Mushin

Drunk-sleep 

I sit

silently 

seeing shapes

colors 

crystal clear

spring sounds 

cardinals 

doves 

hawks

barking dogs

horns

 sirens

no thoughts

 shapes space

breath in

breath out

letting go

empty mind

Witness

Witness

Through the lens

the filter of my open eyes

I see the road before me

stretched out 

long and vast

seemingly never-ending.

My name is graven

on the long and vast

highway of my life

I am asleep

dreaming with eyes wide open

asleep and yet awake!

The Story of Me.

Early Years

The first few years that we lived in Puerto Rico were the happiest for my parents. I was their only child for three years and they were very much in love. I can't remember much about that time, of course, so I rely on photographs. A picture of my father holding me in his arms in the carport of their little house. The car was red, my dress was blue; my father wore a white undershirt. A picture of me at Christmas, dressed like Buster Brown, wearing long pants, cute hat and my look alike doll in my lap. The floor was polished stone, the tree silver and white. A picture of me with my grandfather Aquilino; I am seated atop his solders wearing only diapers, earrings and necklace. He is holding my tiny baby hands to keep me from falling. His look is one of already having nipped at the bottle of Bacardi rum.

I love the pictures of my parents from those years. My father was lean and handsome and always wore his red hair cut in a flat top. My mother was young, beautiful and back then did not wear much makeup - she needed none as she was a natural beauty. In the late 60's she would do the Priscilla Presley teased up hair and black eyeliner thing and then in the 70's, the crazy blues and vibrant colors that all women wore.

There are many pictures of parties, pig roasts and the playa. It was easy and it was so much fun. And then there is the picture of me with my mother and grandfather taken on the day we left Puerto Rico. We were moving to the United States, to Virginia where my father's family was waiting and where we would live for the next few years. It was a journey for all of us. My mother had never left Puerto Rico, had never experienced cold weather or snow. My father was embarking on a new path of education and had enrolled at George Mason University. I would be attending preschool at St. Thomas More. My first language was Spanish then. I was truly terrified.

I don't remember much from this period either. I remember school was very difficult for me, I remember making macaroni art, my mother being pregnant with my brother. I remember eating potato pancakes for the first time. And I remember flying back to Puerto Rico with my mother so she could have my brother in her home country, surrounded by her family. She was extremely homesick and often very lonely during the years we lived in Arlington. My father's family was Irish/Scots and "the twins" - as my two aunts were referred to all their lives, truly love my mother and me. They were only 15 when I was born and they loved to fawn over me, always. They still love to tell me how old they were when I was born! 

Shortly after giving birth to my brother, my mother became pregnant again, with my sister. She told me many years later that the morning sickness was so bad for her and with a newborn to take care of and myself still little, she often thought of jumping from the balcony of their apartment. I have no recollection of any of this. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her. My sister was born a year and fourteen days after my brother. She was not born in Puerto Rico. My mother could not make the trip. She came home from Columbia Hospital for Women dressed in a lovely, newly knitted yellow ensemble that my grandmother had made.I was not happy. My sister was a pink and blonde baby with a tiny upturned nose. She smiled all the time. She would always be the cute one, the cheerleader, the gymnast, the sugar plum fairy, the homecoming princess. During my entire formative years I would always be the opposite of her; chubby, slow, overfed, ungraceful and not cute.

The Story of Me. Them.

The Story of Me.

Them

The Story of Me began long before I became or came into this world.

It began with two people, two very young people who fell in love on a tropical island - a lifetime ago.

She was a native of this tropical island; petite, dark-eyed and olive skinned. She was a pure flame of fun and mischief. She had attended an all girls Catholic High School and led the other girls in many mischievous pranks. Once she brought a jar of flies to class and during the afternoon rest time, when the Sister's closed the shutters, she opened the jar and out came the flies, buzzing and making mayhem.

Another time, she aimed a paper clip on a tightly pulled rubber band directly at The Mother Superior, hitting her squarely between the eyes! The Sister's would tie her legs to the legs of the chair so could not sit with one leg crossed over the other, like grown women did. This was deemed inappropriate for young girls; so time and again, the Sister's would catch my mother with her legs crossed, uncross them and tie them to the chair.

She was a free spirit, a dancer, a dreamer, a lover of life - whom many said looked like Elizabeth Taylor when she was younger.

He was the opposite of everything she was. He was tall and thin with flaming red hair and blue eyes; spotted all over with freckles and the palest skin she had ever seen. He would turn crispy red within 20 minutes of being in the sun and little blisters would form if out longer than that.

He was Canadian, had been raised and schooled in Catholicism, like her. But he had been sent away at an early age to be schooled by the Friars. He was the oldest of five children; his Mother's intention was that her eldest would become a priest.

He, however, had other plans and after many years on this journey, quit this path and began a new one. One that would take him to the tiny tropical island of Puerto Rico. To the bank where my mother worked as a teller, to a whirlwind courtship and wedding a year later. To new friends, parties and the first of three children - Me!

I was born on September 27, 1961 at 4:30 p.m. I weighed 9 lbs, 12 oz - a huge baby! My poor mother was in labor for 12 hours without any pain medication. She had a Catholic doctor who refused to give her an epidural. My mother has never forgotten that, nor ever forgiven him - 53 years later. A few short hours after my birth, my ears were pierced and thus began my life long love affair with jewelry. I have no memory of this of course, but I do remember watching my infant sister, years later, shrieking and crying while getting hers pierced. So it must have been painful. 

I am not bragging when I say I was a beautiful baby - it was true - a matter of fact! I was fawned over and given many beautiful things and little trinkets that my mother could pretty me up with.

As a child I was always dressed in beautiful clothes; lovely hand made pieces that the Aunties made for me. Throughout my early childhood I was dressed like a living doll; adorned with bracelets, earrings and necklace. From the day I was born, I have never been without jewelry - I feel naked without it. If I don't sleep with my earrings in, then first thing in the morning, I put them on and go about the rest of my day. 

At the age of two, my hair grew in very curly and light red. My mother snipped a few pieces and my father put them in an envelope for safe keeping. Years ago he gave me a packet that contained my birth certificate, immunization records, a few photos and the envelope containing the tiny, still curled pieces of my light red hair.

What I Miss..

"With rue my heart is laden

for golden friends I had

for many a rose-lipt maiden

and many a lightfoot lad..."

This morning while lying in the meadow at Bryan Park I looked up at the sky and the numerous cumulous clouds and had a memory from childhood. A memory of myself as a small child with my parents lying on our backs looking at clouds and imagining shapes. An early summer day in 1967. And then I began to think about all of the things I miss from those golden years.

I miss "April showers bring May flowers," rainy, wet spring days that I thought would never end, I miss summer coming when summer is supposed to and cool Septembers that kept us indoors early. I miss summers in Puerto Rico and my mother's family. I miss sitting on a porch or patio in the late afternoon heat with my bare feet on cool tile and fresh made limeade to drink and all of my relatives talking in spanish, telling stories and dirty jokes and the laughter. I miss their laughter and their faces. I miss the crazy cocktail parties my parents had and the shimmery tank jump suits my mother would make before each one. I miss the games they played like pass the key down the shirt, dancing to the Tijuana Brass and drinking Whiskey Sours in our very small apartment in Meadowdale. I miss their international set of friends (cubans, argentinians, etc) that came from out of town just because they loved the parties that my parents threw. I miss loading up the car with picnic items and going for a sunday drive, just because that's what everyone did back then. I miss classic cars with roll down windows and that little extra window in the shape of a triangle that pushed out. I miss making kites and flying kites on windy spring days. I miss sitting in the grass looking for four leaf clovers and making crowns from strung together clover flowers. I miss being barefoot all summer. I miss my mother tossing me out in the rain so I could play and get wet. I miss riding my bike with the banana seat and sissy bar in the back. I miss running in the woods, playing pioneers, making forts, crab apple fights and sitting in trees. I miss the smell of my mother making fried pork chops and homemade french fries; the sound of my mother calling us in to eat every day at four thirty. I miss the sound of a screen door slamming and the crazy sing song tunes from the ice cream truck, and hanging out all day at the pool with what seemed like a million laughing, screaming kids.  I miss how everyone thought my mother was the most beautiful, glamorous woman at the pool - an Elizabeth Taylor look alike - she was. I miss playing freeze tag, kick the can and hide and seek on summer nights. I miss drive in movies; watching them in my pjs, the smell of popcorn and sweet grass wafting in the air. I miss softball season, afternoon practice, fielding an amazing play, the sting of the ball in my mitt. I miss Loretta, Carrie, Karie, Brenda and coach Wally Smith shouting, "Campbell did you eat your vitamins today?" I miss summer crushes and driving in souped up Mustangs and convertibles and making out to Rod Stewarts' "Tonight's the Night.." behind Beulah Elementary School with my boyfriend Scott. I miss the way he looked in his baseball uniform, football uniform; I miss riding beside him in his little TR7. I miss gardening with BB and Kathy Gun and rolling around like a dog in the fresh turned soil just before planting. I miss wide open spaces, winding country roads and the sound of frogs and crickets filling the night air; the smell of honeysuckle, fire flies filling the dark night and picking blackberries on undeveloped lots.  I miss Richmond before development came and destroyed the natural beauty and became the suburbs; before Midlothian Turnpike, before Stony Point, before Short Pump, before mile upon mile of shopping malls filled with grocery chains, retail chains, home improvement stores, gas stations, movie complexes, etc, etc, and on and on. And all of these things will fall into decay and the grass will shoot through the pavement and the trees will grow and someday it will all revert back to its natural beauty. And I will be gone.

I could fill page upon page of all the people, things and places I miss but for now I will just say -

I miss it all.

Totem Animals: Slugs, Pelicans and Owls

"Illness isolates; the isolated become invisible; the invisible become forgotten. 

But the snail....the snail kept my spirit from evaporating." 

Slugs, Pelicans and Owls are my totem animals along with dogs and wolves. Dogs and wolves are the most obvious of totem animals and resonate most strongly with me. However, I have come to realize over the years that Owls, Pelicans and as crazy as it seems, Slugs - are all animals that speak to the hidden parts of my self.  

I came to appreciate the beauty of slugs through their kinship with snails. The summer I was studying in England I traveled to Cornwall and was stupefied by the number of snails that inhabit the farms and fields there. Snails by the thousands live nestled among grasses munching the day away. My first foray with snails occurred on a warm and early summer day many years ago. I was walking along a winding country road in Cornwall when a profusion of color caught my eye. Stuffed and studded along a hedgerow were tiny round shells in shades of green and yellow so bright in the morning light that I had to shield my eyes. As I moved in closer I could see their tiny antennae moving up and down; side to side. I couldn't figure out what was happening and then I realized there were hundreds of these little round shells with worm like creatures protruding, furiously eating up the blades of grass. I was overwhelmed by their beauty and tenacity, and as I look around I saw them everywhere. Hundreds of them all over the roads, shells crushed, half squashed. Some still trying to cross the roadways, gliding effortlessly across the pavement. I began scooping them up trying to save every little crushed creature I could. It was an impossible task so I gave up and let destiny take over.

Years later while on a camping trip to Frisco Woods I opened a chair and found that we had transported a tiny slug with us. I searched the campground for a new home for my little friend in the shade of a beach house, in the sand near a piling. When I told Chris hours later what I had done he said, "slugs can't live in the sand, they need soil and grass, it will die here." It was near dark and I was panicked that I would not be able to find my little slug. I ran to the house and there it was in the same location where I had left it hours before. I scooped it up and carried it back to the camp site. I found a small cylinder, stuffed it with grass, poked a few air holes and put my little slug inside. For three days I watched it, turned the cylinder around, peered inside my homemade slug kaleidescope to make sure no harm came to it. On the fourth day I brought it home and let it loose inside my garden. Most people I told this story to said I was crazy, that it would destroy my garden - but I didn't care. I saved the slug and it made me happy to do so. I love them, love to watch them slide across my front porch on rainy spring nights, aiming for the leftover catfood. They have immense appetites and will spread their entire bodies over enormous chunks of food, taking their time to ingest every morsel. 

Last year for Christmas I found the most amazing book for my mother in law entitled, "The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating." A small, charming book; not very lengthy. About a woman who develops an auto immune disorder and is forced to lie in bed for two years with no ability to prop herself up, read, watch tv or barely communicate. The only entertainment, joy, life line she had was a tiny snail transported to her via a wild violet. It is an amazing account of the day to day activities and habits of these lovely creatures.To date, she is the only person ever to have witnessed and recorded with such detail the life cycle and habits of snails. So on a  clear, cold Christmas eve I began the book and read it out loud to Chris in bed and finished on Christmas morning as chunks of snow fell outside our window.  I read it twice before I gave it as a gift. My mother in law, a behavioral scientist also fell in love with the book, read it twice and passed it on to her daughter who also read it twice. 

While I understand that for many people snails and slugs are a pest, a nuisance in their garden; they serve to remind me of patience and persistence. They live in my garden under mossy pots and eat my roses but the pleasure of watching them outweighs the loss of flowers. Watching them is like observing a microcosmic ballet where all the dancers glide and slide, leaving only a silvery thread trailing behind to mark their existence.

Next time - Totem Animals - Pelicans :)

Losing Willa

Willa left us three years after Henry on a golden sunny October morning. On a full moon Halloween morning when Chris had to rush and catch a plane to Florida. She was fourteen years old, the queen of our lives. Strong of body and soft in temperament. She was, as Chris put it, "the most Femi-centric of dogs." She was incredibly beautiful, snow white with tremendous pink ears. She was never leashed and trained in the fashion of the New Skeet Monks. She responded to voice and hand commands and was always by my side; obedient, graceful yet fiercely indpendent. She loved the cold weather and being outside in Winter. She was a magnificent swimmer and would harangue us for hours at the James River fetching sticks and balls. 

She has been gone nearly five years and I am still tortured and cannot talk about the way in which she left us. She was sick with cancer and in much pain; suffering in her silent, proud way. Her mind was clear but her body was achey and unsteady. She was unable to stand and we had made a ramp and would sling her under the belly to help her up and down. But the time had come and I still regret not waiting a little longer.

She comes to me in dreams, sometimes young and healthy - other times not. These dreams fill me with sadness and so I work at remembering what a truly amazing animal she was and how athletic, strong, brave and giving at all times.

Henry made his way back - but Willa has not. Chris said she attained doggie perfection and I wonder if that's possible with animals. Someday she may return, but until then I continue to miss her every single day and think on her grace and gentle spirit.