon.
Dr. Brogan was the more serious-minded of the two dentists. He and I would get into philosophical discussions over the top of the patient's head, driving some to join in while sounding like the godfather mumbling over cotton rolls.
Dr Gibson made a big deal out of holidays, and when his second child was born, he put a stork on the roof holding an "It's a boy" sign.
He told me that his daughter was born the day the Korean War ended. He was serving as a dentist in Korea then and said that the doctors knew little about anesthetizing the face. They would infuse the tissue with Novocain until it puffed up like a balloon, making it impossible to find all the shrapnel embedded there.
A dentist, however, knows about nerve blocks, so he would anesthetize soldiers with face injuries, and the doctors could easily pick out shrapnel.
As I said, his daughter was born the day the war ended, and for some reason, the authorities told the soldiers not to celebrate. So, Gibson suggested they celebrate his daughter's birthday. And they partied hardy.
Every year on his birthday, Dr. Gibson would send a dozen roses to his mother. He was the last of eleven children and figured he would thank her every year that she didn't stop having children before him. His mother was a tiny little thing. He said she never snapped her girdle without her husband's help.
Dr. Gibson loved Christmas and bought presents for Irene, the receptionist/bookkeeper, and me. He left the gifts in sight to tempt us, and Irene would snoop by looping her finger between the lid and the box's bottom. One night, he altered the gifts. Her package had an opening cut in the top with a bendable doll crawling in. Mine had a multicolored horse on top. "I was a horse of a different color," he said.
Once, he filled my coffee cup with dental plaster looking like a volcano poking out of the coffee. It was the same color as the powdered coffee creamer we used. It had a tongue depressor sign sticking out of the plaster, saying, "Creamer gone bad."
One day, he had an order delivered to the office. It was a six-foot gray weather balloon. While he was at lunch, I semi-puffed the balloon and stuffed it in the closet where he kept his smock. When he opened the door, he would be met with a walrus-sized blubber of a balloon.
But he got me back.
When we seated the patient, he began working without his smock. (Phooey) Soon, he asked, "Joyce, would you go to the cupboard and get the pen out of my pocket?" Well, I faced the blubber, got the pen, and we had a good laugh.
I thought he had gotten me, but obviously, he had met the blubber before I did when he returned from lunch. But I never got to see him open that door.
He hired me for the summer between my freshman and sophomore year at Oklahoma State University. Neil worked at LRI, Linfield Research Institute, so we drove home during summer vacation and we both worked in McMinnville, Oregon.
At the end of the following year of school in Oklahoma, the moment I completed my final Chemistry exam a professor approached me and said I had a phone call from Oregon. Of course, that gave me an adrenaline hit for I had never gotten a phone call from home before, and calling the school? It turned out to be Dr. Gibson offering me a job for that summer.
What a guy. Unfortunately, I declined, for Neil had accepted a job as a physicist at the Naval Ordinance Laboratory in Corona California. We would soon be on our way—packed to the brim with all our belongings in that old Ford and with Cassy, the cat we acquired that year. We tried to teach her to walk on a leash, but we were grading the road with her, so I gave it up, and once on the road, she sat frozen for two days on the top of our packed to withing inches of the headliner back seat.
Dr Gibson and I kept in touch for years, as he liked my little The Frog’s Song booklet I was writing. (See I had to use the same title on two of my writings.) Our communication lapsed as we moved around, and recently I did find that both he and Fairy his wife had passed away. His obituary said that Dr. Gibson worked full time until he was 85, then part time until he was 90 when a stroke cut his retirement short.
On our way to California from Oklahoma, as we were driving through the deserts of Southern California on our way to Corona, we passed what appeared to be ghosts in the night. As our car lights flashed against white images, we had to stop and see what in the world we saw. It was an array of white flowers growing on a stalk at least eight feet in the air. They were Yucca plants. To Oregon's eyes, they were aliens.
Cassy thought so too, and she hid in the bushes.
Fear not. Cassy was smart enough to let us catch her; and she lived for another 19 years.
28. What a Difference 40 Years Makes
When I was about to be married, I sold Boots to a cowboy who said, "Marry people, not horses." I thought there was some truth to that statement, so I agreed to sell my beloved horse. Also, Mike said if I didn't sell him, he would.
I cried all day.
Mom eventually got tired of my crying and told me to stop. Her earlier comment when I cried was that I was feeling sorry for myself, so I learned not to cry. And I rarely cry. That day was different. I deserved to cry. I should have cried as long as was necessary. I was feeling sorry for myself. I was grieving over a lost love. It was the most significant loss of my life. And it wasn't through death, as was the loss of my dog, Silver. I was abandoning Boots.
He was boarded at pasture with other horses then, so the new buyer picked him up there.
After grieving for Boots for those 40 years, my daughter asked me, "Mom, don't you want a horse again?'
She was thinking of getting a horse and was tempting me to do the same. I decided that, yes, I did want another horse, so I bought Duchess.
The day I got her, I lay in bed that night telling myself, "I'm going to be happy all the days of my life."
Duchess was 24 years old when I bought her. She was old for a horse but also had Arabian blood, and Arabians are known for their longevity and endurance. She could outwalk any horse in the valley. However, a few years later, I noticed that Duchess's hip occasionally jerked. I knew I couldn't ride her much longer and decided to get another horse.
DD and I went to the Hermiston Horse Auction in Hermiston, Oregon. (That Auction used to be such fun. One of the auctioneers had a gallop in his voice, and once three guys played musical chairs on two Icelandic Horses, hopping from one to the other, one guy on one, the other pulling him off, ripping jackets, and setting the audience into a roar.
DD bid on one of the Islandic horses, but another person outbid her.
The Hermiston auction held an extra bonanza horse sale in February. For a couple of years, DD and I used it as a birthday celebration, as her birthday and mine are about two weeks apart. As DD entered the motel room one year, I said, "This television has gone psychedelic."
DD exclaimed. "Oh no, it has gone Ice Cream cake."
We had put an ice cream cake on top of the TV to keep it away from Cherish, her Great Dane dog.
We called the office and told them their TV didn't work. (Sorry.)
DD even "flipped" a horse once. She was a sweet little mare named Sweetie. DD bought her in Eugene. We drove to Hermiston and sold her for a profit. The owner had neglected her feet, and the Ferrier I hired to trim them said, "You're too sweet a horse to have this happen to you." (When hooves grow too long, they can cripple the horse.)
A mother and her little girl bought Sweetie, and a few months later, the buyer called DD and asked her who Sweetie was bred to. During the night, Sweetie had given birth to a foal.
They were delighted. We were shocked.
When I spotted a beautiful six-month-old filly whose coat looked like charcoal brown velvet being led down an aisle, I was determined that she was my horse.
When she was led into the ring, I began bidding on her. I was so nervous that DD held up the numbered paddle. I would nod, and DD would hold up the number. Someone else would bid. I felt I was going over my price, but I wouldn't give up. The auctioneer would look at me, and I would nod, and DD would hold up the paddle. I outbid my competitor—put her on my American Express card and got frequent flyer miles.
We were exuberant. The crowd applauded.
Afterward, a cowboy approached us and said, "Watching you girls buy a horse was more fun than buying one myself."
A year later, I bought/adopted another six-month-old filly, a Mustang, from the BLM in Burns, Oregon. That was Sierra, a curious gem of a horse. The sweetest thing.
What a character that horse was. My pickup truck’s hood carried "Monster claw marks" aka, Sierra’s gnawing’s for the rest of its life. People thought they were funny, so I dared not have them erased.
Duchess got to be the matriarch of the herd and she lived until Sierra was five, Velvet six
I would turn my herd loose and they would stay around the house, but I kept a close watch on them.
A freed horse is such fun. They would race up the gravel drive, Velvet would do a Lipizzaner leap from the hill above the retaining wall down to the driveway below, they would roll in the Oregon red soil, crack their knuckles, and settle down to graze the green grass that grew around the house.
I'll shut up about horses.
29. Thursday
Natalie Goldberg tells of a writing retreat where she read a poem about going for one's dream and asked the class what they thought the title was. "Go for a Dream, To Dream," etc. "No." she said, "Do you want to know the title?"
"Yes."
"Thursday."
They all laughed.
"The best titles are like that," she said.
On a Thursday many years ago, two friends and I visited the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.
Florencia, Sherrie, and I traveled with three other people who had set up the trip and see Sathya Sai Baba, a supposed Holy Man. We had seen a film where he produced verbuti (holy ash) from an urn and it just kept flowing and flowing, more than you would assume that container would hold. A trick? I don’t know, Sai Baba could produce verbuti from his hand, but then a magician could also.
After visiting Sai Baba in New Del as we were having dinner in the courtyard behind our rented house someone yelled over the fence, Sai Baba is going back to his Ashram in Puttapartti. We shook our heads in awe at grapevine—a curious thing in some parts of the world.
We bought thin mattresses strapped them to the top of our taxi, and the driver took us to Puttapartii where I commented that I wanted to see Sai Baba’s elephant, and the driver drove us right to it. She was not colored with chalk as she sometimes is, just munching hay, and being a contented elephant.
We slept on our mattresses in a cement room, and attended Sai Baba’s Darshan. Once we ate rice with our fingers at the cafeteria, but the rest of the time we subsisted on Cayenne peppered cashew nuts and lime soda. And we didn’t get sick. We also had been drinking water through a straw laced with iodine—it tasted awful.
We left our mattresses behind for other people to use, and got a train from New Delhi to
Agra, across India's countryside to visit the Taj Mahal.
At a train station along the trip we saw a couple washing their baby's bottom from a bottle they carried for that purpose. Toilet paper is in short supply in India. We had been given that information before we left, thus half of our suitcases were filled with toilet paper. The residents use a faucet that is often supplied beside the toilet. If I can be indelicate, it is customary to take or give food with the right hand because people without toilet paper but with water to wipe their bottoms with their left hand.
We had a compartment to ourselves on the train to Agra. It was just bare board walls and a flop-down platform like in a prison cell for a seat or bed. Sherri and Florencia took the drop-down bench, I took a small bench on one side of the window and stretched my legs to another bench on the other side, so I hung beneath the window. There I had a panoramic view as we rattled through the of the Indian countryside.
I wondered why the dogs I saw had a red clay-colored stain on their hindquarters up to their mid-belly.
I laughed when I got the answer. A dog sat in a large red mud puddle with the water coming up to his mid-section, exactly where the other dogs were ringed. He was a perfect half-dog, half-red Whatchamacallit.
Most travelers are greeted by young men offering themselves as guides, even before the train stopped in Agra. The men jump on board as the train slows thus beating out the other guides waiting at the station. We had one for a time, but he was so tenacious Florencia finally got tired of his persistence and chased him off.
There was no water in the reflective pool in front of the Taj Mahal. The guide said they only filled it for celebrations as the water quickly evaporates. The odd thing was the temperature didn't feel that hot. The following day, we heard that it was upwards of 120 degrees. Could that be right?
Our summer before last here in Oregon felt hotter.
My first glimpse of that magnificent Taj Mahal left me dazed. It appeared to vibrate as though it was about to launch into orbit. The collusion of sunlight on that swan-white marble embedded with semi-precious stones resulted in twinkling.
At the time, I didn't know the Taj Mahal was a mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to immortalize his wife, with whom he was inseparable during their 19-year marriage. The Shah was grief-stricken when she died giving birth to their 14th child. To commemorate her life, he built the Taj Mahal, now considered to be one of the 7th wonders of the world. In today’s market it would have taken billions of dollars to build. In that day 1000 elephants hauled materials, and 20,000 artists built the structure, and it cost a lot.
We removed our shoes and slipped on paper booties before entering the temple. There was a sarcophagus on the entrance room’s floor, a dummy of the real one that lay beneath on the ground floor. I wonder if that fooled anyone. However, that structure was an architectural marvel with towers on either side designed to look straight when viewed from a distance.
A ghetto surrounded the Taj Mahal, with many vendors producing art pieces using the inlay procedure such as the artisans used in the white marble of the Taj Mahal.
What did I get from viewing Sai Baba?
"That no man is my master."
I saw how desperate we are to know ourselves. We will tolerate the piercing heat, sleep in cement rooms, and expect someone to give us answers. I think Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz had it right: "Click your heels together three times, and say, there's no place like home. There's no place like home."
Home is not our physical dwelling but the home we carry inside. And perhaps the home we will go to eventually.
Don't ask me how that works. While searching for answers outside ourselves we discount the answers that lie within.
The travel itinerary was mysterious in India, for we went to Agra in a cattle car and returned to New Delhi in first class. I don't know why, the cattle car was more fun, but I watched an affluent young couple with a baby about one year old in first class. That baby behaved as I would expect of a child that age. He bounced all over both parents. The babies we saw in the ashram and on the streets were subdued.
Florencia and I had been in The World Healing Center together, and we traveled together to see Sai Baba, who had a school at the ashram and said do not give to the beggars as it encourages them. Sherrie missed her husband and went home before us, so Florencia and I traveled on together, stopping in Copenhagen (from the hot to the cold, where we had to buy sweaters.) There, I purchased an Icelandic Porcelain Polar Bear about a foot and a half high, that I had seen at the Scandia House in San Diego. It was half the price of the one I had seen in the states.
The establishment packed it in a three-foot-by-three-foot wooden box and shipped it for me. Lisa used the box as a house for Thumper, her rabbit.
Florencia liked white wine, and as the sun got low in the sky, she would spiel forth her husband’s battle cry, "Is the sun over the yard arm yet?" I would answer, "Someplace in the world it is," so we would dive into the in-room refrigerator, for it often contained a bottle of wine, or we would go to the restaurant for a glass. Once in such a hotel, we went to the restaurant for a drink, I had a different drink, and Florencia ordered ”white wine, and they brought her an entire bottle. It cost her $40.00.
They saw us coming.
Outside we rode a rickshaw taxi for 10 cents, inside a hotel we were drinking a 40 dollar bottle of wine.
On the way home, we stopped in London and saw a stage production—something about a Girl's School and it tickled me how the British can drag out a short word, like a girl, from one syllable to about four.
I told you all that so I could tell you this. Sometimes, the things we ask for and then forget about (or take our energy off of it) come easily. When I began the six-month training, we were asked to list what we wanted to accomplish in the next six months. I don't remember my list, but I remember the afterthought I scratched at the bottom of the page. "Oh, I want that porcelain polar I saw at the Scandia shop in downtown San Diego."
I knew nothing of Sai Baba at the time, and the reason we went to India. When I wrote my list, India was the farthest thing from my mind.
I still have the polar bear. We have packed him carefully on all our moves—from California to Oregon, Oregon to Hawaii, back to California, and back to Oregon.
30. Judgments
Yesterday, I was listening to a audio tape where a woman asked for help with what she felt was her problem: judging people.
In many of the metaphysical circles I've attended, one central question is, "How can I get rid of judgments?"
You can't.
And why do you want to?
The person speaking on the tape was being bossed by her mother-in-law. I would expect her to be angry. "But women aren't supposed to be angry, "the lady said, to which the mentor replied, "No, it makes others uncomfortable."
.
Anger is a step up from depression. She needed to take back her power. It was her house. Her mother-in-law was a guest.
And, from the sound of it, a pain in the butt. We understand. We look in from the outside and do not have the emotional attachment as the lady did. Of course, it's easy for us. Isn't that what therapists and coaches do?
Supposedly, they are unbiased observers who can see what others, under the influence of adrenalin, cannot see. It was dis-empowering for the mother-in-law to live with her son and daughter-in-law, yet it was her daughter-in-law's house.
I am growing into the philosophy that we aren't broken and need not be fixed.
We need to grow.
You are a discerning person; of course, you will judge. How would you know if you wanted to befriend that person? How would you get the message that you should stay away from another? Did something tell you they were dangerous? How could you see that you are being manipulated and that being a doormat does not support your magnificence?
Being made small in one's own home is not an option.
Do not wipe out your intuition under the guise that you are judging. Loving unconditionally is for yourself, to see yourself as whole and capable of judgments that serve you and others.
We notice what is right and what is wrong. We notice when justice is done, not injustice. We see when we are being stalked under the guise of love. There are many ways in which judgments are valuable.
Remember the children's story The Emperor has no Clothes." It took a child's discernment to say, "You guys are nuts; that Emperor is butt naked."
However, if you judge a person to be a certain way because they are different from you, black or white, male or female, child or adult, and you have categorized them before you know them, maybe you should think again. That is prejudice—to pre-judge without the facts.
Isn't a judge someone who decides to impartially resolve a dispute?
The impartial aspect—that's the rub.
And all too often, when people judge, they are looking at faults which will make themselves feel superior.
"To find the medium takes some share of wit, And therefore 'tis a mark fools never hit.” —William Cowper.
Once, I crawled the length of a football field, then back again, and my instructor was ready to ask for a return trip when someone intervened. I was supposed to have some sort of "Breakthrough," but to this day, I still don't know from what to what.
I think they wanted me to believe something I couldn’t accept. And they couldn’t punish me into it.
I used to think self-growth had to be hard. And I admit that changing is. However, that unwritten law that we are broken and need to be fixed needs to go.
Growth is our desire, our natural right, and our heritage. When something stops growing, it becomes stagnant and dies.
Let's not do that.
31. Wordlessness
Fail fast, fail often, and get those failures out of the way so that idea that sets your pants on fire will come to life.
Well, you know I don't want you to be burned.
l want you sparkling.
You know about brainstorming. It can be with others or by yourself. It's an opportunity to throw ideas out without judgment, ridicule, or naysayers saying they can't work.
If naysayers are nearby, don't tell them what you're doing. Just do it. But be sure to write down your ideas before they evaporate.
You can fine-tune later—remember, you can't edit a blank page.
Wishes and daydreams can become a reality if we keep them constantly before us. Tap, tap, tap, like water dripping can wear through rock.
While I mention writing down ideas, I know that people tend to gloss over that suggestion, yet that's where the music begins.
Scientists keep lab notes, artists keep sketchbooks, and cooks write their recipes. Those morning pages will help explain where you've been and how you are progressing. Although you never need to reread them. It was your brain dump in the moment.
And…those morning pages are for your eyes only.
I hear they are not teaching cursive in schools anymore. I know how handy a keyboard is, but after reading that cursive increases neural activity in specific brain sections similar to meditation, I wonder if I should do more composing longhand. It took me a long while to compose on the keyboard. NOW I hear that writing longhand will improve one's creativity.
A study performed at Indiana University showed that the mere action of writing by hand unleashes creativity that is not easily accessed in any other way. Studies have found that students who take notes longhand remember more of the material than those who type directly into the computer.
In Finding Your North Star, Martha Beck writes about being on safari in Africa with a silent, unfriendly guide named Richard.
Suddenly, Richard spoke to the driver.
"Hold on, folks," exclaimed the driver. The vehicle veered off the road, over potholes, and through thorn bushes until it stopped before two baby leopards hidden by their mother. Questions, "How old are they?" "Will they be all right?" Cameras clicked.
Yet, nobody asked Richard how he knew leopard babies were hidden in the bush three miles off the beaten path.
His knowledge came from something other than books or classrooms. It came from watching, listening, observing, and learning from other people. Beck describes this style of learning as Wordlessness.
Wordlessness is a challenging concept to describe to a Western mind. Westerners are used to book learning and tests, where we give the teacher what she wants and focus on the grade instead of grasping the material.
Many Moons ago, I read a book called Of Water and Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Some'. Some', a native African, was taken from his home as a child and raised for 15 years in a Jesuit school. As an adult, he told the elders he wanted to be initiated back into the tribe. They responded, "I don't know if you can, you've learned to read."
At the time, that struck me as not only odd but disappointing. I love to read, and our society is based on it. How do we disseminate information? Old papyrus scrolls help us to understand where we've been, and their "secrets" were so important to ancient peoples that they buried them so well that not before hundreds of years had passed would we find them.
The point Some's elder was making, however, was that reading had changed his brain. Wordlessness was no longer a part of him.
He did his initiation anyway.
See—we can do it.
Many of us think we should meditate, yet we resist doing it. Meditation usually requires sitting still and going into a non-thinking mode. (It's hard. That's the reason we don't do it.) But what if we didn't have to sit still? What if Wordlessness is a mode we can carry with us?
Wordlessness exists in the "Zone" of creativity or athletic endeavors where one pushes oneself to higher standards. Either success comes or the knowledge that "I have gone the distance. I have fought a good fight. I am complete." Or success in layman's terms
Wordlessness is when we are at one with what we are doing.
Many cultures use paradoxes to nudge their students out of their thinking mode. One is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" That is a Jewish koan that seems nonsensical. However, it is an attempt to halt the monkey mind, which tends to loop and cycle and say absurd things.
Wordlessness is an oasis for a mind caught in its web of negative thoughts. What if, in the Wordlessness place, we find that we can mend both our spirit and our bodies? What if, in Wordlessness, we find that as we heal ourselves, we heal the world?
32. What in the Heck is a Channel?
It's a ravine, a ditch, or a device through which water flows, right?
Or a person who represents another and appears to speak for them.
One night, a group from The World Healing Center gathered at someone's house. There we were, sprawled about on the floor, heads on people's laps, some sitting lotus-style, all of us watching the recording of a channel called Ramtha.
When I saw J.Z. Knight channeling a warrior from 35,000 years ago, I thought that was the best show going. I had to investigate.
After my world healing Center experience I had declared that I wanted my next teacher to be a master, and for awhile I thought Ramtha was—at least I was giving him a try.
I attended many retreats, and eventually, Ramtha formed his attendees into a school. I always had doubts about it. Was he/she for real? Or was she an exceptionally verbal person who could spout spiritual concepts and tell us she cared about our immortal soul?
Being told that if I quit the school, I would be standing alongside the road with dust on my eyelashes while watching the other students march ahead didn't bode well with me.
I quit the school.
Even though I declared myself my own master after the Sai Baba experience, it took me a long while to integrate that belief.
A significant part of the Ramtha experience was when a group of women started a weekly meeting where we shared our feelings and what it was like to have a spiritual life. We read and spoke of science. We liked each other.
As a result, two women and I decided to leave the school and give ourselves a graduation gift. After reading about an Indian woman called Mother Meera who lived in Germany, we decided to visit her. (Frequent flyer miles to the rescue.)
So, we three trapped off to Germany and, in the evenings for two days, we sat in darshan with the silent guru called Mother Meera. She was a beautiful young woman dressed in a brilliant orange sari who never said a word that we heard.
How does one tell if the "master" is fully realized?
Beats me.
And really, there should be no separation between the master and the servant. For you never know who the master is. You could walk down the street and pass one without knowing it.
It was fascinating that she had a metal gate with a peacock embossed in it.
There must have been 100 people in the room, on chairs or cushions. One by one, we went up to her, kneeled at her feet while she touched our heads, and supposedly removed tangles from our brains. Her presence and the room's ambiance were so silent it felt like swimming in warm Jello. No one wiggled, coughed, or cleared their throat. I left the house in a warm bubble and thought I would never talk again.
That was the experience. And I'm talking.
After visiting Mother Meera, I was appointed the designated driver as we three toured Germany. The Autobahn taught me to use the rearview mirror as much as watching the road ahead. Those Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche drivers will bump your rear end if you don't drive fast enough or are not over in the righthand lane.
I had a problem while in the righthand lane, though. I would suddenly find that we were off the Autobahn and would have to circle around to get back on. I never figured that one out. I learned that "ausfahrt" means exit and a sign with a straight line means to stop or don't go in there.
I drove through a street that was so narrow that we could almost pick the flowers displayed outside a shop from the car window.
We had one evening meal at a restaurant recommended by our B&B host. The restaurant was above a horse arena. We had our dinner, exquisite white wine, and stunning fresh salad greens. (I don’t know how they do it, but Germany had the best salad greens.) Our entertainment was watching a girl ride her horse in the arena below. The host must have seen me coming.
After walking the path built into the wall surrounding the medieval city of Rottenburg, we entered a restaurant where Sue suddenly said, "Hi Steve."
Steve Reeves was sitting at one of the tables, reworking one of his travel books. We were using one of his books to find Zimmer Frees—B&B homes that would rent for the night.
The owners of various homes would place a sign in their windows, "Zimmer Free," which meant a room was available. So, you could simply drive into a town and look for the windows. Everything turned out great—down comforters and breakfast, usually similar to the others: a boiled egg in an egg cup, cold cuts of meat, bread or muffins, coffee, or tea.
One house, however, looked as though it was taken from the set of The Addams Family TV show. Upon knocking on the door, it opened to a c-r-e-a-k. We looked at each other, beat feet out of there, dove into the car, and broke into a laughing fit.
We skipped that house.
We drove into Salzburg, Austria, to visit the location for The Sound of Music. We saw the famous Gazebo, where two romantic scenes from the movie were filmed. The first scene was of the romantic dance of young Liesi and Rolfe. The second was where Captain von Trapp gave Maria that long-awaited kiss.
When I looked up the Gazebo on the Internet, I found that filming those two scenes could have gone smoother than they appeared on film. In the dance scene, Liesi leaped upon a bench, slipped, and crashed through one of the glass windows. She wasn't severely injured except for a sprained ankle. She finished the dance on medication, a wrapped ankle, with added stockings to cover the bandage.
When Captain von Trapp was about to bestow the long awaited kiss on Maria, the lighting in the Gazebo farted.
Thus began a laughing jag from which they never recovered. Julie Andrews said that every time she and Cristopher Plummer were about an inch from each other's faces, the lighting would give a raspberry, they would begin laughing, and fail to complete the scene.
The kiss was added later in silhouette.
It's a good thing they don't make pretzels in my home town like the ones in Germany, I had one whenever I had the opportunity.
Those pretzels were about a foot in diameter. That shiny, coarse, salted dough had been twisted so that the top was thin, and the bottom was thick at the twist, bread-like. That way you had crispy and soft. Just writing about them makes my mouth water.
To our surprise, we three agreed that the pizza in Germany was the best we had ever tasted. And eating leftover cold pizza for breakfast on a hillside in Germany is an experience I wish for everybody.
When my two friends and I were preparing to leave Germany, Theda, one of the friends, and I took the rental car to the Frankfort garage under the terminal while Sue guarded our luggage. A man in a white jacket said he was accepting car returns, and I dropped the key into his open palm. But as I began to walk away, I had a foreboding feeling. It didn't seem right. The man was sweating and seemed to be, as my mother would say, "Three sheets to the wind."
Meaning a little inebriated.
He was trying to steal our car!
I turned around and said to him, "I left something in the car, can I have the key to go get it?" The moment I had that key in my hot little fist, Theda and I began to run as though being chased by a wolf. We stopped at the car rental kiosk, and breathlessly rattled out what had happened. She confirmed that, indeed, he was trying to steal the car.
Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you. I'm grateful to this day. What would have happened if he had stolen the car? Would I have to pay for it?
33. Bizarre Thoughts
Robert Fulgum has made bizarre thoughts a party game. "Have you ever had any weird thoughts?" he asks a person beside him. The inquired person snaps to full attention.
He repeats the question and tells them that he will reveal one of his if they tell him one of theirs. The bizarre answers he receives make his hearing a doorbell in the middle of the night and expecting it to be the Village People sound tame. A psychiatrist once told him that most of us are crazy. Sanity only means we keep craziness under control.
Martha Beck says a voice tells her to jump when she's on a high place. A psychologist told her to tell the person she's with when that happens. One day, she was walking along the edge of a cliff with her guru. She told him she had that thought.
His reply: "Everybody does."
Comedians make a living off bizarre thoughts. We wouldn't laugh at their jokes if they didn't connect with some looniness in ourselves. Phyllis Diller said she made a living saying what other people only thought.
I'm not so upset with the idea of bizarre thoughts, but I know it is deeply troublesome for a child, as well as many adults. I can't explain it. People who meditate know that the mind throws images at you when you sit and try to quiet the mind. It is fighting for control.
What upsets me are authentic images I accidentally see. I saw the movie called Seven, and that horrible movie stuck with me for years.
Once, I was leafing through a beautiful magazine on Animals at an airport bookstore---dum de dum, then Whap! I saw a picture of someone harming an animal that so impacted me. I sat right down on the floor of that bookshop.
For years afterward, that image would flash before my eyes as though projected, especially at night as I was dropping off to sleep. Isn't that what PTSD people experience? I would try to push that image from my mind but it was determined. I think that's where people got the idea of a devil.
Finally, I mentally killed that evil man so many times that I can now talk about it, and I gave the little animal a happy life without him, plus many hugs and kisses. Now I can talk about it. Strange how reading Fulgrum's passage brought that up in me.
34. On the Road
When Daughter Dear was on maternity leave and her son was two months old, we set out for an eight-state road trip.
We rented a van and loaded Bear, DD's Newfoundland dog, into the back and Peaches, my little poodle, in the front. The baby had the seat behind us, and thus we took off—limited only by the needs of a two-month-old. It was the best vacation of my life—to do what we wanted, when we wanted, and stop when we felt like it.
I had heart palpitations after going up and down a Colorado mountain too fast, coupled with an area in New Mexico that held both a mental institution and a Prison. Both DD and I felt odd, and my chest hurt all night. Don't ask me to explain it; it seemed like something was in the air, a negative vibe. And people said that that area wasn’t good. Both DD and I felt similar negativity in some areas of Hawaii, one of the reasons we wanted to leave. No heart palpitations there, though. I don't tend to get too woo-woo, but when woo-woo strikes, I pay attention.
Clearly, I have an altitude problem. That trip up and down the mountain showed me. Altitude, not attitude. Well, that, too.
A young woman Neil knew from Nikon Inc. told me that if I had walked that mountain instead of driving it, I wouldn't have had a problem.
That woman, a slight person who looked like a runner, climbed Mt Everest to the base Camp. Yes, she did. I was astounded. She said, "You climb high and sleep low." You climb higher than where you plan to sleep and then return to your chosen campsite. That will help acclimate you to the altitude.
While driving in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I declared, "I want to find one of those pottery shops…" DD said, "Like that?"
Right beside us was the best pottery shop I had ever seen. It had rows of pottery, beautiful glazes and designs, dishes, pots, wall hangings, and those chocolate tiles Nina bought, carried with her to Hawaii, and left as the countertop of a bar in her Hawaiian Tiki Room.
Coming home from that trip, we found ourselves 100 miles from Disneyland, DD's favorite place on the planet. Being that close, we had to go. We found a hotel with a shaded parking lot. As I said we had a van with lots of space, so we left the windows slightly ajar for the dogs, walked a couple of blocks to Disneyland, and partied hardy. At night the dogs came into the room with us.
After that Colorado Mountain High, I breathed a sigh of relief upon entering Disneyland, where I noticed a sign at the train station stating the elevation. I thought it said one foot. But when I checked the Internet to verify that, the elevation on the train station read 138 feet. Either way, I was comfortable. Little Boy Darling's first visit to Disneyland was fun, and he liked the submarine ride where he watched fishes swimming past the port hole window.
We skipped all scary rides.
Once, for the heck of it, way before our grandson was a glint in anyone's eye, and after reading that the Cavalia Horse Show featuring exquisite white horses, a Cirque du Soleil sort of event, was being performed in Dallas, Texas, DD, and I flew there. A pond appeared in the sand on the floor of their mammoth white tent. After their horses had raced through it, splattering water and clearly getting wet, the water disappeared beneath the sand.
Witnessing the love expressed between the horses and the trainer was worth the ticket price, and the girl who came racing into the arena at breakneck speed riding two horses, Roman style, almost had me on the floor.
After we had accrued numerous Frequent-flyer miles and often asked to be bumped from a flight on purpose so we could earn more, DD and I used them to go as far as we could. That was to Niagara Falls, where a humongous amount of water separates the US and Canada.
We took the Maid of the Mist boat into the tumultuous mist on the American side. At that time, we didn't need a passport to cross the border, so we drove to Canada across the river to see the Niagara River fall from a different country. On the Canadian side, we ate the best chocolate-covered pretzels at the Hersey factory and, by chance, saw that Madonna was performing that night at the Ontario Sports Arena.
We had to attend that concert.
Our tickets were in the nosebleed section behind a column. From our perspective, we could see Madonna rise from beneath the stage. On giant TVs, we watched that woman sing while doing a handstand, and nary a muscle quivered from the strain of it.
Our seat companion, a young, enthusiastic fellow, had flown from Texas especially to see Madonna's performance, so the three of us were flying high.
We fell in love with Canada—the people and their attitude. They gently suggest wearing seat belts: "Be protected, not projected." They also have "Traffic calming zones" in the city where drivers can pull over to the side of the road and calm down. Some ads alongside the road presented exquisite lawn plantings with the vendor's name spelled out in flowers.
It was strange driving up to the falls; we traveled over the flat country following the Niagara River until, WHAP, an abyss. I had expected to hear a roar before arriving but only heard it when we were practically upon it. A good thing a native, not knowing the falls were there, didn't come along riding his horse at breakneck speed.
But then the horse would have heard it.
35. On Davis Mountain
How often had I mentally walked through our log home before we began excavation? Three thousand six hundred and eighty. (I exaggerate, but not on the critical issues.)
Isn't that what day dreams and visualizations are? First, you have a thought, ask for it, and then take action.
I loved living in the forest, building our log home, and living in the completed house. Our loft served as my office and a guest bedroom. My computer and desk sat in front of a window (of course), where I could look out over the forest below. After I got Duchess, we had a temporary fence below my window. Looking up from my computer, I could watch her.
Neil and I contended with beavers for a time. Those cute, gnawing, flat-tailed creatures caused the road to flood, for they had jammed saplings and debris into the culvert that carried the stream under our road.
When we put in the road and the culvert, we thought the stream would gurgle through and go on its merry way. The beavers thought differently. They would gnaw down a few saplings, jam them in a culvert along with debris to chink the cracks then sleep undisturbed from the sound of rushing water.
Apparently, the sound of rushing water is like a dripping faucet for us.
Their job is to quiet it, so it went. The people removed the plug. The beavers put it back in.
Son-in-law to the rescue!
He built a beaver baffle (his term), a fence a foot or so out from the culvert into the water. That freed us from standing atop the culvert and leaning over while pushing a long swimming pool-hooked pole into the culvert and pulling out the saplings and debris. I said it was like doing a hysterectomy through the birth canal. Eventually, the beavers disappeared. However, I believe the neighbors had a hand with that.
We had sold our house in town, bought a fifth wheel, and lived on-site for two years. I casually mentioned at the Battery Exchange that I needed someone to move a fifth wheel, and a man there volunteered.
There is was the grapevine effect again, and state-side.
During our time in the fifth wheel, I oversaw almost every aspect of the construction.
Neil had emergency surgery while living on the fifth wheel, lost a cancerous kidney, recovered, and 20 years later, he was still going strong.
During those construction years, I would drive into town in the morning and pick up a kid, a helper. He told me his dreams as I drove us to the house. He spoke Spanish, and I didn't. (Two years of college Spanish left me, unless you want me to count to ten or ask for your name.) However, we muddled through. He was strong and could carry couches and solid oak furniture, and we rented a tuxedo for him when he agreed to serve at Lisa’s wedding.
I praise every person who worked on that house. I was the director, and every artist there contributed to the whole. They created a home better than I had imagined. I drew the floor plans, and the log builder set a perfect hipped roof on it and made the blueprints. A structural engineer ensured the house was adequately supported with rebar. A log home settles, so it must be built to accommodate that. The owner can tighten huge nuts on blots and thus tighten down the house every few years. It had a full daylight basement, where the necessary tightening could be accomplished at the ceiling space. Our logs were well-dried before construction, so there was slight shrinkage.
There was room in that basement for a two-car garage, storage for hay, a bathroom, and another bedroom, which later DD turned into an apartment for herself and her baby.
I called it "The House that Dave Built," for we had four independent contractors named Dave. The finish carpenter, Dave, was an artist par excellence. If you are building with logs, hire a mountain climber, for they know how to use ropes and pulleys. Dave installed a twelve-foot header log over a strip of sunroom windows without help. He built a stained-glass window for the loft bathroom, cut logs (a mistake on a log cannot be spackled back together), and built cabinets. Many people have complained that building a house is wrought with pain and stress, yet I enjoyed the process. We even served Thanksgiving dinner at the fifth wheel with turkey cooked overnight on an outside grill.
Ramtha said once that we do everything for the experience of it. We could argue that point. However, I decided to take on this job because of the experience.
Sweet Marie, our log designer's mammoth crane, remained parked in the driveway, ready when trucks of numbered logs arrived from Eastern Oregon.
The structure had been assembled on a lot, each log numbered, and then disassembled and trucked to our site. The log builder followed them in his camper and lived on the property for a few days while his crew assembled the logs. Then, he would be off working on another house until the next round of logs came.
Those men could use a chainsaw with such skill it looked as though they were cutting through butter. Every log fit together so tightly that no strip of paper could be forced between them. The structure needed no chinking, for a V-groove cut in the top log created a saddle that sat astride the bottom one.
I can't imagine how much our log designer (Greg Steckler of Log Rhythms, Inc) saved us by leaving his crane parked at our house. It was there when the logs arrived, and it was there to install four of the skylight windows, which were the largest allowed.
I am incredibly grateful for the many beautiful events in my life, including getting my childhood companions, Silver, my dog, and Boots, my horse, and being hired and trained as a dental assistant.
When DD sold her property in Southern Oregon and moved in with us, after she worked on her apartment, and we added another bathroom, she and I flipped a house and sold it for profit.
DD waited 12 painful months for artificial insemination to work and another 9 months for Baby Boy Darling to arrive. We experienced a housing decline and a drop in business. We decided to move to Hawaii, where the house cost a quarter of what our present one did.
We rented the log house and moved.
36. A Star Fell on Junction City
I found a star in my backyard this morning.
It was purple and made of mylar. Once, I'm sure it once was a fat, puffed-up balloon, but now it was limp and crinkled.
It tickled me that it chose to settle in our yard. Especially after I wrote about stars falling on Illinois that 4th of July many years ago. Don't you wonder where a fallen balloon came from? Were they released by accident or on purpose?
I usually don't like Mylar balloons. They hang around the house like an unwelcome guest you can't get rid of. Compared to the original rubber ones, I consider them a travesty. Rubber ones are fragile globes of living color, beautiful when the sun lights them and disappointing when they pop.
One of our fun experiences at Disneyland involved a rubber balloon. Baby Darling was about two years old, and we were there without his older cousin, who was five and lived in Oregon. DD suggested we write a note to Casey, the cousin, and send it to Oregon on a balloon.
We were so excited that we bought a balloon and a black Magic Marker and wrote notes on the balloon. We enrolled Baby Darling to ceremoniously release it and watched as it winged itself, tail, aka ribbon, swinging back and forth as it grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared. Baby Darling thought that was the most significant thing. "Up, up, up," he said.
The older grandson is now seventeen, and we occasionally ask him if his balloon has arrived.
As I have said, Disneyland is DD's favorite spot on the planet. The many visits we had when she was growing up, with friends, with family, with just us, still rings in her soul.
And it's true, as Disney said, that the outside world doesn't exist when you are at Disneyland.
One year, we saw a real mouse scampering along the sidewalk and carried home that image as the fun aspect of the day. They keep cats on the property to control the rodent situation. Strange, I've never seen a cat there—maybe they stay hidden in the daytime.
For some families, going to Disneyland is a once-in-a-lifetime event, unique to the kids, and exhausting to the parents. When time is limited, visitors try to jam in as many experiences as possible—I've been there.
But when we lived in Southern California and could buy season tickets, we found that you didn't have to exhaust yourself but could save yourself to fight another day.
One day, I complained about the crowds. Daughter Dear said, "It's a party." And I got with the program.
What if life is a party?
37. "This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake"*
"This was a real nice clam bake
We're mighty glad we came
The vittles we et
We're good; you bet
The company was the same
Our hearts are warm, our bellies are full
And we are feeling prime
This was a really nice clambake
And we all had a real good time."
*--Public domain: "Published in the United States between 1928 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice." *Rodgers and Hammerstein (Carousel)
What if life is a party, and we're standing around with a bunch of drunk people?
Doesn't it seem that way? Instead, let's go to the beach, where a great body of water rolls in and out and appears to clean our concerns on that outward swing.
The Beach house my folks rented was a simple structure, with exposed 2 x 4's on the inside walls. It had a kitchen and three bedrooms, one for my mom and Mike, one for Neil and me, and one for the kids. It was uncommon for my folks to rent a house, and I don't know the occasion. Still, we were invited, so we drove up from McMinnville to Long Beach, Washington—quite a distance for my folks from the Dalles.
It was during Neil's and my first year of marriage and the first and only time I had ever dug for clams.
You walk along the beach, looking for bubbles percolating through the sand. It must be after the tide rolls out and the clam begins burrowing in the sand again. When you see bubbles percolating at the beach's surface, you frantically dig to get to the clam before it outraces you.
We had so many clams that we fried them, and Mike made a huge pot of clam chowder.
My brothers and sister were little then, and Bill was a baby born seven months after Neil and I were married. Jan and Mikie ran around as kids like to do, while Mike and I stood cleaning clams at the outside counter, with a sink built to clean your dinner after you catch it. It was a perfect plan.
I have often dreamed of a house sitting on the sand, no yard work, just sand up to the door. The sea is ahead; I can see it from my window, but out the back, there are trees, for I love trees. I want them in my life.
At my little dream house, I can write all day and party with friends at night. Nobody cares if the house is perfectly manicured, or the table is set according to lofty standards. You drink wine, eat great food all of us prepared, have great conversation, and laugh a lot.
After hearing the play Carousel rehearsed, with Neil singing in it, and then attending the performance by the Lindfield College thespians and choir, the lyrics to This Was a Real Nine Clambake stand out in my mind.
Neil's and my first official date was a fraternity party at the beach.
Neil and I had been acquainted for years as we went to the same church, but we dated other people during high school and didn't connect until he was in college.
After he had broken up with his girlfriend—and don't tell, but I had not yet officially broken up with my boyfriend, Neil was home from college, and after the church service, he invited me to have lunch with him and his family. (His mother was a fun person, and I already knew her.)
After lunch, we drove up the Columbia River Highway and became acquainted. He then invited me to his fraternity gathering at the beach.
The fraternity boys dug a hole in the sand and buried food wrapped in foil. I remember potatoes, and there must have been fish, but I remember steak. It was a grab bag. I do not remember any clams, but I remember digging foil-wrapped food from the hot sand, so I'm calling it a clambake.
Neil and I walked the beach, and I remember thinking, "I hope Neil is a good kisser."
He passed the test.
38. A Six-Foot Rattlesnake
About 12 or 15 kids walked along a California country road searching for desert wildflowers—with the girls wearing pants. Field trips were the only time we could wear pants to school. Suddenly, everyone stopped.
There, stretched out in all his glory, was the largest rattlesnake I had ever seen. It was about six feet long and six inches at its girth. We all stood agape as the snake slowly crawled off the road.
Nobody suggested killing it.
On yet another University of California Botany field trip, we saw a small herd of cattle. Someone commented on how curious they were, cocking their heads and looking at us. They were alert, engaged with each other, and curious about us. There they were on spring grass, away from confinement and the filth of being crowded in small spaces. Their brains responded to a new event like the Aboriginals approach a new day—at the wonder of it. For some of my classmates, this was a revolutionary experience.
Both trips were to the California desert, where we searched for flowering plants. We carried a Taxonomy textbook with us, for we were keying the names of plants by examining their flowers. I still remember Stenstimen's spectacular, but that's the end of it.
39. Funny
May 21, 2023
The Pink blossoms of the dogwood tree have beaten me. (I'm up to 28,630 words, aiming for 50,000.) There are a few scraggily blossoms on the tree, but the ground beneath has pink all over it. The leaves have taken up residence where the flowers once were. The tree is moving on.
BUT WAIT. I could have an extension. Does it count if I switch trees? Mom's Tree in the front yard is still blooming. I planted a twig that came to my shoulders in tribute to Mom, who loved flowers, and I love dogwoods, so I planted one in the front yard on March 9, Mom's Birthday, in honor of her. Now it is blooming. Okay, Mom, let's go for it.
A few days ago, I pulled Robert Fulgrum's book, What in the World Have I Done, from my cupboard bookshelf and read the best story I have heard all week.
Fulgrum offered two college boys on his street a ride to work one morning. He asked what they were doing besides school and work.
"We're eating a chair."
"What?!"
A chair! They were eating a chair. The college professor had assigned them to do something unusual, something they had never done before, and write about it. "This is going to fry the professor," one of the kids said.
They bought an unfinished chair and ate the back and one of the rungs. They shave off a fine dusting of wood daily and add it to their morning granola. At night, they sprinkle some on their salad. They asked a doctor if it was dangerous, and no, it wasn't in small doses. They may not get it all eaten by the theme due date, so they have asked if others would help them and found a willing bunch.
To further carry on the conversation, Fulghum asked what else they were doing. They have been running around the lake each morning to keep in shape. However, they tired of running in circles and decided to see how far they would run in a straight line. They got a map of Washington (they live in Seattle) and were mapping out a route; when they were almost to Portland, Oregon, they decided it was boring and chose a European map. Now, they are finding interesting things to do along their trail. And they are finding that large tasks done in small doses can get the job done.
Fulgrum stopped worrying about the younger generation.
Inspired by Fulghum's wanderings, speaking with people, and finding funny tales, I decided to find something amusing as I set off for the grocery store last night.
I asked the solemn-faced kid who checked out my groceries if anything funny had happened that day. Nope. Nothing funny.
So, I walked down to the live-wire lady with white hair and a limp, who was nearly always laughing if anything funny happened that day. "Not today," she said, thinking, "but something happened yesterday."
"What?" I asked.
"A lady came into the store with no pants on."
We both laughed. "Really? Was she completely naked, or did she have underwear on?"
"I don't know. We scanned the store but couldn't find her. Does that story suffice?"
"Great. Thanks. You saved my day. Thumbs up, I exited the store.
40. Hi Jack
Jack was our friend.
He might still be our friend, but he left to investigate something beyond those skies he so loved.
Jack was a pilot.
As he walked past the kitchen window of our house in San Diego on the way to the front door, I would call out, "Hi, Jack."
"Never say that to a pilot," he retorted.
Jack had a story, a war story. It should be written into a book, but I only have the short version.
He was a navigator during the Second World War.
The navigator sits behind the pilot; according to Jack, this is the safest place on the plane.
That proved true for Jack, for he was shot down three times and twice the sole survivor.
The third time, he was captured by a German soldier.
There was a racket around the downed plane, shells were going off, shots were fired, and the German soldier was leading Jack away from the turmoil. Jack felt he was going to be shot.
As they walked through the forest, Jack tripped, and as he did, he pulled the gun from his boot, slid it up his body, laid it on his shoulder, and fired. He didn't know if his bullet connected with the man behind him, but he ran and thus escaped.
He hid during the day and traveled at night. While lying under a bush, he watched an aerial dogfight—planes in aerial combat. Charles Shultz's Snoopy imagines himself to be a fighter pilot yelling, "Curse you, Red Baron."
Jack developed pneumonia during his sojourn and ended up at a French woman's farm. (I know this sounds like a movie. However, she was not a young, gorgeous French lady, but an older French woman with a heart of gold.) She was alone and living off her land, which didn’t provide much. About the only thing that grew well was potatoes. He said she wore a dress that was woven together out of cellophane. She hid Jack from the Germans and shared her meager fare with him.
One day, the US Military front advanced to her door.
Jack came out of hiding, gave his credentials, and told the group of GIs how this woman had saved him.
The following morning, a glorious event occurred outside the lady's house. The GIs returned with their jeep laden with goods for the lady, food and clothing, and a trip for Jack back to his troop
41. Why is the Sky Blue?
That question was my test for a potential husband. However, there were other prerequisites.
The man I married could answer my question, but he's a physicist. A young man I dated after high school could not. No disrespect, I couldn't either. This non-knowing about blue skies, boyfriend, a sweet kid, a farm boy, was fun to be with—we went to movies and bowling, and he fit in well with my folks.
One day, while the boy was visiting, I started my period but found that we had no Kotex. I told Mom, and she told Mike, who volunteered to go to the store for me. Mike invited my boyfriend to go along with him. I was embarrassed to have two men buy Kotex for me, but that's life, right?
This boy left for a while and got a job in California. Soon after, I got a call from the florist down the street from the dental office where I worked. I walked in to pick up my gift and found it to be a carload of flowers—so many that I was embarrassed again. It was too bad for the florist and me; we should have celebrated that marvelous event.
Shortly after that, the boy came back into my life from California. This time, he was driving a brand-new Buick, cream-colored and beautiful, half a block long. He sat me in the car, pulled out a ring, and asked me to marry him.
I was dumbfounded and squeaked out, "I don't know you well enough to marry you."
To my shock, he cried, and I didn't see him after that.
I watched Oprah interview Jean Houston, where Huston asked Oprah what she wanted. Oprah isn't afraid to put it out there; she wants to make a difference in the world and has. She is fearless in interviewing spiritual teachers, talking about souls, and interviewing prominent people in those fields.
In her effort to ask the hard questions, she doesn't let timidity thwart her forward movement. She gave up her Talk show and is now serving the greater good. She isn't afraid to say she follows her inner guidance and attributes it to Jesus.
I want a piece of that sort of action.
42. Did the Big Bang Bang?
I am a seeker, and since you are reading this book, you might be one as well. Although you probably didn't know what you were getting into when you picked up this book—but then, I didn't know either when I began writing it.
I've spent hours writing, and if you have read this far, you have spent hours reading it. Thank you for spending your time with me.
So, I ask, dear one, do you believe in God? Do walk-ins exist? Are near-death experiences real? Do you think the Bible says it all, and that's it? Like the Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it? Are we everlasting souls? Do we reincarnate? Did all souls come into existence with the Big Bang? Was there a Big Bang?
Did the Big Bang bang when no one was there to hear it?
Did we always exist? Are there other planets like ours? Is life a common occurrence in the Universe, or is it rare? Are we unique or common? What do other human-like people look like? Have you ever thought we won the genetic lottery by being born, one egg, one sperm, and viola, us?
Many of those questions are on par with "Prove there is a God." They are theoretical. But we are getting closer to the answers.
43. What on Earth Have I Done?
For Robert Fulghum, it began the morning he heard a mother yelling at her son from beyond the solid fence that separated him from the schoolyard. "What on earth have you done?!" came a woman's voice, followed by a "Naannggnnhhh!"
Of course, a plethora of images flashed through Fulghum's mind. What had the kid done? Did he carve his initials in the back seat of his mother's car? Did he throw up all over the back seat?
And then he began thinking of the questions his mother used to ask.
"What on earth have you done?"
"What in the name of God are you doing?"
"What will you think of next?"
Fulghrum extrapolated. These are the Universal questions, the same questions we ask ourselves. "What have I done? What in the name of God am I doing? What will I think of next?
I once read a story about a wolf mother being pounced on by her pups. They chewed her tail and ears and wrestled—a mass of puppies all over her body. Finally, she stood up and let out a great howl.
The cavalry came bounding over the hill in the form of a bachelor male, like an uncle, who took on the kids, wrestled them, and chased them until they dropped in exhaustion and all napped.
I think mothers have let their sons down, or we wouldn't have domestic abuse and men throwing women around. To be fair, women have been suppressed, downtrodden, beaten up, and killed for expressing their natural intuition. It's been a long, steady climb to pull ourselves up from the ribbons of our satin slippers. And in many cultures the mothers had to turn over their son’s to be taught by men.
Monty Roberts, The Horse Whisperer, tells of watching a wild mare deal with an errant foal. She was obviously older, with a big belly indicating many foals. And she was the Matriarch of the herd. (Stallions aren't the day-to-day bosses; they are the protectors, the sentinels, and the studs.)
Roberts watched as this kid foal went around harassing the younger horses. When he took a bite out of the backside of a young filly, the matriarch mare sidled up to him and kicked him to the ground. When he scrambled up, she kicked him down again. Finally, she let him up but pushed him out of the herd. Horses have body language that tells another horse to stay away and another body language to say it's okay. She pushed him out every time that little bully tried to return to the herd.
Being ostracized is for a horse the worst punishment. A wild horse alone is lion fodder. Finally, the Matriarch tested him by letting him back into the herd; when he behaved, she gave him plenty of rewards, scratching with her teeth, his back and neck, and withers. This was heaven. That foal became so sweet he began wandering around, asking, "Do you need any grooming?"
You may remember Robert Fulghum's poem, which gave him prominence in the United States. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988), the book named after the poem, is a collection of essays that stayed on The New York Times bestseller lists for nearly two years.
44. Death by Morphine
Mariam was a Holocaust survivor.
When she was ten, she and her sister were two of many German Jewish children who were saved. They were placed on a train and shipped off to Britain, where they never saw their parents again.
Dear DD was the caregiver for this lovely lady for a time. Mariam was a mathematician who knew about numbers but didn't know how much money she had and didn't care. It just came to her. She apparently had enough, as she was in a retirement home and had BOUGHT her apartment. On top of that, they charged her $5,000 to stay there and be given care. And she had private caregivers.
DD was her caregiver on the night shift. In the evenings, they would go to the roof and watch the sunset, where Mariam would tell stupid jokes, and they would both laugh.
When Mariam was 16, the school hired her as their Mathematics teacher. From there, she moved to another teaching position and never wondered from where her next job would come. She had mathematical proof in her name that she and DD found reference to on the Internet.
She had a fascinating experience with non-repeating patterns. A company wanted a design on their toilet paper, and they decided that Marriam's technique with non-repeating patterns could prevent the pages from sticking together.
The toilet paper eventually went out of business, but Mariam kept a few rolls. Friends would want some for a keepsake, and she would give them a piece. Sadly, she said she left the toilet paper rolls behind when she moved from Britain.
Mariam had Multiple sclerosis, a condition she had for years with little effect on her except she was unsteady on her feet, thus the caregivers in case she fell. It was not a terminal disease.
However, hospice killed her.
We view hospice helpers as angels. But not all are. A nurse in charge thought she was in pain and decided she needed morphine; thus, she suggested Hospice care.
Mariam had stated she would rather have pain than be drugged. A doctor on the premises declared her terminal. Her medical advocate held out for a time but eventually bowed to their sage advice and gave permission to place her in hospice. The nurse reassured DD, the caregiver, that they would never give Mariam more morphine than she needed. Her only family was two nieces who lived in Britain. They loved her, but they were reassured by Mariam's living facility that she was being tenderly cared for.
However, the following day, after being placed in hospice, her bed was gone, replaced with a hospital bed.
"Where's my bed?" Mariam asked.
Mariam didn't know what hospice was. DD tried to explain. "I'm not ready to die," she said, "I don't want hospice."
DD complained to the staff that Marriam was being over-medicated.
Within days, mouth swabs they use on a dying patient because they can't swallow appeared on her bureau.
Morphine suppresses breathing and can cause anxiety. Thus, patients are given a "cocktail" that contains not only morphine but an anti-anxiety drug that is so powerful it is used in mental institutions to calm out-of-control patients.
DD was home on her day off when Mariam died. But she got the call and has never taken a permanent client since.
After moving to the United States, Mariam visited Britain. Although the orphanage was gone, a tree she remembered from childhood was still there. She photographed it, and it was a cherished picture on her wall.
It was a dreary picture of a lone tree on the horizon of a mound, not something someone would feel worth keeping, but it was a treasure to Mariam.
We don't know what happened to it.
45. What? Hawaii Again?
Yep. Although the Hawaiian experience is in my book The Frog's Song, it only includes some of the incidents; thus, I keep returning and trying to make sense of it all.
Before moving to Hawaii, both DD and I felt it was something we had to do. When I asked the Great spirit that day in the horse paddock where I would be happy, the first thing I though of was, “Look up Hawaii on the Internet.”
I found our Hawaiian house first thing. (We had already been looking around for places to move.)
I called down to Nina in her apartment. “There’s 10 acres and a cute house for sale in Hawaii for a quarter what we are paying here.”
“Let’s do it,” she said.
And we did.
I chose the Big Island because it was large enough to suit my wandering needs. Once there, though, I heard that the Big Island draws in people who need cleansing.
Uncanny.
And, they say, it spits them out once the cleansing is complete.
Well, that was true.
We were over our heads and needed cleansing. DD said later that we would never have sold the horses. Actually, we didn't seel them, we gave them away. Our first intention was the ship the horses, then decided against it. Still, we ended up with 10 acres.
How we pared down our belongings from a 4,000 + square foot house into a 12 x 24-foot shipping container is still beyond me. And that included 15 12 x 6-foot horse pen panels. When those galvanized panels were stacked together and ratcheted to the wall, they made perfect shelving for file boxes filled with housewares.
With a mattress strapped in front of the shelves, nothing behind it shaked, rattled, or rolled.
DD had bought a cast iron footed bathtub that she planned to put in her Hawaiian bedroom, which had only a half bath. That cast iron weight alone could have put us over the weight limit—although maybe it was the airplane engine. Why would we take an airplane engine to Hawaii? Because we could. And the slight overweight issue was accepted.
We had turned in our Jaguar car for a new 2010 Toyota Prius and shipped it along with our 1998 Toyota T-100 pickup. That pickup was a Godsend, for it carried 19 loads of furnishings and boxes from the Papaya field to our house, followed by hauling leftover junk from the previous owner of the Hawaiian house from the Macadamia Nut shelling shed behind our home to the Transfer station. (A junk run is free in Hawaii, and we took advantage of it).
Hawaii required a 90-day quarantine for the dogs and cats, plus two rabies shots 90 days apart, a microchip, and systemic flea medication. All that was done at home before we moved. If they were required to be guaranteed in a lock-up facility on the Island, as they had in the past, we wouldn't have gone. All the animals knew was they had a trip to the Veterinarian and, of course, an airplane ride.
We were committed.
Eventually, after a few months in Hawaii, I was tired of paying two mortgages. I relented and rented our log home in Oregon. The renter ultimately obtained a Land Sale, where he took over the payments. Finally, years later, he paid off the mortgage and bought the house.
We were playing hot and cold with life—go there, do that, you are getting warmer, hot. It was more like Ray Bradbury's advice, "Jump and build your wings on the way down."
For the writer, the creative, the hell-bent on pursuing their dream person, ,there comes a "Gun and badge moment," as Steven Pressfield writes in his "Wednesday's Writings."
In a film, it is called the "All is lost moment." It is when the protagonist is stripped of their credentials; they must turn in their gun and badge. To further punish them, they are threatened with imprisonment, disbarment, slavery, or told they have no talent and suck at what they do.
Do they stop?
Did Jodie Foster stop in the movie Silence of the Lambs? Did Tom Cruise in Top Gun?
Neither did we when we were hell-bent on moving to Hawaii., and hell-bent on moving back. And neither am I on my road to writing 50,000 words for this memoir.
I sold the horse panels in Hawaii, and DD sold her cast iron footed bathtub. That airplane engine?
We still have it.
46. Fleeing the Island
Since people refer to the string of islands that make up the Hawaiian chain collectively as Hawaii, the Hawaiian people call the largest of the islands, the one officially named Hawaii, “The Big Island.”
It seemed strange when both my daughter and I felt called to the Big Island, and it feels odd now, but that’s how it was.
Once we got there, I found that others had felt the same. I found some answers in a book left by the previous owner, The Secrets & Mysteries of HAWAII, A Call to the Soul by Pila of Hawaii.
Pila was convinced that The Big Island is where an individual must physically connect as a place of “initiation” in preparation for the turbulent years ahead. He had seen others find their direction in life simply by coming to the island.
“On the Big Island,” writes Pila, “you are on special ground…You are at one of the few doorways in your reality where even the Earth itself liquefies, and nothing is as it may seem.”
Pila feels that you must go to the Island at least once.
Some call the island “a bad luck place” or a place of unfortunate happenings. However, that is not respecting Pele’s energy. Her simple piece of lava can mean, “On this rock I build my church,” or it is a foundation for a new beginning. Many healings have occurred on the Island by leaving all behind and stepping into an arena of raw energy.
So, that could explain why DD and I felt “called,” and why we emphatically felt that we must get off.
Yet, on the final day of our Hawaiian stay, we encountered a roadblock.
It was strange that both the coming and the going to Hawaii were wrought with drama. On arrival day, we became locked out of a rented pickup truck, with the baby asleep in his infant seat, Peaches and the two cats were locked inside, and the rental company had no spare key.
On departure day, a tanker turned over, spilling something toxic causing the road to Kona, our exit off the Island, to be closed.
I don’t know why the editor omitted this portion from the book. We argued about it, and I thought it was funny, but she didn’t want it. I am writing it here, although I also wrote it on
https://thefrsogssong.com
. If you go there you will see pictures.
On arrival day, we were rescued by the fire department.
On departure day, Neil climbed into the driver’s seat, and I entered the passenger seat with Peaches on my lap. Daughter Dear shared space in the back seat with her year-old son, a laptop, a diaper bag, and a purse while trying to avoid being set upon by Bear, her 150-pound Newfoundland dog.
Behind her, Bear’s enormous dog carrier with its top nested inside the bottom held our suitcases, plus two cat carriers holding Hope and Zoom Zoom.
We had decided to leave from Kona on the other side of the Island so we could all go home on the same plane. So, we toddled along the highway through deep canyons that carried water out to sea. And from the bridges over those ravines, we looked over 100-foot-high trees with red flowers sitting on their tops like parrots.
Fifty miles from home, a flagger stopped us. “A tanker rolled over,” he said. “It will take half a day to clean up the spill.” He waved us away without suggesting an alternative route.
Our belongings were gone, already on a barge. The car and truck were already shipped. And that tipped-over truck probably aged the driver a few years.
We were in shock.
A roadblock.
And a scream from the backseat: “Get Me off this Damn Island!”
Husband Dear and I stared at each other as angry purple ooze spread through the vehicle. “Take Saddle Road!” Neil and I said in unison. So, we backtracked the 40 miles back toward Hilo, where Saddle Road exited the highway.
Neil drove like a bat out of, you know where, over the one-lane Saddle Road, which curved up and over the mountain, through ravines, over single-lane bridges, and across the Texas-like countryside where some rental companies forbid you to take their vehicles. Unlike other times, it was crowded that morning--luckily, everyone was going in the same direction. We arrived at United Cargo before the nine o’clock deadline.
Whew!
However, as I watched through the windshield as Daughter Dear spoke with the forklift driver and with him shaking his head, my heart sank.
The driver refused to take the modified dog kennel—a stretch limo Neil had modified. It had carried Bear to the Island. Continental Airlines carried it from Eugene, Oregon. Aloha Airlines carried it from Honolulu to Hilo, but United would load it.
Okay, we raced over to Pet Co, where—miracle of miracles—they had the largest airline-approved kennel available. The last time we visited that store, they had none.
Daughter Dear bought the new, expensive, airline-approved kennel. It would be a tight fit for Bear, but he would have to manage.
We raced back to Cargo. We fit the top and bottom of the carrier together, tightened the wingnuts, and asked Bear to try it. And, compliant dog that he was, he climbed in. You couldn’t ask for a better dog.
They told us they would not load him on the noon flight and that we had to go that night at eight o’clock.
We raced to the airport ticketing, where a man changed all our tickets to the 8 p.m. flight. Ah. We go back and rescue Bear from the confinement and the heat.
“Be back at 2 p.m.” they told us.
Two o’clock for an eight o’clock flight?
Okay, we were back at 2 p.m. We deposited Bear at United and went into town for a bite to eat with the other animals in tow. Along the way, we got a phone call.
Our flight was canceled.
They scheduled us to leave the following morning at ten o’clock. I envisioned a hot night in the car, as the hotels on the Island are not pet-friendly. And Bear was confined in a kennel that fit him like a wet suit.
We returned to the airport. DD reminded us that the Cargo hold closes at 3 p.m., which means Bear was locked in—oh, that was why he had to be deposited at two o’clock. We must wait until 6 p.m. as no person would occupy the ticketing booth until then. We encountered other passengers in the open-air waiting area who received the same phone call. “What happened?” asks one. “The plane didn’t leave San Francisco,” says another.
Bottom line: no plane.
Nina and I shake our heads at the irony, how the Island called us, how it got us there, and how we thought it was pushing us off, yet, we were still on.
I would have laughed, except as I sat on the airport bench, I felt like the little anole I accidentally painted onto the porch steps. I didn’t mean to do it; dusk was settling in, and I didn’t see a little lizard in my painting path. Instead, the following morning, I found his flat little body, a lizard relief in the gray-blue porch paint.
I felt like that little lizard—stuck—except I was still alive.
So, we sat in a hot, humid airport, waiting in Island time for a ticket booth to open. Six o’clock, they said. No one occupied the booth until six. Okay. We waited.
DD and her son entertained themselves with travel brochures—a fiery volcano, horseback rides, helicopter rides, zip lines, and orchid farms. Husband Dear, read a book. Peaches stretched out on her stomach on the cool cement. The cats were quiet in their carriers. And Bear? You know where Bear was, in lock-up.
My mind wandered back to the house we left behind. It is vacant and alone, but it isn’t alone. The neighbor’s horses will be right outside. They are using our property for pasture. The neighbors will mow the grass around the house for free pasture. Jeff, the carpenter we hired to bring the Tiki Room up to building permit standards, will live in it, watch out for the house, and keep the property looking lived-in until it sells.
I called our neighbor and told her she could have our modified dog carrier if she drove to the airport and retrieved it.
I thought about my horses and how we wanted those ten acres for them but didn’t ship them. I thought about the sad day I gave Velver and Sierra away and how DD gave away her two horses Sweetums and Dante.
“You can hold me,” I told the Universe. “You can rain on me, mosquitoes can chew on me, you can scare us with stories of long-ago injustices, but you can’t keep me here. You can give Husband heart trouble to make him leave—he was happy here, he would have stayed, but I am not having him die here. None of us are dying here. We want to live, and it will be beyond the horizon that we do it!”
What?
I felt a jiggle as my little grandson crawled beside me on the bench. My telephone/clock whispered to me that it was 6 o’clock.
In-mass, we go to the ticketing counter.
Whatever caused the log jam of this day’s events was about to burst. I could feel it. It was not without fear, however, that we approached the desk.
Karen, a take-command lady, changed our tickets to another plane scheduled to leave that evening at 8:55 p.m.
That night!
After a stop-over in San Francisco, we were scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles around nine in the morning. I was stunned. HAPPY DAY!
Lovely Karen called Cargo to have Bear shuttled to our plane. She checked in all four animals, had them taken aboard, checked our carry-ons—they didn’t charge us for that service—and bumped us up to first class. We were off—just like that. (And we arrived in LA earlier than we would have on our initial schedule.)
In First Class, there was food for the family and a glass of wine for me. I settled down with the prayer, “Get us to the mainland,” and laid my head against the seat’s headrest.
As we taxied down the runway, I could imagine Pele laughing, “I just wanted to make sure you were serious about leaving,” she said.
Wait?
What was that I heard?
It was Peaches, our poodle. I didn’t know the animals were right beneath us. She could hear us, and every passenger on the plane could hear her. And so embarrassed, not claiming we knew who belonged to that dog, we sailed out over the ocean to the tune of, “Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap, yap…
47. Stand Up!
Joseph McClendon III presented one day at a Tony Robbins three-day San Jose, California event. While urging us to believe we rocked, he suggested that when we approach an automatic door where the two doors part like a theater curtain, we stand in the open entrance, blow kisses, and bow.
One day, McClendon walked up to a grocery store's automatic doors with his 2-year-old son holding his finger (You know how little two-year-olds can hold you by the finger?). As they approached the doors, he felt his son pull away.
The little boy stood before the doors, waved his arms like a magician, and stood, arms spread and a big smile on his face.
There was a Starbucks Coffee shop inside the doors, and upon seeing the little boy standing like a composer who had just conducted the Philharmonic orchestra, the people inside applauded.
For years, I resisted attending one of Tony's seminars. However, I was a fan, as was Lisa's boyfriend in San Diego, who, long ago, carefully copied 12 cassette tapes from one of Tony's seminars and gave them to me.
I had read Tony’s book Awaken the Giant Within and thought he had much to offer. Still, I resisted. "When someone gives a workshop on walking on water instead of fire, I will attend," I said. And I had seen a teacher suffer nasty burns from a fire-walk experience. However, it was not one of Tony's. It was a wanna-be’s.
But after watching his documentary, "I am Not Your Guru," on Netflix, "," I bought a ticket to San Jose and jumped aboard.
"Sit slumped over, head down, with a scowl on your face. Now sit up straight with a big stupid grin on your face."
Doesn't that feel better?
There are a million beautiful states of being, but to think you can be happy all the time is ludicrous.
These are some of the things I remember from Tony's event:
We have a two-million-year-old brain (evolutionarily speaking) that is wired to look for saber-toothed tigers. If we find no tigers, our beautiful brain looks for something else to scare us.
It "thinks' it is protecting us.
So, in mastering life, we learn to control our brain instead of letting it control us. The idea is to notice the fearful thought that once protected us but is no longer helpful, let it enter our brain, and roll right on past.
I've attended channelers and consciousness-raising groups that were something akin to EST. Taboo language is fine with me. I love it when someone goes full out. It is like Barbra Streisand singing “Don’t Rain on my Parade.”
Tony says we use softeners in our language. After reading the book Taboo Language, Tony uses Adult Language to jolt, emphasize, and jar people out of their present state. That bothers some people, although he states upfront that adult language will be used. (Hey folks, have you never seen a movie?)
Why do affirmations and presentations such as The Secret that everybody went cuckoo over often do not work?
I know it takes more than positive thinking or wishing—although having a positive attitude is better than the opposite.
The trick is that whatever you put out, affirm for, focus on, or pray for must be done in a peak state. (Perhaps desperation works too, for that is highly emotional.) I've heard that focus and affirmations must be done with emotion; many gurus tell us that, but few pump us up like Robbins.
So, do whatever it takes to put yourself in a peak state before you ask for your heart's desire. Music, walks in nature, whatever floats your boat.
And remember to give thanks. Live in an aura of Gratitude.
"Stand Up!"
"Stand Up!" was Joseph Mc Clendon III's battle cry. To rest his voice the second day, Tony gave the stage to McClendon. I loved that guy.
"Sit down."
Now, stand up!
Swing your hips. It gets the blood racing, and as you know, your lymph system does not have a pump; it relies on your body's movement. Rotating your hips is one of the best ways.
I understand you didn’t pick up this book thinking it was a successful course or How to Become Enlightened. I don’t know how, but I will work toward that end.
Sit down.
Now, Stand Up!
We never knew when Joseph was going to yell that.
Be Rocky. Pump those arms in the air. Do the Hula.
Okay, sit down.
I had listened to or read enough books on success to know that first, you must Believe you can do it. Second, you must have an intense hunger for it. Third, you must take action. Robbins added a fourth aspect, “Change Your Physiology.”
Whoa.
I bet one time you got something you wanted but still felt empty. "Is that all there is?" you ask. It’s like the Christmas letdown. You have heard of movie stars who had fame, fortune, and the esteem of their peers, and yet they killed themselves.
If you achieve a goal that gives you no pleasure, it is a hollow victory.
Let it in.
One night, Mc Clendon came home around midnight after a seminar and was fiddling with his keys trying to get into the house when he heard his answering machine come on. (Remember those?)
It was his sister. Her hysterical voice came over the answering machine, "Momma's in the hospital."
He ran to the phone and called her back, but she had already left. So, he got in the car and drove the 180 miles to the hospital in Los Angeles.
When he got there, his sister was holding her baby and crying.
Mother was in surgery.
When the doctor came in, he was solemn. His mother had cancer. They removed part of a tumor but left the other part in for removing it would kill her. The doctor told Mc Clendon she had "Two months to live."
Mc Clendon thought of something Deepak Chopra had said. "If a doctor tells a patient they have two months to live, they will be dead in two months.”
Mc Clendon told the doctor. "Don't tell her."
"But I have to."
"No, you don't. You can tell my mother she has cancer, but do not tell her she has two months to live."
"I must."
"No, you don't."
Back and forth they went with the sister and baby crying.
Mc Clendon grabbed the doctor's shirt and said, "Don't tell her!"
"I'll call security."
Mc Clendon knew about an LA. Police pat down, and he was a black man in LA. He released his hold.
As he was leaving, Mc Clendon said under his breath, "If you tell her I'm breaking your back."
Security did come, but they only said, "I know this is a difficult time, but do not threaten the doctor."
So. Mc Clendon wondered what to do—get to Momma before the doctor. And remembering what Norman Cousins did to heal himself, he ran out and bought a VCR and a pile of funny movies.
He ran to the room where Momma was still unconscious and discovered she had a roommate. He asked his sister to leave, turned to the other woman, and said, "Things are going to be happening around here; you can either stay or move to another room."
Timidly and rather inquisitive, the lady answered, “I'm staying."
Mc Clendon stayed in the hospital with his mother for two weeks. When the doctor came in, he took up his stance--glaring with arms folded.
The doctor never told her.
Mc Clendon and his mother laughed over the movies her holding her incision, saying, "Oh stop, stop," and laughing.
She lived for another 11 years.
Now go back and scan over this again and stand up when I yell. “Stand up,” and you will feel much better.
"Act as though your prayers have already been answered."—Tony Robbins
48. A Typo
I found a typo in a New York Times Bestseller.
Once in a while, a typo slips into a book, even a bestseller. But why in the world did that typo stand out to me? I can write absolute gobbly gook and miss it. Why do we see a mote in another's eye while missing the one in our own?
When we read our own stuff, we fill in the missing parts. There is nothing like hitting "Publish" to make a misspelled word stand up and scream. I swear I cannot keep my fingers on the correct keys. I didn't think I had fat fingers, but they can slip from one key to another.
My fingers have a mind of their own, like writing word for work, wind for wings, or mind for my.
It's a good thing I am not penalized for typing mistakes as we were in typing class, as we tried to have a high word count yet were required to subtract for errors. We had to have 35 words a minute to pass the class.
Then was then, now is now. I can be thankful the teacher taught me to type. I will fix my mistakes; thank you very much. And I need a new keyboard. It is reluctant to make capital letters, or else my little finger is weak.
"To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight." –ee cummings.
49. June
Two years ago, my eldest daughter filmed our ninety-six-year-old friend June.
My daughter's primary interest was what she ate. She wanted to know how people fared before they had all the processed foods we have today.
However, we found June's attitude far more fascinating.
June grew up in Chicago, which was not a good place to be during the Great Depression. Her biological mother died before June could remember her, and her stepmother died slightly later.
According to June, her father was a traveling salesman and a con man. Her father often couldn't pay the rent, and she frequently came home from school to find their belongings on the sidewalk. They would then move to a new place, and June would move to a new school. That amounted to 13 schools by the time she was in the 8th grade.
After the death of June's two mothers, her father couldn't or wouldn't cope with June and her two brothers.
June said she was always hungry and stole food, mainly fruits and vegetables, displayed outside the store. She would choose a store on a corner where she could run down a side street.
She was the fastest runner on the block and thus elected to do the stealing, while the other kids would wait for a distance away where she would share her bounty.
After her father left, she lived with various family members and eventually ended up in a girls' school. June had gone before a judge and asked, "Your honor, do I have a choice about where I live?"
"You most certainly do," he answered, and thus she chose the girl's school.
She said the food was basic but good at the school, mainly fruits and vegetables, as meat was expensive. Breakfast was oatmeal or porridge. One egg on Sundays was a treat.
Her aunt, still her legal guardian, wouldn't let her join the military when she was fresh out of high school, so she got a crummy job (her words) until she was twenty-one and then joined the Army WACS.
While in the military and egged on by her roommates, June stole a pie from the kitchen but didn't run fast enough and was caught. Her sergeant placed her on potato peeling duty, where June commented that that was the worst job. "Oh, no, it isn't," said her sergeant, moving her to garbage duty. The stench was so putrid that June began throwing up and couldn't stop and thus ended up in the infirmary.
She realized that leaving school was a mistake because she wanted to attend university. The GI Bill was available when she exited the WACS, so she took a test and qualified for college admission. While in the military, she met her husband, and after she left the WACS, both became students.
He was a pilot and a vegetarian, so they stayed with a no-meat diet, for they liked it, and meat was too expensive for two struggling students. When they became more prosperous, they tried a steak but didn't like it. However, when June became anemic, the doctor told her to eat liver "As raw as she could stand."
June was an artist. Her husband ("He was beautiful," she said) was a military pilot and the love of her life. "Your job isn't to clean house," he told her. "It's to paint."
And then came the fateful day when two uniformed officers came to the door. June ran, knowing what they represented. The officers chased her to tell her that her husband had been killed in a plane crash. His buddy pilot in another plane saw him slumped over, so he must have either lost consciousness or died before the crash.
June drank too much for a time and thought she was an alcoholic. So, she stopped for twenty years or so, and in her later life, the doctor told her that a little red wine in the evenings would be good for her, and she drank it with no repercussions. She found she could take it or leave it.
A military doctor told her she was diabetic. She said, "No, I'm not," but for the next 50 years, she monitored her food, checked her blood sugar level, was healthy, and never took medication.
June grew up as a Christian Scientist who did not believe in illness. Once, she had the mumps and didn't know it until someone told her. Still, she carried on as though having the mumps was nothing.
I know she had many love affairs over the years but never re-married. One relationship that meant a great deal to her was a platonic relationship with an elderly gentleman who wanted her as his driver. They traveled a great bit, and she had the opportunity to see the world. Once, this little old gentleman who dressed impeccably told one of June's unsuitable suitors June couldn’t get rid of that he would have him killed, and he knew the person to do it. The man left the city, and she never heard from him again.
June moved from Florida to Oregon with her boxer dog. When he wouldn’t walk across the road at a Motel, she told the owner they had to stay until the temperature dropped.
June traveled to a ranch with me one day, where I wanted to see a particular horse. They had a little Pomeranian dog for sale. June debated buying it, for she thought she was a big dog person. But decided to take the dog.
She named the dog Lucky Lady Lilly, and she and Lucky Lady Lilly remained close buddies for the rest of Lilly's life. June had hoped they would go together, and once June told me she never thought she would live that long.
I told her it was because she appreciated life. She loved people, and people loved her.
Although June had said she would not go into an "Old folk’s home," her niece convinced her, and she entered a luxurious complex where she fell in love with a widower. They had one glorious year together until one morning, the attendants found him dead. He declared they were getting hitched at the beginning of the new year.
.
"I would have loved to be Christian's wife," June said.
.
I'm telling you this because while June had a challenging life, for the thirty-some years I knew her, she was the most positive person I have known. Besides, some people's lives deserve to be told—like Bill, who you will meet in the next chapter.
50. Bill Fisher
“Life, you know, is a constantly chuckling teacher of unexpected lessons.”
—Bill Fisher
"The human brain is genetically disposed toward organization…I knew her, she was a managerial
fragment to another on the flimsiest pretense and in the most freewheeling manner, as if it takes a kind of organic pleasure in creative association without regard for logic or chronological sequence."—Tom Robbins
—Isn't that what I said?
Nope. I do not have Tom Robbins's elocution. I said, she, the brain, writes notes on scraps of paper and throws them into the Grand Canyon.
I had to laugh, though when I read it. Not only does it explain the workings of the mind more weirdly, creatively, and articulately than I do, but it reminds me of Bill Fisher, my old buddy from far away.
Bill loved Tom Robbins’ writing style. And his dream was to write in that vein.
I found an email from Bill this morning as I searched through old emails, for I knew I was missing some and wondered where they were. It was one of Bill Fisher's final letters to me.
For years, Bill and I shared our writings with each other. I loved Bill like a brother and his wife Beverly equally. Bill had a Ph.D. in medieval literature. He was a former Real Estate Agent, and made his living when I knew him writing a weekly newsletter called The Wednesday Wrap and selling it to various Real Estate Agencies where they published it under their brand.
He taught writing in Colorado in the summers and dreamed of being a published Robbinest novelist. (Robbins described ordering Thai dishes as “sounding like a harelip pleading for a package of thumbtacks.” Now, what sort of mind comes up with those things?)
Bill, Beverly, and my family lived in the San Diego area. Shortly after we ended our two consecutive training sessions at The World Healing Center, both families moved to the Pacific Northwest. We moved to Eugene. Bill and Beverly moved to Olympia, Washington. And we kept in touch.
In his letter, he told me that Bank of America wanted him and his colleagues in the newsletter trade to take over the writing of three monthly 4-page newsletters, plus a weekly economic summary. He said the pay was remarkably good, but the work was soul-deadening. "I had to unlearn much of what comes naturally to me now as a writer. They wanted 8th-grade level, simple, uncontroversial, and uninspired. We would go round and round over a piece. They don't believe dashes should be used. Vocabulary should be simple. Humor should be avoided (good old humor usually offends at least one person.). And everything I wrote was reviewed by roughly six VPs, V.P.s and one or two from the legal staff (speaking of an unimaginative, humorless bunch)."
Bill had recently taken a trip with his family to Portugal.
"I knew from the get-go that there was nothing I would love more than to create a book out of the travel experience and intuited that the experience would have much to teach me. Little did I know. The central learning experience was a broken ankle--my right leg broke in two places, actually, when I fell on a hike, we were attempting as a shortcut to a close-by secluded beach. I continued to walk on that leg for ten days in huge pain but nonetheless loved every moment of the trip. I tried to convince myself and everyone else that it was a sprain, not a break. I was wrong."—Bill Fisher
The doctor in the States said he would have operated on Bill's leg immediately, but since he had walked on it, the leg had set, and it was healing, he put a boot on him and sent him on his way.
Wow.
During one of Bill's and my sessions at The World Healing Center, a young man was emoting, sharing how he, a white boy in Africa, loved the comradery of the other boys. They would play and walk down the street with their arms around each other. Here, he felt lost and had no such friends.
From the back of the room came a voice in Swahili. The rest of the group didn't know what it said, but the kid did. He fell apart, and the room exploded into hugs, kisses, and whooping. It was Bill's voice, and the words meant, "Welcome, Brother!"
Bill had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.
51. Jewell
I followed Indiana Jones's example and named myself after my dog. I sometimes use Jewell as a nom de plume.
I say that Jewell was my dog, although she started out as DD's. DD was in high school, and Jewell was a puppy when they found each other.
I wouldn't have parted with that dog for anything except to save my kid's lives.
While we were still living at Rancho Santa Fe, CA, Jewell contracted Parvo, a dangerous disease to dogs, probably because Jewell had the propensity to munch on about anything she could find. Now, they have a vaccination for Parvo, but then, all we could do was wait and have her quarantined for a while. During that time, I wandered into the canyon below our house, praying.
She recovered and put aside her puppy ways of munching and became a beautiful lady, a Malamute-shepherd-husky. A perfect dog.
She and I were a part of the caravan that snaked its way up the long state of California into Oregon when we moved back here after the girls graduated from high school, and wer both accepted into the University or Oregon in Eugene. Lisa accompanied by her boyfriend drove her Rabbit. DD and a friend drove her Porsche, and Neil drove a Rider Rental truck loaded with our belongings. Neil was still working in California part time, so he was traveling a lot. I was the den mother to three students going to the University, and Jewell and I spent our lives together.
When I studied The Course in Miracles, I found a card that said, "Live forever, you holy Son of God." I know it sounds like swearing but say it kindly. I kept saying that to Jewell. However, when she was old and infirm, I tried to take it back and release her, for it was hard for her to let go. I grieved terribly when she died. I don't like to take a life to its end, but Gabe came soon after, and we got the puppy Peaches, who used Gabe as a footstool to get onto the bed with us. That seemed to please him, and I believe it prolonged his life.
Jewell and I were a team. We went hiking into the forest behind our house on Hendricks Hill, where a fern grotto (my name) and an old rose garden produced large rose hips in the fall.
She was the dog of my heart. That isn't an insult to my other dogs; I loved them all, but Jewel planted a diamond in my heart.
Live forever, you Holy Daughter of God!
52. A Well-Written Miserable Story
Have you ever read a well-written story but you felt miserable after?
I won't tell you where I found the one I’m talking about, I read it by accident. The Title lured me in. Well, that shows the value of a good title, doesn’t it?
If I tell you what it was, you will read it. She will get ten thousand hits, and publishers will think that's what people want and publish more depressing stuff. And I will be home sucking my thumb, and you will be depressed because you read about another miserable life.
While I found that miserable story, I also found this:
It was a three-line blog by Seth Godin:
Here is Seth Godin, a premiere blogger who writes short blogs daily when the blogging gurus say you ought to write long blogs, like 2,000 words, because Google likes long blogs. But who has the time to read them?
And then, a brave soul comes along and writes whatever is in the hell he wants.
Godin's title is "Captives of memetic desire."
I didn't know what he was talking about.
"How much of what we want, really want, is due to the ideas that culture has given us, and how much do we need.
"If a memetic desire isn't making us happy, perhaps we can find some new ideas."—Seth Godin.
Yeah? What’s a memetic?
I looked it up.
“Memetics are ideas that become a kind of virus, sometimes propagating despite truth and logic."
A memetic belief isn't necessarily true, as rules that survive aren't necessarily fair, nor are rituals that survive necessarily necessary.
These beliefs are good at surviving.
Isn't that odd?
Some liken a memetic belief to a virus, while others say they are more like genes, replicating themselves. Robert Aunger says, "A memetic is more like a benign parasite incapable of or reproducing without a host, and the host is the human brain."
The word was new to me, while the concept was not.
It was one of those facts we know to exist. It lurks in the back of your mind, irritating us without our knowing why. You know something is wrong. Our internal knowingness recognizes it as hogwash, but our conscious mind is muddled.
We know that rules grow and reproduce until we have dogmas, governmental ones, religious ones, and metaphysical ones. Ideas get passed around, repeated, and disseminated until people speak the same jargon and spout the same opinions. That belief has taken on a life of its own.
It takes a Badass not to do it.
53. Sunday, May 28, 2023
The dogwood flowers are holding fast on Mom's tree in the front yard. Maybe she is helping me. However, the flowers are losing their pinkness.
But they are waiting for me to hit 50,000 words.
Tomorrow will be Memorial Day. I know it’s coming, for the peonies are in bloom.
We have three pink peony plants beside the Wayback where I have my office. Mom had an entire side yard filled with red and white peony plants in The Dalles. People would stop by on their way to the cemetery to buy flowers.
I watched and/listened to Oprah Winfrey's commencement speech at Tennessee State University, her alma mater. What a woman. She can put it out there like no one else; I was motivated, inspired, and deeply moved.
When she said she had never felt out of place, not enough, or an impostor, I saw how this woman had achieved heights few women ever have, and she is out there to inspire. “Start by being good to one single person every day. You can be a lifesaver to the one who receives it. Be someone's hope.
54. I Named Him Gabriel
Monday, May 29, Memorial Day, 44,898 words.
I figured a Rottweiler would be a Guardian Angel, for he came out of the blue.
We lived in Eugene on Hendrick's Hill at the time. If someone dropped him off, they missed a good dog. But then, they had to leave him, for he became my dog.
He was a mix but largely a Rottweiler, not a breed I would have chosen.
He chose us.
He was maybe six months old, at that gangly stage on the way to being a grown-up big boy, when he arrived at our door.
At first, I tried to find a home for him. I put up signs and called a friend who wanted a dog but not a Rottweiler.
In three days, I took down the signs and took him to a Vet for his skin condition. It didn't show, except I itched when I put my arms around him. The Vet said it was from stress, poor kid. He prescribed a medicated shampoo, and that fixed his problem.
I invited him into our backyard, where he slept in the doghouse—at first—do you think I would leave a dog in a doghouse? And why did we have a doghouse? Because it came with the property. The next step was inside the house with us.
It was around the time we had begun construction on our log home about 20 miles away.
Gabe and I would travel to our forested land together and meet with the contractors.
He was a gentle dog—he could pull the leash pretty hard, though, but rarely barked and was never aggressive. The neighbors liked him being in our backyard because he kept the deer from eating their rosebushes. We had him neutered, although it hurt me to do it. The Veterinary assistant said," It takes balls to neuter your dog."
One day in the little town of Marcola, we saw a dead dog lying beside the road. He looked at me in abject bewilderment.
"It's sad, isn't it?"
Two species in communication. He seemed to understand my sympathy.
Together, Gabe and I drove—well, I drove; he stood and pushed the vehicle. He never got in the front seat; he just stood behind the console with anticipation dripping like Sylvia's St Bernard dog's drool (Gabe didn't drool but left black hairs embedded in the car's headliner). We had driven from Oregon to San Jose, California, to visit DD and care for her critters when her work called her away on a trip.
It was a long drive, I had a cold, and Gabe was sick of traveling. I was coughing, Gabe was barking, and I couldn’t find diddly squat in San Jose. I invariably get lost. Something about that area—the flat land, a bay where you don't know if you are going east or west, and with the cars on the freeway traveling 75 miles an hour, it doesn't give much time to look around.
I found her apartment and recovered well after resting at her house. However, taking her dog, Cherish, and Gabe for a walk was a testament to my courage. With a Rottweiler and a Great Dane, I felt I had a team of horses. I was glad they were both going in the same direction.
Gabe did get in trouble once, or rather, we did. One day, a man came to our front door to complain that our dog had chased him on his motorcycle, and he had to outrun him. He feared for his little daughter.
I was dumbfounded. I didn't know that had happened. I had been gone, and Neil had let Gabe out the front door instead of the back, where the yard was fenced. Well, you know dogs and moving objects and a motorcycle? Gabe must have thought he had a cougar by the tail. I told the man I trusted Gabe with my life.
I was afraid he might have us arrested or take Gabe away. I reassured him that I would keep Gabe on a leash.
Well, this man, I praise him. He told me later that he was a Navy Seal. Not only do I honor his profession, but did you know they must run 4 miles in 31 minutes and be deprived of sleep for 5 days during Hell Week? That’s not human. And I praise his reaction to Gabe. When he came up the road—his road Y’ed at the corner of ours—and it dipped down a hill, so you didn’t see the vehicle until it was at the junction.
When Gabe and I were out, the man would stop and call Gabe. One day, he kneeled on the road and let Gabe run to him. All ended well.
One evening, as the sun was setting, Gabe and I were walking through a parking lot where most of the cars had left for the day.
Two men walked past us. I heard one tell the other, "Not with that dog. I wouldn't."
What did I hear? Did those men wish me harm? Was I at risk?
We continued on as though nothing had happened, and I patted Gabe. "Gabriel, you are my Guardian Angel, aren't you?"
55. What We Need is a Wise Grandmother
Imagine having a wise old grandma whose lap we can lay our heads and weep out our woes. She would stroke our hair and say, "Now honey, this too will pass.
"So, your kids are grown; that doesn't mean you're to be put out to pasture. It simply means the beginning of a new adventure and a new contribution. Your nerves might be in turmoil, but remember, it wasn't much fun when puberty slapped you either. We've lived through good times and bad, and we're here. You have your life ahead. You have a contribution to give; now dry your tears and get to work. That's the reason we live past childbearing years—to see that our species continues. And be joyful, kiddo—that's the secret."
Abraham Maslow, a famed psychologist of the 50s, coined the phrase "A self-actualized person," whose directive was "Stop studying the ills and look to the positive things that work."
What a concept.
Self-actualization is not an endpoint or a destination. It is an ongoing process in which people continue to stretch themselves and achieve new heights of well-being, creativity, and fulfillment.
Maslow believed that self-actualizing people possess a number of key characteristics. Some of these include self-acceptance, spontaneity, independence, and the ability to have peak experiences.
According to his theory, when a person enjoys "peak experiences" high points, the individual is in harmony with himself and his surroundings. Some would call that one's spirituality.
Peak experiences are moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and so on.
Spiritual life, as Maslow puts it, is an instinct. It can be heard through the voices arising from within. However, two forces are pulling at the individual, not just one. One pulls us toward health and self-actualization, the other towards weaknesses and sickness.
According to Maslow, religious or spiritual values are not the exclusive property of any one religion or group. Self-actualizers are religious in their character, attitudes, and behavior.
"Spiritual disorders" tend toward anger or a loss of meaning. Sometimes, it is grief or despair regarding the future. There is often a belief that one's life is wasted and that finding joy or love is impossible. Often, this comes at the time we call a mid-life crisis.
What is missing is Grandma's lap, soothing hand, and stern voice telling us to get off our duffs and get to work.
56. The Chicago Book Fair
Bill Clinton gave the keynote address at the Chicago Book Fair the year his book My Life came out." I don't remember much of what he said—as a child he got ice shards from the Iceman, same as me. And his publisher told him, “Bill, you don’t have to mention everyone you have ever met in your life.”
I wondered how people who wrote memoirs could include such detail. Had they been journaling?
In the preface to his book, Clinton writes that as a young man just out of law school and ready to get on with his life, on a whim, he picked up a self-help book titled How to Get Control of Your Life by Alan Lahin. The book's purpose was to list short, medium, and long-term goals. He didn't remember the B and C lists but remembered the A.
"I wanted to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book."
Admirable goals, Clinton.
Wendy Hiller, a literary agent, invited me to the Chicago Fair along with a few other writers. She didn't represent me, and I don't remember what I was writing then; nothing good, but she must have seen my potential and wanted to show me how publishing worked. (Everyone wants to sell, nobody wanted to buy. You might find a publisher there, however. They are looking.)
I met a delightful young mother I liked who wrote a book about Breastfeeding. Her husband and brother were with her, and they invited me out to dinner after Clinton’s speech. Now, I regret that I didn’t go. I could have rallied, but after a day of walking that gigantic stadium and then wearing high-heeled shoes to the Clinton speech, I was ready to drop. Thus, I missed my chance to go out in Chicago with a black couple who might have shown me a thing or two.
Here was Clinton, an ex-president, so a memoir made sense. I'm a simple person trying to make sense of it and operating under the belief that you don't have to be famous to write a memoir. Just fill in the pen drawings with color and see what happens.
I found a note from a blog reader in my email this morning who said she wanted to support me. Thank you, kind person.
I checked to see what blog she was talking about, and it was "What Do You Wonder About?" I stole that from Auston Kleon's book Steal Like an Artist. 10 things nobody told you about being creative.
See, he gave me permission to steal from him, so I chose the two steps below as the manifesto for my blog:
Step One: Wonder about something.
Step Two: Invite others to wonder with me.
That man is brilliant.
I came across his small book, which was free on Amazon Prime, and read it before lunch.
"You don't need to be a genius; you just need to be yourself," he wrote.
I slapped my head and declared, "Thank you, God,"
(Thank you, Auston Kleon. I don't know if God had anything to do with that statement.)
I have bounced everywhere with subjects—metaphysics, the spiritual path, life blog, travel, writing about writing, blogging, chickens, animals, horses, home life, family, story, Hawaii, Oregon, California, and God. I'll even throw in sea life if that strikes me. And then I hear the voice of blogging gurus who say to find your niche and stick with it.
I scream, "WHAT'S MY NICHE!" (All over the place.)
Kleon says, "You can cut off a couple of passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you'll start to feel phantom limb pain."
I love that man.
"Do not leave your longings unattended."
Right on.
Yesterday I began the day by deciding to write something about writing, for I have readers on my blog “The Best Damn Writer Blogger on the Block.”
www.bestdamnwritersblog.com (Fair to say, I'm the only one on my block writing one, but maybe I should check to make sure.
I am curious to know how those readers found me. However, if someone shows up, I am happy to offer them something.
Except that yesterday, I had nothing to say.
Blogs are supposed to add something of value. So, where did that leave me?
With Zilch. Nada.
Kleon to the rescue, "If you try to devour the history of your discipline all at once, you'll choke."
Okay, back to the beginning of the day. Hemingway was a good place to start. However, Hemingway was reluctant to talk about writing, for he felt that saying too much might inhabit his muse.
Although Hemingway was known for his adventurous spirit, he was first and foremost a writer. He might have been reluctant to talk about writing, yet, over the years, he wrote letters to friends in various parts of the world at different times, and talk of writing invariably crept in.
Along came Larry W. Phillips, who uncovered Hemingway's comments on writing and included them in a book called Ernest Hemingway on Writing.
"All good books are alike," wrote Hemingway, "in that they are truer than if they had really happened, and after you are finished reading one, you will feel that all that happened to you and afterward all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was." –By-Line Earnest Hemingway page 184.
This quote explains why my eyes cross when people say, "I only read non-fiction." As though fiction is frivolous, and they are into "serious" learning.
Quite the opposite is true. Good fiction writers can hit you with the truth when you don't even know you've been hit. And where do you see the outer workings of a person while being privy to their thoughts except with a fictional protagonist?
There's a place for both. Yes, for all my ravings about fiction, I am writing non-fiction.
Write whatever is itching to come out.
"The secret is that it is poetry written into prose, and that is the hardest thing to do." –Ernist Hemingway.
Hemingway left a lot unsaid. He wrote simply, quite against the flowery prose of his day. His style was considered the iceberg effect; much was beneath the surface.
Okay, back to Steal Like an Artist:
"We're talking about practice, not plagiarism. Plagiarism is trying to pass someone else's work off as your own. Copying is about reverse engineering. It's like a mechanic taking apart a car to see how it works."
If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it's research, “If you rip off a hundred people,” Panter says, “the folks will say, “You're so original."
I believe the following from Kleon applies not only to artists but to anyone starting a business:
You will need the following:
· Curiosity
· Kindness
· Stamina
· A willingness to look stupid.
Barbara Kingsolver said in her last tip of five on writing, "If you are young and a smoker, you should quit."
I qualify as a writer.
I don't smoke, and I'm not young.
Only query a memoir once it is completed, say the writing gurus. Okay, I'm finishing this book come hell or high water.
57. Art is Anything You Can Get Away With.”*
*Andy Warhol.
Although I look back and see the beautiful scenes of my life, and I was an obedient child, I never gave my folks any problems that I know of, yet I carried a lingering sadness. And I would come home from school every day with a headache. My body was telling me something.
One day, later on—after I was married, I said, "The headaches are gone."
I could say I have a problem with low blood sugar, and I know that all through high school, I would leave the house with little on my stomach and probably little protein. At around twelve, when I was about to have my tonsils removed, they found I was anemic.
Yes, they removed tonsils in those days—I remember waking up with a throat that felt ripped, and I thought the nurse who kept telling me not to roll over on my back was my mother. My mother was there, though.
By taking away my tonsils, they took away my defense mechanism, for after that, I got strep throat and had to guard against getting it every winter.
But back to the headaches. How much was physical, and how much was psychological?
We can paint rosy pictures of our lives, remembering the good times and the highlights, or we can dig deeper and say, "What was bothering a child that she would have a headache every day?"
I didn't dwell on things. I put my love on the animals.. I did wonder if my father ever thought of me. Grandma was gone. Tiny was gone. It appeared as though that didn't matter.
It mattered.
Mike molested me.
It mattered.
Sometimes, it is as simple as that. Acknowledging that it mattered.
We lived in the town of The Dalles for about a year and a half, and I remember that as good. I played with the neighbor kids and the little boy next door and went fishing in Mill Creek, near our house.
The day I caught a two-inch fish and ran home all excited, I stopped short when I found my Aunt Marie from Illinois there. Dear Marie. I loved her. Mom was a bit embarrassed for Marie to see that I was such a tomboy, which surprised me, for Mom was not a girly girl. Tomboy isn’t a word we use anymore. But then there was an issue with a girl wanting to do what I wanted. I wanted to ride bikes, play with toy cars in the dirt with the boys, and read comic books. But then, didn't everybody?
I loved being a tomboy. But did it bother me?
Yes.
Within that first year after leaving Illinois, we got the dog mom promised. Somebody shot it while he was still an adolescent pup because it reared up on his rabbit hutch. I was home and off my feet because I had gotten stitches in my ankle. The kids from the neighborhood ran to tell me that Mike had hit the dog in the head with a hammer to put it out of its misery.
I know Mike did what he thought was right because he didn't harm the animals.
And then I got Silver.
I wasn’t into dolls, but I had a lady doll, not Barbie—I didn’t like Barbie, but I liked this lady doll, because I could design and make clothes for her from mom’s sewing scraps. An older sister to the little boy next door liked to sew, too, and they got a parachute that we cut up to make doll clothes. I found numerous colored strings within the cord that support a parachute, and they also made good art material. When my folks were out for the evening, which was rare, the neighbor girl would stay with me, for I thought I was too old for a babysitter.
I became friends with a little girl from a Catholic school whose parents were both doctors. A woman doctor of her age was rare as she was quite a bit older than my mother. But I thought those doctors must be a bit cuckoo, for their son, younger than the girl, had ulcers. Mrs. Doctor wanted her kids to have the same birthday, so she had a cesarean section with her son. And why all they made if one of their kids was injured in the slightest way.
They weren't Catholic but thought the Catholic school was the best in town, and thus sent their kids there.
My mother got a job cleaning Mrs. Doctor’s house. Once, they took us to an island for summer vacation. I often went home with the girl after school—we were both in the second or third grade. When they served a meal, they used more than one fork. However, often, when I went home with the girl, her mother would fuss at her to practice the piano. I loved piano music, but I thought if that's the way it is, I'm not taking piano lessons.
Later in life, I met the girl at a high school reunion. The Catholic kids transferred to The Dalles High when they reached high school age, but we had not seen each other since the fourth grade, and in high school, we hardly knew each other existed. Had she not introduced herself, I wouldn't have recognized her—a Burnette had become a blond. The last I heard she lives on a Hog farm. Fascinating. Who would have thought? And she seems to be someone I would like to get to know.
When I was in the fourth grade, we moved from the town to a more rural area called Chenowith. I rode the bus to Catholic school for a year. There are nearly always some comments, however small, against the new, the strange, the different, and there I was a Catholic in a pack of Protestants.
I’m sure the same would happen the other way around.
After the fourth grade, I joined the Chenowith public school and soon joined the Protestant church.
I was an only child, which was okay; I like time alone. And I like having friends. And I had Silver.
Once we joined the Protestant church, it occupied many hours each week. There was church service on Sunday mornings and youth meetings at night. I joined the choir, and we had a Wednesday night choir practice. I met my first boyfriend at church and my future husband there.
Changing churches felt much like moving from Horace Mann to a Catholic School. I felt as out of place in Sunday School as I did in Catholic school. I didn’t know the books of the Bible and couldn’t recite verses as the other kids did. Odd, that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, to quote my mother, but it shows how we want to fit in and feel left out when others are more advanced in some subject.
I went to church camps and sat at a camp meeting, doubting that there was a God. And I wondered about all the "true believers" and how believing seemed so simple to them. I thought they never doubted. And why couldn’t I be as sure as they appeared?
I saw Billy Graham in a tent meeting once when I was Catholic and thought he was full of it. Later, as a Protestant, I saw him again. At that time, I thought he was arrogant because he said he knew he was going to heaven. I'm sorry, Mr. Graham. I believe you were a nice man. I just couldn't stomach some of the religious aspects.
But I set off to find God and found that he/she lives in all of us. How we express that concept is up to us. Finding people with whom you can agree, discuss, and have a great relationship is fine and dandy; if not, travel the road you see ahead.
Almost everyone could go over their childhood, and each would have different experiences but with similar wonderings, longings, disappointments, and questions. We were, after all, babes in the woods. Looking back, I can see why so many feel different or left out, as though they don’t fit. I was a country girl in a sea of professional people’s daughters. Those girls shopped at Williams Store, the upscale one, while we shopped at Penny’s. And I could tell the difference. Isn’t it strange that that matters?
A great number of people now take antidepressants—like one-third of the American population. Why?
We have friends and a couple who used to work in a retirement complex, and they said the same cliques occur there as they did in high school. There is a refrain I used to hear at The World Healing Center, “If you don’t work on yourself, as you get older, you get worse.”
We have yet to learn that a smorgasbord of life is laid out for us, and we can choose what we want on our plates.
To often we think something awful—like, for me, liver—will jump onto our plates. No, just don’t put it in your pie.
How can I say you are good enough? How can I tell people they aren't broken and need to be fixed?
Experiences come and go, and happiness comes and goes. We search for meaning, fulfillment, and our place in the world. If you follow some of the most successful people, you will find they are passionate about pursuing their chosen field. They stick to it during good times and bad. They have persistence, focus, and determination, and then they go to work.
You might have noticed that I do not have much written about how to change your life or how to become a Baddass. (read Jen Sincero’s book, You are a Badda**)
I want to offer a tease to say, yep, the world is out there for you to grab. Take a chance. It’s possible. Go find a way.
Once you declare that you want to achieve something, believe it’s yours, and take action to get it, you will be amazed at how the universe fills in the blanks. God, the great Spirit, the Force, the Source, the Universe, you name it, has your back.
But there’s a glitch. You don’t just sit on the couch, yawn, and wait for magic to drop. You need to ask for what you want, believe it is possible, and start walking, driving, rowing, flying, whatever moves you.
Andy Warhol said, "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."
58. Prince Charming
I am reluctant to tell this; I have written it in a blog, (My original blog,
https://www.wishonwhitehorses.com
) and many have read it, but I've never written it here, except for the first chapter where I mention seeing the Peacock on the fence.
There is more to the story.
Last night, Prince charming, the name I gave the neighborhood peacock, was standing on the neighbor's roof across the street, squawking out that plaintive call that, if you didn’t know better, you would think someone was being attacked. It reminded me of the play Midsummer Night's Dream, performed at an outdoor theater in San Diego next to the Zoo. As though on cue, a peacock would squawk at appropriate moments.
Prince Charming disappears each winter, slinking away with no tail. However, in the spring, he appears strutting with that long, luxurious tail sweeping the ground. Think of all the energy that goes into making all those feathers. (That makes it doubly surprising that he would be on our fence in December and with a long tail.)
Once upon a time—true story—my first daughter, then two years old, and I visited our newly bought house in Riverside, California. I was planning some minor repairs, as a College Fraternity had lived there, and the house had scars to prove it.
From the living room, I looked up into the clerestory windows and saw a peacock staring down at me. This was significant because not long before, I attended a self-hypnosis class where the instructor told us that we would find our totem animal.
In my mind's eye, I followed the instructor's instructions to walk down a forest path. We continued until we came to a group of bushes. I knew my totem animal was hiding there, as I could see the rustling of vegetation.
"It’s all right,” I coaxed. “You can come out now."
I expected to see a deer, wolf, or little fluffy animal. However, what came out was a total surprise. It was a peacock. A male peacock furled out in all his glory.
Not long after, I revisited my peacock in the bushes and asked why he stayed hidden.
“Because here, I am the only peacock.”
Fast forward many years.
As we were preparing to build our Log Home in Oregon. Neil and I were walking the dirt road that abutted the property when we saw a male peacock running with some wild turkeys. A peacock in the forest?
More years passed, and we bought our present house; you know that story.
I didn’t know we had a neighborhood peacock. Neither did I know that in Riverside, our house was located up a hill from the park where the Peacock supposedly lived but liked our roof better.
I thought our present neighborhood peacock had come just for me, and in a way, he did. He came onto our property and sat on our fence on a day when only Sweetpea and I were in the house.
As my imaginary peacock didn’t want to compete with other peacocks, I think the real peacock telling me the same?
Time to put myself out there.
59. Aloha
Two months after moving to Hawaii, Little Boy Darling turned one year old on Ground Hog’s Day.
Neil was on the mainland completing a project, and the rest of the family, DD, her son, and I, decided to celebrate at the beach.
The beaches on the Hilo side of the Big Island are rocky, so it is necessary to drive a distance to enjoy a sandy beach. We aimed toward Hilo, but instead of turning right, we turned left toward the town of Volcano and kept driving until we came to Punaluu, Black Sands Beach.
There, the sand is black and worn round and smooth as caviar. It is where the Hawkbill sea turtles, giant as manhole covers and dressed like warriors in full battle regalia, sun themselves on the warm sand.
The water is treacherous there, but DD went in until she felt the surge and decided that wasn't a good idea. In ancient times, the strong swimmers, the men, would dive down, holding an empty bottle covered with a finger. At a spot where fresh water enters the sea, they would remove their finger, allow the bottle to fill, and stop it up again. On the surface, they would offer fresh, cold water to the family.
Freshwater percolates through the sand there on the beach, and it was said that in ancient times, the turtles came there to help the children, for they dug troughs where the freshwater could collect.
Someone had built up the sand to form ponds about six inches deep at the surf's edge. It was in the ponds that Little Boy Darling spent his day playing in the caviar sand, smearing it on his legs and tasting it occasionally.
As my daughter and her son were thus occupied, I wandered down the beach and found a lady sitting in the sand, searching for tiny white shells that could sometimes be found sparkling in the black sand. She was there also celebrating her birthday with her grown son and daughter from the mainland. As her children played in the water, the lady and I sat in the sand and visited.
She said she and her husband used to come here and search for the tiny white shells. The one who found the smallest shell would choose the restaurant for their dinner. Six years ago, her husband came to the Island and bought a house, for it had been his dream to live there. Since she loved him, she agreed to move. However, it rained more than she could take; she couldn't find the items she wanted, she missed her family, and she would stand in the backyard and cry. Her husband said they would move if she was so unhappy.
She decided that she would adjust, so she stayed, and now she won't leave even when the kids beg her to do it.
Her husband died two years ago, and a "friend" stole their money. She lives on Social Security, $700.00 a month, in their little paid-for house. She is happy. "It is ALOHA," she said. “Aloha is a way of life; look it up. It means to give without expecting anything in return."
It also means, "Hello, Goodbye, and I love you.
Aloha,
from Jewell, Joyce, Jo
60. May 31, 2023—50,000 Words and a P.S.
I reached my goal of 50,000 words on May 31. Four days later, Mom's tree dropped all her blossoms. Later on I added another 5,000 words, and now a year later I am ready to release it to its fate..
Last night, we watched Hetty Lawlor, a 17-year-old fiery red-haired portrait artist, one of the three finalists on the TV show "Portrait Artist of the Year" (2018). She beat out tried-and-true professional portrait painters and was my favorite. Her colored pencil portraits were exquisite, and the likeness of her subjects was uncanny. I loved her.
And then, as the final selection to win Portrait Artist of the Year and thus win a commission to paint a particular individual of the show’s choice a strange thing happened. I was suddenly torn. I had a twinge of desire for Samira Addo, another artist. It was a neck-to-neck race. I held my breath.
Samira Addo won.
Addo came through like a student who aced the final exam.
Lawlor's likenesses were second to none. And yet, and yet I saw the artist in Addo.
I tend to like realism and exquisite rendering of features, but suddenly, I was thrown into an abstract world. How did Addo do it? How did she capture the essence of a person with so few brush strokes? Faces were not flesh-colored, gray even. Yet there was an artist.
I have been rendering my life in Word pictures. I am a painter with a pen and have endeavored to fill in my pen and ink drawings with watercolors. But as I close this page, I am throwing aside the pen and the ink, and instead, I pick up the brush only. I dip it in water, and then the paints. I begin a smear across the canvas—aquamarine, aqua, seafoam green, blues, and green—the seafoam green of the sea, aqua of the reefs, green of an Oregon forest. A girl runs barefooted through the surf. Her filmy white dress is wet and plastered against her body. Water flies up from her footfalls and lands on the page in starbursts of white, pink, violet, and orange—sunset colors.
The running girl's hair is entangled with the air-driven water, and with the splatters of paint, golden strands among the green and blue.
You can't recognize the girl specifically, but you see a resemblance. My hair isn't long, and my face isn't blue, but it's among the peacock colors.
P.S. What would I like for you to carry away from this reading?
Oh gee, I want to instill in as many people as possible (me included) the wonder in which we live. We're here. We have life, medical care, the freedom to roam and travel, milk and eggs, fingers, and opposable thumbs. We have built monuments, homes, cathedrals, airplanes, books, computers, clothes, a way to go to the moon, and a way to get back home. We can fly in a plane through the sky and SCUBA under the sea. We have eyes to see, ears to hear, and an imagination that goes to the stars and back.
Bless all you have: a roof over your head, plumbing, appliances, a computer, clothing, your ability to see, feel, and taste, friends, money, and the ability to walk, talk, and imagine.
And now as I sit here on April 29, 2024, the dogwood tree is ablaze in flamboyant pink blossoms. And overhead, from those often-fluffy white puffs we call clouds, water, the most important substance that sustains all life, is raining down from the sky.