Mother's Day 2013

Hey Mom, hope you and Grandma are having a smashing good time together. You both died too young and are missed greatly here. Just wanted to give you an update on the family.

Your grandson is maturing into a lovely, thoughtful, caring and compassionate young man. Yes, he’s a slob (gosh, wonder where he got that gene?), but he knows how to clean the kitchen and living room. I usually ignore his bedroom and he ignores mine – it works for us. He’s got his own rock and roll band and plays drums and saxophone and sings in an acoustic punk-folk band. When he isn’t playing or practicing (or playing video games with the guys) he’s studying pre-law at the local community college. He likes his studies and seems to be doing well.

He reaches out to his cousins on a semi-regular basis, and tries to maintain ties to his dad’s side of the family, and to his uncle Paco. He had a long-term relationship with a very nice girl, but that ended a few months ago. After some quiet days and nights, he seems to have recovered. Just as he recovered from that horrible skateboarding accident last December (he wouldn’t be my son without the ER visits, would he?).

I’m still selling insurance and trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up—Ministry is still the top runner if I can retire in the next couple of years from the financial industry. I’ve been participating in a dream group, knitting up a storm and working at the So Cal Renaissance Faire. Oh yeah, and riding my motorcycle in the local mountains. Last year I went on vacation with Jean and with Jeanette.

Your teachings have kept me on a good path:
1. Walk quickly and wear loud clothing. I may have to start sewing again to feed my need for unique clothing, but that’s OK – I’m almost ready to bring your machines and fabric out of the closets (and from under the bed and out of the hall library, etc.).
2. Be nice to the underlings as they can make your life heaven or hell. Yep.
3. Work hard, play harder. I forgot that for a while, but seem to be making up for it these days.
4. Save for a rainy day. You never know when the next ER visit looms, either for your kid or your car or your cat.
5. Don’t hit your brother or your kid or your cat. Ever. I refined this to “Don’t touch another in anger.” Ever.
6. If you’ve been crying every day for a while, go see a doctor. Still working on this one, but getting better.
7. Listen to the advice you give others and apply it to your own situation. Ouch.
8. Hug first. Hard words are easier to say when snuggling.
9. Leave the office at work at the end of the day.
10. Sing lustily.
11. Encourage creativity.

I’m sure there are more, but these are what come to mind as I think of this Mothers’ Day. I hope your grandson remembers to gift me somehow. I reminded him last week that the day was coming. I miss you.

2009 November 6

2009 November 6

Friday. November. Fall. Simple words with such complex meanings and feelings behind, over and beyond them.

Now I walk in beauty:
Beauty is before me,
Beauty is behind me,
Above and below me.

In the US, many celebrate the fourth Thursday of November as “Thanksgiving Day.” The myth of the first Thanksgiving on the east coast of North America is pretty, but denies so much as to make me uncomfortable to celebrate without honoring those first people upon whom the various governments of North America have systematically, intentionally and without apparent remorse practiced genocide. For what or to whom can those soles be thankful?

This is the season in which I personally take stock of my life. Always, even in the depths of dark depression, I have much for which to be thankful: I am whole and generally healthy, with a beautiful son and many generous and true friends. I am employed and paid well for a good day’s work. Whether it is the cooler weather, the freshening and clarifying winds of Southern California falls, or simply the longer and colder nights that make pondering easier, this is the time that urges, nay, forces me to reflect on my life and where I am headed.

For without noticing in what direction I am going, like the un-aimed arrow, I will miss my target.

This moment’s target is to write reflectively. The world sees much turmoil—soldiers killing their siblings-in-arms, soldiers killing other soldiers and civilians around them, drug use weakening our youth and artists’ minds, the cradle of civilization continuing in unbroken, uncivilized strife through the millennia.

But a baby is born, young lovers are reunited and a flower grows triumphantly yellow petals to the warm sun from a crack in the sidewalk. A dog suckles a kitten and a curmudgeon underwrites a crack-baby’s education. Life, ever-abundant life pervades and perseveres. And what is to be my part of this parade?