Almost

The man who was almost my father was a Boston Bruin goalie.   Brent, a youthful, strong athlete in the prime of his life, handsome in his iconic black and gold uniform with imposing B set in sharp features.  His sculpted jaw and cleft chin were saved by the grace of the recently adopted facemask for NHL goalies.  But oh those pads, the pads oddly were an attraction, something about getting a black round hard plastic puck being shot at your body at upwards of 100  mph over and over in a game.  Brent was my mom’s fiance.

Even though engaged, my mother was easily convinced by her very convincing best friend Pat, to give up a boring night at home listening to records and polishing her nails to instead attend the Saturday night USO dance in the hall of their local church. Her goalie fiance at the time was playing an away game in Canada (Boston lost 6-1 to the Canadians that night). This loss was just  the beginning of many losses for Brent personally and professionally. Coincidentally Boston ended up in the basement of final standings that season.

My mother prepped for the dance. Teased and sprayed her hair, wearing stiff petticoats under her full skirt cinched at the waist to strategically showcase her slender figure.  Pat wore a sweater set with matching tapered pants - perfectly matching pumps and handbags.

My father, Mike,  was an enlisted Army private, carefree, tanned, with ocean streaked blonde hair, as only a Southern Californian boy can have.  Growing up his days were filled with surfing, fast cars, and beach parties. Mike was strikingly handsome in his dress uniform of crisp tan pants with army green overcoat pulled taut across his chest and  broad shoulders with a thick belt.   Brent was almost as handsome in his very different uniform, almost.

If there is a thing as love at first sight they saw it.  My mom, much to her surprise, found herself dancing, laughing and eventually walking outside with the handsome private. Perhaps it was the  punch, the heat of the hall, stuffiness of the room, the warmth of the night seeping onto the dance floor like a fog, the laughter of dear friends, cigarette smoke, or the music, Whatever the cause of the enchantment, so it was. As she succumbed to a tender kiss goodnight she knew Mike’s mischievous twinkling blue eyes would never leave her heart.

That fateful Saturday night USO dance, when my father lost his  game in Montreal, my future was sealed. This almost-ness is perhaps why I have a thing for hockey players. My first love was a high school hockey star and I’ve had several from afar crushes through the years on those broken nose, adorable missing teeth, brutal, endearing hockey players.  

Now nearly 60 years later I found a picture of Brent Gable.  It was an old image on a Boston Bruins players trading card without much value, yet it made my heart flutter to see him smiling back at me, he eerily resembles my Dad.  They could almost have been brothers.

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.

The Young Girl Dancing

The van smells of patchouli, dog hair, incense and cake.  She is being expertly piloted through the dark wooded roads by the driving and navigation team of Dad and Uncle.  Her mother deftly balancing a cake with five lit candles on her knees as the chorus of “Happy Birthday” begins.  Full of love and raw joy, she catches her father’s eye in the rear view mirror, as her Uncle turned towards her offering her a tenderly wrapped small package.  

The van is a wheeled extension of their home. It is fully lined with tapestries and oriental carpets, smothered in the sweet aroma of Nag Champa.  Music, in the van or at home, was always playing or being played, creating a soundtrack to her life.  With the family’s hairy mut lying on her feet, her belly full of birthday cake, the sway of the van up and around the winding roads reminding her of a very comforting rollercoaster, she fell asleep quickly,.  She slept only as a five year old can, with the innocence and sacredness of never doubting “all is well” in the world surrounding her like a cloud.

She woke with the bright sun beaming onto her cherub face mashed with dog hair.  She emerged from the deep snuggle of her red cotton sleeping bag, “Pandy”’s side flattened from the pressure of her head while she slept.  As she sat up she habitually reshaped the polyester stuffed panda bear that her dad had won for her last year at the fair. Sleep flitted from her being. She could already hear the music from the distance, calling her to fully awake and smack into her family’s campfire breakfast of pancakes, bacon and orange juice. 

Consciously preparing for her first day as a five year old she stepped into a colorful cotton slip of a dress her mother had made for her earlier that summer. Commenting as she measured and sewed through gritted teeth full of pins “she's in another growth spurt” and as if in a parental call and response, “Growing like a weed” is what her dad would say immediately after.  The dress was just a few months old, yellow, her favorite color, spattered with a light floral pattern but was already too short.  Her legs, still carrying a touch of toddlerhood ojas, were elongating and poked out from the rising hemline.  She slipped on the beaded bracelet her uncle had given her the night before, it fit perfectly and she already knew she would cherish and wear it every day.  It was just like the bead she always admired around his neck, large, brown, entwined on a rough rope.  He wore it every single day. 

Forgoing her usual braids, she made the five year old decision to let her long blonde hair flow free, free to fly when on the swings, free to twirl when flipping cartwheels and free to stream wildly with her when she danced.  Her mom tied her dad’s old blue bandana loosely around her neck.  They were ready.

Her small hand anticipatorily engulfed in the huge calloused palm of her dad’s as they set off across the field, this small pod of a family, passing through other’s campsites, the blue haze of their morning fires sputtering into the thick air.  As they walked triple stride through puddles from last night's rain, they got closer to the sound of the music. The camps grew closer and closer together.  She tried to be respectful and tiptoe around tents and over the sleeping bundles of bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground. More and more people, tighter with every step. As they crested the hill she stood in wonder at the field below. Never before had she seen so many people in one place. The stage in the distance was secondary to the mass of humanity laid out before it with contrasting yellow tarps lining the sides of the field offering shade, first aid, and food for those ill prepared.

Stopping to take it all in she was nearly distanced from her pod.  Like the vigilant watchful bird he was, her Uncle swooped next to her gently humming into her ear “stay close, little bug, don’t want you to get lost in this crowd”.  They found a spot on the side of the hill and laid out their red and black plaid blanket. The were enveloped between the others, a mandala of softness, hair, bodies, scents, smiles, words and rhythms. 

Her mom’s brother was perpetually shirtless 19 year old.  His white skivvies ever so slightly rose above his work-pant waistband when he danced a certain way. His young facial hair darkening his upper lip, his black hair was relatively short compared to the current style.  He was tall and easy to spot in a crowd, his ever present bead bouncing and rebounding with his every move.  He was like her shadow, a crow, simply there, never intruding, never overstepping, often never even really talking, a peaceful guardian. 

With his sister’s nod of approval he took the new five year old and led her closer to the stage, slowly they inched their way through the masses.  Their hands never leaving each other’s, and once he even snatched her up like a sack of potatoes and landed her high on his broad tanned shoulders as he walked.  They found their spot.  He took off his shoes. She took off her shoes.  He began to move, she mimicked him.  She saw his elbows bend, his head cocked to the side, a smile across his face, the bouncing bead around his neck.  She followed suit, she allowed the music to wash over her, to feel the energy of the others, the moving and shaking swaying and gliding breathing of the collective. 

Her eyes closed, the music entered her and her body responded, the lyrics diving into her ears  at first, then deep into her soul.  Even without full comprehension of the lyrics, the feeling behind them couldn’t be translated.  She didn’t resist their force on her sweet open heart.  She felt transported to somewhere else while simultaneously fully feeling a  part of the whole. 

Click.  

A picture, a snap of an image, a holding of time forever. 

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.

My Son Through The Revolving Door

He will be gone for at least eight months I’m told. My message to him on a freezing dead of winter morning reads, “Is there anything else I can do for you before you leave? Find out anything I can do about your taxes? I bet your jeep looks great! Get out and ride her as much as you can before you leave.”

My endless questions, outloud and internally, trying to find answers to the insanity of what is about to take place. He is preparing for war.  A war that began in 2001 with Pres. George Bush’s response to the September 11th terrorist attacks and accelerated with Pres. Barack Obama’s December 2009 decision to add 33,000 more troops to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.  My son packs and re-packs his equipment, does his banking, prepares his will and final wishes, files his taxes, makes arrangements for his Jeep.  He will be out of communication for the majority of his time away.  It is February 2010 and violence has escalated in Afghanistan following Obama's increased troops announcement. The actual media quote is “Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high”  not exactly what a mother wants to read before her son deploys to a war.  

The realities creep into my consciousness daily but my subconscious is what awakes me at night.  My dreams and imaginings are the worst.  A man in uniform showing up at my door that I refuse to open.  A folded flag being handed to me. My meditation practice is strongly taken up a notch.  

Things that help:

• get some nerve tonic or kava kava, available at health food stores, best for the initial first weeks WTF? times

• try to be nice to others around you, it’s not always easy as your fuse is seriously shortened by the fears

• Take vitamins 

I frantically shoot him messages full of questions that bounce through my brain, wanting to jam it all in before he leaves . “Can you send me info on your FRO? I’m concerned if I'm not available who will they call? Also maybe you should give me your banking passwords in case I need to do anything?”  I feel my anxiety growing daily.  “I've got your Power of Attorney but may still need the password?“

The final message from his U.S. base coming through on my awaiting screen  “ I'm just waiting in line to get my bags weighed and go thru security.” 

Our lifeline is now the ether world of satellites and technologies through Facebook messenger.  My phone and computer don’t leave my side, I check and double check that notifications are turned on. Then check again to be sure.

I type, knowing he is enroute, hoping he gets it somewhere in the no man’s land between the safety of his home country and a foreign hostile land - the last space of suspension, between peace and war.  Somewhere in that 15 hours and 44 minutes of flight time. When he arrives, he will be living nine and a half hours ahead of us.

“I want reassurances that you'll come back the same. I realize of course you won't.  When you went off to college you didn't come home the same, just as when you get married, or move to a new city, or buy your first house. These are all experiences that will change you.  You know how to take the good and leave behind the bad. You are very well trained, you won’t be there forever, ad try and look at the positive and stay clear of consuming fearful thoughts if you can. I am holding your body mind and spirit in my daily blessings.  I love you, Send me one last pic if you can. Safe journey my darling son”

Troop levels swelled to nearly 100,000 in 2010 and 2011 amid a resurgence in violence.  

My meditation practice is  taken up a notch.  

• red wine and chocolate, do watch your doses

• get in and stay in your body - move, exercise, hike, massage 

• don't allow your body to numb out, keep it involved in the process, moving it will also move the trauma/fear through

• get outside at least once a day, even in the rain, for the sole purpose of looking at the sky

• get outside at night as much as possible, you can communicate through the stars and the moon, knowing these are the same moon/stars shining their miracles down on all involved

• Drink water

His reply, like he is working through it all himself while writing “now my team, team 1 will leave camp ___ within two days of us arriving there... we will push out Via convoy or helicopter (hopefully helicopter cause they would be awesome) to out first FOB(forward operating base) to relieve our counterparts…”

U.S. casualties total 2,403 so far. 2010 marked the deadliest year in Afghanistan, with 499 U.S. soldiers and 711 total coalition forces killed, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. 

His last message before entering Afghanistan, sounds excited, I am terrified.  Hey.. made it safe to Kuwait.. it's just as you'd expect here.. hot sandy and windy.. we are leaving for afghan very very very soon. can't tell you exactly when over this computer.. love you.. ill call when i can

I have got to stop reading the news and researching the numbers, they are overwhelming. Almost like a drug I am pulled to checking them each day.  I try to skip looking for some days, I don’t want to look, I don’t want to  know.  I joined a Facebook group of other Navy moms with kids in Afghanistan, it helps.

• breathe deep often, actual heavy sighs are best and most releasing

• pray.  ask others to put him on their prayer/intentions lists, go for broke here, you'll be surprised

• reply to every single reply you get

• vision board, the homecoming, the healing, the end result

Blank, blank, blank. My daily hourly check ins on the screen. Finally a pop up of light from 7615 miles away.

Yea its been exciting here, we got attacked again today, they just shoot at the base and hope they hit something, but it's still crazy hearing the bullets fly over your head.  they don't get close to the base.. they just shoot from far away, bullets make a crazy noise.. like a snap when they fly by..years they go right over head.. all you hear is a quick wiz/snap I don't let it get to me.. one hell of a rush though.  this is actually the down season.. it really picks up during summer.. but yes it's normal.. what do you mean move on? haha they're everywhere mom.. they live here.. but yea.. anyway i'm getting kicked off because my time is up.. love you gotta go bye..

Feb 22, 2012 - Several hundred protesters armed with rocks were blocking the way into central Kabul on the Jalalabad road in response to the burning of the Quran by US soldiers.  They were heading to Camp Phoenix , a NATO camp, and were trying to break through the gates. NATO soldiers were watching from towers and had their weapons pointed toward the crowd, but seemed to be trying to avoid opening fire. The New York Times reported from General Allen  “We are thoroughly investigating the incident, and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you ... I promise you ... this was NOT intentional in any way.” 

 I add stronger prayer to my meditation practice.

• get ass to yoga class

• journal and keep notes, it helps you in retrospect know how things are improving

• teach, share, volunteer, give

hey mom..time is moving.. things are good..so im at a new combat outpost now.. it's even smaller than the last.. but i like it.. we are literally 10 ft away from a village.. this base is about the size of 1 or 2 city blocks.. it's very ghetto but like i said i like it here... the convoy over was a little hairy but all is good.. the food situation here sucks.. so lots of cliff bars and what not would be great please… the phones here suck too so I don't know when ill be able to call..

March 2012 - An American sergeant is suspected of killing 16 people: nine Afghan children, three women and four men in two villages near his combat outpost on Sunday. Gen. John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, called the rampage "the actions of a single soldier," but it has added new strains to the relationship between the coalition and the Afghan people in the decade-old war.  

My worry hits its peak, this was his base, this was one of his peers. I’m finding it harder and harder to sleep for more than a few hours, my mind races and imagination runs wild, particularly in the crazy world of 2am. My shaking fingers type out from the flashing cursor the words. “We got a letter from your commanding officer about the whole tragedy, glad to hear all are safe now. Worried especially with all the recent news. Trying not to stress too much. Hoping they'll just call the whole thing off and send you home”

Radio silence….

I lean into the Navy Moms Facebook group of mothers with kids in Afghanistan.  It is like a nightmare sorority.  I stumble into others of the club, parents who have currently or have had in the past children in Afghanistan.  The man at the post office. A woman I’ve never met on my meditation message board replies. “I'm just a practitioner in Phoenix but I will pray for you and your family.” We are not alone. The unspeakable, the numbers, the casualties.  No matter how painful and challenging and disgusting it may make me feel like I have to look at their names sometimes.  I have to know how old they were, I have to say out loud Christopher Singer age 23. California. The statistics, the names, ages, will crack your soul open. 

Cost 1.07 trillion. The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans’ care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University.

More silence….

The very worst scenarios are imagined. They creep in like a fly through a screen door in the heat of the summer and then proceed relentlessly to annoy. In order to keep them at bay i start a yoga class for returning veterans, it helps.  

• learn to knit, knit socks

• breathe in fresh air

• find a support group, online, in person, may not need be related even to the "issue"

• stay busy, travel, but all in balance, be sure to not move too fast

• did I mention to breathe deep

• go to a yoga festival

• surround yourself with upbeat, positive thinkers and doers
   

Finally the stagnant air is broken ...”no need to worry about me.. i'm fine. although I have to say it's an unreal feeling realizing that someone is actually trying to kill you.. ha you know what i mean.. very unnatural.  I was awoken with someone screaming “they are coming over the walls!!"even though I was asleep i've never moved so fast.. I was outside the tent with my weapon wearing  my vest and underwear in about 2 seconds.. turns out they were actually right at the wall shooting through the cracks but it was still they biggest adrenaline rush ive had yet, they never made it over the walls.  I don't see any down time in the near future.. buts its ok.. makes the time pass quickly.. anyway, I have to go because my time limit is up  love u - u shouldnt be awake this early anyway

May 2012 - Mother’s Day - I am out and about with family enjoying the beautiful weather, the complete opposite of where he is, the strange cryptic numbers pop up on the phone. With the joy of a child I fumble to answer the phone, the rare call, hearing his voice, choppy, distant, halting, struggling to conquer the three second delay between speaking and hearing. My surroundings dissolve, I cling to the voice waves. The precious call drops dead, deep into the black abyss of the cell void.

Hot tears flooding I type Sorry our call was so choppy but good to hear your voice. Keep your chin up. I wish I had gotten to say I love you on the call but you know that, have to remember to say it first in case we get cut off like we did. Remember there are good forces in the world. There are good people and there will be good times for you again very soon! 

It is the second highest period of casualties since the conflict began.

they actually brought in 2 taliban the other day who blew themselves up trying to plant an IED.. one had no legs and died shortly after

I go through the normal life of grocery shopping, family life, chores, work, driving kids to school. 

My meditation prayer practice steps up another notch.

• do not forget about others in your life, ie. other kids, husband.  They will be your rocks

• listen to good music, dance

• have a small spray bottle of rose water in handbag at all times, the best way to soften tear streaks after a parking lot crying jag

• find a mala, find a practice

• educate yourself on the situation, but only as much as you want to be educated

• mantra, this too shall pass

• get professional help

• ask others you trust if above is needed if you're wondering

Get rest and calm your nerves, careful of adrenal fatigue, I sent you some of that rescue remedy gum. It is for when there is high stress. Take advantage of the calm when you've got it.

haha ok i'll try out the gum - it will be put it to the ultimate test!

More blank, gap, days, weeks gone. “Normalcy” proceeding, tulips bloom, potlucks, school plays, blank blank blank then...

“we haven’t been bored ... the warmer the weather gets the more active the enemy gets. the winter is kind of their off season.. but everything is fine.. next package can you please send sunflower seeds.. club crackers.. and some of those turkey slim jim looking beef jerky things.. you know what im talking about?? also goldfish.. and maybe some of those smoked oysters.. and cheese wiz.. ha thanks.. the last one I got was the socks.. thanks they are very warm.. we don't get mail very often here because we only get it when someone from camp leatherneck comes here.. but ill get them eventually.. how is everything there?? love u  yea a big tent.. with 13 others, food is horrible”

The longest war in American history, spanning three administrations.

so just a few hours ago, I had a real afghan diner, me and a couple other guys were invited by the afghan army special forces.  I  was blown away, it was like a 4 course meal.. they had fresh veggies and meat which i haven't had since I got here...... we all sat on the floor and ate with our hands.. they invited us because they always see us working and wanted to learn about us and what we do.. it was one of the coolest things ive ever experienced.. I felt really honored..

The number of children killed in 2016 was 24 percent greater than the previous highest recorded figure.

There are these 3 little afgan boys (brothers)t hat live on this COB with the army special forces..they are 12, 9 and 7 years old.. they are so funny and polite. they are also the hardest kids i've ever met.. their story is really interesting.  they used to just come pick up the army special forces trash and they army guys would throw them a few bucks.. the taliban saw that these kids were "working for the amercans" so they threatened the kids family, said if they didnt stop they would kill the kids and torture the father and mother.. the kids father told the SF guys(special forces) about the threats and ask if they would take the kids and let them live on base for their safety.. so the kids have been living with the army SF guys ever since.. they have basically been adopted by 12 american special forces soldiers.. their parents are prolly dead by now.. pretty horrible..a few nights ago these kids missed their family.. they snuck off base and walked for 5 hours till they got to their village, when they got there they got the shit beat out of them by the taliban and they took all their clothes and money thank god they somehow made it back to base…. they are so funny, they always play all tactical and military like.. when we are working sometimes they'll stand on top of a box or on a corner, with their toy water guns and provide security for us.. haha, .. i can't say their names so i call them little one one, little one 2, and little one 3.. i worry about what will happen to them when the US pulls out of afghan... can’t even think about it..

Breathing, sitting, praying. Praying for those boys. Dumbfounded by the compassion. 

• be a bit british, keep calm and carry on

• keep phone charged and close in reach if you think you may be hearing from them

• answer the weird numbers that you don't recognize and would normally ignore

• go to the movies

• get really big dark sunglasses to go to grocery store in - to cover the bags under your eyes

 
Haven't heard from you in a while. On the move again? Only about 75 more days. Keep focused in this home stretch. 

 
Grateful for his quick reply, maybe I have finally figured out the time difference.

Roy our units military dog went home.. they said he saw too much action and was just worn out, Our new base has an awesome little stray puppy her name is kelly, just a few months old but she’s huge, actually i was gonna ask you, in the next care package send some dog treats pls

I begin to feel his weariness filtering in to the messages, or is that my weariness?

pretty ready to get home, the days all blur together, plus it goes by faster that way i have crazy dreams out here kinda bad but whatever, just dreams

I keep finding little things to send care packages. I’m sending more packages to soldiers I don’t know, the ones I’m told who aren’t getting any mail at all, and of course the condolence cards to the mothers of sons that I don’t know.  It helps.

just got mail finally;.. it's been so long, but I was super excited, felt like a kid on xmas morning... last I heard we should be home around the  ---  we're doing some kinda warrior transition in Qatar ...but also ready to be home soon

Home.  He is 10 months into an 8 month tour.  

Casualties for the months he was there:

24 - Feb
39 - March
40 - Aril
45 - May
39 - June
46 -- July
52 - Aug
27 - Sept
24 - Oct
17 - Nov

well i just got to Qatar, it looks exactly like afghan except it’s humid and you don’t have to worry about mortars or IDF coming crashing through your tent haha...

November 2012 -  I fly to surprise him when he gets off the plane.  I am in the same building that houses his replacements.  While his group arrives there is another making their final preparations.  It’s just a revolving door, kids coming back, shipping out, his words when he first arrived “to relieve our counterparts”  I say prayers for those boys in that building, it is very quiet, I pray for those parents.  It is hard to settle my elation at his homecoming and simultaneously feel  the strain of this next round heading over to replace him.  We were asked to not go into the building, they are in full gear with their weapons. Our boys, soon deboarding the bus, without their weapons.

We are escorted outside to where the buses are beginning to arrive from the plane.  I madly scan each bus, I stand with my homemade sign, heart in throat. The group allows the soldier dads to get off the buses first. I watch new fathers gingerly hold their child for the first time.

I see him, in the back of the bus, I can’t stop myself from yelling his name, still jumping up and down, clutching my sign.  Finally he is off the bus, I clasp onto him and gasped like a muffled cork from a champagne bottle, 10 months of relief in one exhale.  He is dirty and tired and hungry and home. 

I take him and his friends out for the biggest meal we can find. The meal is festive, all grateful to be home. He is a man returned from war but I can still see that young boyish twinkle in his eye, his huge appetite at lunch, his unconsciously whistling aloud (and off tune) in the restaurant. Something he has done his entire life, his whistle of contentment, a sign that all is well in his world.  He takes me on a drive in his jeep with his grown up man hands on the stick shift.  Sitting on the pier I listen to his stories.  Waves of release and sadness. He is 25 years old. A man who is proud of everything he did on this deployment.  And in his words "that is what made it a success mom".    

• be grateful
  
  Addendum:
  President Barack Obama ended the combat mission in Afghanistan, known as “Operation Enduring Freedom,” in 2014, however, the  U.S. still has 14,00 troops there now in 2019 with an additional 22,000 troops from 39 nations. March 2019; death toll for year so far 4 US soldiers - my meditation practice again steps up a notch.

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. 

Mundanely Exquisite

I dread the mundane and have actively tried to live outside of it

I perceive it as boring, vanilla, common, cookie cutter

Same, same - sheep

Possibly due to, overwhelmingly at times, living the day to day to day of life 

Never a dull moment, yet most of them are mundane.

***

Common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative

Not my favorite qualities

I have felt alien and yet at home so often in my life

Not remembering the dialects of the region, bus system, 

local fads - Pet rocks, “in” or “out”

There was no reason to live in the mundane - particularly in the unimaginative

Being always the new kid I was already outside the lines

so why not make those lines have just a little more color

In doing so I uncovered in lowly normalness

A dwelling place for common poetic beauty

***

Simplicity, routine, reassurance, steadfastness, not giving any lip

Some great qualities

Background noise to the self import, auto-updating techno gadgets, 

With their bings, blips, and custom ringtones

The hanger can’t compare to an Iphone - just can’t

Without the hanger closets would inevitably be in a constant state of disarray

But no iphone? No photos, no texts, no apps, no music and yes no phone

Both essential in their role and place of order in our lives, 

We certainly don’t give a hanger its deserved regard

Without the mundane all worlds would truly collapse

And the exquisite couldn’t exist in its comparison

***

Household Mundane:

• Spoons

• Nail polish

• White bread

• Humidifiers

• Laundry soap

• Dog brushes

• Ash

• Omelets

***

Shoelaces:

The tender banal shoelace, the routine of daily gliding aglet smoothly into eyelet

Holding it all together, hanging the bunny, until it isn’t  - with that always unexpected snap!

Critical thinking is forced to kick in 

No more taking for granted the humdrum bits 

Immediately initiating creativity, tie them together? 

Discard broken one and work with what ya got?

Their undoing is our undoing

Like so many similar items they are critical to proper movement, protection and to our most common form of functionality

Ian (aka Professor Shoelace) the founder of the Internet's #1 website about shoelaces,

found the ethereal in what most of us perceive as a boring shoe lace.

“Bringing you the fun, fashion & science of shoelaces” 

Ian of Ian's Shoelace Site – https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/

Complete with suggested lengths, knots, laces rating, and lacing photos.  Home of the Ian Knot!

***

The Necessities:

Are the basics of life, the essentials, as a rule, inherently mundane?  

Is a car mundane?  Depends upon the car? The driver? The passenger? The destination?

Everytime that key turns or that finger pushes that button with ease

The trigger of the ignition of the engine’s nearly inaudible rumble, 

all the moving parts bolting to life

we don’t usually give a little thank you prayer for this daily miracle

maybe we have had “that car” at one time in our life, 

the car we pray starts regularly and without drama 

but today, we slap it into drive and go 

***

Heart’s Mundane:

• Scent of a baby’s head

• Touch of puppy ears

• Cupids, cherubs, angels

• ojas, nectar of a baby’s cheeks

• The desert 

***

While pondering the mundane now for weeks 

I couldn’t help but find my copy of 

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

“An anecdotal history of elegant delights”

Most of them being those daily lovely elegant charming rare items

The E.O.E. being the antithesis to the mundane

But what is one without the other

***

Phenomenally Mundane:

• Childhood jewelry box 

• Twirling ballerina inside on a spring

• Playing clinky Tchaikovsky 

• Hand in continuous non motion

• Toe shoes always tied

• Stiff tulle tutu popping out in perfection

• Filled with pink satin fabric and small compartments for pet rocks

***

Mannequins, and their viral video craze 2016 challenge,

standing still in time, camera encircles the frozen action 

Black Beatles beat booming as the backdrop

Androgynous, fashion display, almost inappropriate to see not fulfilling their intended job

• Fashion

• Art drawing

• Red cross - infant and CPR

• Body doubles

• Substitutes

• Crash test dummies

• Computer simulation 

Eyes painted on in a perpetual state of surprise 

Attempting to represent human form, 

anatomically correct with synthetic hair

I prefer it left to my imagination

No distinguishing features please 

Just simple blank sockets for eyes

***

Signs and Signals

Everywhere

Drive ten feet there are thousands of instructions

Labeling, locating, notifying, informing, regulating

Number limits of your speed

White guy saying cross

Red hand saying not

Car yields to bike sign to pedestrian sign - hierarchy of yielding

Possible to literally assimilate them all?

Or to rely solely on symbolism, arrow, structure, color, shape, intuition

Deer with a hula hoop - pedestrian crossing with stenciled balloon in hand

Bumper stickers in my daily coursing through the back streets

Are the entertainment of driving - life snippets at a stop sign

Signs and signals the well-intended overly informative

***

Life Signs:

• Stop 

• No parking any time

• Love

• Fine doubled

• Breathe

• Dead end

• Stop

• No U Turn

• One way

• Road work ahead

• Alternate routes advised (my personal favorite)

***

The allure of Gabriel Orozco's exhibit at the Guggenheim in 2012

His exquisite journey through the mundane

“Using his visually appealing yet ultimately banal systems of organization, the artist exhales a refreshing breath of unadulterated beauty contemporary art rarely sees.”*

1,200 found objects, including wood, metal, glass, paper, plastic, Styrofoam, rock, rope, rubber, 

Creating artistnal asterisms, the small parts that makes up the whole

The big dipper as part of Ursa Major

Can one exist without the other?

***

Exquisite Mundane:  

• Tassels

• Caftans

• Fitted above elbow leather gloves with buttons

• A beautifully crafted handbag, shoe, boot

• Tea

• Gold wedding band

• Linen Sheets

• Swimming in natural bodies of water

• Homemade with love tollhouse cookies

• Turbans

• Love Notes

• British murder mystery series

• Down comforters

• Perfect red lipstick (still unfound)

***

As German Philosopher Novalis wrote in  1772 “... to see the ordinary as extraordinary, 

the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite” 

Common, lovely, ordinary, elegant, banal, charming, unimaginative, rare 

Authentic qualities of day to day to day to day living

Finding balance of both the exquisite and the mundane, simultaneously, in each other

merging the two, the union of an ordinary extraordinary life - 

***

*11/23/2012 08:36 am ET Updated Dec 06, 2017 Huffpost

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