Because It's Beautiful

I don't know how it came to me. I think it fell from the sky and I happened to be looking up with my mouth open. I'm not sure that I've swallowed yet, but I've definitely got the taste of it, and I'm chewing.

I want to give in the world so efficiently that there is no energy at all attached to the act of giving. I want it to be effortless and joyful. "Let the piano play itself," says my music teacher, Ben. If you let them, the keys will send your energy back to you as they naturally rise.

So the bit I got from the sky was this: don't do something to "give" it to someone. Do something only because it's a beautiful thing to do.

I love to live in, to do, beautiful things. I imagine this is true of a bird building her nest. Rain forming around particles of dust. Mist reflecting light into the full spectrum we call the rainbow. How much effort?

Somehow, the notion of contribution (even though there is a huge aspect which warms my heart) calls up extra energy for me. It is a step beyond being or doing. There is an attachment I feel in the "sending." Yet, the rainbow does not "send" its light to me or anyone else. It is unaware of its gift, perhaps.

I think I would like to be aware of the gift I have given only as it is received. The feeling of the piano pushing back at me. There it is an extra boost of energy in that resonance to create anew. And to be in that creation only because it is beautiful -- not as a gift to myself or anyone else.

Just to be.

Unclocked

In the final hour before Trinidad's orthopedic appointment, my yard vibrated with the harmonic resonance of many, many hands helping. An NVC student of mine bent to earth with buckwheat seeds for the sowing. A three year old neighbor took our water wand to the lettuce bed. My eldest son and his seven year-old friend picked a panoply of green leafy weeds from the garden to make "rabbit salad," and three more children, aged 4-8, sat down on the deck to sort garlic into piles by size in preparation for braiding.

I looked at the clock: 30 minutes to departure by bicycle to the fancy new skyrise across town. Hmmm. Time to check the bees? No snacks had been packed, no faces washed, nor shoes located. Two families of children and one adult would need to make their transitions homeward in those final minutes. Still, the flow moved me; honey called.

Turning my back on the clock, I swept up my hive tool, brush and bee veil under one arm. Those not engaged in Serious Work watched me light up the smoker and wove themselves into the story of the bees in summer harvest. Why does the smoke calm them? What do the bees do? What will you be looking for? Their wide eyes watched me as I crossed the yard and pried the boxes apart, lifting each frame to measure capped comb. These children have seen our bees emerge for their first spring flights last March, and they will follow the honey flow as it is pulled from the hive next month. Each will go home then with sticky hands and stories to tell.

Parents returned through the back gate and gently collected their children. The bees circled round in seemingly chaotic loops, an insect ballet, each returning to the hive with food for the morrow. All of these circles, sacred, and me, through a beeveil, watching.

I set my tools aside and announced our imminent departure. Another miraculous season well-timed from planting to harvest with little thought on my part, all hands and heart in the working. My boys met me on the driveway with shoes on their feet. I grabbed a water bottle and slipped the afternoon sandwich outcasts into my backpack.

We had twenty-five minutes to bike across town, and we arrived exactly on time.

In the Crossfire

Two feet beyond my backyard fence, a solitary man lives in an old trailer. On Friday morning, he shouted obscenities at the top of his lungs (which, I assure you, are large) at the car he was working on, a person passing on the street, and finally, at the Great Danes across the street from the front of my house who began to bark at the racket he was making. When this man heard the dogs barking, he directed his four letter words toward them. The owner of these dogs, already anxious about quieting them at 8:00 a.m., became distraught and directed her threats towards her dogs. Interspersed, I heard her ask her partner, "Who is that? Who is that yelling?"

The woman across the street escalated with her barking dogs and the shouting continued from behind me. Now, the woman and her partner also argued about the dogs, their own relationship, and the whereabouts and why of the voice accusing them. I quietly lay down my pruning shears in the sanctuary garden where I had been cutting overgrowth and slipped through the gate to my front yard.

I tried to catch my woman neighbor's eye, but now the conflict had bubbled over to the single father neighbor beside her who brought to the conflict another unrelated topic: why did mothers think they were incapable of causing harm to children just because they bore them? More four letter words flying. The neighbor behind my yard sped off in his car with engine roaring.


Another neighbor emerged from her house. "I'm pretending I want to talk to you about gardening, but I really want to tell you that I just called the police about that man behind you. He has a real anger problem... often."

"Yes," I told her. And again, I tried to interrupt the conversation across the street to tell the woman about the source of the yelling. Still I could not catch her eye.

"You talk to her?" my neighbor asked.

"Yes," I said. "She has a soft side, too."

"I feel sad for those dogs," my neighbor said, frowning. Then she turned to me. "You're a good neighbor," she said. "You have brought people into our neighborhood dynamic that never entered it before you opened your doors and your garden to them. I appreciate that."

She looked sad, too. I imagine she was longing to feel more connected to the inner workings of our 'hood. It's hard to know the full spectrum each person offers unless you live here full time instead of working full time away from home. I imagine she valued that connection as it related to her safety and peace on a Friday morning. I, too, have called the police once when I thought I heard gunshots nearby. I did not like sharing power with the police to protect my safety by force.

I finally caught my neighbor across the street's attention. "The man who yelled at your dogs yells a lot. He directs his anger toward anything that triggers him remotely and this morning, your dogs caught it. If it hadn't been your dogs, it would have been something else."

The woman deflated, visibly. "Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for telling me," she said. "I had no idea. I just got so upset. I didn't know what to do. Thank you." All of the neighbors went inside.

On Sunday, when my trailer neighbor went off again, I wasn't feeling angry or afraid so I brought him some cherries. He doesn't like cherries, he told me, and after telling me to, "Get the f-- out," and meeting only the care in my eyes, I thought I saw him soften, too. The police cost him, he told me. It hurt.

Even the dark side has its heart.

On A Full Moon

On a full moon, trees cast shadows, black on grey. On a full moon, the path before me glows faintly, beckons.

Friday night, a friend invited us to join her family on a full moon canoe ride in the canal near their home. She caretakes a 70 acre park in the center of our city. This park stretches its long fingers of green along the Willamette river and other contributing waterways from Springfield to Eugene. Such an invitation we could not refuse, no matter how long our day had been.

On a full moon, the sound of grass harnessing the wind is suddenly important. On a full moon, the beaver is known by the sound of his tail slapping the smooth surface of water.

We loaded the heavy metal canoe onto a once-bike-trailer and wheeled it along a mulched path to the place where we put in. The children skipped down the trail beside us in their lifejackets, heads bobbing at the height of summer grass. Mothers spoke quietly, sighing at the beauty and tranquil tiredness of nightfall.

On a full moon, the surface of the earth makes itself known through the feet. Rock crunches, packed dirt gives only a little, and concrete not at all.

We lifted each child into the canoe, an adult at front and helm. We left the makeshift dock effortlessly, oars lifting and swinging through water black as oil. Children giggled, whispered, and hushed. "I'm scared of bears and tigers," said Sam.

On a full moon, the log that breaks the surface of Turtle Pond could be danger if it is not seen in time. Our weight in the world, on water, could tip us into the drink if our crew does not balance as one.

"We are safe," I told him. "You have two capable and strong mothers with you," said my friend. "You should save Trin first," said Sam, "because of his cast."

On a full moon, the love in a heart is eclipsed only by fear, and light alone finds reflection.

My Son....

What I almost missed was the glimpse of you pushing your little brother on the swing without my wondering how he might feel if you did or did not push him.

What I nearly didn't see was the way you filled your water glass with one hand, finding a way to stabilize the glass without the use of your casted arm.

What I barely heard was your description of how the jaws of the spider extend from its mouth as it eats its prey, how the pair of spiders working in tandem is very unusual, how they must be -- for the moment -- mates.

What I cringed and almost turned away from was the fly you almost killed in the catching, carried around for an hour deliberating whether he should go back to the wild in such a condition, and finally set free in as safe a place as you could imagine, saying over and over how much you loved that fly, how much you wished the rest of us did, too.

When I did see you, hear you, on the outer edges of grocery lists, dishes to be washed, and nettles on the dryer, I turned to you fully. How I long to hold this imprint of you in my heart, in my mind: your many skills, your visions, your capacities I almost did not acknowledge... and what of the others that have slipped me completely?

Your shoes are still in the middle of the living room floor.

The toothpaste is uncapped.

The rage in your eyes as you blamed me for bumping you with the door hangs like an echo in my sometimes worried mind.

May I find the grace to turn your way and witness your unfolding into light. May I open into light the darker reaches of my heart to make space for all I am honored to hold of your darkness as well, my son. I only hold myself and All in this embrace.

So much love.

"I did not say what I said...

...because I want you to do something different," she told me. "I did not say it because I want to change you. I don't."

She sat on a sofa across from me in a dimly lit room. I looked up at her from where I knelt on the floor at her feet.

"I said what I said because I worry about you. You think so much. You put so much out," she said, and I could feel her caring. I could.

"You must be exhausted," she said. "You must be so tired." I leaned forward, laid my head on my mother's shoulder, and we cried.

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. So be it. I like this place better.

P.S. Check out photos this page from the lavender trip south. Thanks to Seda for putting them on!

Snapshots

A collage snapshot of some sweet memories from our trip south:

In California one evening, Trinidad presented me with six live toads, three in each hand. He then invented a game called "Toad Race," in which all toads are set free then recaught by one person before they escape into the brush. I cannot tell you how much fun we all thought this was.

Driving with my sister as a passenger, I watched her reach over and pick up a delicate piece of driftwood from the little altar on my dashboard. I looked at her sideways. "You're not going to--"

But she had already stuck it up her nose. "I knew you were going to do that," I said.

"Oh. Well, it's not like you're psychic or something. I mean, you or I or Mom would all do the same thing. It's just what we do," she said.

My mother says that there's proof the donkey is from Mexico: she likes Tequila. What proof?

My sister is into Kundalini yoga now. She lead me in a yoga session on the lavender field. At the end of 40 minutes of breathing hard and heavily distracting the neighbors, we laid down for the deep relaxation.

We were in a field. Picturesque. Quiet, but not still. As we stopped moving, it became clearer what did not. Bugs of all nature ... all over us. Deep relaxation with bugs. (Another test.)

Did I tell you that my sister turns heads? Particularly if she's been singing and playing in a local bar recently. Her soulful voice and finger picking is quite lovely. She sports a presence large, confident and sweetly coquetteish. That fair to say, Rob? :) I am amused by my own invisibility beside her. I get to glimpse a shyly secret side of folks as they sidle up to make conversation, get an autograph, compliment the master. She's a star in vintage dress and memorable shoes.

I regret not mentioning in my last blog post that the sweet interconnection of my trip to Mother's farm was due as much to the personal work and growth that my Mom and sister have embarked upon as it is to my own. Witnessing their respective journeys is a gift I am in awe to receive.

Yardstick

I'm back from California! Seven days with my mom and sister (Robyn and I both on our moons, no less) without dispute. I can hardly believe it. I am struck even more by the fact that I rarely found myself even slightly triggered in my time with them. I experienced our connection as deep, loving, and harmonically centered to hear the needs of all. A few years ago, our record was 2 1/2 days, then someone would melt down, and we'd all wish that vacation had ended 3 hours earlier. What happened?


Over the past couple of years, I have been knee-deep in the slosh pile of love's refuse. I have come to terms with my husband transitioning into a woman and friend while staying connected to parent our children in partnership. I have loved and let go another man dear to my heart. I have parented in it all, struggling to see my children through the awe and tears of everything else as it unfolded before me. I have grown.


Two weeks ago, I pulled up my rubber boots a little higher and set out a little further into the mire. Whatever happened to going through it? I wondered. Am I really growing here (yes, said my heart, and there is no limit to what you might learn), or am I just touring round and round the same tree? I asked for some sign, in my moment of frailty, that would indicate that all of this exploration is of service to myself, the all. A yardstick?

So there we were. Three ladies, three dudes, and a donkey picking flowers and making peace in the same field. Speaking our truths. Softening to listen. Leaning into each other with our tears.

In truth, the donkey only picks weeds. Her name is "Grace." She is the first ass my mother has been able to successfully cover. Photos to come.