Wednesday, March 30, 2016

On Life

Be warned: I've written this mostly for myself. I'm pondering joy, how to let it come, how to chase it down, how to hold it tight. 

I took a walk with JB yesterday and hundreds of black birds nestled overhead in the trees. It must have been some kind of special day for them because they sang more than they squawked. The weather and my perspective was grey and chilly and all those birds singing added an aura of intrigue that shouldn't have but it molded into sadness.

There are times when I feel so utterly alone and sometimes I welcome those times because I figure I need the experience for a time when that might truly be the case. It's a foreign place for me, really--to feel and be alone--and I think it would be a plus if only the feeling didn't include sadness.

You know those sappy inspirational quotes exhausting the serenity of living near the ocean and spending the day reading books and living leisurely?  I know a couple of people who tell me that's how they actually live. Because I live near the ocean and have time to read books I think that should be me too. I view those people with awe.

I still work because I want to. Money has ceased to press on my day-to-day. I've had a few medical scares this year and my back screams at me to lose weight, but all in all I'm healthy. JB and I have been together long enough that the fibers of being known and permanent love and shared interests carry us past our differences. My daughter is married and it's a good marriage with four children who never fail to delight when they run to me when I pull into their drive way.  I'm smarter than I ever thought I'd be and I have the creative benefit of loving to write.

To be clear: I have no doubt I'm committed to my own happiness. But at that point things get murky. I had this epiphany this week: with surprising precision I remembered the two months I came to the Cape to write a manuscript on Happiness. I sat on our red sectional couch each morning, the early morning sun poured in, I had my Peets coffee, and I began to write. I wrote for a couple of hours and then my dog Rosie and  I walked one block to the bay beach and I let my mind think and wander and I watched her swim and I chatted with people about what a great day it was, and then I came back to the red couch and followed the same pattern through lunch and then dinner. By the end of the day I'd written for ten hours or so and I was thrilled. JB would come down on weekends and that was nice too.

Where the heck has that 'me' gone? Here I am again on the Cape and on this couch. It's not red but teal this time and the morning sun is more subdued in this house. But I have an exciting book to write and the bay beach is still a block away. What's changed besides the fifteen years between then and now?

I can answer this in a flash: a too-tight body, some too-soon losses, the too-high price of prickly wisdom. But there's something deeper. There's a core of 'me' that's this close to knowing how to really BE. Here. Now. Sometimes I already know. But other times I watch the knowing slip right through my fingers. 

I starting writing this post three days ago, in a funk. Tonight I'm at the end of a good day and I have a feeling. What I'm looking for isn't out there. 

I tell this story in the the training programs
I sometimes do:

"Long ago the wise and powerful gods of the world wanted to protect the secret of happiness. "Let's hide it at the bottom of the deepest ocean," one of them said. "No, they'll find it there. Let's bury it at the top of the highest mountain." "No, no," another said, "One day they'll have planes."

Then the littlest among them said, "I know! Let's hide it inside them. They'll never think to look there!"

love
kj


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Is it?

It's easier to write when I'm looking up and harder to write when I'm falling down.

I'm not exactly falling but I'm in and out of the local health clinic like I have a membership. Twice I've had symptoms that really scared me and twice when I stopped being scared I've promised to wring every juicy moment from this life that is mine.  

Today I asked my doctor, "Is it age?" He smiles. "The problem is your mind is still a very smart 4o."
I smile back.

Is it age?

This year,
not last or the one before that,
for four seasons now
I'm giving blood
and getting news:
this works but that might not.

I'm a weary pocket
filled with coins
waiting to cash in,
ready to roll
but lying prone
when I should be
jiving.

In this year
the doctor reassures
but here's another test,
this one for kidneys
that one for lungs.
A knee, a back, two hips
and a damn tooth.

Body, it's spring:
time to wise up.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Travelin'


I'm in Pismo Beach California, having left Burbank yesterday and soon to be in San Luis Obispo. I was in Burbank for a work assignment and I'm here visiting old and new friends. I'm also airport phobic (no idea why) so it was no small matter that my flights from Boston through San Francisco to Burbank took 16 hours and included two canceled flights and one skin-of-my-teeth standby. I came a distance for a 10 AM meeting in Burbank that couldn't be rescheduled and at 6:30 pm the night before I have no guarantees (Grrrr United Airlines) I'll be anywhere near Burbank, not even the next morning. 

Not to mention my luggage. I've flown in the equivalent of a fancy teeshirt and comfy pants. Not business attire.

The whole time I kept saying, "Wait to worry, wait to worry," but my nerves would have none of it. 

I'm writing this two days later and I made my meeting.

I stayed at the funky1960's orange formica decorated Tangerine Hotel near Warner Brothers Studios (no I didn't tour, a small regret) and my junior high school friend Max picked me up there. We stop in Carpenteria and have lunch with my friend Lori: she and I do some welcomed and good reconnecting.  Max and I drive along the Pacific Coast to his home in Pismo Beach and last night he and his wife and I went to a bonfire on the beach in celebration of the marriage of a doctor and a nurse, both women.   (I knew neither.) There was an ample bowl of Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups and Hersey's chocolate and hot dogs and fixings, all there to be roasted in the fire in the sand. Hot dogs and S'mores. The evening air was cold and it rained but in between the fire performed perfectly, except the heat made our eyes water.

Today Max and I will continue to catch up on forty-plus years of our lives since high school. We both talk non-stop and we both know full well that we are confirming and cementing that we will now stay close friends. 

Tomorrow Max will drop me off in San Luis Obispo where I will spend the night with Sharon Lovejoy, my friend from these blogs. We call each other honey and her house and yard and studio and illustrations and articles and books have  been featured in plenty of magazines. I will be delighted to have a night and a day with her.

When I return in two days to Ptown, it will be Spring. Crocuses and daffodil stems will have cracked open the soil and I will sit in the side yard or on my couch and wonder if I'm better off having a plan of what-when-why-how to my days ahead or just letting it all unfold. I don't mention this quandary lightly. 

I'm not a good traveler. But I travel anyway. I'll wonder about that too.The thing is, a blank canvas doesn't stay blank either way.

love 
kj