Timing

Who am I to write about time that Grand Marshall of our Lives? Not even Einstein could master time or its delicate nature, tick tock, but I figure, time runs me and maybe you too, so why not go for it? Sometimes you just gotta go for it!

I had my first migraine headache on Friday, didn't know it was coming. Might have asked it to let me know it was coming, but I didn't have time in all the doings of a life. Spent the day in bed not that I minded that, just didn't know how to handle the pain except handle it. Get through it, feel it and let it in since it was there to be had.

I am of the belief that things happen when they need to and on time at that. Try baking without timing right. Try jogging for the first time for hours. Try staying too long in a sauna or sitting too long in meditation, you might go loopy. Things have their time and we need to be attentive.

This morning I found the blog I needed called Slow Love Life. Amazing how the author writes with flow and kindness, attention to detail and light examples. I love her! And gorgeous photos. And gorgeous thoughts. And just gorgeousness all over the page. It's akin to the slow food movement, where we attend to love in our lives with slow care, with feeling gratitude, with loving kindness. Slow love life: at first I thought it was going to be about finding love late in life (;-) but then what it really is is just as good! S l o w i n g down certainly makes for having more time. Try it: slow down.

Calling my Dad, I need to attend to time. There's a tacit agreement: Do not call after 8 pm. I do not call after 8 pm. No one does who knows him! And we sort of love this about him, though we might mock it once every two or three years.

When I was younger, I played the "I'm won't read that book" game. That is any book that everyone was talking about I would poo-poo. Taking a superior stance I thought any book that everyone is reading can't be literature and so I won't read it. Well, I've changed. Or at least I picked up one of those books recently and I can't put it down. Ann Patchet's Bel Canto has already taken my breath away and I'm only on page 14. How is it that we get what we get when it's time?

Don't know but it's late now and I've decided to get upstairs to read.

Winter's Om

Yoga and baking and sitting and reading and loving it. Snow in Asheville, incredible walks with Scout and a new book's ideas about how to stay well. I recommend it below.

There's been a lot visiting Barnes and Noble lately: And this book is convincing though I didn't buy it. I've just read it in the store!

The 25 practices include plant-based diet; adequate sleep; exercise; yoga; satisfying relationships; positive attitude, taking cold showers, eating dirt, and dousing in hydrogen peroxide, brewer's yeast, probiotics, alkalizing diets, and detoxification + the placebo effect!

If you like the goodies, contact me on etsy.

Hide & Seek and Other Games on Earth

Cozy Earth, surrounded by several other planets, is one of our Homes. And gravity is our friend. Without it, we'd never fall, swing high or low. Imagine your childhood without a swing, or without falling. Would it be your childhood?

Recently I spent some time with family, the holidays and all. Young and old, my grandmother the eldest, perhaps so the wisest, and my niece, the youngest, perhaps so the purest, these people I come from encapsulated my days.

New Orleans is an interesting city. Only some of it is really familiar, Magazine Street, particularly PJ's coffee shop, other uptown streets, Whole Foods, Audubon Park, Metairie Road and several streets around Louisville Street, but most of it is a foreign place to me. Home is wider and more mysterious than I admit. And when I go home to New Orleans, instead of exploring new areas, we play the familiar games and talk about things that we are comfortable with, not straying too far into the absurd or metaphysical or base. And I love this about family, knowing what you can count on and getting wiser and more grown up about it all in the process.

And speaking of growing up, "Where's Chapman?" is a new game Tina and I started playing with our nephew, Chapman. Hiding behind his arms laying on the sofa, head down, resting perhaps, Chapman is our focus. And I'll say to Tina, within steps of him, "Tina? Where's Chapman? Have you seen Chapman?" Tina plays along, "Chapman? No, I don't know where he is?" "That's funny, I thought he was right here; he was a minute ago." And eventually he'll giggle and giggle, bust out a child's scream but he doesn't yet look up. He's hiding. And we pretend we can't see him, that we don't really know where he is. We keep up the charade, Tina and me, for long enough that eventually he'll look up and we say, "There he is!!!" He slides off the sofa and runs to one of us or to play around again, elated and pleased, winning the game.

He has a Quaker Oats bar in his pocket as we leave his house two days after Christmas. It's blustery out. And gray. But we are going for a walk, me and C-man, and there's no delay. Donning his brown street hat and his gloves, big blue coat and his cool blue batman sun glasses, he holds my hand down the seven steps of his home and we are off. A child's pace on this windy and cold-for-New-Orleans-day worried me. My thinking beleaguered, "it's too cold; maybe we shouldn't go out; this isn't good" but Chapman wasn't bothered at all. His pink face, already chilled, smiled, "What's the worry?"

So hand-in-hand we left the house for the park about several + blocks away. 12 minutes of his child's pace; his steps take four for my two. Step step step step step, Chapman. Step step, me. His little body so little off the ground works what looks like to me so hard, so diligently, so willingly. Wind, what wind, he smiles at me. Cold, chilly, brrrr, what cold, chilly, Brrr, his eyes sparkle.

He's personal, everything is possible, and the park was ahead. Nothing could be brighter.

At two and several months young on this cozy planet, this child, and all children of this age and grace, being innocent don't try to reach into my heart and touch us. It's just what they do. Automatic angel, not yet automatic pilot. We can't guard against them.

The swings were within reach. We found one that wasn't damaged or too babyish. It was time to play "Go Away, Come Here". This is a game I started with him the first time we ever played in this park, on these swings. As I pull his feet up and let go, he descends down and starts moving back away from me. So I say excitedly, "come here, come here, come here." And as he starts returning to me, I match its opposite, "Go away, go way, go way" and he laughs because of course he's coming closer and going away at the same time!

But thinking that only one is possible and not the other is the only game going on here on Earth! We come and go and sometimes don't know the difference. So here we are Chapman and I playing this one and only game, "Go Away, Come Here". His head floats through the air, his body along with him, and the fun is all around us!

I stand in front of him for a while and then I move to his side and while he's swinging up I crouch down and disappear and he's flummoxed. But then I jump up as he swings back and we've created a new game of "Where's Chapman?"
He's laughing all the way, and I feel like the best Aunt in the world. His smile is as broad as the swing set.

After ten minutes or so, other kids start milling around and Chapman's attention is over on them. He's studying them, watching, learning. And then he looks at me ready for his snack. His hands start moving toward his pockets as I lift him out of the swing. We pick up his orange juice, the cup that froze my hand on our walk to the park. Onward.

He walks me to the park bench, and as we get there, Chapman turns around and points to the sun just coming out for a peek. His tiny hands reach out for the sun. Will he touch it? Then tumblesaulting onto the bench, he maneuvers his body into a sitting position, using all his energy, all his might. His hands reach into one pocket and then the other pulling out this stiff Quaker Oats bar and a small and chilly clementine. As I peel the orange, two dogs and an owner mosey by and the dogs sniff close to us, and Chapman reaches out lacking the boundaries that dogs don't belong in his treats. With two sections, one in each hand, Chapman can't open his bar. I take it out of the wrapper and try to pull a piece off for his first bite, but it hardly tears. He's put a clementine section down on the bench, boundariless, and picked up the bar and takes a bite. Or attempts a bite. And he bites with drama, biting down, smiling, too, and finally getting through, drool pooled around his teeth and small laughter, success.

Simple enough, being at the park, with a child, swinging, playing, sitting, sharing, watching, snacking, learning, sunshine. These are things that happen on Earth, thanks to gravity. Chapman ate another section of clementine, slowly this boy eats slowly, and the dogs were around again. "Hi, dogs. No, dogs," he says. And the owner has them far enough away again. He glimpses the sun and smiles, his eyes squinting at the sun. He eats another clementine section and holds to his bar in the other hand. His hat is steady on his head, I sense he's warm enough. When he's gotten half the bar eaten, he looks at me, red faced, chilled perhaps but no bother and says, "Slide, T.T."

So we slide for a while and giggle; he tries this one and that one. He moves up the 'rock' wall with ease. And then we're back on the bench, pulling the half eat Quaker Oats bar out of his pocket again and relaxing briefly before he looks at me with worn out eyes, a bit poofy and states with his heart, "Home, Tracey, Home."

Step by step we return to his home and he sees his Momma and his Sadie, little sister and he's Home. His smile becomes more focused as he's pulling off his hat, his glasses, his gloves and coat, alleviating the cold from his body. He gets nestled back into his family, soon to rest to process oh so much of life on Earth.

And for me, it was an hour away, a world in itself, a little boy at the park. Playing games that we play only on Earth.

Peace!

Ha!

If you've got peace, you're just waiting for the ball to drop or the bomb or the other foot. If you've got peace, you've got potential chaos, can't have one without the other. The universe seeks balance, as the research goes, and it's quite a seesaw being here, one minute up, the next down.

I am in Sam's in Asheville. My friend is with me. We've just finished our health food lunches and are whizzing through the store, pointing to things we like, walking fast, trying to stay out of people's way. We're not speaking, more like pantomiming. The store is large, vast space above us, enough to float lots of balloons, and near the front there are many pointsettias glowing crimson. We were mesmerized when we walked in. My friend has a yen for them.

Our lives are both ordinary and mythical. We live and die, aging beautifully, perfectly, full of wrinkles sometimes, though my friend has few. She seems to be getting younger, and she smiles a wide smile. We both woke this morning I'm writing about, we ate breakfast, making eggs with cheese we bought the day before. Mundane in the buying, though having enough money to buy things more magical. At the same instant we have these magnificent heart beats that pump through all sorrow and winter. We seemed to matter, me and my friend; as in if a bomb dropped it would matter.

As we circled Sam's, other people were too. There were so many items to look at and consider as next purchases. Candy and dog food and soup and almonds and coffee and desks and pillows and computers and honey and stereos and car care products; fruits and meats, veggies and snacks; hot hors-d'oeuvres being served right under our noses. What bounty we live in.

Recording these details, few and perhaps banal to you, is a stance against bombs or being ignored. Saying yes to life, to its peace and then its lack thereof.

GotJunk?

I saw one of those big trucks today. They are blue and roar down the street. Professionals drive them. They pick up old broken televisions, sofas, tables and chairs, auto parts, old computers, printers and their wires. Anything you got, they haul away....as JUNK.
We were walking down the street, me and Scout. It is early morning. The sun is just up. It's chilly and most everybody else is sleepin' in their beds. I'm thinking about what needs to happen today, what I want to get done...........And then it hits me. LOVE.

At 1 pm I had lunch with M. in downtown Asheville. We talked about plans for the future and things that might have happened in the past. We ate noodles and cabbage. We laughed at the ineffable that we tried to speak. How ridiculously easy and passing time.

By 2:30 I had bought a curtain rod at K Mart. My kitchen window has been a movie screen for those walking by my house. I perform for them, opening cabinets, cutting vegetables, drinking water, washing dishes. Whatever I am doing, the outside world seemed to be participating. With my curtain rod and some curtains I made today, I have privacy at home. Wow, that's so much easier and grounding for me.

All I needed was seeing the 1800GotJunk? truck.

Questions I have

Seasons change, 1/why can't I get used to that? It's kind of funny. I want one season, or one kind of day to stay, not to change.

Weather changes. And the Earth bears it all, showing off her power and her beauty every moment. There's no relief from her continued work and play. We are at her effect while she is simultaneously at ours. 2/Why can't we learn how to love and care for Earth?

I just don't get it.

How gloriously we love the play on Earth, the hiking we do, the walk, the run, the pursuit of ourselves as we walk under a blue sky, a gray sky, a wakening sky of pale whites, pinks, light blues. I wanna be more honest about life! 3/Why can't we take better care of the Earth?

How????? How can we love the Earth better? 4/ Can we?
And another question I have is:

5/Why are we so afraid to be honest with each other?

I'm scared of you.
I'm in love with you.
I want you to change.
I want you to stay the same.
I don't love you all the time.
I wish you loved me more.
Keep me safe.
Hold my hand.

To Waiting

I've told this story a lot. How Chapman can wait forever. How he doesn't know what waiting is yet, so he'll hang loose enjoying the scenery wherever we are. Meanwhile I "wait for the bus."

Before I tell the story----again, I want to share one of my favorite poems. Until recently, I thought it was a serious and meaningful poem. I'm now hearing and feeling its humor and paradoxical tones. It is a funny one, or one that makes fun of us if only we would lighten up. If only we will. It's called To Waiting and it's written by W.S. Merwin.

Here it is.

To Waiting

You spend so much of your time
expecting to become
someone else
who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been
met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you

meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself

with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left along for long

What do you think? Is waiting this way familiar to you? Can you remember not knowing what waiting is?

So here's the story:

Chapman loves the bus. He ogles and giggles, smiles and anticipates riding the bus. A sense of wonder takes over his face, and his body constricts and his chest might burst. He's imagining the bus, Oh the bus. I'm talking the RTA bus, the New Orleans' Public Bus System bus.

With the blessing of his parents, I got to take Chapman on his first bus ride about 5 months ago. We were on our way home from the Aquarium. I was driving Mary Ashley's SUV which sits high enough so that when a bus pulled up beside us on Magazine Street from the back seat Chapman was knee high to the bus passengers. He could actually see inside the bus. And he gestured, "Me, bus, on," as he does sometimes with vehicles he wants to sit or ride on. He'll point at the vehicle and then press his palm on his chest saying "Me, On." Your heart breaks and mends when he does this. If you can do it, you are hero or heroine, saving the day. If you can't, you feel the pain inside and try not to show it.

But I knew I could, when Beau and MA said "Sure". So we had a date, me and C-man, to ride the bus. Upon my arrival at his house, he was decked out in his bus-riding outfit running to the door, his hat, his batman sunglasses. MA gave me packets of WetOnes for his hands along the way, touching railings and all. Beau offered to drive us to the bus stop, but I didn't want to pass up the walk, holding Chapman's hand for five whole blocks. If it took us an hour to get to the stop, the better.

Our walk started steady, one-handed down his front steps. We were on our own once we left the gate, and I remember a wide sense of responsibility and awakeness come over me. He was in my care, and I felt trusted in a broader way than I've felt in a while, if ever.

Chapman looked at birds, pointed at hanging plants on neighbors' porches, shouted at big trucks, also known as Doo-doos (Chapman's word for trucks) that passed by as we walked. Each step was a step in the direction toward the bus. My mind started wondering about our timing. Would we wait for a bus for two minutes? Would we wait for ten or twenty? Would people stare at us as we waited? How long would we have to wait?

Hand in hand, we walked. Chapman's hand grasped mine for assurance; mine grasped his for the same reason. We were a pair of travelers, our legs and toes, our arms and hearts our rutter and sail. I remember feeling adrift; it had been a long time since I had walked to the bus stop, putting myself in the hands of a bus driver. Do you know anybody who rides the bus for fun? Or because they have to? I also remember feeling scared, no one would know us on the bus; no one knew us as we walked the blocks. Why that felt so scary I don't know.

So we reached the corner at State Street and Magazine and I picked Chapman up so that he could be closer to and under the yellow "Bus Stop" sign. He, wide-eyed, laughed with blue eyes glowing, his cheeks and his nose and his belly laughed too at the sign or at the marvel of everything (I can't say for sure what he was laughing at, but I'd like to think it was the marvel of everything, so I do.) We were "waiting" for the bus.

Only as I watched and noticed Chapman, he wasn't waiting for the bus the way I was. His inquiry into everything glowed. He was in my arms happy to be there, without waiting for anything. His moment in being glowed. Open, he waited for nothing, everything available and perfect. Seeing this in him I experienced it myself for split seconds; and then I'd poke my head out far into the street, looking for the bus. Waiting for the bus. Where's the bus?

One or two other people waited at the bus stop with us. They smiled at us; drivers passing by did too. I think others sensed Chapman's innocence and wonder; perhaps they intuited this was a fun bus ride, not a way of life. I don't know.

The bus, the bus, there's the bus, Chapman. We could both see it three or four blocks away. Its big window, high presence off the street, wide girth approaching. Again, Chapman's eyes widen, his giggles gurgle, his energy mounts; we can not believe our eyes! Approaching, it gets closer and closer and closer. And it's bigger and bigger and bigger as it moves toward us.

Its auditory presence could not be mistaken; its loudness, roaring tires and big engine noise awakened us further to its presence. The bus had arrived; we wouldn't be waiting anymore! The big doors divided and all of sudden, Chapman was standing on the bus, a whole new world. A driver, other passengers, purple seats (that held him bucketlike) that hold many sized people. Where were we going to sit was the first of many questions that occurred to me once we were on the bus. We had a marvelous ride and an incredible day that day, MA met us downtown and the three of us had lunch and walked around Jackson Square. It's a day I won't soon forget, and
obviously it's a story that I will build from as Chapman and Sadie, Beau and MA's children influence my life, and mine theirs.

How free I felt with this child, and yet, paradoxically, how responsible I had to be. More responsible and more aware and more conscious and awake than I normally am. With Chapman in my care, all of a sudden, I was waiting for nothing and there was nowhere to be but here where I am.