Top Posts Of 2011

It is natural to look back at the year that is about to be a year in the life of a few.  Natural as sleeping, yearning, struggling, laughing, dreaming, deciding, working like a dog, eating, becoming angry then accepting and starting over.

I was unemployed and then employed and having a hard time with the tasks at hand.  My hands are having a hard time. My poor hands.

I  dreamt of working for Whole Foods then let that go as the 100th application was rejected.  I dreamt of working for a local grocer, Oliver's, then felt the same thing as they refused to consider me for other jobs than the graveyard position.  It is their company or rather, the HR woman who is the honcho is the decider. So, it continues to be out of reach.  Who knew that a grocery job was an impossible thing for such an enthusiastic fan?  Who knew.

I feel so fortunate to have spent time with two women friends in the last year who are amazing women.  We find time after my work to meet for coffee and talk and talk about our lives.  I am in such fine company and I thank you both for allowing me to feel seen and heard and let me in to see you.  Bless you.  You are each such fine humans.  Artists and friends.

I am thankful to have been able to volunteer quite a bit and I hope to get back there.  I am also thankful for my family and partner who try to understand my pain and my joy in the context of being more than a little PTSD from leaving my profession of many years and stepping off the curb into traffic.  Bless you all.

Top Posts would have been all of the writings that I attempt to publish here because in doing so, great writing or ranting, I allow the spirit that is me to have wings and pull against the fury that sometimes rails against my breastbone.  A writer's lament is always writing nonetheless. 

Happy New Year to everyone and my hope for you is peace, comfort, understanding and unexpected joy. My hope for myself is a better job that allows me to be me and thrive.  Come on 2012!

"I Do Believe In Ghosts, I Do, I Do"

A malevolent sliver of a moon hangs over Santa Rosa tonight shielded by grey clouds that obscure the truth of its stark white visage.  Today the manager of our department was fired for reasons that remain gossip.  The ED fired him and then walked his rotund self back to the Commons dining room where managers were providing lunch as a post-holiday treat for staff.  Before I went into the dining room, I heard the news that the man who hired me had been fired.  I lost my appetite right then.

This is the third firing of a high ranking staff member in a little over three months.  There is something going on and I am not making it up.  I was furious that Mr. M. had been fired and even madder at Mr. Big II who seemed unconcerned.  Even another co-worker had some lame justification for the firing though he doesn't really know why.  My co-workers who have been hired by the man who was fired-a 19 year veteran-seemed unmoved to fury or sadness.  They seemed to feel nothing at all.

For me, my co-workers reactions are as odd as the string of firings that seem business as usual at a formerly Quaker run organization.  I remembered that feeling that my former co-workers seemed to be like cattle in the shoot ready for slaughter.  I have feelings and for that, I am grateful.  I have ethics and for that, I am very grateful.  I have a sense of honesty and integrity and for that, I thank a program of recovery.  So, it made me feel ill that my co-workers could not muster the feeling of sticking up for our boss that he deserved. 

There is a tyrant afoot where we work and she is not even a local.  So far she is cutting a swath that includes anyone who stands up to her.  In my neck of the woods, we call that kind of person a bully. If you believe in karma, there will be a day of reckoning. For us, it cannot come fast enough. I am reminded of the idea that believing in ghosts is not the same as having your soul stalked by one.

Rosie's Legacy

Even through the depths of an ongoing mourning of the loss of my best friend, I feel so very thankful to have known the fathoms of the kind of love that can happen between a dog and a human.  I am lucky, I believe, to have known Rosie for almost eight and a half years, during which many other losses, joys, celebrations and challenges came our way.  Rosie was and remains my best friend.

Rosie's legacy is the healing that comes from a dog's love.  Many of us know what that is like and it can be hard to ever get over the loss of it.  Maybe never and at this point in life, I see that as a testimony to the strength of the selfless care that dogs bring to our lives. For me, Rosie is one of a kind though my yearning takes me to the reaches of almost desperation when I meet other people's pets that have that quality of connection that I so long to receive. Although we have three dogs and I am attached to them as if my own appendage, they are not Rosie. 

Rosie came into my life strangely happenstance and I was remembering it today.  I had put in an application for a Greyhound ex-racer with Greyhound Friends For Life without many qualifications other than a female.  Barbara called me from GFFL and said she had a female available and that she was "a great dog."  Although I didn't ask further but said I would leave pronto for Brisbane to pick her up, Barbara mentioned that Rosie had been returned because her color did not match the adopters existing Greyhound.  Someone's stupidity or just my fate, I shall never know for sure. 

I walked into Bonnie's house and there were many Greyhounds there being fostered.  She showed Rosie into the room, I squatted down to be on her level and Rosie came to stand in the circle of my knees and leaned against me.  I felt right then that Rosie had chosen me.  A party colored red and white girl, Rosie had those Cleopatra eyes that some Greyhounds have.  There is a photo somewhere of Rosie and I that evening and she seems to be smiling yet I was the one who would be changed forever by her choice.

On December 26th over five years ago Rosie broke her leg at the shoulder in a sudden movement when I came home from work.  At the emergency hospital, X rays showed that she had a tumor at the break sight. Osteosarcoma is common in Greyhounds and other large boned breeds like Wolfhounds and Great Danes.  The treatment is amputation and chemotherapy but a front leg is an extremely difficult leg to lose as dogs carry 60% of their weight on the front legs.  Amputations never seemed like an option to me though I know we all have to make that decision for ourselves.

I had already been through the death of my other Greyhound, Major, the prior year from the same disease. He was lame in one front leg from a broken toe that was taking forever to heal and then the other front revealed a tumor in the other front leg. Again, amputation seems like an incredibly cruel and less than sure remedy for cancer. Rosie's break was shocking and yet I knew what I felt was right. I just needed another day to say farewell.

For me, saying goodbye to Rosie on 12/27 took more than I had that day as far as courage and conviction. Euthanasia is difficult enough and yet we are the guardians who must show bravery in the face of suffering. My vet. at the time is an extraordinary woman and I still remember finally having to leave the room after Rosie's heart stopped and I wept over her lovely self, and the image of Dr. Canon's concern and compassion.

Many years have come and gone since that day and I am just not the same.  Part of me is always missing since Rosie's death and that is not an exaggeration.  I still find myself yearning for that kind of connection with a dog though I know, intellectually, that it will not be the same.  Sometimes I meet dogs that come close in a way though it simply reveals my own loneliness for my best friend who died.

I always mark 12/27 in some way because I am without my sentry and it shows.  However, I am lucky to have been in the right time at the right place.  Another person's stupidity allowed me to find that very incredible connection to an animal that travels beyond language right to the heart.

May we all find a way to make room in our homes for the many dogs who need us on this planet.  There are many places to find a great dog.  May all of you find just that.  For me, I keep a photo of Rosie next to the bed and in my Mini and right here in my heart of hearts.  A torch always burns steadily for the dog who was my best friend. Rosie's legacy is a journey of a lifetime.

www.greyhoundfriendsforlife.org/

Christmas Eve Qigong in The Park

Today we went to our little Qigong class in Julliard Park with all of its emerald beauty, dogs parading in sweaters and with their humans.  It was warm in the sun as we were directed by our friend and teacher to move slowly, come into our bodies and attempt to connect with ourselves and the Qi of life.  Easier said than done these days for most of us.

We hurry through our weeks from sleep to coffee to work to laundry to dinner to sleep and back to the coffee.  It is not that easy for most of us working and finding time to slow, move slowly and breathe.  And so Saturday morning in the park with Emilio and a small group of followers is a brief hour of coming back to our lives.  Ah.

Today I felt the pulsing sensation during one of the last poses midway as if I were holding two twirling circles of life.  My poor hands came back to life and I could feel that strange sensation that some call Qi or chi.  If it is or if it isn't I don't know.  However, it felt lovely and I was awash with a sense of connectedness and relief.  Ah.

From our house to all of you in the world, our families, our friends and our companions on this pitted road that we walk together, may peace prevail.  Merry Christmas everyone and to everyone a good night.

Jones NY Size 4 Petite

I continue to row my boat against the current, pulling hard on the wooden oars deep into the murky water as the wind whips my aging face, my lips very chapped at this point, tired, hungry with some fear in the mix as I notice the current lapping itself into a froth.  Well, kind of dramatic but I love those seafaring analogies about water and life.

Actually, we have continued to prune the fruit trees at my job of three months and counting.  I started in triple digit heat in September and now I go to work with frost on the ground each morning.  Mr. Big I makes sure that he takes the three legged ladder to work somewhere by himself so he can talk to people on his cell phone.  It is against company policy to receive cell phone calls while working but he has never been "written up" for his carelessness so he continues to vanish somewhere on the 7 AC campus with the ladder and his blue tooth tucked under his bad boy stocking cap.  Addicted to his cell phone, he talks and prunes and there are no consequences.

Having the only three legged ladder taken, the other two gardeners are left with the pole pruners and it is very hard work.  The fruit trees have many suckers growing atop their fine selves because they were pruned improperly.  Now those suckers must be cut to the main branch and it is hard work.  My shoulders and hands hurt each night and I think about leaving. 

I think about leaving for other reasons which have come to join my aches.  A volunteer of many years was "fired" for being too familiar with residents.  A worker with a therapy dog was asked to take her dog home and not return with her. Her dog's name is Peace. I just found out that the D.O.N. is living on the campus as part of her "deal" while the employee she fired stands accused of something she did not do. Her firing stands and it seems no one really cares.  All of the shredding feels like it is enough to just know that I came to work there at the "wrong time" and I wonder what it will be that will allow me to take my leave.

I have been looking for another job for two months and absolutely nothing comes my way.  I apply, I wait, I go to work, I check my phone, I sleep and eat and wake to look again, maybe apply, get scared, rub my poor hands, check my phone and I pray.  I pray to the God of "my understanding" and I read my horoscope.  No magic came with the week save the brilliant sliver of a perfect white moon on a frozen, predawn morning in Northern California.  The moon doesn't worry that they will never find a good job.  The moon just is.

I recalled as I looked into my closet at all my crisp, business shirts made by Jones NY and how strong, capable, smart and determined I felt wearing them.  I remembered how it felt to look good in something so simple in design yet stunning in its application.  Today I dreamt of a job that would allow me to wear those shirts with a pair of jeans and some spanking tennis shoes and be who I am.

Today, I called a friend who is having a sobriety birthday and I cried on the way to work like I did in 2010 with the same feeling of sadness and powerlessness. I am very frustrated and putting one tired foot in front of the other. I know that is what it feels like to be me and I also know that there is enough magic left in the world for one small woman in her 50s wearing a Jones NY shirt. I just need the right Merlin to wave the magic wand over my wee head. 

Through The Knot Hole

Today was my three month anniversary at my job.  It came and it went.  We pruned trees after the morning clearing of walkways and it makes your neck and wrist hurt after six hours of that whether you are robust or a wee one like me.  No fan fare for getting to this point and who knows what is coming.  Not Santa that is for sure and sorry kids but it is the truth.  Ho, ho, ho!

On the way to work I listen to a bit of NPR and my timing includes "The Perspective" spot of the day.  Today it was an amazing story of a man who sold drugs and lived on the street.  He began to see what aging on the street looked like and had a kind of spiritual awakening.  Though one might say our lives could not be more different, he still spoke for me today. 

Augustus Vargas turned his life around completely and yet he still struggles to find a better job, like myself.  He is a very insightful young man who seems older than his years.  His words are eloquent and right to the point of much of what I feel these days.  It is worth a listen and then some. http://www.kqed.org/a/perspectives/R201112190735

I have come through the knot hole and I am miles from home and a warm fire.  I am not an optimist though and they do have a different way of seeing things.  While driving around tonight looking for Christmas lights, I mentioned to my sweetie that this holiday seems so very bleak with friends having left for more exciting terrain and family doing the same.  It feels bleak and a struggle.  Shocking sometimes too. 

However, she said something like: "Well it does feel a bit bleak and there will be a bump and then things will get better." She has that way of finding the sunshine in a bunker and I wonder if it is just a larger supply of serotonin or something else. Regardless of what is real and what is belief, I am through the knot hole and I have great company like Augustus Vargas to find solace, strength and a shred of hope during the most overwrought holiday of the year. 

Xmas Greyhounds

It bears repeating and showing off some holiday hats....

Merry Christmas everyone and here it comes.  Jade, Omi and Ginger are already in the celebrating mood. 

Dad's 105th Birthday

If my father had lived to this day in 2011, we would have been celebrating his 105th birthday.  It seems strange, still, that he has been gone so long, and how he lived and left feels strange too.  My dad was an attorney, though not the BMW kind of lawyer. He had a reputation for honesty so one of his colleagues told me years ago.  I would like to believe that was his corner post though in life, he made choices that reflected some of his struggles and his loneliness. He had feet of clay just like me.

However, on this day, I celebrate my father who appears to have come from Polish Jews though he would not admit it.  I celebrate some of his favorite sayings like...."Don't turn your back on the ocean!" and "Never trust a man who wears a bow tie!"  My Dad was a short man with an olive complexion and a big nose whose anger could turn violent yet whose generosity paved way for the room I am sitting in writing this morning, at the corner in a small town in northern California.

Thank you Dad for all you tried to do for me in life and for what you passed on to me whether you knew it or not.  Peace be with you wherever you are today.

The World According To Garp

I am reading a book called Make Miracles In Forty Days by Melody Beattie.  There is even a website with a forum for folks to post questions and elucidate upon their personal miracles.  I have not really been able to see myself doing the writing involved yet as I tend to be a doubter first then slow to an idea if it is not my usual fare.

Truthfully, my favorite bookstore got kicked out of their old location that I loved and allowed for sleepy browsing and now is in cramped quarters that is definitely not allowing for sauntering.  Thus, the willy nilly manner of the book shelves, presentations and poor placement lent this book more focus than I might have given it. The inscription is what got to me as it seemed to be talking to me.  Or so I thought.  As an aficionado of Ms. Beattie's books, it wasn't a stretch for me but the topic and method of articulating the ideas is way out there for me.

We shall see.  However, if ever I needed a miracle, about now might fit the bill.  I try a silent prayer each work morning before an enormous oak tree and I meditate a bit a lunch and try to reassure myself throughout my day.  My work search, while I am working hours a week, is the same as when I was unemployed.  No response or just a big hiccup. I cannot get gone fast enough though I remain employed at some cost to my emotional and physical well being.  Many of us could say that every day so I have some company.

I was buoyed by several things thus far this week and they were each compelling and smacked of miracles.  First, Jackie Lawson's advent calendar every day, then Betty and Teddy from work who walk several times a day and stop to chat with me as I rake, haul, weed and sweep, then a paid professional who encouraged me to trust my intuition and run do not walk if it will save me and then my horoscope in The Bohemian by Rob Brezny.

"Gemini: Researchers at the University of Oregon claim that in certain circumstances, they can make water flow uphill(tinyurl.com/UphillFlow). I'm not qualified to evaluate their evidence, but I do know that in the coming week you will have the power to accomplish the metaphorical equivalent of what they say they did. Don't squander this magic on trivial matters, please, Gemini.  Use it to facilitate a transformation that's important to your long-term well being."

It could just be my present, albeit somewhat desperate state of mind, but that either sounds like the stuff of miracles or The World According To Garp. I will take the former and wish upon a twinkling star tonight.

"My Pension Is My Pay"

As a former County of Sonoma civil servant, I receive correspondence from SCERA-Sonoma County Employees Retirement Association-and there is no T-shirt that would be more fun to wear. However, it is something that I worked very hard for in life and I take it seriously when states like Wisconsin wipe out decades of labor suffrage with a Republican governor's effort.

We are the new whipping post because even gays are not sufficient enough to bash anymore. Besides, it is about the economy stupid and we need a new scapegoat. So it is that public employees and their union pensions have become the most hated for all our perks and wonderful benefits that we earned while sitting on our hands and chewing gum while the public we served went hungry. Yeah. Right.

Most recently, correspondence from SCERA let us know that they had lost the lawsuit with The Press Democrat-a now right wing local newspaper.   The Press Democrat supported the County Adminstrator, denigrated our union and the county workers during our entire year worked without a contract.

During that year in the County Administrator wiped away the health care stipend for the retirees and all but brought pandemonium to our negotiations fueling a feeling of loathing and anger towards county management.  The CAO was much later fired with a large stipend and hired in Stockton.  A cheering wave went up around our office when the email of his demise was sent.  Nice guy that Bob.

You get the picture. The Press Democrat has reviled us as workers with benefits that were not earned. This is the smaller version of the new national trend. Although we worked hard for our pensions, the provider is now acting like they changed their mind on the agreement made with us and we are in line to lose big. Everyone who has a pension knows the feeling and it enrages all of us who have given our lives for our work. Our time on the planet as workers is as easily dismissed as the promise made upon our hiring date.

The long journey to losing the lawsuit with the Press Democrat means that my name will be published with my pension benefit amount in their newspaper. All of us will be held up as the new evildoers who have not earned a seat at the table. When we worked for the county, we gave up weeks of pay so that others could keep their jobs and we did not get any cost of living increase while the CAO, the county managers and the Board of Supervisors all took raises and kept them. That did not seem to bother The Press Democrat. 

Now it seems, like so many workers in this world, we also are subject to broken promises and broken contracts. Whether it is Britain or Sonoma county, the same lie is being fed to the public who are just dying to blame someone, anyone, for making off with their bag of riches. However, "my pension is my pay" whether the promise is broken or not.

Don't pee on my foot and tell me it's raining because I actually know the difference.

Fuyu To You Too!

Although I bust my hump each day at work, weighing in at 101 lbs most days with more energy than both my co-workers, I have found the organic fruit trees on our 7 AC campus to be an amazing treat.  There were golden and red delicious apples and Asian, Bartlett and then D'Anjou pears over the last two and a half months.  We are an organic campus which means that any resident or staff can walk up to a fruit tree there and pick and eat a wonderful piece of fruit with certainty of an organic treat. 

It has been almost otherworldly to be able to experience fruit like this as if I were a kid plucking one of my favorites from the tree and rapidly consuming it!  Actually, sometimes I am amazed at the voraciousness of my enjoyment and the freedom that organic food brings to my experience is monumental. 

This month the persimmon trees have turned coral pink and then dropped their leaves.  The deep orange orbs that remain on bare tree branches are beautiful and stunning.  That deep orange set against a cold winter day-though it has been sunny most days-is magical. The contrast is pure genius from nature.

I had never eaten a Fuyu persimmon and now I can't stop wondering how many I can eat in a day.  The Fuyu can be eaten now and has a very sweet taste with a crispness like an apple.  Unlike the Hachiya persimmon which needs to soften and lose that acidic bite before being eaten, the Fuyu is a squatty orange orb that is juicy and incredibly sweet with an amazing crispness like a fresh, ripe apple.

I feel lucky to be able to enjoy the beauty of a sunny, winter day in California while hauling my tenth cart of leaves and taking bites of an organic Fuyu that might just make my afternoon a little more bearable and a lot more interesting. Magic can be just that simple.

Judas Could Not Have Done Better

This weekend the Board of Directors of my place of work hauled in the management company that they thought placed well in their line up of choices to come in and clean house.  Many residents came to hear the PowerPoint presentation with all of the marketing folks who came in suits with vague answers to allay the fears of all. The were very slick and had an answer, albeit amorphous, for every concern that was presented.  Too slick some said.  Too many suits some said.

A Quaker inspired retirement facility, we are very different, or so I thought. Quakers do not believe in drawing attention to themselves but it seems that they are still susceptible to being marketed like the rest of us. A very well rehearsed presentation by Pacific Retirement Services Inc. had won over almost all of the residents, some adamantly opposed previously, to the idea of all of the wonderful qualities that suits can only promise. 

It was clear today when the BOD claimed they had chosen PRS that they had chosen before the presentation.  Clever board members led the residents down the primrose path with the suits leading the way to a better, more solvent world.  The residents are no longer worried about the loyal staff of our campus, they just want the goodies. 

It is a sad day when something so right becomes co-opted by corporate interests because in an iPhone world, temptations of plenty rise far above integrity, simple values and authenticity.  Strange and true at the same time, a good slogan can win over a person who has fears running parallel to aging in a fiscally weak environment.  Suits help slogans even if the promises are said while holding a handful of employee termination slips behind their backs. 

Today there was no going back to the idea of the three branches of governance with an Executive Director, BOD and residents to keep one another honest.  The ED and the Director of Nurses will be PRS employees. As the BOD  have already hired two interim EDs who have fired and suspended their way through our workplace, it is clear that they cannot wait to have PRS do their dirty work.  Gone will be the Quaker inspired environment of egalitarianism with open communication.  Gone will be the feeling of family and work in unison.

The BOD in their subterfuge have parlayed a way of life into a deceptive marketing ploy to save themselves from being responsible to the residents and staff.  They stood shoulder to shoulder with others who have sold out values for expedient corporate efficiency and in doing so proved out that Judas could not have done better himself.

The Good Fairy is Jewish And Other Secrets

Yesterday, while having coffee and pastries at Michelle Marie's Patisserie and enjoying the light through the front windows, the smell of coffee and sugar and a few dancing children who seemed delighted to be out and about on a Saturday morning, The Good Fairy walked into the shop.

Through the front door came a glittering image replete with crown, scepter and a brilliance that belied the analytical brain of a petite woman in a small town in northern California who feels that her dreams just don't come to fruition. The GF floated past the shop's patrons anointing and tapping people along the way while our hero sat transfixed.

When the glittering apparition came upon our troubled wee one, she said "I have been looking for you for months!" and the GF tapped her lightly on the right temple, smiling and beaming and moved on to the next humans consuming expensive french pastry and strong coffee. Magic can happen just when you aren't ready. Ok, I am ready! Really! 

R E S P E C T

I have worked all week with a hideous cold that seemed to be worse every day.  This was day four and counting and I really wanted to call in sick.  However, I didn't.  Each day my co-workers did not seem to notice that my voice was pretty weird and I kept blowing  my nose.  Last night was the sneezing and watery eyes phase.  Today it was cranky in my head and bend towards the wind and it will soon be over kind of day!

Today is World AIDS day and I thought of many men I knew who died in the 1980s including Bill Day and Jim Hickey who hired me to do gardening and landscape maintenance.  I also thought of handsome Dave Becker who was tall, blond and very good looking.  Although I was never on Dave's "A" list, I remember him telling me how hard it was to feel so shitty every day living with AIDS. All of these men died decades ago now and yet their spirits live on in me. 

I have been working now for almost two and a half months in a job that was supposed to be a garden job and now is much more like maintenance.  We were asked to set out the garbage cans each week now as they pile strange duties on our jobs in order to get ready to lay people off.  It is coming.  The new ED could not lace his shoes if he had to bend over-he wears loafers-and seems to be micro-managing everyone.  He told us we rake and sweep too much.  Now we only do that two days a week.  7 acres of 110 trees that are all dropping their leaves.  No more tidy campus.  Welcome to my world.

I have been looking for work online three days a week because two days a week I walk the three Greyhounds at 6 AM.  I want to stop thinking about being disappointed about my job and start doing something about it.  I got excited when a dog kennel in the west county called me about my resume.  I took my cell phone to work and on my break-read not while working!-I called them.  The person in charge was seeing a client and so I said I could be available at noon for my 1/2 hour lunch.  I sat in my car with my phone and waited while I ate my lunch.  You guessed it.  They never called back.  They have yet to return my call and I get the message regardless. Welcome to the world of finding a good job!

Respect seems to be absent in all ways within context of working and finding a job lately.  Respect means you call and you get a call back.  Respect means that an applicant takes the time to send you a well prepared cover letter and resume and you treat them with the same consideration by returning their call.  Each side can be successful but it seems groveling is all anyone can register.  I cannot seem to get through the maze and yet I am still trying to renew my faith that one day, somehow I shall have the respect that I seek returned as I have given it. It is easy as the golden rule but most employers could not be bothered. 

Downy Chicken Butts

We have traveled home from our now seemingly brief Mendocino county stay and unpacked, picked up the dogs from the kennel and started the wash. All too quickly, life imposes on the simple beauty of Mar Vista and Rosie's beach. All too quickly the dream of having a different take on life withers to the background. For now, I can still hear the ocean and see the reflection of the setting sun at the minus tide in the wet sand of Rosie's beach. For now, I can remember waking up to all those chickens clucking to begin their new chicken day. For now, I can recall the incredible stars last night as Mar Vista gave us a chance to see the miracle of the openness above the cabins to the milky way. From horizon to horizon there was nothing but stars and midnight blue sky. Mar Vista's planetarium.

This morning I stepped outside before our last trip to Rosie's beach with my coffee, stood facing the west and said a prayer for myself. The grass was still wet with dew from a frosty northern coast night and the fellow Mar Vista guest were still tucked in their cabins. We always go down to the beach one last time and even though the tide was in and we could only scrunch up against the cliff, that blessed beach that holds memories sweet and bittersweet still waved goodbye. We made a pact to return before winter is over and I hope we stick to it. By then we will either be unemployed and glad to have a getaway or a reason to celebrate continuing to be employed.

We had lots of talks as we drove and then sat and then walked the beach about where we are right now in life. I have the Titanic thoughts of our partnership though I am open to hearing something that will challenge my negative thinking. It was posed to me that I am at a plateau, neither moving on nor backwards. I am open to that idea though it feels frightening at times, my strength firmly intact though tested in an economic climate that seems like an ensuing tornado.

I have some great memories of our trip and relish the silent beauty of such a wild ocean community. So difficult to explain at times because it evokes deep feelings of belonging, healing, reminiscence and calm. Mar Vista is like no other place I know and holds my deep attachment to the ocean. One of my fond memories of our trip is the urging of one of our hosts to take a look inside the chicken's egg laying hotel and feel their downy chicken butts.

Well, I was curious though the chickens got up revealing body warm eggs they had laid. They do have downy chicken butts and I am fine just viewing those from afar. However, these chickens appear to lay the "best tasting eggs" many guests have consumed. It was fun just seeing the colorful eggs freshly laid as if it were a magic trick. Actually, Mar Vista itself is a magic trick as it makes one forget about a stressful time in life by providing a serene, lovely place to breathe, nap, walk, dream and be in the momentousness of each moment.

Thank you Mar Vista, we shall be back soon!

View of Rosie's beach at the minus tide...

Rosie's Beach

We are prepping our lives to taxi towards the Thanksgiving holiday up the north coast of California where the environment brings peace to my heart.  Decades ago, I travelled north with my former partner in search of a Mendocino county getaway that became a place of refuge.  Then, I loved the idea of finding a way to force my partner to be closer.  As a much younger me, I kept thinking she would change and come to appreciate the human whose every thought was somehow attached to getting her to love me.  Silly girl I now think, that never works.  Ah, if only I had the wisdom that can only come with age!

When the divorce was final on 10/26/03, I did not think of all the places we had been over 16 years together as providing a way for all those ghosts to flap their ephemeral wings in my face.  However, Mar Vista was never one of those otherworldly reminders of love lost.  I knew that Mar Vista was my place and holds my memories.  Mar Vista is tied to me. 

The cottages at Mar Vista were built 75 years ago and they offer privacy, sweet furnishings with a living room/kitchen that holds the coastal light during the day that lends itself to reading, dreaming, tea drinking, napping and just plain being.  You can hear the seals barking through the airwaves.  A short walk gets you to a horseshoe shaped beach that I now call Rosie's beach.  Time at Mar Vista allows the pain of life to be put on hold though it is still there.  It is just that the sting of life is not part of a vacation at Mar Vista.  There is a stoic beauty here that belies a light shining on any of my troubles. 

When my best dog friend Rosie died very quickly and very unexpectedly, I knew that I would scatter her ashes on the shore of that beach at Mar Vista.  When I only had one dog, we brought our dogs here for a brief stay.  The tide was in at the rock we scoot around to walk an extension of Rosie's beach thus cutting off the horseshoe beach for a straightaway where we could let the dogs run.  I unclasped Rosie's collar and she took off full Greyhound tilt hauling dog butt through the water up the short beach left by the tide.  She did this several times and returned to me breathless and glassy eyed as if the freedom and the salt air made her feel high.  It was wonderful to watch and I shall never forget it.

It has been many years since Rosie died and I made my way up the coast on a perfect sunny and warm January day to scatter a dozen red roses and her ashes.  That day too is in my memories as it could not have been more perfect.  Low tide, sunny and warm with no one on the beach.  I walked the shoreline tossing red roses in the surf and then her ashes, weeping at the loss of a dog who had slept by my bedside at night, watched me crawl through an aching divorce, the loss of our home and many other losses.  She was the dog I have never found since and maybe because she was one of a kind.  I have her photo beside my bed and in my car.  She sits beside the being that I imagine is a "God" when I meditate.  Rosie is all that and much more.

We commence our planning and gathering of acorn squash recipes, whipped cream, meal planning adventures, stacking clothing and synchronizing our efforts to get our three Greyhounds to the kennel and pack the car.  We will be driving up the coast Wednesday evening after work toward the place that holds sweet and bittersweet memories of stillness, love, freedom, beauty and peace.  Rosie's beach is the best place I can think of to feel grateful for all that has come to pass on this Thanksgiving 2011.

Having Her Say

It is hard to imagine that anyone who drives a Mini Cooper could be a vile, calloused, vindictive human but it can happen. As an aficionado of the Mini, I would think that anyone who buys one is fun loving yet spirited. Guess I got that wrong.

The interim ED could have flown in on her broom though it is a '97 Cooper that she parks in the same spot every morning. Yesterday I swept and large human shaped pile of leaves to the front of her car and thought of just emptying them on the bonnet. Dang. Guess I like getting that paycheck too much. However, the wicked witch is leaving tomorrow to pursue another organization to plunder. Even though she survived the crash in her former Mini and walked away from it because of the way the Mini is constructed, she did not use that opportunity to better the world. Ms. Mary came to crush the spirit of our retirement community but she motors away without snuffing our heart.

In her wake, Mary fired a 27 year veteran who was much loved by the residents and staff. However, the good news is that our heroine, though fired, is returning to speak to the personnel committee and she is about to have the last word. Nerny, nerny, nerny. I loved hearing this bit of gossip and it made me feel that truth can come to the bridge finally and maybe, just maybe, we can pitch a house on that witch yet. Surrender Dorothy? Hardly. You go girl!

Everything Comes And Goes

The inside of my brain lately has been very negative and it is difficult to step back and look at things anew when a bad remake of The Empire Strikes back is under way.  My current job, though I am outside rain, shine or freezing temperatures, is crumbling from the inside out and those around me who work inside are about to lose their jobs-most if not all of them.  This situation is like the one I left over a year ago and that makes my hair stand on end.

The board of directors where I work have fired and fired and fired quite a few people. The board has hired Pacific Retirement Services Inc. to come in and take over the management of a Quaker inspired retirement facility that has been run quite differently over the last quarter of a century and then some.  People who work where I toil have come to see the residents as their family and served them like family.  However, the board is now angry because staff and residents are outraged at their actions and have now fired back that Pacific will be coming in sooner than February. Nerny, nerny, nerny.

It feels very sad to watch a sweet way of life come tumbling down.  The accounting department could be gone in a weekend and my partner's job with it.  There could easily be more empty parking spaces on campus-many are already vacant-due to firings and suspensions.  Corporate takeovers are never pretty are they? 

I try to remain detached and that is not possible.  Although I have watched the end of my government service career go the same way and be the only one who was outraged and almost insane over the stress, I now have much company and yet we all feel powerless.  At some point, I will be forced to make a choice based upon my values and ethics even though I am a gardener and not a paper pusher. The residents will not be able to do anything about the changes and many won't want to jeopardize their way of life.

For today, I will enjoy my Sunday which has more than enough tasks in it with blue skies all around and the sun still shining down.  I will cherish what I have in life and hope for more because hope is all we ever call our own anyway.  For today, I shall revel in having a few bucks in the checkbook and spending some of it on the house. Maybe there will be a latte in there for me. 

For today, I will bless the grounds and especially the persimmon trees of the place where I work that wait for me to arrive Monday morning and rake, sweep, pull weeds, haul and tend their lovely presence. They are amazing to see this time of year as their leaves turn that shade of coral and hover on the ends of branches about to cascade to the damp earth leaving behind their bright orange fruit.

The persimmons are something like our hope that lingers even after the end of difficult times and difficult choices.  They are beautiful and lush and very real even though winter comes on with the rush of fallen leaves.

There Is Blue Sky Even When It Is Freezing Cold

It is true that I am so tired that I cancelled my plans to drive to Sebastopol and attend a meeting.  I just could not imagine it.  Someone just unplugged me at about 1:30 PM today and I struggled with the weight of my fatigue and still work.  I did but not that enthusiastically.  So, I am here on the couch with potatoes in the oven to bake instead of driving out on a cold November night.

 I have been feeling isolated and lonesome and I know that it isn't that anything has changed vis a vis my lack of friendships.  In a way, my view of the diminished circle of friends has been true all along.  It is just more obvious now as we move towards Thanksgiving.  Truth can be stranger than fiction.

My workplace, such as it is, is under a cloud of chaos and upheaval with the firing of a 27 year employee.  Others in the Health Care unit have been dismissed or suspended with lots of strange "cleaning house" actions going on after the firing of the Executive Director in September.  In fact, almost each week of my short tenure, has held some kind of dark foreboding about change, corporate politics in a Quaker organization, favoritism by a few ball busting women in charge. It reminds me of the County of Sonoma unfortunately.

So, I have retreated a bit from my initial happy go lucky newly employed human attitude though I still do what I can while understanding that I am the last Gardener hired and still, the girl.  In other words, my skills, my knowledge and my ability to contribute is never considered.  It is clear that even without all this structural chaos, this is as good as it will get. I had a brief moment today where I imagined that I could be part of a team of Gardener's who survive all the firings and suspensions and management company torpedoes and then it fizzled.  It would not really matter.

It was suggested to me that maybe working as a Gardener has more to do with my personal journey of healing the inner critic we know and not love as Sydney.  In time, all that makes up the little man in my head will become clearer. 

I am very weary of the difficulties though and so I will continue to write, read, run, swim, watch movies and wonder what the hell has happened to my life. I look for work in my few free hours and the same crap is out there. The same story.

However, there is blue sky even when it freezing cold outside and that is all I need to put one foot in front of the other.

The Choices We Make

We had our first real rainstorm here and it was a cold one. We all hunkered down for the day and felt what it was like to have a day off. It spun by as the last pre-daylight savings time day of 2011. This morning, the pelting of Alaskan rain has made the air smell sweet and there is a dew left on the red roses in the backyard that appears silver in the light of this Sunday morning.

I slept this morning and that is a big change. Each day this week I have awoken at 2 then 3ish then 4ish A.M. and it was a kind of hell that I could not stop. Deeply embedded in my own sleeping this morning I dreamt of helping someone get sober and I know what that is about. Dreams are often some kind of hide and seek that my brain cooks up while I try to repair my body. I want to stay sober through this year as I round the corner on 26 years. However, doing so within the bounds of a spiritual community that seems to be a popularity contest has made my program feel like a parched desert. I know that I am on my own to find something different.

We went to a movie last night at what I call The Dying Movie Theatre downtown and I realized that we have not been to the movies since our beloved Rialto was hijacked by the corporate monstrosity who owns the rest of our movie houses. We refuse to step foot into the art movie house that plays the kind of independent movie we crave after bumping the Rialto out of their lease nefariously and then remodeling and acting like this is business as usual. Oh, it is.

I am amazed that in our Podunk town with such little to choose from we still have to pay for parking when everyone seems to be home watching their flat screen TVs or something. We really do live in a strange county.

This morning we are here drinking in the last of our weekend and then I can go for a run around the lake-the only time I seem to have now to do what I love. I only have so much energy now and I must choose how I spend it. I still go to the gym and swim there and run and I must be selective as I only have so much time and energy. That could change and so I keep my passion alive. I feel the same way about staying sober and I am looking for a new home for my program. It has been time for a change for some time.

Much like the movie we saw last night-The Help, I know that my own choices require stepping through moments, situations, flat, bleak stretches of life with fear and a reflection on the future that is based upon past experiences, with courage that must be dredged up from somewhere in my character. The choices we make can change the course of our lives and yet, those choices are the essence of the change itself. A mobius strip whose limits are never obvious but present nonetheless.

One Day At A Time In The Life Of The Carrot

I have come around to realize that writing in a blog has been part of my salvation and then some. However, having a job that is purely physical and also so much about being tested by two men who have had the job for some time leaves little to say at night. When I was glued to this laptop to try to find work, I felt compelled. Now I feel relieved to be home, pet the dogs, have a hot shower and dinner and maybe some conversation. Writing has taken a back seat in a rusted out jalopy.

It isn't that I ever thought I would be a writer in life though I can write. This is the place where I utilize the gift I was given in life. Since friends are hard to come by and a spiritual community that is genuine and respectful has spun out of my atmosphere, I have this place, blessed and real and from the heart of who I am. It is enough.

This week has been strange with each day holding some test and not exactly cerebral fitness either. On Monday, Mr. Big II returned from his out of country six week vacation and Mr. Big I called in sick. So that meant that little old me was asked to get the 40 lb leaf blower and "blow the campus" as Mr. Big I likes to say. I did. It was something I knew how to do and it isn't much fun but I did think about Lara Croft. Of course I did. That obnoxious machine sputters blue smoke because they never clean it and it weighs almost half my total weight. I walk like an astronaut pushing my legs forward as I balance the thing on my wee back and blow the leaves to the curb. It isn't that easy actually. However, I can do it and I did. Duh.

That day I went to see a friend who is in the Skilled Nursing unit. She is 92 years old and has been losing weight and getting more frail for the last year. She was a brilliant woman in life and the day I went to see her she was lying in bed with her face turned toward the light through the window, sleeping the sleep of a 92 year old. We spoke only briefly and I just touched her hand lightly and told her that I love her. She felt compelled to go back to sleep. I went to eat my lunch and cried as I ate, sitting on the bench, watching the sky and the wind in the big oak tree and realizing that death comes whether we are ready or not.

As I finished my lunch a resident came out of her apartment and found a dead bird. She was talking to me as she found it and I said that I would take it and bury it. I tucked it into my cloth napkin and carried its limp body. How strange and ominous. The bird was a cedar waxwing probably migrating over our part of the world. I buried it under one of the apple trees and patted the earth flat over its small grave.

Tuesday and Wednesday meant using the weed whacker which is kind of like the leaf blower only slightly less obnoxious! Today Mr. Big II was in his usual grumpy mood and he found a few things to pick on me about and that was a whole lotta fun. Mr. Big I and II both like to think up things for me to do, criticize and then find more fault. They are maintenance guys not gardeners and it shows. Today the man who hired me was demoted though it was never explained to me. The management company has been hired and things are starting to twitch around the campus.

One day at a time has become my mantra as the changes begin to grind out of the wonderful place where I work. I may be the first to go or just one of the ones to go. I have no idea. Each day, I just do the best I can, deal with those silly men who have no idea who that girl wearing the leaf blower is, take in the beauty, smile to others I meet and feel grateful that I may have one more paycheck coming. In fact, tomorrow is donut payday and for me, that is what it is like to live one day at a time in the life of The Carrot.

Angel Island On A Clear October Day

We went to Angel Island yesterday and now, Sunday evening, it has joined the good feelings pantry of the swiftly disappearing weekend.  I love being in the middle of the bay surrounded by the bustle and sophistication of San Francisco, Tiburon and the East Bay yet seeing it through the eyes of a hiker.  Yesterday it was perfect weather and that is not the usual.

I still feel strongly that my life is about as weird as it can be and I can see and hear the lines of Eliza Doolittle in my thoughts. That's right, My Fair Lady is playing in my head on the wide screen.  Audrey Hepburn turns to me and says, "What's to become of me!" and I imagine that she is me or I am the character. 

What tomorrow will bring is always a mystery and I have laid out my work clothes just the same.  October ends tomorrow and the losses of the tenth month will come and go but they are still ghosts that haunt the hallways and I am not fooled by the ebb of screaming from beyond.  Tonight I can pretend that I am still walking the perimeter road and gazing out at the flat San Francisco bay, speckled with sailboats and tourists and a dirigible that is banking past the next rise on a very sunny day in October where I am just another human having a day off.

Helen's 92nd Birthday

Tomorrow will be my mother's 92nd birthday and if she were still on this planet she probably would not have appreciated the results that aging would surely have painted on her great face.  Years had changed that amazing visage from what once turned the heads of so many.  I started writing about her today, without a computer, while raking, weeding, sweeping and thinking back upon so many years hence.

My mother died on July 23rd, 1991 and yes, that was a long time ago.  However, I never forget her birthday and it now shares a very painful divorce anniversary of mine.  My life holds many synchronized dates. I thought of many things today with regards to Helen who had a number of aliases in life.  I found her to be a complicated woman whose attachment to men excluded the rest of us most of the time though they found her intriguing, brilliant, beautiful and charming.

I look much like my mother these days around the eyes and her characteristic cheekbones. She had green eyes though and dark hair.  For most beautiful people, a winning combination. My mother was a troubled human though and she treated her three daughters with an aloofness that drove each of us to find our own troubled waters in life.  Maybe since I am the youngest I can see it all so clearly or maybe just because I tend to be the witness.

I have a scene in my brain that has come up lately again as if it happened yesterday.  It is etched inside my memory and I can recall the lighting in the kitchen, the warm evening and the tension as I stood, an eight year old wiser than my years, near my father and my mother as they began to argue.  Like so many times, this night is dramatic in my thoughts though I am certain it was played out over and over again before the end of my parent's marriage.  I replay it and remember the anger, the building argument, my fear and the humiliation that always seemed to follow.  That was 47 years ago and I can remember everything about that night as if I were there right now.

The night my mother died, many decades beyond the kitchen scene that night, I was shocked to see that she had really left.  Her elegant hands rested on the bed cover over her as if she were simply napping and as I gazed at her stilled face, the light that was there faded slowly and she became grey.  I sometimes play with the idea that my mother was waiting for me to arrive so she could dart away and yet, I cannot fathom that depth. In life, I was a anomaly to my mother as she thought me too sensitive.

The funeral that followed my mother's death was something that her daughters were never called upon to consider.  We had known our mother to have a will and a wish to be cremated.  However, her husband claimed that she had changed her mind and created a Fellini-like atmosphere in the church where Alfred Hitchcock filmed his movie "The Birds" complete with a solitary bag piper that set all our nerves on edge at the finale of a strange Catholic service.  We laugh about it now but it was not funny at all then.

I remember Marge Ling who was the only person who approached me after the service to express her condolences.  Marge has a scholarship fund named after her locally and it is no wonder as her loving consideration that day surpassed all those strangers in the church.  Everyone acted like Helen had no children and that is kinda how she lived so there ya go.  Apparently no will, no estate and no written word of farewell to us.  My mother died as she had lived.

Yet I remember my mother on the eve of her birthday because she was the gateway to my appreciation of nature, gardening, sunsets, literature, knowledge and camping.  These many gifts she gave to me though really, it was about her.  Even so, wherever you are Helen, I wish you a birthday with the kind of freedom and joy that you never seemed to find in this life time.  Thank you for opening the garden gate for me.

Lara Croft Did Not Have To Use A Leaf Blower

Thinking back on Friday's assignment of packing the leaf blower(about 40 lbs worth) around the campus blowing the few leaves that had fallen while Mr. Big criticized my efforts or stood there watching me seems like a comedy routine. These machines are obnoxious at best and toxic at the very least. Former gardeners used rakes and brooms and now there is a leaf blower that is used to "blow the campus."

Besides ear protection and a mask because of the toxic fumes from the sputtering, blue smoke emanating machine, there is the sheer weight of such a contraption. This lovely maintenance tool is the the epiphany of neanderthals working as gardeners and is now a sign of status where I work. Not much to aspire to in my book and yes, I can do it, and no I don't need supervision.

Given the ridiculousness of Mr. Big following me around claiming I needed to be supervised, I imagined Lara Croft dipping her eyes to give him the stink eye and then walk off leaving him to feel a fool. I know however that Ms. Croft has gardeners and that she never has to use a leaf blower.

Dry As A Death Valley Boneyard

Lately I have been wondering if the parched desert that I am experiencing is the result of bad choices or just what fate has in store.  It seems like the road stretches out to the horizon and I have lost the pathos to follow my muse.  In fact, writing here seems to have lost its luster too and maybe I just have nothing left to say.

We went to a fundraiser Halloween dance last night after driving for 30 minutes to get there only to be met by a pathetic turnout and worse techno music to make a person want to sit several sets out against the wall.  For me, it confirms the idea that we are living in the wrong town with a non-existent community or a faux  community.  Does Austin look different?  How will I ever know?  I am bored to the bottom of my lonely heart's club band uniform.

I watch the finches feed from the bird seed dish getting ready for winter and hope we find something fun to do today.  Somewhere a small woman with short, greying hair is living my life.  Sins of the mother visited upon the children or something like that.  Or....maybe just another time, another place.

The Carrot And The Missed Dance Step

I was reading the current Bohemian newspaper with squinted eyes in the waiting room tonight because I don't carry my reading glasses and seem to always try to read fine print anyway.  I could see enough due to the miracle of eye surgery in one eye and read the Project Censored top 10 old media's most ignored news stories.  My one good eye lit upon 10: The 'real' unemployment rate.

It seems that "Project Censored highlights an article by Greg Hunter published on Information Clearinghouse, claiming that the "real" unemployment rate is actually 22.1 percent, or one out of five U.S. residents."  Their assessment includes "discouraged workers and the marginally employed" and not simply jobless humans collecting unemployment checks.  More real, more now.  Frightening and I know too well what that feels like and no wonder.  http://www.projectcensored.org

Knowing what I know about the last year of life, I try to understand that my current job has a wider margin of error than it ever did in life.  Though I am struggling with obvious gender complications while surrounded by less than sophisticated co-workers, I am not running for my car when the going gets tough for a number of reasons, one big reason is #10 on Project Censored's list.

I do feel, and especially lately as friends who called themselves friends when I was around 24/7 have disappeared(except for the divine Ms. M. who meets me for coffee in my very sweaty, dirty and raw self after work) and don't return calls or email.  People are often off on their own kite string once you turn the light onto your own path.  Having made that worn out analogy, I am still balancing all of my own responsibilities and trying to find time to run, work out at the gym, swim, do Qigong, garden at home, love people, fall asleep on the couch with an old John Irving book and help myself get through this dark time in my life. 

I feel like I am a Dancing Carrot that was kicked off of the show for having two left feet..  I feel like a carrot who used to dance and now just watches from the sidelines.  Maybe I just feel like The Carrot who missed a dance step yet who will always keep on tapping away until they call security.  (The Dancing Carrot)

10/14/10-10/14/11: Not Exactly A Banner Year

I spent the one year anniversary of my last day as a public servant weeding, raking, sweeping, hauling mulch, making compost with rotten apples and household produce garbage, mowing and watering.  It was hotter than expected and as the sweat ran down my face while I was hanging onto the lawn mower, I mulled over this last year.  It has been much less than what I hoped for and yet it had many good parts too.  It was the anniversary of a divorce from my former profession that brought me to my very knees.

I could not say that I am done with my travails and it make get uglier before things seem more clear.  Like many people looking for work, I am glad to have been working the last month as there seem to be so few decent jobs out there that would actually consider me.  Although I was an exemplary employee with very good references, I could not even get a call back from my resume on most jobs.  Overqualified?  Guess again.  Not even considered.  And so it goes.  That was not what I thought would be at my feet when I stepped off the curb on 10/14/10 at 5:30 PM pacific standard time.

My day held some of the same ridiculousness of working as part of an all male crew that doesn't seem to want or know what to do with me.  5'2" and about 101 lbs.  In fact, it seems like they are entrenched and I don't seem to be the mousy woman they expected.  So, it could work out but it may not.  Each day can be a challenge and I don't mean the physical nature of gardening at my late age.  I work harder than the other gardener and it shows.  And so for me, on the anniversary of something that pulls back the image of a year unemployed, shocked, stressed, confused, disappointed, tenacious, determined and disappointed again, was spent with the same feelings inside of my head that covered my last year.

I can think of the many jobs-hundreds, that I applied for and never knew what happened.  I never will know and it doesn't seem like the past year brought any great revelations or lessons that make it all make sense today.  I feel just as confused about what I am doing or will do and wonder how long my body and my sense of self can take being belittled at a job.  Being employed has been held up to be something we the unemployed yearn for and when it comes it can feel like an oasis.

Be careful what you wish for though as it may just make you wonder anew at what that plane's banner really is trying to tell you.  Cryptic marketing tool or just bad grammar?

Not A Spiritual Giant And The Orange

The idea that "we are not saints" is a common thread to those of us familiar with twelve step programs.  For some of us who are also adult children of homes less than loving and less than safe, the idea that we can be less than perfect is a huge marble to swallow.  We can't actually.  We can only attempt to catch ourselves as we try so very hard to please others who cross our paths.  For me, there is a Cadillac sized gong that goes off for me when people are authority figures or scary or both.  The trick, for me, is to hear that vibrating sound before I start running my hamster around her wheel.

That said, some people who cross my path in twelve step meetings like to perform the illusion that they are now elevated to a kind of Buddha like status by spending time with the rest of us down here on earth.  They speak a line that sounds as if they have arrived and it smacks of a deceptive kind of grandiosity that is also a profound character flaw.  I suppose one could say that is the other side of the same hamster wheel and yet, it feels as if some of those folks will never see the wicked web they weave.

Last night, before the speaker began, she made sure to give me the "frosty treatment" and I was not sure what that meant.  Ah, my hamster stepped onto the wheel and paused.  I lowered my head and breathed.  The Tibetan monk was about to wail on that house sized gong in my head.  I listened as best I could for about twenty minutes to the woman claiming she had become a spiritual giant while sharpening her skills before her pitch on the "frosty treatment."  More like spiritual troll than giant.

The funny thing about lessons is that sometimes they just show up when you have let go of a hurt or a slight or a direct hit.  I often imagine Pema Chodron in my head smiling her leprechaun smile and waiting for me to get the irony in a situation.  So today, as I was giving an eight by eight garden patch a big face lift, down on my knee pads sweating and pulling with alternate hands, hot and focused and determined, one of those lessons came out the back door of the library.

One of the men that I work with, a man who escaped Guatemala years ago and most recently stopped a jumper on the Golden Gate bridge by talking to him, came by and offered me half of the orange he was about to eat.  That's right.  He didn't just offer me a piece, he gave me half of his orange.  We stood there in the hot sun and I devoured it.  It was juicy and sweet.  His gesture was not just generous, it was real without any strings. 

I wished that our speaker last night could have understood that what was offered freely is not some kind of pedantic drivel about how evolved we can be. In fact what a spiritual giant really looks like is as simple as extending half an orange to a co-worker on a hot day in October without even thinking about it.

Remembering Working With Chris

I am struggling with my new job situation to find my own island of sanity.  I know some things about gardening or I would never have gotten this job.  However, someone forgot to tell my co-worker that I am not his slave.  So, still trying to figure out how to best tell him that in English.  It is a long day's journey from working nights with Chris in the mid 1990s when I was in college.

Remembering Chris, I was lucky perhaps to have made such a fine connection with a man who is very bright and very funny.  He liked me as much as I liked him and we both worked so well together.  In fact, we produced 25% of the work for the department.  That meant that eight other people did the remaining 75%.  They were a lovely bunch they were.

Chris and I used to pile in my car for dinner or his old Lincoln and go down to Subway for sandwiches.  He was fun and loving.  I really miss him.  We were like a couple of 14 year old boys making up life as we went along.  We worked nights fueled by "mead" which was Dr. Pepper out of the machine.  I can say that I loved Chris-hell I still do-and I know he feels the same.

We flew through that year and helped the company that later was going to lay off Chris and quite a few others one Friday.  Chris went onto other companies and a divorce and now lives in Independence, Missouri.  He is remarried and has other children.  He is still connected to me through the social media empire and made my Christmas last year by contacting me. I can say that my current co-worker doesn't hold any kind of candle to Chris.  That makes me miss him even more.

I can say that I am not a slave and any day now I will probably go off on my co-worker or just shine him on because he is a slacker with some knowledge.  It certainly is not the Star ship Enterprise at my new digs and there is no Jean Luc Piccard.  I could use a Klingon body guard right about now but I will have to settle for finding my own truth and direction when the time is right.

For me, there is no Number One but I can say with a clear conscience that if Jean Luc was on the bridge out there near Common C, he would be saying, "make it so!."

Not Margaret Atwood's World

We all may have those days in the week that are more of a travail than the rest.  I am not sure since I really don't have best friends with whom I sit around having coffee with each week reflecting on the past week like the four women who play Desperate Housewives.  I would love that kind of connection though maybe more of an Eddie Bauer version of Desperate Housewives.  The coffee without the glitz and lipstick.

For me that day is Sunday morning.  I love the quiet of the early morning hush on our urban street and it allows for my kind of melancholy to bubble up and then throw a Sunday morning pie in my face.  My family hurts and haunts or just that existential loneliness that I carry around in the world with me.  Having a job, though the minute I stepped onto the campus things were whirling and chaotic with change, is not the final answer.  There is no washer/dryer combo behind door number three that will make my life a cinch. I never thought it would as I accepted a job that was not my first choice.  For me, an overachiever by nature, this is a very hard thing to comprehend. 

For me, the last almost eight years has come and gone as if someone else were living my life and I was left in the wings watching another performance.  Strange and true or just belief emerging from unanswered questions.  Since I have never been someone with a calling or an inclination of what would be a good fit for me, I have walked into jobs, looked around, decided what would be the next promotion and worked by skinny butt off trying to get there.  I have done that several times and gained professional success and wages doing it.  I thought I was someone and yet arriving often felt empty. 

This morning as I write and keep making time to write as I toil away and find myself feeling melancholy, I imagine that someone out there is living my life though I shall never find a way back through time to find out where I made my fatal mistake and stepped into the time tunnel.  Instead, out there somewhere, maybe in a high desert viewpoint on a cloudy, grey day, a car has broken down and the inhabitants stand and stare off down the deserted highway looking for help from a passerby.  This is not like No Country For Old Men but rather a Margaret Atwood novel where our heroin is in peril but there is an underlying moral conundrum that not only makes our hair stand on end but feel like we have a stake in the happy ending.

The Highwire Of Life

Balancing a 40 hour work week with participation in a spiritual community, running, eating, dog walking and going to the gym has become a big deal. I have not done it well for the past almost three weeks and I am trying.  Last night I just took care of cleaning up after the dogs who have wrecked havoc with the house, did laundry, bathed yet again in a day, ate dinner and read my new book.  That was a night off and it really did not seem like it very much.  The dogs really don't help matters right now.

I suppose having a human at your beck and call for a year with a human hot spot every day made them soft.  They have become used to having me here though they never helped me look for work.  In fact, they really did not care.  Now they are making a muddy mess in and out of the dog door because all is not right in their world.  I am working like a dog and they are not.  They are just being dogs.  Damn them.

I am doing the best that I can emotionally and my hands and knees hurt from the job.  I am struggling to make sense of being in a lovely place and not really feeling a part of the staff.  I am a native English speaker and the staff, except for only a few of us, are non-native English speakers.  They speak their common language to one another and I just sit there watching their faces.  It feels a bit lonely and maybe paybacks are a you-know-what. 

The best thing about today was a man who lives in the Assisted Living Unit.  His wife still lives in their apartment.  G. walks with a wheelie walker and he is slower on the draw than he used to be.  His wife is elegant and has a wide smile and porcelain skin.  She seems like she was once a dancer. 

I talked with them both today because G. wanted to meet me officially.  I stopped chucking the leaves while making compost and talked with them.  G. gave me a blessing and I spent the rest of the day thinking about him. I wondered what it would be like to be parted from my wife because she could no longer care for me.  This is the reality of our lives and yet it struck me to the core today.  The high wire of life is the act of balancing between life and life's tasks and the teeter totter of health and the weathering of our human vehicles. Some of us are still looking for the net.

Shedding The Past

October is a month of loss for me, shedding of the past, remarking on anniversaries of divorces, deaths, endings of friendships and birthdays of those I have loved in life.  Autumn brings a turning inward trend for the earth, also shedding her trappings and casting them downward to become compost for the spring and summer beyond. The earth seems to have an easier time of it than I do though she is well practiced and wiser than myself who still wants to cling to people, places and things as if those complete me.

How I navigate loss sometimes seems like a magic act or simply a slight of hand that even I am not shrewd enough to catch.  In order to stay present, and I am not there yet, I try to absorb the radiance of the changing light, the deep blue sky that is a backdrop for sunrise, birds collecting and skittering around at lunch and trust that my humanity is part of my humanity and this too shall pass.

I thought of Janis Joplin's song that claims "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.." as a way of making sense of loss and all that it attends to my heart these days.  In other words, feeling loss and the pain of no longer feeling connected to careers, people or places is  part of being here and the freedom comes in knowing that one does have nothing left to lose except everything.  What would Jean Paul Sartre have to write about that?

The Beautiful People

Today we went to volunteer at a food bank event called Calabash.  It is a good money maker for the food bank that serves 650 county humans living with HIV/AIDS.  It is a tadoo with over 150 volunteers over a six month prep period.  There is incredible art auctioned with gourmet food and wine served to the beautiful people who come to schmooze and ogle and participate in cocktail banter. 

For me now that I work 40 hours a week, taking an afternoon/eve to volunteer is a big deal.  Sad but true.  However, being of service and giving my time for things that I believe in sustains me and also sustains the planet we share.  I saw some handsome men and women, some bedecked artist types and one very odd necklace made of a monkey's skull replete with teeth.  That was gross not art.  I gave my time so that money made could feed men, women and children in our county who live with a virus that could easily kill them. 

I noticed several people who have crossed my path in my former profession, known to me by phone and attitude though they did not realize who was giving them a bidder number. I noticed several people who acted like they have wealth and may indeed have commas in their checkbook balance that I can only dream of having.  I noticed many humans with beautiful faces and stylish clothes and I wonder what that could be like to try on for an afternoon or a week maybe.  What would it be like to be one of the beautiful people admired simply because genetics played a winning hand in the poker game that became your body?