Lava to the Sea

Last night, there we were, all squeezed into a little waiting room, working a crossword orally -- Say, does anyone know a 4 letter word for an African beast with the 3rd letter a U?

Kids were strewn around, making joyful noises as they played, adults reading and teasing one another with a childhood familiarity that was repeated on down the line. One strummed a guitar and before long everyone was humming and singing and remembering five different songs all at once.

It went on and on, this crecendo of life. No one came to scold us for being noisy in the middle of the maternity ward late on a Sunday evening. I enjoyed the ritual, the celebration. And when he arrived, our littlest guest, we crowded around the window in awe of his weight and length, joyous to be the welcoming committee for the newest person on earth.

Four generations in the room but the circle didn't feel complete. My heart was sad for those I have come to know and love. As closely as I identified with the experience, remembering the first touch of my babies, learning their scent, wondering about the magic tucked inside, I knew I wasn't the right mom. Where was the matriarch?

What came to mind was a trip a decade ago to the Kilauea volcano where it was making land from sea. It was a fiercely beautiful sight to stand on the hard, black lava that stretched its wrinkles of new land in all directions. Last night, I again experienced the sensation of utter desolation that accompanies change, wherever it's found.

Unabridged

It's been over a year now. Movies and lively conversations are as natural as if that's all it's ever been. I sit cross legged, singing along with Robert Preston's Music Man, feeling the uniqueness of an unfenced world.

Like a beautiful, warm shawl laying gently on my chilly shoulders at night, I dip my feet in the pool and watch the stars, free to say and do as I please, looking down from the hilltop at an unabridged me.

Where It's At

We were a little early yesterday. I don't like being early to parties because when I'm giving it, either me or the house isn't ready on time. No sooner had we pulled in under the tree then the screen door flew open and a little granddaughter hurled herself into my arms in a welcome hug. Talk about melt.

The Bucket List is out on DVD now, have you seen it? Great movie, that will carry you along, laughing, celebrating, rooting them on. Rob Reiner sure knows how to tap into the deepest, richest parts of the human experience.

We spent the entire weekend with family. Saturday for a funeral, followed by a birthday surprise party, and on Sunday a Father's Day BBQ for Dad and his sons and their families. The Bucket List kept coming to mind, the part about giving and receiving joy.

It's easy to fill a life with owning stuff and making money in a country like ours, where so many believe it measures success. But looking at the family together, laughing, loving, tossing water balloons, the footprints we've made in each other's hearts is what really matters.

I'm new to this family, so the hug felt especially wonderful as it washed over my heart.

Finish Strong

Someone once said he felt like a spectator in his own life. He'd been plenty of places, interesting ones, but he hadn't learned how to push off from the edge of that high wall where he dangled his legs, and into life.

Half a century of travels, building hearth and home, exploring parenthood, working hard, trying to fill the hours and days with joy and purpose, and in the stillness of my thoughts I still struggle with transitioning into a life now that my sons are grown. Can I really feel out of place in my own skin?

Life is waiting. Just lean forward and push off the wall and fly feet first into the stream, it says. The water will be cold and invigorating, so float with the current awhile, get the lay of the land, acclimate. Rapids and rocks litter the way but look for the beautiful coves with beaches and waterfalls just around the bend. The melody is enchanting, offering up a chance to swim strong against the current and change direction as you will.

Do you hear it? Push off, it whispers, push off.

Doves

Yesterday I found a Dove outside the bedroom window. She had evidently hit the glass and broken her neck. Her mate sat cooing in a nearby tree and watched as I carefully tucked her inside a plastic bag. He trailed along behind, tree to roof, calling to her as I walked to the front yard and discarded her body.

I really like Doves. A few years back, a Dove made a tidy nest on a shelf near our back door. It had a deep overhang and looked to be an ideal spot. We gave her a wide berth, using other doors to get to the back yard, and watched her dutifully sit on her nest. Her mate came and went, sitting on the three eggs while she fed herself, sharing the responsibility of parenthood.

One afternoon, without warning, a hawk flew under the awning, slammed into the kitchen windows and snatched the Dove right off her nest, scattering eggs and nesting material everywhere. It paused on the fence momentarily to gain a better grip of the Dove before flying off to enjoy its prey. Her mate returned each day for a week, searching for her, because he expected to find her -- because she'd always been there.

Partners for life! I wonder with human partners if they ever stop worrying about dangers before they happen and build on the moments of their lives believing in each other like that.

Relay

When I signed up to be a committee member for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, I didn't really know what to expect. Oh I was passionate enough. Trust me: Mom's cancer, and dad's, and two grandmothers, friends, and even a near miss myself was plenty of incentive.

As we poured over the details each step of the way, committee members scurried around so that walkers would be fed and hydrated and entertained and appreciated. There is great tedium in the shadow of something great and we tired of the process but we pressed on.

This year was a scorcher. Saturday to Sunday, for 24 hours tents of cheerfulness fought off the brutal 100 degree heat and transformed the football field and track into a collaboration of sights and sounds all working towards a cure. We had water balloon fights, squirt gun fans, we tossed cold water bottles to walkers on the track, cheering one another on. And we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research along the way.

Neighborhood groups sang and danced and the DJ kept up the momentum. The Rotary and Lions fed us, teachers and students, businesses, city workers, churches, and survivors. And oh, when those Luminaria bags were lit, all decorated with the names of those who didn't survive, in honor and remembrance, it made me weep.

I love the hopefulness of Relay, the grassroots feel of committing a moment, a day, to making a difference. As I stood there in my Relay hat from 2002, with all the names of those I've loved and lost to cancer -- Mom and Dad, co-workers and friends -- I realized that all we have is this moment to be heard. We matter, all of those names and faces on the bags and all those faces that smiled back as I served them water or cleaned up their trash. And for that, we fight on.

Owning the Moment

The plan was to spend time with an intelligent man. We agreed to meet for dinner on a week night, and I was running late. I spotted him first, while dodging cars trying to park. He was seated outside, looking nervously first left then right for the spark of advantage, but the advantage was mine for having a few undiscovered moments to size him up. We disagree now on whether he had a beard (he didn't) and what I ordered at Borders (Chai tea) but not about the mutual surprise at our companionability. Sushi, books, and ideas: pretty potent stuff.

That evening - and hundreds more - have confirmed our suspicions, but it was that first night, standing by the car amid busy shoppers, where he gently rested his hand on my hip and owned the moment.

Now he tills the soil and I plant the blooms. His eyes twinkle in a tease and I try in vain not to finish his sentences. We punctuate our conversations with lyrics and discover places only two can go but haven't been. I love his laugh, that he still calls even before I get home, just like he did the night we met. That's just the way it's going to be, he says.

Thanks, babe.

AD

His daughter and I were playing around today with one of those silly questionnaires you get over the internet, you know the kind, what color of Crayola would you want to be and how far have you been away from home. When we got to the question about favorite smells, I offered up brownies, but she countered with the scent of her mother's perfume, even on clothes she wasn't wearing.

Oh those kinds of smells! My father's clean soapy scent is what I most loved, wrapped around me in that hug that went all the way around twice. His chuckle would reverberate though his chest and all the way to my toes. He'd gather us around and auspiciously push his spectacles down his nose as he read, his deep baritone voice booming with emotion as he'd glance up directly into our eyes, like a schoolteacher wanting us to listen. Oh, and we did.

It's 5 AD (After Dad), although it seems longer. I would give anything to sing another duet with him, live another day hearing his footsteps down the hall. I was at a crossroads once, the way she is now with her mom. How I hope she will someday look back without regret for finding the courage to chop on through to the clearing. It was worth it for me.

Breaking News

Funny: with all kinds of thoughts tumbling around, why is it so tough to write about the things that are most important?

The kindest, most loving person I've ever known announced his engagement last week; the guy I always knew would make a wonderful husband and father is taking the plunge! He taught me all about unconditional love. When other guys were torturing their little sisters, he was nice almost all the time. When life took a serious detour for my boys and me, he stepped up to the plate in a world where that's more an exception than a rule. It wasn't easy but it made all the difference in our lives that he did.

Engaged. This is World News Tonight News. Even for an explorer such as himself, he's in for quite a ride. Of all the remarkable memories in life, nothing compares with the Technicolor moment of giving your heart away.

It does seem like skipping over dinner by inheriting two daughters and sons-in-law and four grandbabies without being a father. Then again, I'm a long-time fan of dessert first.

Love and Congratulations, Jami and Don.

xo Nan xo

The Quiet Room

I recently came upon a half hour massage gift certificate from last year. Perfect! After checking in, the salon staff moved me to 'the quiet room' with a glass of water before meeting the masseuse. It really was nothing more than a darkened hallway of wraparound cushy chairs with a waterfall focal point and flute music playing softly in the background.

The chair made me think of being at home in my favorite writing spot. My barrel chair sits low to the ground and wide enough to fold my knees up to rest the computer. It's so low, in fact, the dog claims me on her turf and rests her head on the edge of my knee as I stroke her ears and write.

I've tried to write other places, and sometimes do, in coffee shops or at my home away from home, but it's better here.

There is great peace in the perspective of surveying my home from down low, a straight view end to end all the way to the front door. After dusk, I sometimes light candles and turn the lights down, listening to logs crackle in the fireplace or rain tapping on the skylight. During the day, light streams in the windows onto abundant houseplants. Appliances hum and walls creak, sounds as comforting to me as those in the spa.

'The world is too much with us', Wordsworth wrote. But in my quiet space, life stills, rebuilds, rebalances my spirit. I wish the dentist's office had that.

Mattering

She's a part of my life, this woman wrapped in a shawl that has holes and stains, as she looks out at traffic on Franklin Boulevard.

Her hair is brown, I think, as she sits nestled in the crease of a closed business with garbage bags guarding her space. No smile is on this wide and earnest face, as she studies traffic, facing the day. She does not notice that I drive a different car.

Sometimes she wears a beanie and other times, when the frost lingers on the windshield, she pulls the bags up around her to break the wind. I look in her face as I pass, slowing to make a turn onto 5th, noticing her not noticing me.

One day I will touch her hand and make her less invisible as I come to know her story. She is part of my world.

Bouquet

I planted bulbs over the weekend, cheerful red tulips trimmed in yellow, that had come in a beautiful glass vase where they sprouted indoors. Like things out of their element, they didn't last long: a few weeks they brightened the kitchen before pulling back into themselves.

Now in humble modesty they sit forgotten but to the gardener whose hands gently tilled the soil and buried them like gold in the yard, beneath summer verbena, cyclamen and orange crush that has claimed center stage.

The forward push towards heat, with slip-and-slides awash in daisies, dahlias and azaleas in rock gardens, promises hearty and prolific blooms. Beauty is everywhere and is joyfully carried along in our grasp, in vases, in lapels.

We too burst with energy, texture and color, only to acquiesce to the next blooms, knowing we all deserve our turn in the sun. Tulips nap and nourish themselves to be ready when their sturdy stalks must peek through to prove that the world will awaken. Being reminded that each of our contributions make the bouquet glorious is one of the best things about spring.

On the Way Home

Sunday began in the easy way it does with people close knit. Through the always-open front door marched family and friends, neighbors, kids and dogs, all with boisterous greetings that filled the house. Food was everywhere: on the table, the counter and sideboard, the stove. Spring dresses and hair bows (shoes, even) and guitars, coolers with icy beverages, a kiddie pool and bags of water balloons. It must be spring in a life of a young family!

Before jumping into the day, I took a little walk around the neighborhood, watching it bloom with families laughing and double parked, waving to neighbors in their small town way. Every single yard was ablaze with flowers of yellows and reds and blues and violets. Would life be like this every day if families weren't separated by freeways? I remember when life had this pace and the washing machine constantly ran.


Family clusters, we see it less and less. Life pulls us every which-way, and have come to think that only by striking out on our own can we truly become self reliant.

Multi-generational life would, I'm sure, focus our commitment more on the virtues and standards of the family unit. Knowing people that way, my sons and his daughters engaged in their lives - not just when the house is dusted and the fridge is full - would require a more developed interpersonal skillset. There'd be none of this no-talking feud business tolerated. I expect squabbles would be unilaterly handled in the same way children's squabbles are: toss them into a room together until they fight their way to peace.

How great that recitals and honor roll ceremonies would be attended on Wednesday afternoons and that the Vice Principal wouldn't strike terror in the hearts of our teens as much as fessing up to it at the dinner table.

Grandpa would be there to tuck a $20 into the palm of a kid heading off on a date, or pin a corsage on his granddaughter's Confirmation robe. Our natural treasures would know by heart the way to Grandpa's house because it would always be on the way home. Now that would be Heaven.

Percolating

The first day of spring always makes me think of birth. No, not as a metaphor: a real birth! I was in a labor room on this very day a short twenty three years ago, in the middle of the night, dancing the Charleston with Colette and awaiting David's leisurely arrival.

My doctor wasn't on call. The doctor hadn't been on call with my first son, either, so this time I met everyone in the practice. I mean, if they're reaching into my nether regions, I ought to have met them on a prior occasion right side up.

Well one must have been on errands, because about 3:30 am, this hippie guy breezed in wearing a sleeveless UC Berkeley sweatshirt, sweatpants, big hair and a dazzling smile. Let's get this show on the road! Was this an intern?

After hippie Doc explained his holistic approach to childbirth, he took my hand and gently talked me through it: slow and easy, and before I knew it a beautiful little boy was happily peeking at me through half closed eyelids in the crook of my arm. The only thing missing for Doc was a catcher's glove.

With a start like that, I should have figured my son would be amazing. He was the most naturally joyous and loving child I ever saw. His tender, inquisitive nature took life by storm. A natural athlete, statesman, banker, and friend, he thrived everywhere. Sensitive natures have ample challenges, and he was no different, but he kept at it, forcing himself forward, surrounded by the smartest and most dedicated friends, finding a way.

Personalities percolate over the years and become stronger, more robust. The wishes I always wished for him were to have a dream to pursue, a happy life to live, and be a good man in word and deed. Since he's already doing that, I'd better just wish him a happy birthday and remind him how much he is loved.

Keeping Score

I watched a boys basketball team recently compete for the state title. In a sea of purple movements, we bore witness to life choreographed in wild cheers and discordant sighs. On a sunny afternoon on a gleaming court, the tangible results of extended fingertips and thundering shoes boiled down to eighteen years and now-or-never seconds.

Our hearts beat just as hard in our chests as those young men striding the court. We, too, leaned into the action and leapt anxiously to our feet with flawless layups by the enemy team. We rallied with each swish of the basket and felt the prick of discouragement with each bad call.

How clear these moments are, when we are catapulted toward - or away from - the grit to press on. One way or another, life draws us to our knees in prayers of thanksgiving or humility.

Home.

An essential spot, here in this place where I know all its faults. Latte colored walls and unopened mail gives rest and contemplative time for things otherwise. The homecoming is all the more sweet because I pull away.

There are secrets. Daffodil bulbs jump the gun with a few warm days in February and get pummeled by spring downpours each year. They were planted just left of center so from my favorite chair I could watch them find the strength to survive. Under bed covers on chilly November days, the tree flames crimson before it scatters across the lawn. Westminster chimes echo through the house and it awakens me at two, but wondrously not at three or four.

Kitchen chair legs are just the right diameter to grip with my toes as I lean into a game of cribbage or wrestle with a passage of text. In the background, the rhythmic whirr of the dog's breathing inventories the comfort of being somewhere that knows me best.

Sparklers

A lost spirit fills the house with joylessness. Where is his sparkle, I wonder, the crackle missing as I watch him in repose. Seeing Kaitlan and he tucked into a movie on the sofa wraps itself around the quiet lonely struggle to yield to what is.

Fallout. Reconciliation.

I hear and know that love means adapting -- changing -- metamorphizing. Forward and back, it draws me between the me-ism world and balance. Sustainable, endurable, transcendable love is the culprit. is it also the cure?

March 3rd

She would have been eighty today, I mull over as I get ready and head off to work. I put out the dog and notice daffodils from bulbs she bought me two years ago are in full bloom, obviously confused by a few wintery warm days.

I'd have called her first thing, wrestled with a gift idea, marshaled the forces for a strong show for a get-together. She'd have repeated the mantra -- 'I don't need anything, just all of you here' -- as if that wasn't a feat in itself with grown sons immersed in their lives.

It's strange to have March 3rd come and go without her. I thought this day was only for her. Happy Birthday, Mom.

The Pencil Can

Tonight I noticed a button-covered pencil can that my son made in cub scouts. I remember that art project with 9 second graders on the portable table in the garage. They had just run themselves silly with a game of freeze tag and had settled into the task of making a Christmas gift for their moms. They were hunched over a thousand buttons as they glued them to their cans and a reward of warm cookies when they were through.

When my wonderful mother-in-law died, I acquired her button collection. She used to say, you never know when you'll need a button, so she saved them all of her life. While everyone was diving for the sterling and jewelry, I was happy to dump the box on the bed and spread it out in a wide arc.

It was glorious. They were every color of the rainbow, thousands of them, all shapes and textures and sizes. I set to work sorting by color, then size, then shape, then fabric. That didn't work! There were glass, metal and plastic ones, too, and matchless ones. I'll bet she was the only person to keep those little plastic extra buttons bags that come with garments bought at Macy's ...

I rolled the barrel shaped wooden buttons around in my hands, imagining them on 1950s car coats or Irish cardigans. I visualized her in red lipstick, a total knockout on New Years Eve in a red cocktail dress with those red satiny teardrop shaped buttons up the back. The gold fleur-de-lis designs were from scout uniforms and I carefully examined the uneven holes bored into abalone shell buttons.

This is Rina's vapor trail. And here, on the desk in my bedroom, signed in wiggly penmanship by my 7 year old son, it pulls a smile to my lips.

Own It; Fix It; Learn from It

I had a conversation this morning with a friend who said he didn't like the elitist idea of a charter school and that we essentially toss students into a failing public school system that is powerless to help itself. You know, I've worked in public schools a really long time - for 14 years - and now in a charter, and I don't see that at all.

Admittedly, public schools are struggling under the weight of trying to become more effective. The current system is successful with a lot of students, but not all. To adapt to the growing diversity of our culture, honors programs, and Title I programs, ELD, and academies have been added to the curricula.

Within the walls of every school, whether private or public, are thousands of talented, creative, committed staff who knock themselves out every day to provide opportunities for students. All the training in the world will not help a child who consciously chooses to fail, and there are many of those.

I get that our country feels the enormous impact of an undereducated workforce, but the hard truth is schools are only a part of the overall problem. The nuclear family has eroded. The family that used to cluster and collaboratively raise a child is less common now. Financial concerns pull adults out of the home and family time is in shorter supply. Religious influences are less evident, and kids are making choices for themselves that are hard to undo.

What this is about is taking responsibility for our choices, whatever they are. If a student chooses to fail, in an environment where tutoring help and caring, devoted teachers are present, that's on them. And if a student wants to learn, but can't in the environment they're in, that's where a charter school comes in. Charters are public schools that offer a free, alternative academic environment. They are all unique. Where I work, there are no boundaries keeping students away. Neighborhood kids and those from across town are welcome as long as they have a desire to work hard and honor the school culture. There are other places to go if they do not.

Schools were never designed to tackle the social ills of our society and yet can't help but be influenced by them. I see absolutely no reason why we can't ask our children to learn the lesson we were taught, namely You Reap What You Sow. They'll make mistakes along the way -- join the club! But they have to own their choices and behavior before they can fix it and learn from it. That's just as important as math as they prepare themselves for life.