Woman of a Certain Age

The woman awakened this morning sweaty, desperately searching for cooler air, afraid of the unknown that lies ahead in her life. The feeling of aging, isolation and insecurity in this new role prompts her once again to make another appointment.  She feels rocky, barren, dry, crisp, like the spaces above tree line, the tundra, at the highest of altitudes.  Not much takes hold above tree line and life struggles for every sacred millimeter of growth, gulping every droplet of water.  It is all so fragile, so is she.. Starting anew, trying to find the softness for a root of some sort to take hold.  Searching always, never giving up on herself she enters the clinic.

A WOMAN’S PLACE 

NEW PATIENT INTAKE FORM

56 Medical Parkway, Ridgeview, CA

Sex: Female

Age: of a certain

Primary Concerns or Reason for Being Here:

No more children, no more pregnancies, no more periods cramps and bleeding.  I was told there is great loss of joy when we bleed, but I have lost joy in the non-bleeding. 

Have you seen in the past for the same issues?:  Yes, several times in the past three to four years.    

Past Treatments:  Prescribed anti depressants.  Prescribed anti anxiety medication. Was told to go to therapy and perhaps even to leave my marriage.

Symptoms and Timeline:  Eight years ago a strong need for SPACE, then came the anger, or more like rage really, then sadness, lots of tears, sensitivity, oh and hot flashes off and on throughout.  The hot flashes feel like the burning off of the residual, the last remaining bits of my past self.

What if any past treatments helped to aileviate symptoms?:  Meditation, Black Cohosh for the hot flashes, and Shatavari to nurture mood swings, and many other herbs depending upon the symptoms of the day. The above pharmaceuticals just added on more symptoms.

When did you last ovulate?:  NA ?

What day 30 days ago was your last opportunity of fertility?:  NA I guess? I do wonder what I would have done if I had known it was my last opportunity - maybe I’d have had an ‘unbaby’ shower?

Past Diagnosis:  Depression.  Anxiety.  Stressful marriage.  High Cholesterol. Per menopausal. I am now in menopause and starting to find my footing there. My body has done its best to keep up with the changes - so has my husband and my family and my friends, but I still struggle nearly every day,

Prognosis: The rising up of power from the ashes (from the hot flashes) like the phoenix! From the barren, burnt out forest struggles the seed to grow new life, from empty womb my egg-less ovaries where the newest version of myself is born. 

Last Birth:  After eight years of transition and coming through the cocoon I have birthed who I am today. This birth seems in contraction to the expansion 32 years of gestation.  The spurts and stops of finding who I am under all the emotion, the drama, the life of it all, all with love.

She smiles as she hands the form to the front desk.  She confidently sits in the uncomfortable chair next to the pile of Mothering Magazines and samples of baby formula.  After a few moments of looking around at the expansive bellies and toddler play section of the waiting room she gets up and takes herself out to a glorious lunch with wine.

She Woke Up

February 1974 

She woke up in the back of an orange VW Beetle.  Her eyes popped open to the astonishing glory of the Swiss Alps seen through the back portal window of the car.   She was in the very back of the tiny vehicle, counting the black minute dots on the white headliner to pass the time - eventually falling asleep to the warm hum of the engine beneath her, happy and snug.  

October 1984

She woke up when she was driving her ‘62 VW bug ragtop in her great escape from Los Angeles.  The beauty of driving through the rocky mountains roused her and she decided to stay.  Ironically the rockies  replicate the mountains she woke up to when she was  in the BACK of the VW (see above).  Life has so many parallels.  

January 1998

She woke up when her wedding gown nearly caught on fire at the altar.  Was it a sign? 

March 1998

She woke up in the arms of her lover, her head resting tenderly upon his warm heaving chest.  “The safest place in the whole world” is what she would call  it.  Cuddled under the warm blankets, she watched the comforting view as the hairs on his chest grew more entangled with each inhale and exhale.  

October 1987 

She woke up to the most beautiful baby boy she had ever seen.

July 1990 

She woke up to the most beautiful baby boy she had ever seen.

May 1992 

She woke up to the most beautiful baby boy she had ever seen.

August 2001 

She woke up to the most gorgeous baby girl she had ever laid eyes on.

October 1987 - August 2001

She woke up a lot in those years but most memories are unattainable as she was very tired from all the waking up.

January 2002

She woke up on a cushion in a mediation hall over the weekend, her mind a blank for a fraction of time the size of the slit between the wooden floor planks. 

June 2001 

She woke up when her father was told he had five years to live and she was pregnant with his fifth grandchild.

Oct 2005

She woke up when her son went to war. She was very grateful for the previous waking on the cushion.

April 2017

She woke up when her father-in-law fell in their house bringing a harsh reality to what she had been hoping and praying wasn’t so.

October 2019

She woke up in the arms of her lover in a single sleeping bag beneath the most gorgeous star scattered skies as they floated blissfully into the milky way above them.

Today

She woke up today, as in every day, until the day she doesn’t.

After The Fall

They had been hibernating for the past 48 hours, padding across the wood floors in slippered feet: Lounging in pajamas, not really noting the time or the day.  Then it came, as it always does, Monday Morning.  The day to break out of the bliss and do the drive, the school, the work.  They woke up early to coax the embers of the wood stove, clear the steps, shovel the driveway, scrape the windows, start the engine.

First tracks, not surprising, out of the tiny road.  The air was sharply “booger freezing” yet muffled, serene, quiet, even the ever chattering birds were silenced.  They drove in a snowglobe of floating glittery white, laying first tracks upon the virgin blanket crunching beneath the frozen rubber of tires.

Take the first left turn towards civilization. Still no other tracks then -PLOP!- out from a driveway come the markings of another four wheels. Now it is just the two of them, one behind the other, following the Hansel and Gretel markings on the road,  BFGoodrichs meandering through the ‘hood. Eventually picking up a few more brave traveler’s tracks, Goodyears, and Firestones, but still no moving parts, no vehicles to be seen, except for the dinosaur of a snow plow. Here a snowplow is GOD.  It will get through. It will create a path. It will take out whatever is in its path.  The mantra during the brief passing “please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me,'' muttered with eyes squeezed nearly closed.  Relief as the tanks of the mountain pass by safely.

Careening down the snow packed mountain road, slow going, hypnotised with epic scenery, yet alert and focused on every corner. Colorado Rocky Mountains high blue skies. Powdered evergreens with icicles dripping in full suspension from the tips of their branches, making a mockery of store bought tree tinsel.

With full trust in the sturdy steed shoes of Nokian studded snows.  Navigating  down the olympic worthy toboggan track of the road - yet still no other witnesses.

Block by block. Mile upon mile. Turn, blinker, wiper, tap tap brake, brake. Eventually coming upon  a few Michelins.  Eventually on plowed paved black top. Eventually buses, people, even cyclists. All present and accounted for all keeping calm and carrying on. Breaking us out of the  cocooned weekend on the mountainhey had been hibernating for the past 48 hours, padding across the wood floors in slippered feet: Lounging in pajamas, not really noting the time or the day.  Then it came, as it always does, Monday Morning.  The day to break out of the bliss and do the drive, the school, the work.  They woke up early to coax the embers of the wood stove, clear the steps, shovel the driveway, scrape the windows, start the engine.

First tracks, not surprising, out of the tiny road.  The air was sharply “booger freezing” yet muffled, serene, quiet, even the ever chattering birds were silenced.  They drove in a snowglobe of floating glittery white, laying first tracks upon the virgin blanket crunching beneath the frozen rubber of tires.

Take the first left turn towards civilization. Still no other tracks then -PLOP!- out from a driveway come the markings of another four wheels. Now it is just the two of them, one behind the other, following the Hansel and Gretel markings on the road,  BFGoodrichs meandering through the ‘hood. Eventually picking up a few more brave traveler’s tracks, Goodyears, and Firestones, but still no moving parts, no vehicles to be seen, except for the dinosaur of a snow plow. Here a snowplow is GOD.  It will get through. It will create a path. It will take out whatever is in its path.  The mantra during the brief passing “please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me,'' muttered with eyes squeezed nearly closed.  Relief as the tanks of the mountain pass by safely.

Careening down the snow packed mountain road, slow going, hypnotised with epic scenery, yet alert and focused on every corner. Colorado Rocky Mountains high blue skies. Powdered evergreens with icicles dripping in full suspension from the tips of their branches, making a mockery of store bought tree tinsel.

With full trust in the sturdy steed shoes of Nokian studded snows.  Navigating  down the olympic worthy toboggan track of the road - yet still no other witnesses.

Block by block. Mile upon mile. Turn, blinker, wiper, tap tap brake, brake. Eventually coming upon  a few Michelins.  Eventually on plowed paved black top. Eventually buses, people, even cyclists. All present and accounted for all keeping calm and carrying on. Breaking us out of the  cocooned weekend on the mountain.

Myriam

Desperate, I convince myself I am content to sleep outside for these few hours until the sun rises. The chaise lounge I stumble upon near the pool will suffice as my bed.  I am cloaked in the disarmed feeling of being dropped into the unknown in the middle of the night.  After begrudgingly leaving the comfort of my taxi, I bumped my carry-on up the few steps. Not really sure where I am heading, I am being pulled towards the flat open spot between the white of the walls around me.  I find my chaise, I see the reflection of the ocean, the dark space of the pool not yet awake in its blueness, the pink orange glow of sunrise beginning to unveil itself on the horizon.  My mind not slowing with the excitement of all the new but my eyelids begging for just a few moments of closure.

As I begin to give into the pull of non movement after so many hours of non stop movement, she comes bounding, literally, across the pool deck. Tan limbs dancing out from her body, blonde bob of curls bobbing along with her, wearing a robe and satin tap pants “no no, this is not proper rest, there is a room for you, ready, I arranged it” she says to me in her thick accent.  I follow her lead and find a bed in the room she directs me towards.  Not fully remembering my head hitting the pillow, I relax and give in to the last directives of my weary body since 24 hours prior, eyes finally close.

We are walking in our bikinis and tennis shoes along the top of a jagged seawall.  On my right is the clear emerald green ocean a few feet below us. We balance our way across the edge of a four inch wide rock and concrete ancient (decrepit) wall.  She is in front of me, still skimming or skipping, or sliding, her feet never really seem to stay or even hit the ground when she moves, chattering away quite comfortably to me in her Belgian cadence.  

We arrive at her beach, honestly just a small spit of black sand, not what we would call a proper beach back home.  She effortlessly glides into the water, her hair and skin coming to life as they are caressed by the salty waters.  Encouraging me, coaxing me to come along, but my landlocked self feels the old fear arise.  “More of a pool gal,” I call to her over the lapping waves. She continues to insist, I continue to resist.  Then something overcomes me, perhaps the jet lag, and I feel a sudden rise of courage.  I’m going in! 

Very ungracefully I enter, splashing a bit too much, awkwardly my arms and legs try to get their bearings unfamiliar in the sea. They are legs out of water.  She squeals with glee, “yes, see, it's good, no?  You’re doing wonderfully, yes yes, that’s it.  Try to relax if you can.”  After my initial gasp, I flutter my way through the water, looking for a rock or something unmoving to stand on, or at least to balance a toe on. “Do you want to be a sea star?” she impishly asks. Effortlessly she floats to me and with the utmost tenderness her hand rests on my lower back gently pushing my belly up to skim the surface of the ocean.  I ease my head back and feel the warm green water enter my ears, stretching my hair in its currents, my legs and feet float up to the horizon.  “Open your arms more, stretch your legs out, yes that's it, relax, I’ve got you. You are a sea star!”  Like this we float, her reassuring palm against my sacrum.  Barely there but for certain there.  I begin to allow my breath to deepen, my eyes to gaze into the limitless sky above.  Softening into the sea, a flash of truly what a sea star must feel like.  Drifting and floating, one with the tides, but also one with a tiny anchor, the lightest touch of stability.  My busy mind, as usual, interrupts my bliss.  I begin to wonder how she is treading water so well and for so long, I snap out of my perfect sea star formation. I  plop up to vertical just in time to see her golden curls glistening from the sea into the sun, and the slightest flip of her tail as she swims off.

Backwards Counting (Last Egg Drop)

“Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase”  - H.I. Raising Arizona

Waking again at night, or more accurately in the darkness of the very early morning, lathered in sweat, the rise of heat flushing through my weary body.  Flopping off the comforter, finding the cooler part of the sheets, swiping hair from the nape of my sticky neck, flipping the pillow, poking one foot out to full cold air exposure.  All in search for a chill of relief.  These are some of my self-care tactics, my private remedies, my way of dealing with the waves of hot that wake me, flash through me, then dissolve without a second thought back into the darkness.

I was late, very late.  Backing it all up, counting the days, referencing the calendar.  That ever so thought-provoking, panic-filled question, when was my last period?  I drove my “62 sunflower yellow VW to the corner 7-11 for a pregnancy test.  I was 21 years old.  It was 1987.  I had stopped in bohemian Boulder, Colorado, a few years earlier on my move from LA to Boston.  Originally scheduled as a “drive thru”, a pit stop of sorts.  I would call this place my home for the next 35 plus years. 

I easily nestled into the hamlet of Boulder, tucked into the base of the Flatirons, the iconic mountain skyline formed between 70 and 64 million years ago at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.  The unfinished road trip, cross country move, Boston, was quickly forgotten, left in the rearview mirror of my bug.  What would my life have been like if I had completed that trip and arrived in Boston as scheduled?  Would the story trajectory of my life have stayed the same, a campy drama in a different locale, varying theatre backdrops and sets, contrary characters and deviating circumstances - would the ending be the same?  

A few years prior to my arrival in Boulder a New York Times Sunday Magazine article described the city as “25 square miles surrounded by reality” and where the “hip come to trip.”  These statements along with the chamber of commerce guaranteed 300 days of sunshine, who wouldn’t want to live here?  From the vantage point of my inexperienced, recently post-pubescent mind, it seemed as good a place as any.

I’m an Army Brat, which means we uprooted the entire “kit and caboodle” and moved to a new place every six months to two years.  The lawn mower, the dog, farewells to just-made friends, different, schools, the moving boxes and their scarring sound of packing tape.  I have felt very alien in my surroundings and yet at home with where I was so often in my life.  The biggest move challenges of all were the foreign countries, foreign languages, and foreign customs.  With these, however, I learned that sometimes the toughest spots we get through in life leave the most tender impression upon the heart. 

1.  A final farewell party for the family dog being “put down” when dying of cancer

2. The inevitable relationship breakup, that all know is the “right thing to do” but still tears at your heart over and over and over - for years

3. The son leaving for war, returning mostly happy, mostly whole

4. The blood in the toilet, knowing what its form was once intended to be 

With the entire world as my oyster, Colorful Colorado was my choice “by chance”. 

My father gave Boulder the nickname “Never Never Land” paired often with his commentary “Doesn’t anybody ever work in this town?  Everyone is on a bike, hiking, or at a coffee shop”.  In retrospect he did have a point and I often think of my dad when I squeeze into my favorite overstuffed coffee shop full of lycra and earbud-wearing laptop-pounding cyclists, entrepreneurs and students.  Here, where my dad saw everyone staying perpetually young, not growing up, is where I became an adult.  Here I gained my autonomy, experienced all those “firsts” of my early 20s.  First “real job”, first apartment, first gay club, first car and  … first pregnancy.

The blue plus sign of the pee on pregnancy stick shone back at my like a beacon.  A second and third re-read of the instructions from the insert in the box:

“The symbols used to indicate whether you are pregnant or not vary from test to test, so read the instructions again if your are unsure. Most home pregnancy tests use something like a plus or minus sign, a coded color change  It's better to familiarize yourself with the symbols used in advance, as you don't want to be anxiously scrambling for the instructions when the test throws up its results.”

I fully checked out.  I crawled into my bed for two weeks to cry and drink tea.  Paralyzed, petrified.  What am I going to do?  How can I do this?  I can’t do this.  I can do this.  I am doing this.

At the time there was a mysterious autoimmune disease killing, looming in the background of these years, later known as AIDS. I know now I was probably a bit too promiscuous, too relaxed, too unsure of when exactly I took that last birth control pill.

Counting backwards again through the calendar, it had to be that one night stand, that one irresponsible night, when I left late from a club with an alluring stranger.  That one nothing-special-really night. Through the fear, the what ifs, the tears and denial was the brutal fact, I was pregnant and alone.  I was going to be a single mother.

Those months of incubation, while difficult, were also filled with small miracles.  I discovered then that being a mother is when you first begin to truly listen, to the earth, to your body, to your child.  Your ears find the proper pitch of the tuning fork of motherhood.  

Despite my “pro choice” beliefs and not because of my Catholic upbringing, abortion never felt like a real option.  This non option was more based upon my inner instincts, my inner voice, that maternal listening.  When I thought “abortion”, my freshly harmonized ears heard “no”.  I did contemplate the option of adoption longer.  I played out the scenario repeatedly, the scene: 

Young single mother (me played by Meg Ryan) handing over beautiful infant (played by Gerber Baby) to a medical worker (played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, queen of haunting one-night stands), adorable Gerber Baby never to be seen again by the Meg Ryan-esque single mother.  

This episode made all the more “real life” with the knowing of cells multiplying, and the human form, swimming inside of me, my belly growing daily.  The movements of elbow, knees, head, butt, crazy baby jabs from the inside out - all sealed my decision.  In truth I know somehow this decision of my life - giving life - was already firmly made even before I had made it.  “So it is”, a proclamation.  Something greater outside of me or maybe inside of me was making this decision for me - he chose me - I choose him, we chose each other, the cosmos dealing of cards.  

Day by day in my tiny apartment with a jumble of hats tacked to the wall a cocoon for our ripening, I took steps for the arrival.  My neighbor who smoked cigars and listened to opera on his small balcony - never judged me and my day-by-day bulging belly.  Instead I felt his observant watchful protective presence.  I never knew his name.  One morning I opened my door and found a bundle on my doorstep.  A brown bag filled with gently-used baby clothes left on my welcome mat, anonymously. These heart-cracking random acts of kindness spurred me on to continue preparing and planning.  I uncovered a moral life tenet during those uncertain days:  The universe provides, it always shows up authentic with mysticism and miracles, we just have to open our door each morning to see what is left upon our doorstep.

Backing it all up.

Counting the days.

Referencing the calendar.

That ever so thought provoking

Panic filled question.

When was my last period?

So suddenly it seems, within 30 blink-of-an-eye-years

My last egg dropped.

It comes for all women eventually, uniquely to each of us, though oddly it is not discussed.  Once again I was late, very late.  My cycle not cycling.  I wish I had known that mundane regular day was the last opportunity for creating life.  I think I would have had a party, an un-baby shower.  We would have served deviled eggs.  

I don’t want another child, but the simple knowledge that it is not an option leaves me questioning my existence, my identity, my purpose.  It fills me with so much sadness, fear and dread.  I often tumble into bed again to drink tea.  Who am I if I am no longer caring for children, no longer “the mother”, made all the more confusing by being the mom of adults.  So much of my life had been about bringing forth life.  I have been a mother now for more than half my lifetime.  I have four incredible, beautiful, talented, amazing children.  My oldest is now 31 and my youngest, the fourth, the only daughter is 17.  We are in the early days of her second birthing as she prepares to leave this cozy nest we’ve built.  The final flying of the coop.  The imminent empty nest is only a year or so away now.

Hot flashes are akin to labor pains, both are outward signs of metamorphosis.  I find that if I can welcome them, breathe through them, lean into them, and release them they are easier to manage.  I find myself doing my Lamaze breathing with them, stretching my new precarious wings through the mood swings, struggling to evolve and embody this new body.  My stretch marks are my life’s tattoos.

I sleep with Susun Weed’s book about menopause by my bed.  The dog eared, tattered and tea stained book with torn napkins as holding markers of the poignant pages I have read and re-read.  Filled with underlines, stars and the yellow smear of highlighter.  The Wise Woman Years has been my salvation in this time of THE CHANGE.  My husband and I affectionately call it “What to Expect When You’re NOT Expecting”.  He assures me grandchildren are coming someday and they are advertised to be even better than having our own kids!  For now our new grandpuppy is challenge with filling this void.

I sometimes feel I am channeling the hormonal crazed Edwina from the film Raising Arizona and her semi-uncontrollable desire to have children and the craziness that can elicit.  I see irresistible babies everywhere, at the park, on the plane, at the store.  Bright eyes, always with long lashes, toothless smiles, dimples on the back of their hands.  Something in me, a reflex, a primordial longing, Edwina, urges me to reach out and touch their smooth skin, smell their baby head.  I resist these impulses and instead watch them from a safe distance.  I try and flash their mothers a smile packed with the message “I know it lasts forever and I also know it doesn’t last long at all.

Spaces in Between

I have been there for about 17 minutes all told and I have spent countless hours, days,
weeks practicing getting there. My formal introductory journey began in the citadel-esque Dorje Dzong building in downtown Boulder CO, home to the Shambhala Center. Traditionally in
Tibetan Buddhism, dzongs are located in key spots where power and energy gather. Inside a
dzong, one experiences a sacred and uplifted environment that allows the mind to open and
relax. I believed this would be a great starting place for my travels.

We launched on a frosty Friday night with an introductory talk in a room with chairs in neat rows
and an eloquent speaker at the front of the room.

I was comfortable. Things seemed in order. What was being said made sense. So far so good.

However the tingle of anticipation lingered, not really clear on where I was headed, how to pack, and what direction to take to get there. With the words of Alan Watts as my guide "...the (present) moment is an elusive creature…. it cannot be measured, it so much shorter than a second that before we can begin to think of it as here and now it has already passed.” I boarded for the voyage.

The next day, the room felt otherworldly, the foreignness of my sojourn kicked in. Gone were the chairs, replaced by 20 inch blue canvas squares (zabuton) filled with cotton batting and topped with a sitting cushion (zafu). I came to think of the thin zabuton as my vessel, my own individual bobbing life raft floating upon the pale still hardwood floor. The room had a simplistic quiet beauty to the contrast of the daily life outside the second story window filled with sirens, the clunk clunk of the manhole cover when a vehicle crossed its path and the looming call of the Boulder Theatre marquee sitting just over my shoulder “wouldn’t you rather be here having some real fun this weekend?”

The peaceful interior of the room was fractured by the relentless rumble of my thinking. The
physical discomfort was formidable, spying on my own thoughts, excruciating. Random names of classmates I hadn’t thought of in years, quickly spinning to the entire Beatles anthology romping through my mind. My focus was determined, half closed gaze burning a hole in that wood floor and eventually the floor swallowing me and my gaze whole. Aching joints, itches unscratched, foot asleep, questioning when to swallow. A speed train of thoughts roared through my head, struggling to just watch from the platform, resisting becoming a commuter. The internal war of insanity we put ourselves through - constantly. Before I knew it I found myself as a full blown ticketed passenger habitually leaping aboard. Gleefully going along for a joyride. I’d find myself in one car of the train with thoughts that included how I should rearrange my closet, the shirts to one side in color formation with pants on the other side and do dresses really pair with the skirts? Queasily spinning, cycling, a seasick monkey brain, swinging from thought branch to thought branch in a never ending jungle.

Suddenly a break in the cycle, the tender tinkle of the bell shatters my nausea. Like an unforeseen inhaling gasp of clean fresh air. Alert, awakened, crashing through my internal racket. The giddy vibration announcing a break, or a sanguine “walking meditation” practice. During walking meditation is when I met Jade. Jade, the ancient large jade plant, our mute potted veteran observer. I looked forward to turning that corner on my circuit of the room just to walk by her. With each lap I would note her presence in the bright sunlit south facing window, stoic, solid, present. So obviously loved was she, she had a name card with instructions, informing us “good hearted souls” that she has a caretaker and to please not water her, thank you very much.

Late into the afternoon of the last day of the meditation weekend, still aboard my trusty zabuton, I caught sight of a shoreline, an ever so fleeting glimpse of the gap. Pause. Nothing. Quiet. The space at the top of the inhale and the pause at the bottom of the exhale, an endless field of
swaying grasses extending out into peaceful infinity. The slow stewing of practice had
softened my body and my mind. Like meat left in a crock pot for hours, the heat and pressure resulted in beautiful shredded bits left simmering in a savory sauce. My life raft had proven seaworthy and after days of drifting aimlessly in the ocean of my thoughts I found a place in between the thoughts. It lasted about 25 seconds.

This place is alien to me but does have long term residents. These “locals” exude humble confidence, and an inner knowing like a “you are here” map arrow. Their elevated posture. Their basic uplifted ness. Their crystal crisp eyes, eyes that are reflective of a newborn or an extreme athlete at the pinnacle of their performance. Appearing semi- aloof, detached from the distraction of the past and the worry of the future. Unflappable. Steady as she goes. Fully present.

I have found the voyage to these gaps challenging to say the least and I am beholden
for the subtle reminders sprinkled about, like the phrase “mind the gap” painted on every
platform of the London tube. I still spend much of my days playing thought loop tapes on
infinite, the obsessive need for all presence to be eliminated, then occasionally I remember the
breath, the constant companion of the inhale and exhale brings my attention back to this
moment. The ultimate definition of life, prana, chi, as it cycles through, infinite possibilities in the
space of nothingness, not fully free from thought but not letting thoughts run me either.

A feeling of suspension.
(2 seconds)

The place before sleep comes.
Centering myself in that silent space between the thoughts
(7 seconds)

Stably present.
Grounded
Standing in witness
(12 seconds)

Be alive
(13 seconds)
(14 seconds)
Be still
(15 seconds)

Not to worry
For I too am love
I am my own caretaker
Slowly adding up the glimpses
Step by step
Breath by breath
Second by second
Counting
Moment by
Moment.
(25 seconds)

Queen of Fortuitous Whimsy

During our most recent marriage therapy zoom session, our therapist asked me:  “so who is the Queen of Fortuitous Whimsy”.

Some definitions: 

Queen =  monarch, ruler

Fortuitous = serendipitous, happening by accident or chance rather than design, “lucky”

Whimsy = quaint,  fanciful quality or humor , impulse 

My husband bestowed this title on me many years ago.  I love that this is how he sees me.   His imposing, brusque, half british overthinking self is the staid to my whimsy.  His logical practical side is heavy and difficult for me to grock at times.  It feels sluggish and painfully slow.  On the contrary, my  creative thinking and whimsy is equally foreign to him.  He is astounded that something not fully thought through, conceived in a split second, on a whim, somehow, actually can work out.  We are a good balance in this wild world we’ve navigated for 27 years together. 

Whims by definition are: a sudden desire or change of mind, especially one that is unusual or unexplained.  I have learned that this can cause whiplash, as most people are not well suited for “sudden change”.   Control seemed to be a large part of my upbringing, possibly because it was accompanied by so much sudden change.  Not the sudden change of whim however , but the sudden change that comes from moving 15 times in 18 years, the sudden change to a child of her neighborhood, her  school, her  friends.  It was the  breaking free, the loss of control, the loss of  restrictions, if even in my own young imagination, that helped the QFW take hold.

I was hatched from an Army green egg into a blase beige maze of cookie cutter apartments on military bases scattered across the globe.  Surprisingly, everywhere we moved  could have been  the same place.  Somehow, the Army had contrived the experience of living in Columbus Ohio USA or Kagnew Station Ethiopia to feel exactly the same, a McDonalds level of uniformity.   

Even when I was young, I was determined to  seek out the extraordinary in this seemingly endless landscape  of the ordinary.  I would find  houses decorated  with gingerbread exterior moldings of  bright color.  I would take mental pictures of particular hairstyles and hats on the ladies at church. How certain people would carry themselves, their attitudes, and outlook on life.    Much to the chagrin of my conforming parents, I saw that there was an “other”.   I eventually fell away from the “same/same” of my life into the sometimes chaotic streets of color, choice, style, and exquisiteness.  

I fully struck out into my world in my early 20s  through the blinding whiteness of the early “go go” 1980s.   The white blond of my crew cut hair, the white flashing club strobe lights, and the bitter white of cocaine.  With time and maturity, these whites muted and morphed, exposing all the colors that white contains.  I have let this “white light”,  in all its 1990’s new age-i-ness, be my life guide.  

On my QFW journey I’ve realized there  are many other QFW in the world, they are called different names like artists, avant garde, the freaky and the weird.  We are the ones that don't often attune, integrate or even coordinate.  There is the woman with the perfectly perched hat,  the older woman with her  silver hair twisted into a precise french knot with  her light pink lipstick superbly  applied and the young man in a well tailored bright suit jacket.  I can sense it in them immediately when our paths cross, a member of the tribe.    They are secure in their own style and it shows.

I saw the Princess of Fortiutous Whimsy a few years ago  in Venice Italy.  Braless, yellow knit top, shorts,brilliant red lipstick, and the hallmark teenage shoe of black high top converse that carried  her long thin legs across the open air plaza.   Her newly dyed copper red hair bouncing in a pony tail held with a silk scarf.  She sauntered through the square unaware of the wake she left behind her.  I felt giddy knowing that I was the one she was coming to meet.   AFter not seeing her for so long while she traveled,  I almost didn’t even recognize my PFW daughter.  

The OG of all  QFW to me, would be Goldie Hawn. Before she was the  academy award  winning actress she  was a gogo girl, on the 1960s comedy  show “Laugh In” (1968-1973).   She was a true  gogo dancer akin to those found at Whisky a GoGo in Paris and the Peppermint Lounge in NYC.  In her bikini tops, mini skirts, white pleather gogo boots with peace signs and counter culture statements written across her bare skin - she danced and flipped her hair with reckless, whimsical, abandon, a true queen.  

When I was asked throughout my lifetime, “what do you want to be when you grow up”?  I would reply the proper and true responses of; author, entrepreneur, mother  But if I were to answer from my QFW heart, the answer would always be “a gogo dancer”.

 When I am living my best QFW self I feel freshly opened to the world and joy-filled.   It doesn’t always work out that way of course, the reverse side can be closed dark and depressing  My previously programmed self can easily twist the QFW into being seen as silly, frivolous, selfish, shallow an unintelligent.  

THe QFW speaks in  naturally arising spontaneous intuition, impulse or reflex. It’s a spark of a thought, a tickle in my gut , a leap of my heart, a sudden smile upon my face.  I don’t have to act on it, I don’t have to even give her voice credence at that moment, but I always try to keep a light on for her.    

 I sometimes forget that I have this title of QFW plastered at the end of every email I send out into the world.  Somehow in my announcing it to the world in this way, she lives on.  

The Overview Effect

The road is dirt, her two companions are large and white and hairy. They are 7600’ above the sea. 

The silence is ear splitting when you think about it. Instead, she fills the quiet with vibrating rambling thoughts.  At first her ears would careen for sound, seeking it out, filling it in.  But now six years into the silence, her senses are filled with mountain air - evergreen trees - rocks - stars - bears - wind - clouds - dust and dirt - deer - moon phases - foxes -and valleys.

Some days all are nearly unseen, that is why she walks.

She takes a walk in the early evening, during the old ‘arsenic hour’, a time of transition from outside work (job) to inside work (family).  This shifting is no longer filled with carpools and car seats, lunchboxes, laundry, homework, shopping and meal prep. Those weekday transformation hours historically included a meltdown and a generous amount of wine. Now working from her home, with no small children, she doesn’t commute, but instead walks the road, usually with wine.

The Overview Effect by Frank White explains how astronauts experience earth as one mass with disregard to borders, boundaries, fences, maps, roads and communities.  Within the context of interminable space our EARTH is a speck. The only lineation seen is the intersecting shadow line of day and night.  

A recurring childhood dream:

Lying in her bed, as sleep delves heavier into her subconscious she begins to levitate, at first only a few feet above her bed. Then as she goes deeper, the “leaning in” part of the dream, not resisting the float seems to be vital, she drifts out her bedroom window.  Rising above her house, her street, her neighbors, her town, her city, state. Widening, broadening,  a reverse telescoping.  Depending upon her degree of submission, her breadth, her overview could be never ending. To date, however, she has actually only recalled going as far as her own galaxy.  

We are just a place in the whole.                                                                    Place is perspective.  

“When you meet the Buddha on the road kill him” is a koan, or a puzzle, attributed to Zen master Linji in the ninth century.  This seemingly “un-buddhist” anecdote or contemplation, is designed to exhaust discriminating thoughts with a hope that a deeper more intuitive insight will arise.  As with many spiritual quotes it is not meant to be taken literally but crafted to prompt curiosity.  The road is your path through this life, to ultimate enlightenment. When you turn the Buddha into a religious fetish or an egoic form, or develop an obsession with enlightenment, even thinking you may have attained or are close to attaining such enlightenment, it is time to kill the Buddha.  Let it go, lean in, release it, “kill it”, otherwise you will never acquire true wisdom.

A slogan seen on the back of an adventure magazine subtly overlayed on a topographic map:

 “the deeper you get, the deeper you get” 

From the surreal confines of their spaceship, space travelers witness our home as a “tiny, fragile ball of life, hanging in the void, shielded and nourished only by a paper-thin atmosphere”*. 

During their first days in space astronauts can point out their country and maybe their city from their ship’s portals. After a few more days in the void they can point out only their continent. Eventually through more time living within an infinity of blank, they cannot distinguish any separateness on our planet. They experience a cognitive shift in awareness, an awe, letting go of self, the oneness of our planet, the reality of Earth in space.

One evening, two women meet on the road. One a stranger, beautiful, tall, thin, tastefully made up, perfect bun, wearing pink (flimsy) trainers, that honestly wouldn’t survive a hike to the neighborhood’s mailboxes. An “Airbnb-er” no doubt. The image of a ballerina comes to mind, a ballerina wrapped in a knee length camel hair coat.  The other woman on the road wears more traditional mountain garb. Rubber boots, jeans, sweatshirts, down vest, disheveled hair, a Mtn Gal. The latter has two Great Pyrenees dogs leaping at the ends of their harnesses and leashes desperately pulling to meet, and jump on,  The Ballerina. 

"One-World Island in a One-World Ocean" 

helps us to view the world 

as one interdependent 

system of relationships. - Buckminster Fuller

At first the Ballerina and the Mtn Gal exchanged tentative glances at each other.  Both were not expecting to have run into the other on the deserted lane. The two pony sized dogs win their scramble and reach the hem of the elegant coat. The dogs are, after all, the true keepers of the road, the guardians...the barkers. Their fur instantly magnetized to the coat, coat on coat.  Ballerina’s manicured hand quickly slobbered upon and a large muddy paw print atop her pretty pink trainers. 

With obvious summoned courage The Ballerina blurts out to the Mtn Gal  “Do you actually LIVE here?  HERE?!” eyes wide, questioning, bewildered, disbelieving.  “Is that your beautiful adobe house?  I almost walked down to it.”  She is braver than her city exterior lets on as “walking down” would have meant another quarter mile to a treacherous 20 step curved stairway  (with no railing) down the side of the mountain to where the handmade adobe home is perched. Instead they walk together in the opposite direction, to the end of the road, to the “overlook” where the city lies in ceaseless flurry below.  Above them are birds in an open blue sky, beside them rock and evergreens for eternity, under their feet the solid ground of mountain.  They stand in witness as strangers, feeling what unites them, seeing what separates them.

"You see things as you see them with your eyes, but you experience them emotionally, viscerally as it was ecstasy and a sense of total unity and oneness." Edgar Mitchell, astronaut on Apollo 14 when viewing Earth from space for the first time.  

These regular pre-sunset walks on the road are filled with nourishment, rest, unwinding, presence, the occasional ballerina and of course, the killing of Buddhas. The sun is the signal, the dusk grows, the shadows elongate, the clouds glide across the sky ever so slightly below the thin line of atmosphere.  This time is no longer for arsenic, but exposure. A new kind of self reflection - a looking back at our planet, at ourselves, at our communities, at our Buddhas and our roads. 

We are     the moon         

the     sun   

the spinning     heavens   

We are     stardust 

*The Overview Effect by Frank WhiteThe road is dirt, her two companions are large and white and hairy. They are 7600’ above the sea.