Long Time No See

I had planned to start writing more stories about my growing up and being (or becoming) an adult. I hadn't planned to write nothing for four weeks, but life absolutely got in the way.


The last three weeks have been absolutely crammed full of unpleasant family and personal events, which ultimately wound up with me totally melting down on Thursday with JR, even though by then all events had resolved into happy endings in the natural progression of things. I think I just had been moving through with my head down and when it was over flipped out in retrospect.


I did something different this time, which was ask for help. And I got it! It's not surprising that I got it, so I recommend asking for needed help when it's needed and not after after the fact. Friendship is a two-way street, they say, and I really needed quite a few people to come down that street and pick me up. Which they did. Yay for them!


Anyway, hopefully back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Wise Words

None of the people in this photo is Dances Under The Moon, but we are all wearing hats

YaYa Dances Under The Moon sent out this email the other day, so I'm sending it out to you as well.

Well it's official, I am now a true old lady. What? you might say.
Well the other morning I got up, took my shower, then proceeded to slather
Jean Nate' lotion all over my body. That was bad enough, then I realized I
liked it. So I may never let my snow white hair grow out, but underneath it
all it's true I have arrived. Well I am the senior of all of us. So remember
I demand respect! I also have realized although I am old, I am not dead!!! I
have decided that I have much to do in the next 50 years. It starts in 2009.
I will have my list completed when we meet in March. I will look forward to
seeing your list also.

I will tell you one on my list. I have decided to wear hats more. Hats are good.
They keep the heat in, they are good for bad hair days, and they give you
different personalities, I mean a good mood change thing. God knows I need some
mood changes sometimes. All in all what I have realized is that I am damn happy,
and I plan on staying that way. Hope all the yayas have a fantastic 2009.
Love you all.

Dances under the moon

I get up, I walk, I fall down, Meanwhile I keep dancing.

Warning

A Poem For The YaYas
(with a nod to Jenny Joseph)

When I am an old woman, I shall wear lavender pajamas
with a red robe that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my 401(k) on vodka and hair color
and ingredients for blackbottom cupcakes, and say we've no money for gasoline.
I shall sit down on the BART train floor when I am tired
and drink lots of coffee in tiny cups at Trader Joe's and press kids' bellybuttons
and skip along the sidewalks
and make up for the sobriety (!) of my youth.
I shall go out in the rain without gel in my hair
and pick the french fries off other people's plates
and teach children to curse.

You can wear terrible wigs and grow more obnoxious
and drink three bottles of champagne at a go or only banana bread for a week
and hoard Christmas ornaments and things in boxes.

But now we must have jobs or partners that keep us solvent
and insist on equal pay for equal work and celebrate Obama
and set a good example for the children.
We must meet friends on retreats and read our favorite blogs.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to drink champagne.

A Visit

Yesterday when I went over to Jolly Woman's house to see Shmeen and Sa (and Jolly Woman herself), Shmeen took a break and we went to Laurel Hill park, a small park with a baseball field, a couple of basketball courts, and a bunch of climbing structures and swings.


Sa played on the structures and swings and Shmeen and I sat on the bench and talked. It was a very "mom" thing to do. It has literally been years since she and I have just hung out with each other. The last time we did was when I had gone to Long Beach for a Conference Committee meeting for the 2005 CASFAA Conference. I didn't notice this until late last night, but I suddenly realized why the visits when she's been up here with Shman and the kids feel kind of strange: We're always visiting at Jolly Woman's house, with our husbands and usually at least one of our moms. Not that it's bad that we're visiting with our spouses; we like each other's husbands and our husbands like each other. It just hasn't been just "she-and-I time."


After awhile Sara got bored playing with herself and insisted that we come and play on the structure with her. We slid on the slides and jumped up and down on the bridge, making it wiggle. Another family arrived, with a 16-month-old boy and a ukulele. The dad is learning how to play and plinked out "My Darling Clementine" and "Oh! Susannah." It was really charming.

Almost Heaven

Friday, July 20

The Killer Lady and I drove straight through and arrived about 23 hours after we left - including stops for dinner in Placerville yesterday, breakfast this morning in Grand Junction, and driving around in circles in Aspen to get to the grocery store.


Being on a road trip reminds me so much of all the other road trips I've been on. I've never done this route before, through Nevada. The Killer Lady (who has incredible endurance and drove the entire way with only a 40-minute nap at a rest stop around 730 this morning) and I got a big kick out of the signs for Wendover, that told us how far away it was every seven to ten miles. Wendover straddles the NV/UT border, and boy was that obvious: We went through after midnight and half the town was bright with Las Vegas neon and the other half was black.


Our favorite sign was the one that warned us, "Stay Alert! Lane Shifts Ahead" - only because we'd been on the road for hours and were not being warned to stay alert because we were in a car. Heading out of Aspen and over Independence Pass the signs told us to "Avoid Broken Windshields. Obey Speed Speed Limits." I guess punishment is terrible and swift in the Rockies.



Saturday, July 21

I don't know if it is exhaustion or just "is" but it's been tough so far, being here, thinking about Phil. Both The Killer Lady and I pretty much arrived in tears with the pain of wishing Phil would just walk in the door and say, as he used to, "How's it hanging?" The fifteenth anniversary is bothering The KL as much as it is bothering me. We keep looking at each other and asking, "How is that possible?" In 1992 I knew that someday this day would come. I'm still so sad about his being gone, and I'm surprised in a way that I still miss him so much.

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.

~ Richard Bach, Illusions.

Mrs. P wrote in an email that Cabinstock is a great legacy Phil left us. It's started me thinking that maybe his mission on earth was to organize this annual event that has created sort of a community. We wouldn't have met each other any other way, let alone remained friends for so many years, without Cabinstock.


Sunday, July 22

I suggested that we rewrite "When I'm Sixty-Four" so it's about doing Cabinstock in the future (I'll be 64 in September of 2032!). The Killer Lady and I helped, but Spudwhip really ran with it. I have the chord notations but I'm not going to include them because I know they won't format correctly. Y'all know the tune, anyway.

Note: There are a few inside stories, but the only one I'm going to comment on is the dry compost toilet, which requires some good use of the Kegel and suchlike muscles.

"When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now

Will you still invite me to the Cabinstock?

Tunes and hooch still served on the rock?

If we play on till quarter of three, will you scream for more?

Will you play for free here, still be a tree here, when we're 64?


You'll be older too

And if you say the word, I could tent with you.


I could be handy, mending a tube

When your amp is gone

You could drink tequila by the fireside

Monday morning, whimper and hide.

Doing a keg lap, smoking some weed, who could ask for more?

Split pee and poop here, fall off the stoop here, when we're 64.

Every summer we will storm the Cabin by the river with a keg of beer

Three vacation days...

Guitar on your knee

Singin' through the haze

Send me a flyer, drop me a line, at least by May or June

Indicate precisely when the dates will be

Yours sincerely, Mister Bony.

Scrape up the money, scrape up the time, scrape me off the floor

Huevos and beans here, measure your penes here, when we're 64.

Drown in the creek here, still be a freak here, when we're 64.

Soak up the scene here, play key of Gene here, when we're 64!"

Monday, July 23

The music starts one piece at a time and adds up. We have lots of guitars this year, a washtub bass, an electric bass, harmonicas in the major keys, a fiddle, and a drum kit. Lots of voices, of course, including mine.
















The music is hella loud in the Cabin. We've been in and out because of rain. I asked SRV Rick if the music is louder than in years past, but he said no. Guess it's my old ears!

This photo is from the first night when most people - and the PA system - hadn't arrived yet. Kid Paully and SRV Rick are picking up where they left off last time.




Tuesday, July 24

I am really in touch with the fear-is-part-of-anger thing today. Spudwhip and The Killer Lady crossed the river and on the way back, The KL lost her nerve and was pulled downstream by the current. Spudwhip grabbed her, but then he started down the river too, and Shawnee, who'd gone with them into the water (but not across the stream), lost his balance when he grabbed Spudwhip and the three of them headed downstream.


The KL went down the river once before, in 1995, when she lost her balance, and I was just filled with dread about their crossing back. I have this sense of everyone else positioning themselves along the rocks in various places, as if we all expected someone to head downstream. It was like we were Team River and were taking our places. Johnny Half-Song and I stood near the confluence of the river and the creek, and when I saw them coming toward me reached out for the three of them. For less than a second all five of us thought they were going to make it, but they didn't. Johnny and I didn't want to pull too hard because we didn't want to go in the river also. Shawnee said he saw how quickly I was moving; I don't remember moving at all. I didn't realize I was wet up the chest until I dashed in the Cabin to get towels and heard my sandals squelching on the carpet.


Shawnee and The KL came up against the first big rock and were able to climb out; Spudwhip went around to the next one and was also safe. All's well that ends well but I was furious. I had to hide on the next-door property to sob for two minutes to get it out of my system. The KL was abashed, and quietly took the lecture the OG gave her. Shawnee was pretty calm, smoking a cigarette afterwards - he said he figured that they would get out. Spudwhip was jacked up on adrenaline and I just wanted to smack him. I felt like he didn't really understand that the OG and I were angry that he put himself and The KL in danger, even though he apologized for scaring me.


Spudwhip brings the mama out in me.


Wednesday, July 25

Yesterday was a long day. It felt like several days in one, in fact. The morning was full of people packing up their vehicles and leaving, and there was music. Johnny Half-Song, Marko, and Spudwhip played some of Johnny's original tunes until some kayakers appeared. All the times I've been to the Cabin, this is the first time I've seen kayakers. Marko says this stretch of the river is famous for kayaking and the Cabin is called "the crooked cabin" in kayaking guidebooks.


We had the swimming in the river incident, and more music. The OG and Shawnee played some CSN, and the OG taught me the secret parts of "Teach Your Children."
After dinner those of us who hadn't left had a long talk and Marko played his fiddle in accompaniment to the OG's guitar and voice. When I went back to my tent, I was exhausted.


Today has been very low key, as Marko, the OG, Shawnee, and BJ were gone by early afternoon. The KL and I took down our tents very quickly, thinking it was going to rain, but so far it hasn't. Looks grey and gloomy, but we're still at the Cabin and The KL has built a nice fire.


Thursday, July 26

I'm reading Three Cups of Tea. It's about a former ER nurse/mountain climber who builds schools all the non-controlled, high-altitude parts of Pakistan. Each chapter has an epigraph, and I adapted this one from "The Warrior Song of King Gesar":

This beautiful and splendid land
With snow-covered rock mountains, cold-crystal streams,
Deep forests of aspen, pine, and spruce,
Is as much my body as what you see before you here.
I cannot be separated from this or from you.
Our many hearts have only a single beat.

When It Happens To Someone Else

I went to a funeral service last September for the 24 year old son of dance studio friends. He had died in a motorcycle accident. I didn't know the son, but I thought it was important to go, because the dance studio is part of my community and that's how I know them. So the dance studio is part of their community too, and I wanted them to know that they have friends everywhere who care about them.


I wrote the following in the days shortly afterwards, but I've edited it a little here. What impact did Phil's death have on me, in terms of action or attitude? I tell people I love them when I do. I tell Zirpu every time one of us leaves the house, and when I drop him off at BART in the morning.

9/25/06

I went to a memorial service today for the ---s' son, who was killed in a motorcycle accident last Saturday. I feel so bad for his friends, of whom there were a lot at the church (and probably 200+ people altogether), the way I felt bad for the friends of those students who died at SMC in 2001 and 2002. It doesn't seem fair to me for them to have to experience that, to have a friend die and the grief and shock and unrealness of it. It doesn't seem fair to me that we had to go through that when Phil died.

I still wish that we had talked more about him than we did. Maybe because two of us were in Portland, five were in Seattle, one was in Victoria, one was in Tacoma, and one was in Colorado Springs, so we weren't physically close to each other the way the ---s' friends and family seemed to be since they are still local.

Phil was really important to each of us, each of us had our relationship to Phil. No one felt exactly like anyone else, I think, when he died because we all had our own relationship with him. I still think I learned about myself through my relationship with him... I know I learned about generosity and started to learn about appreciating fine things from him.


9/27/06

I found my journal that includes that period of Phil's death. It turns out that I DID spend a lot of time talking with people about Phil and his death. I didn't remember, but Ms. S. was in PDX shortly after for a family thing, and Jujubi came back home for a few days at the end of August, and Dr. BFS was in town for a conference right after, and Shobi-wan and I went up to Tacoma for a BBQ at Mrs. and Mr. P's in honor of another friend at the end of July. I went to Seattle for a few days when Shobi-wan went to Wyoming. Two couples were down for my birthday and Bink and her friend came down the following week. Denver D and his friend came in October. And of course Shobi-wan and I talked a lot about him and it.

I have been remembering HOW I FELT as opposed to WHAT HAPPENED – and how I felt was that I would not, could not, get my fill of talking about Phil.

So one thing reading over that journal is making me think that I have not been very generous in my memories toward my friends. I've been feeling like I wanted to talk but I was the only one who did, but in fact, I saw a lot of my dear friends in that period, despite our living far apart, and we did talk about Phil when we saw each other – and not just about Phil himself but how we felt and were impacted when he died.

On 8/19/92 I wrote, “I'm afraid that a time will come when I'll still want to talk about Phil and no one else will need to anymore. Or worse, that I will want to and the other person(s) will want to, but neither of us will know it, or we'll both be too shy to start.” On the 27th I quoted a letter to BFS saying “It's been really good to be spending as much time with people who I love, who loved Phil, who love me. We can all talk about Phil as much as we want and not feel embarrassed...”

Getting Ready!

The Killer Lady and I are leaving for Cabinstock on Thursday. I've had food bank stuff on my mind recently and had sort of pushed the plans to the back of my mind, and then Marko called yesterday to discuss some details. I'm all excited now. Besides, today turned out to be the best chance to get everything organized to go, and staging the gear increased my excitement.


The first thing I did was go to various grocery stores to get the food. I wouldn't have gone to more than one, but I was looking for Tasty Bite Indian food packets, handy because they don't require refrigeration. Next Thursday morning I'll get some apples and bread for the trip. I've pulled old water from our earthquake kit and replaced it with new water. I have quite a bit of booze in the cupboard, most of which I will bring along, and while I don't expect the level of drinking I've seen in the past, one wants a complete bar, doesn't one? Especially when the nearest liquor store is 30 minutes away.


Zirpu and I recently purchased a tent, which I put up today for a test run. It's a much bigger tent than the one I used to have, which actually self-destructed during Cabinstock in 2002. The tent will be very cozy; I asked Zirpu to take the rain fly off because it was getting too warm for comfort in there with the tent in the ballroom. All the parts were there, including the cupholder, hanging above Mom's head in this picture. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to take Zirpu's sleeping bag, which goes to 20*F but has a narrow foot, or if I'm going to take my sleeping bag arrangement, which is more comfortable but much much larger to roll (it's a sleeping bag inside another sleeping bag).


I can't believe that I'm old enough for something to be happening for the twentieth time in my adulthood. The first Cabinstock was a weekend of Phil and friends playing music and drinking heavily, and then it happened again the next summer, and the next. The first time I went, a couple months after graduation, 65 people attended at least one night of the four during Cabinstock.


I'm excited, and I'm almost ready to leave.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

The weekend before classes started in earnest my first year at college, I went to Bumbershoot. All I knew about it was that it was a music and arts festival, and that some group on campus was providing school buses to take students up to Seattle. I went with a couple of my new friends, Phil and Denver D, to whom I'd been introduced by Mrs. P (she was Ms. P in those days).


I remember thinking, as I walked across campus to meet them at the bus pick-up that when I was in high school, I never would have been allowed to travel to another city with two guys I barely knew. Well, that's one of the joys of going away to college, making decisions that might run counter to ones of your parents would approve.


We wandered around the festival and looked at crafts that we couldn't afford to buy (or fit in our dorm rooms) and listened to music. Bumbershoot was enormous, and in one of the halls we found a photo vendor who offered to take your photo dressed in costume. We signed in, and dressed in the Wild West clothes. He's not pictured here (which I regret; I don't have the original version of this photo on my hard drive), but Denver D's wearing a cowboy costume and holding the Bible that went with Phil's costume. Phil had switched with him so Phil could hold the moonshine jug.


This photo marks the beginning of a great friendship that I thought would last forever. Well, talk about "unforeseen events." Phil and I were very very similar; I thought that we were two sides of the same coin, but sometimes I wondered if there even were two sides to that coin. We kissed one time, later that fall, I think because we thought we should, being of the opposite sex and as close as we were. It was gross, for both of us. Bleagh!


I recognized his faults (because a lot of them were mine). He was a good friend to me.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

A Story In Several Parts.

About ten years ago, I was driving east on highway 26 through Portland at about 830 on a weeknight, when my car broke down. That is to say, the engine stopped running, though due to inertia I had enough power to get the car over three lanes and onto the shoulder. This had happened before (for a different reason) so I knew what to do, and I was lucky because there was no traffic to navigate thorough in the car's powerless state.


I got the car onto the shoulder a few hundred feet or so from an entrance onto the highway. This was in the days before cell phones, so I walked up the exit to call AAA, an organization with which I have had a long and useful relationship, for a tow. The entrance came out in a residential neighborhood bereft of pay phones, so I walked a bit, looking for a house with the lights on. I found one in which not only the lights were on but I could see people sitting around a table in the front parlor, so I rang the bell.


I explained my situation and asked if I could use the phone to call a tow truck, and the person who answered the door not only agreed but insisted that I wait at her house for the tow truck to come, rather than on the highway shoulder. I sat on the stairs in the hallway and made my call to AAA, and then waited for the yellow truck to arrive to take me back to the car and ultimately to the auto shop.


I didn't speak to any of the people in the house, except to say thank you and goodbye. They were playing a dice game like Yahtzee or Boggle. At the time I felt strongly that they were so kind to me because the kindnesses I was doing in my life were coming back around to me. I hadn't had to walk far to find a household that would allow me to use their phone, and I had been asked to wait inside, where it was warm and safe, until the tow truck came. I was very aware that I had received kindness from strangers, and felt enfolded in the arms of the universe.

I have come here to lose the smog

This summer is the twentieth anniversary of CabinStock, and everyone who hears is asked to spread the word to anyone else who's been there that this year is a big year and they should make the effort to attend. Children are welcome and there will be some kind of arrangement for them (maybe a Kid Corral, so they don't run off into the woods?).


The first three times I went to the cabin Phil took me in the winter and late spring, when there was snow all around. The cabin was built by Phil's father for summer use, and one January our toothbrushes froze to the counter top. There are only two right angles in this Alice-In-Wonderland building, the water coming directly from the creek, the heat from the fireplace and the wood stove. It's in an absolutely beautiful setting, facing Mount Elbert, and I've been there so many times, in each season, that I've seen the trees every color, and the creek high, low, and frozen; the first time I saw snow fall was at the cabin in 1987.

Also, Phil's ashes are buried there, where they belong.

We climbed cathedral mountains, we saw silver clouds below
We saw everything as far as you can see
And they say we got crazy once, and we tried to touch the sun
And we lost a friend but kept his memory...

CabinStock is an annual three or four day music jam/party in the mountains, at a summer cabin at about 1,000 feet below Independence Pass in Colorado. I went in 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 2002 (and maybe another time, I can't remember). It is looking likely I will go this summer as well. The music starts in the morning - when I was going, there was one guy who would start every day at 9am playing "Wake Up, Little Susie" (you can hear part of it here). Most people did not sleep in the cabin, since it is small, and would crawl out of their tents for refritos, tortillas, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and "coffee with." The music ends late, and one night some of us sang all night long.

I love singing, I love live music, and I love the spontaneity of people noodling around on their guitars and keyboards until they land on a song. Johnny Half-Song is famous for making up new second and third verses to songs to which everyone knows the chorus. So many songs get played in "G" that it's becomeknown as "the key of Gene" after one of the original band
members. I've led people into the
"Sesame Street" theme instead of the Rolling Stones. I learned how to harmonize at CabinStock. The set-up has been pretty sophisticated, with a soundboard as well as amplifiers and a drum set, and there have been an electrified violin, harmonicas, and a trumpet. Whoever's on the deck is playing or singing or just passing through, bringing a beer or a light to the rotating roster of the band.



There are people there I know and like and have a history with now. We can pick up and be buddies again even though we haven't talked in two or three years. I decided to marry Zirpu while I was there, talking about him with Johnny Half-Song and his wife. I have friendships in the mountains, deep and full of smiles, into which I dip once every few years.

The First Word

The last time I did something like this I made my own word stones out of home-made playdough and ink. I thought about doing that this time, but I'm married to a geek now. I asked if he could write a script that would daily send me a randomly selected word from a list I'll provide. That way, the trigger will arrive daily and (I'm hoping) sort of force me into working on this project even on days I would make an excuse for not reaching into the bag for a word stone (such as, “I don't know where it is”).

Writing a script like that is as easy for Zirpu as washing his hands. He wrote it this morning and when I opened my email, there was today's word - the first word of at least 365 words (though in the spirit of things I should probably say "the first word of 372"). The words will repeat, but he wrote the script so that it won't repeat any words until it's gone through all of them - something I know a bag of stones would not be able to guarantee.

372. Hmm. I might need to add more words to my list. Anyway...

Friends.

NPR has been playing short pieces called "This I Believe." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138

People write short essays about what they believe in, principles, values, whatever they live their lives by. It's based on a 1950s Edward Murrow radio program and it is one of my favorite things on radio (and I listen to a lot of NPR). When I first heard this program I started thinking, if I were to submit an essay, what would it say? What do I believe?

I believe in friendship. I believe in being a good friend, and I believe in maintaining good frendships, ones that are good for me as well as ones with good friends, if that makes sense. I have let go of the idea that a good friendship must last forever - that's for you, Wendy and Dave, and for you, Sam-O. It took me a while to understand that some friendships are attached to a particular moment... and yet I have several friendships that I'm surprised have lasted as long as they have, through inter-state moves, totally different family statuses, different values and lifestyles.

I've moved away from using the phrase "best friend." I'm lucky in that I have a circle, several circles in fact, of close friends (I'm lucky because I need them and I have them) and some I would call on for one thing, others for another. Likewise, I'm pretty sure that people call on me for one thing and someone else for another. I have been the right person for one job while recognizing that someone else is the right person for another job. I've dropped everything to help a friend and a friend has dropped everything to help me. I've done nothing with friends, and I've done boring things with friends, like cleaning the house and running errands. Everything is better with friendship in it.

The more friendship in the world, the lighter the world. By being a friend, I create comfort and love and connection between myself and my friends and my friends' friends, as well as my community.

Cherish friendship in your breast -

New is good, but old is best;

Make new friends but keep the old,

Those are silver, these are gold.

- Joseph Parry

Friends in 1976, whom I still know:

New friend, 2006, whom I met last summer: