Oda a la losa de Carlos

Carlos fixed on the features of his floor,

marvels at the Miami marble –

so unreal, yet so luxurious, yet so cold.

Recently returned from digging toes

into dirt that was Conchita’s floors…

…it was simply that…

so close to Earth thru her earth, and yet

disconnected from where they desired,

the Earthen all ways ready for roots,

earth where Rosita had played and placed hers,

each step of bared feet returned Carlitos to his.

So, this slow fixation would find

even in the falseness of terrazzo

a simple blessing of steps away

from dirt floors and cloth doors.

October was so dry

Halloween sprung upon us

And ran away with the month.

Mercer’s Autumn Leaves dying as the computer’s stream ends.

Dimming lights on empty offices vacated and un-refilled.

Passing hand and eyes over remnants of the recently retired:

books, quotes, students’ simple gifts, rests for necks, backs, wrists,

“you’re the best” plaques, pictures of them and others,

still filled files, mementos of moments, and more books.

Odd criteria for what’s kept, left or taken.

Cannonball’s rendition of Autumn Leaves weeping in the ear,

so many years and the memory of these professors’ canon

reduced to what we might recall, retell, reclaim, from these discards.

Work relationships hardly yield longer terms, and more days

will distance us outside of even memory – such is waste.

Walking past the temptation of the café, a glance,

no one known well enough to share a colada.

Floating in halls between the unfilled classrooms,

parallels the space between now empty offices.

I’m missing those i never got to know.

Into the cafeteria and the smells of old grease and tepid fries,

still “fries” reminding of better fries, then best,

those i ate with Pop in Jerry’s Sandwich Shop –

Fresh potatoes, fresh oil, and a quick hand off to the basket,

Drunk on Boylan Root Beer, chilled and straight from the bottle,

Pop’s reminiscence of days on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk,

Winning the prettiest baby contest, in a dress of his times,

And now this becomes my memory, and my nostalgia, and my fear.

Hanging in there.

I am wondering how a cold i've had can be so debilitating and humbling. I've been consciously not going around people, wearing a mask around Carmen when i've had to be with her, not seeing my dad or friends and taking a few days off from school. 

I am a lousy patient. I get depressed and lonely and self-pitying. I get jealous of Tere's time and attention elsewhere. I have missed AA meetings because of the intimacy and not wanting to spread the cold. I missed the Quakers because nothing can disturb a silence more than a strained phlegm-filled cough. 

And yet Carmen carries on and she has a huge hunger for life and her living is filled with humor. 

I on the other hand weaken under a mere cold and shrivel as when i drank.

Today I bought a sunflower. Small by sunflower standards. I walked into the grocery store and there they were all in containers wrapped in yellow paper. They looked like a bunch of kindergarteners, all lined up and standing straight and perky waiting for the principal to pass inspection.

The flower itself gives you the immediate sensation of a face, the small green leaves drooping out from the stiff main stem imitate hands pleading to be overlooked for the flower above. There were a few promising buds on each of the plants but all had only one bloom open right at very the top quite prominently perpendicular to the pot.
Its whole effect is like a kid, with hands on hips, giving you a slightly daring and absolutely infectious grin. It is irresistible. I picked one of the a bit bigger ones and placed it in the center of my shopping cart and then I begin looking for what I originally in mind to buy.

No sooner had I turned the first corner, past the bakery section and just into the chocolates, I passed another shopper – an attractive, smart looking woman, with blood bobbed hair. Her eyes didn’t catch me at all but went right to the sunflower, which generated an immediate smile. It was spontaneous, unplanned and ever so real.

I took a couple of more steps but I couldn’t resist confirmation. I turned, and with a pardonme asked, “did you just smile at my flower?”

She couldn’t contain yet another give-away and looked and smiled at it again. “Yes, she said,” with an jingle of joy in her voice.

“Well thanks,” I managed, surprised with my sillines, “that’s exactly the reaction I hope to have at home. There is someone there who can use a smile.”

“Well,” she said, “thanks for giving me the chance to smile. It made me feel great.”

Odd conversation for a grocery excursion and if that were it I would have been merely pleasantly surprised.

Passing through the tight turns in the deli section, I caught a number of others glancing and grinning. The toilet paper row seemed to have the only few indifferent but then in the fish section we got two and a half smiles more and in frozen foods, near the waffle fries, I had one more full-fledged conversation about little miss sunflower.

A mother with her 5 year old in her cart stopped, smiled and with semi-shy glances at the plant, almost embarrassed to admit that she’d been taken hold of so easily by such innocence, asked about her. We talked about her cuteness and costs, as if she were a recent baby that was out with granddad.

Curious. I surely was getting a lot of sunshine for my $3 dollar investment.

Now I have always had a great respect for the power of nature and her ability to wow and awe and humble and charm and engage and tickle the spirit. But here’s one small, eighteen inch plant with only one four inch bloom – not a lot of biomass compared to the rainforest, the Everglades, the coral reefs, or even my backyard – that is stirring smiles from dairy to deli, from frozen foods to fish, and out through the veggies.

Small but surly, it surely speaks to the gentle power of the potent little sunflower to on its very own, without animation, just from posture, poise, and plant power, garner a grin and gain a grip on our spirit.

II

I tell this tale to a group of friends at a noon meeting and in doing so talk myself into returning to the store for two more smile makers. I dash in, grab a couple of more, taking care to find the bigger grinners, and hop into the express line. Even this short skip gains me 3 or 5 more smiles, one even over the shoulder.

At home I give the first one to the sickest in the house, my mother-in-love. She is appropriately wowed yet feels that another flower we had from the garden was more worthy of the photos I was trying to shoot. Even so, she was pleased.

Another I place in the living room on top of the antique sewing machine where we typically put a potted plant with a flower. This one will catch folks on the way into visit Carmen.

The third, I place on the front steps just to the right of the door, where all passers-by might see her, where those at the door could, and where Tere couldn’t miss her.

When Tere came home, she was moved to think that someone had thought of her. She held her up, speaking to her, telling her how lovely she was and how wonderful she was to be waiting there for her on the step. Tere brought the smile champ in and was grinning, eyes to ears, forehead to chin.

After, checking on her mom, Tere came back to me and when I spoke to her about the plant she broke into tears. The thoughtfulness of the plant touched her vulnerability and she cried some of the tears that she holds in because she doesn’t want her mom to she her sad. I held her while she found her smile again and the sunshine and rain mixed.

So, it seems that touching spirit doesn’t always yield smiles. Stirring emotion doesn’t guarantee grins. Never-the-less, the plant power today was potent and in the end Tere was pleased to have been thought of in midst of turmoil, to have had a smile given to her, to have been held when the tears came.

I learned another lesson in loving.
I love her and I love sunflowers.
They are Tere’s flower – like a birthstone – the sunflower is Tere’s flower.

Pronounce pergolas,
tutti-frutti, serendipity
‘n’ hold ‘em in mind.

 now to now

now it’s a very un-regal sunrise.
we’ve soiled ourselves and woken many
with early a.m. anal anxiety
diarrhea-drained of fluids and filled with fears.
we’re skipping morning and midday meals
scared of what food might create.
nursed back into our regalia,
and coxed into the cafeteria
we take another bite in our life.
by early eve we’re spiffy, re-diapered,
dapper and dancing with friends.
as sun sets, we call to regale ourselves,
to taste the deliciousness of it now.

apology

This is the month of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectfully August 6th and 9th. This year’s been 65 years. This is the first year that U.S. – read us – sent a formal representative, an ambassador. Never has our president gone. Never has there been anything near an apology and probably never will there be.

I read an online AP article about the memorial celebration at Nagasaki, where the ambassador attended. The article pointed out that the Japanese are not looking back and expecting apology for the past; rather the memorial is to look to the future to prevent more nuclear bombings. There was an online chat following the article in which apology did come up and in which there were some very harsh words and bitterness and anger and it set me to thinking about the nature of apology.

It is odd to me how confused we have become about the nature of apology. Working from the personal out, I would say that an apology is not explanation for what I have done. It is not an acceptance of what another has done (that is forgiveness.) It is not an acknowledgment that what another has done was right. It is not an admission that my action was not justified. From what my moral teachers have passed on I have these notions of what apology is.

An apology is an acceptance of responsibility for my actions because regardless of all extenuating circumstance and contexts, I have a choice. I am responsible for making and carrying out that choice. In small child terms, even if you hit me first, I am responsible for whether I hit you back. This does not change as we mature and extend this to international behavior.

An apology is a recognition that what I have done in some ways has harmed, hurt, the other. Again in child terms, if I hit you it does not feel any less painful to you because you hit me first. This is so even in the case of war.

An apology is fundamental to healing. It means that I am willing to move to the next stage of healing – forgiveness. Without apology and forgiveness we continue to be in pain and create pain. It is much like picking at the scab of a wound. It will never heal properly.

Perhaps, this is why our teachers always made us children say we are sorry to each other regardless of who hit whom first. Perhaps we have forgotten those lessons as we grew older and tougher or perhaps we have regressed to childhood and are without a teacher to intervene.

Whether we were right or wrong in dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whether we were justified or not, even though the Japanese acted horribly in the war, even though the Japanese still owe an apology to China, the US, or others, we can take responsibility for the bombs we dropped, the harm we caused, and be mature enough to simply say, “I am sorry.”

This simple act of apology does not change history. It does however impact the future. It allows us to recognize the horror of nuclear war. It facilitates healing which in turn helps avoid further conflict. It models the behavior we hope our children will learn and follow.

So, with all of the caveats and explanations understood, I am sorry that we dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am sorry for the suffering and pain they caused. I hope it never happens again and for my part I will endeavor to keep it from happening again.

Within this frame, I have for a number of years called Japanese friends on August 6th and apologized. This year we happened to be in a sushi restaurant and I apologized to the young waitress, who seemed and bit embarrassed. On the way out the chef/owner was standing near the door. I apologized to him. He smiled slightly. Bowed. And said, “thank you.”

Sunday, when I called you

and I had to let you go

because I’d arrived at my dad’s,

I said I would re-call you in the afternoon.

I found my dad in the cafeteria

and he didn’t recall or wouldn’t say

that he’d already eaten the brunch.

The waitress told me.

So, I rapidly ate something myself

and then went off to wait for him to finish up with his friend.

I said I’d meet him back at his apartment.

He didn’t show up.

He forgot me

and went to see another friend,

whom he’d forgotten plays bridge on Sunday

and she shooed him away.

By that time I’d given up

and took off

and went home

and slept the afternoon

and did my own forgetting

and I didn’t call you back.

Parallel flaws in recalls

yet not quite the same.

Anyway, I am sorry I forgot

but I remember I forgot.

Another time we must chat

and fill in the blanks

and write a new book.

A summer sunshower

smiled on me and i returned

the favor with tears.

Very vulnerable means

movement slight as breath and tears 

compete with the rain.

Among demented,

time hangs looped ‘n’ suspended,

close yet a-parted.

While it is still paying

attention is the cheapest

gift i've got to give.

Caritas I

In the society i grew up in – waspy, working class, post-depression era – there were many mixed messages about charity. My parents had spoken phrases such as:

Never a lender nor a borrower be.

Beggars can’t be choosey.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

We were raised on movies and literature that portrayed charity as a good thing to give, if you had enough to share, and a rotten thing to get because signaled that you were needy, poor, and under-class.

My mind’s eye sees Henry Fonda in the Hollywood version of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. It was a mix of feelings, images, messages about poverty and what charity means, even in times of hardship and as a kid, the movie confused and frightened me. Being poor sure was scary (and it still is.) And it seemed poverty could like the grim-reaper, could over-take me in a heartbeat and for no personal fault.

I am hearing from various other Americana canon, characters saying with anger and/or pride:

“I don’t want your charity!”

Then there is Philanthropy. Philanthropy as a term and action, as far as i could fathom was reserved for those like my friend Steven, who was born to “old money” and spent his life managing the wealth. I remember the first time he referred to himself as a philanthropist – a term i still can’t apply to myself. I’ve been reading about it in the Times a lot but it’s not germane.

When in elementary school, then as now, there were many collections for the others. There was a boy for whom we secretly collected clothes and somehow got to his poor family. We collected Dimes, and food and such and learned something about giving to others but we learned very little about the deep sense and meaning of charity and less about the others. Certainly i learned nothing to erase the Grapes of Wrath lessons.

Caritas II

I went to university. I found a grander sense of others and a broader concern for the world. The war made me rethink the big questions and if i didn’t find the answers, i was at least asking better questions. There was a beginning sense of what is good for the others and how knowing that would/could affect who i am.

During university, i learned from my philosophy classes that there are many loves and many expressions of a higher power and that Charity is one that is both. Somewhere in there was a dash of religious instruction that appeared to echo the western canon regarding love and the divine and connection to caritas and to me.

It seems that i have been learning the many meanings of charity over my life time and from many sources. But i still don’t really get it as i hadn’t really received it.

Caritas III

Tere’s caritas, sense of love and divine, is broad and encompassing and reflected in all of her being. She has had experiences of charity and as a profound sense of its meaning.

The first she often recites is when the ’72 earthquake in Managua took all her possessions, destroyed her house and almost the lives of her family. Sitting in an open field waiting for whatever was to come next and shaken by aftershocks, she was immensely impressed and moved by the generous hand and handouts of a US soldier. Her recitations can still put a tear in her eye.

But that was her experience – not mine. She has others, just as powerful and life-affecting – they too are hers and not mine. Try as i might i have only indirectly sensed it.

Though what i have said above is so, it is just as so that i have learned from Tere. It is difficult to live and love and not learn. Tere’s way of being is caritas – love and divinity expressed through human interaction and relationships. I have seen, felt, and appreciated her caritas. I have even made some effort to mimic it. But it is still more hers than mine.

I have another source of learning of charity from my experiences within A.A. In part it is embodied in the process, and reflected in how we must give it away to keep it. I have seen how there is a caritas within the group conscience; how the hand is held out to the less fortunate. And i have experienced that sort of love too.

I have a sense of the blessing of giving to those with hands out on the street. I was given a lesson by my maternal grandmother. She once and for all blew off those senseless statements – “oh he is probably making more than you begging out there” – with this simple retort to my father who’d made a similar comment.

She said, “If he asks for money and doesn’t need it, the sin is his but if he asks and needs it and I don’t give, the sin is mine.” I’ve never begrudged the occasional beggar since then.

Yet up to very recently, i never had had the deep sense of what it meant to receive charity in the manner and sense that i have gotten this week.

Caritas IV

My mother-in-love came to America under the auspices of our familial sponsorship. Why she had not gotten residency years before is another tale altogether. But when Tere and I began the process it was about 11 years ago with the US Embassy while Carmen was still in Nicaragua.

A year later her life there became untenable for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that an active-alcoholic relative had moved in with her. So, Tere rushed down to Nicaragua and rescued her. In five packed days, Tere closed out her 77 years there. That was about 10 years ago.

What we later discovered was the unanticipated move precipitated a huge burp in the residency process and required the filling out of all whole new and different set of forms with INS, and a restart in the residency process.

Then many months passed before we found out.

We started a third time.

We paid and processed the new forms.

This time we got as far as an appointment.

But then we had to request a change in dates because my mother had had a massive stroke and was dying and we needed to be with her in another town.

The INS cancelled not only Carmen’s INS appointment but also her application.

Go figure.

We re-restarted her application.

Fourth time.

They lost her.

Well not her exactly but the paper her.

We found the paper her with a backdoor call from a lawyer and more money.

By now years had been lost in all of these bumps and holes and her official, state-recognized residency did not begin until November 10, 2005.

What’s this all got to do with caritas you might well be asking by now. Well wait.

Many of us take health care for granted because we have insurance or in the case of my folks state insurance in the form of Medicare; we don’t know what the full meaning of not having health care support can be. We don’t really pay attention to the charges and when we do those that are not out of our pocket don’t feel the same as those expenses that are.

We consider the professionals through our privileged criteria and some of us moan about HMOs limiting selections but few of us have been limited the way those without are.

Carmen has been limited to one clinic, through the only public hospital. She has been subjected to all day waits and screaming babies, and insensitive intake personnel, and cold nurses, poor diagnosis, and impatience all around. Most of us haven’t made the long lines, with junkies using the toilets, at the county hospital pharmacy to get medicine that is required for our health. That has been Carmen’s in the meanwhile.

Now for those who don’t know Medicare is better than most PPO plans and while it had been reviled by AMA, and denounced as socialistic before its institution, it has become the favored form of payment in the health field. Accepted by all. And if you have a small supplemental insurance you are the golden calf.

Well, it takes five years from granting of state-recognized residency to qualify for Medicare.

Why five years?

What’s the magic in that number?

It’s beyond me.

But the result is that Carmen could not qualify for Medicare until she had been a state-recognized resident for exactly that number of years – to the day.

That magic date is about four months from now, if she lives until then.

So, Carmencita is the tortugita that fell into a rabbit hole.

I am sure she is not alone in there but she is surely the one we know best.

Caritas V

Currently Carmen qualifies medically for hospice care.

Now you may or may not know there is not one big free Hospice out there.

Nope.

There are very many hospice care organizations. Some are non-profit and others are for-profit.

The first we spoke with was recommended by the family doctor at our clinic – a religion-affiliated hospice – non-profit. The on-phone in-take person at Catholic Hospice quizzed Teresa on our income, as if it were Carmen’s.

Later she called back and told us that we didn’t qualify for their help.

Odd.

Not much caritas there.

Odd feeling of fear and deep sense of rejection.

Fear that we wouldn’t be able to help Carmen through this transition in a simple and humane manner

or that we might burn up in the process trying to do all of the care-taking ourselves – Tere, Uli, and I.

And rejection in that Carmen didn’t qualify for help because of our income.

I recalled that a friend had used a hospice that might not have been the same one. Sure enough; our dear friend Joyce told us that her family had used for-profit Vitas on the basis of the recommendation of her brother-in-love, Scott. I was given his contact information and encouraged to call him.

Scott told us to ask about charity from the Vitas folks as they often provided the services through charity.

We called Vitas who sent someone out to us without asking about our finances first. Hum…

Jeniffer [sic] arrived and talked sympathetically and clearly about the services and processes. When I asked about finances, we talked about charity. She immediately called her office and put us in contact with a woman there. When she began to ask the same questions that Catholic Hospice asked, I became anxious.

Tere passed the phone to me.

“If Carmen is the ill person, and she only has 89 dollars a month in pension, why are we being quizzed?”

The woman said that they had to know for their decision making process.

“Oh well, Tere we don’t have any choice.” But in my mind I was preparing for another rejection.

Jeniffer, however, was telling me on the side that it is not either charity or we pay it all but that there might be a compromise arrangement.

At any rate, I was preparing for the rejection.

Fifteen minutes later, Jeniffer called back to the office, and then matter-of-factly told me Carmen was approved. “Approved for what?” I asked. “Approved for charity. We will cover everything.”

I am still processing the immensity of that decision and the impact on us. Relief is surely part of the feeling. Relief that we do not have to do it all alone. Relief that the process won’t bankrupt us financially, emotionally, spiritually. There is an odd reserved feeling of joy. And there is a feeling of the deeply moving impact of Charity.

As sensitive as we are emotionally right now, the smallest acts of kindness can move us to tears and the smallest rudeness can irritate me to anger. Seeming small acts beginning with a friend sharing, her relative informing, a totally unknown person “just doing her job,” and a company feeling that it had enough profit that it could/should share brought Charity into our lives.

Tere has been reminded of that help after the ’72 earthquake in Managua. For my part, at this level, it is truly a first.

As i chew on the enormous impact on my family and me, i am still learning what it all means.

The help has been arriving since two hours after Jeniffer finished the forms:

An oxygen machine that afternoon.

Prescriptions FedExed overnight.

A wheelchair the next day delivered to the house.

A nurse and a doctor sitting in the room in our house with her.

A DOCTOR SITTING IN THE ROOM IN OUR HOUSE WITH HER!

Talking to her about how she feels….

Caritas VI

This will be a long digestion for me. Yet, it has already shifted my perspective on charity. It is already begun working into my capacity for caritas. Charity is being redefined for me and one part I am sure of is that many of phrases that so permeate and reflect our ambivalent use of Charity in our culture – many of those phrases/ideas are just plain wrong.

For one example right now, I will never ever again say: “I don’t want charity.”

Can we chose between

her dying, his dementia -- 

both break the being.

First try, oh my god!
What's the reason in winter
season, discontent?

Humanitos

Today I sat among Friends in meditation and silence while my head filled with noise of itself.
I sounded questions i’d not wrestled with since sophomore years:
What’s the point? What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of our existence? Is there a god and how would god be expressed? What happens after death?
I have been asking these questions because two very important relationships in my existence are transitioning from this life form of corporeal being into whatever follows.
Sitting among these Friends and among these questions and my internal noise, i hear the entrance of small new human lives and the inadvertent noises that accompany them.
No need to peek to know the forms of the sources of these sounds; i keep my eyes shut and listen.
I am drawn to the presence of these small species-relatives.
My silent focus turns to their delightful wonder-music.
Then I return to my existential meandering meditation.
Breaking into my mind is a gentle “shush” from an adult and one small voice asks, “Why?”
I smile again as i am harmoniously focusing on the very same question.
Moments later i hear from the newest life a short babbling- gurgle and with it, I am given a meaning.
Within seconds, the slightly older by maybe two and a half years voice asks: “What’s that?”
I am grinnier.
My existential questions are being asked by another beginning entity – Why? What’s that?
Ah! Then i hear a quiet squeal: “There’s daddy!”
A god incarnate has appeared!
Now the smile is growing from my face into my heart.
Here it all is.
The same questions at the beginning of life as at the end.
Simple and direct.
Sometimes i find companionship in the smallest beings.

Monteverde

In certain forests,
everyday’s May’s verdantly wet…
green sheen on everything.

haiku 1


If pain is to teach,
spirit enters through my wounds,
passing owl's healing.

la fe de vida

There are so many ironies in life but today’s is particularly prickling – today is “la fe de vida day” for our house. La fe de vida is a proof of life document. Once a year, my mother-in-love has to prove to the Nicaraguan Government that she is still alive so that an authorized person can collect her monthly pension and transfer it to her hands here. The purpose we suppose is to prevent the fraud of someone collecting a pension for a dead person yet whole thing is just a bit odd. Deep down we tend to think, “why can’t she just stand there and say, ‘look, pinch, or better hug me.’” But no.

So, each year she’s been here we have shuffled through the elaborate process of filling out several detailed forms, supplying yet another set of small overpriced photographs, and dropping the papeleo (paperwork) into the hands of the Nicaraguan Consulate, who review and stamp with appropriate seals, nod approval, and if paid an extra fee will have the documents ready the same afternoon for pick up. It is a considerable amount of effort on the best of days for a result of a little less than $100 per month but today it is especially hard. Today will be her be her last la fe de vida.

She has been house-bound for more than a month since the diagnosis. She is weak and strained though filled with humor and hope. And she is adamant about proving her life. It is a task we can’t do for her. She must do it herself. There are no substitutes for la fe de vida.

We have tried for weeks to convince her it is not worth the effort. Yet, in spite of her sense (she doesn’t know for sure) this will be her last la fe de vida, she is absolutely determined to make this huge expenditure of energy, push herself out of bed, dress in her best, sprit on a perfume she likes (though not the expensive one i recently brought her because “that’s for special occasions”) strap on her sandals, and scratch her walker out the door. It squeezes our hearts and burns our eyes but we go along with it. We assist as well as we can. We pull it together and pull together. Hell if she can, we should. What’s the point if not to make her pleased.

So this is today’s irony. As my mother-in-love transitions out of this form of life toward the next, she insists on getting her due and proving that she still exists and in doing so she proves for us another lesson: life is for living right up to its last moment. That’s truly the faith of life… la fe de vida.

July 28, 2009

Today my dad forgot where he had met my mother. The famous story of a dance in Miami turned into the bath house in Atlantic City but Mom was never in Atlantic City until after they were married and the bath house was long gone by then as it was a part of Pop’s childhood.

I told Pop it was ok and he said, “No, it’s not but what can I do about it.”

Signs of the disease progressing and his awareness of his inability to control it.

Part of a work in deconstruction

why can’t i remember you can’t remember?
you’ve lost the day, the clock, the word, the button.
what have i lost such that faults your loss?

the anger arises out of nothing.
but firstly i recall it’s a sign
we are losing our mind.

you grit, gnash, and teeth grind.
routine is better made
and followed, though senseless.

why can’t i remember you can’t recall?
that’s my loss within your dementia.
it appears we’ve lost more than minds.

why can’t i, ay remember,
who’s sick and who cares here?
the patient’s counting his time, & mine?

we anger as the commercial reminds us.
if you can’t decide and i can prescribe.
why remember you’re losing your mind?

not one cares that i am you and you are i.
in my heart, mind, arms, cells you’re held.
I’ll remember that what you can’t remember.

...slow talking...

...

slow walking...

slow talking slow walking…
not walking that always gets to a where
isn’t the intention of walking slow slow talking
heartful listening, hand holding, care-filled casual conversing
shouldn’t always be turned toward destination
journeys are the process of paying attention,
and of slow talking & slow walking

not the end…
...

Pumice and Palm

Yesterday you had in hand two hardnesses
(I know – I put them there)
both from and of Earth
(I know – I found them there)
both found flotsom in the foam.
One from deep in our center
once liquid hot as Sun
Cooled from frothy light
Cooled once more into solid and light,
When ground becomes ground,
when rubbed can grind.
The other hard as that rock,
rubbery tough, filled with life.
When meshed with the first ground
rebounds into growth of yet unknown.
And so we celebrate two selves of Earth
and our deepest selves who are Earth,
and we pass our symbols from and to
reality and among ourselves.

the butterfly likes me

There are so many times that I am correcting papers when I begin to think: “is this right or wrong?” Usually it comes toward the last quarter of a large stack of essays but it inevitably comes. Usually it comes as the result of fatigue and I recognize its signal and put the stack down and rest. Sometimes though it comes from the strange twists of language that second language learners create. Sometimes it is truly a mistake – something other than what is being said is what is meant. Sometimes it comes from a lack of idioms, clichés, phrases that we, who have learned, drop easily into our communication. Often after rest, I can recognize the intention and make a proper suggestion, we, teachers, call correction. But then there are times when the twisted language has an elegance that I just crave to have work within their context. Even more rarely, there is a turn of words that I think should be exchanged for the “correct” English. Elucidation:

When a Spanish speaker says, “the butterfly likes me,” we can be pretty certain that it is a translation that is too literal. We would most likely suggest: I like butterflies. Now, in today’s understanding of the Universe, quantum physics, new comprehension of consciousness and thought, it might well be that indeed the butterfly likes the writer of that expression. Wouldn’t it be interesting if that were actually what the writers have intended and I have been correcting them away from their intention? It reminds me of the Ray Bradbury story, “The Man in the Rorschach Shirt,” in which a very famous psychologist gets hearing aids and new glasses and suddenly sees too well and hears perfectly and runs amuck with self-doubt. Ah probably not. But what if…?

I personally like a pun I heard long ago that works off the clichéd expression: to kill two birds with one stone. The pun is: to feed two birds with one scone. Consider these two phrases. Both semantically convey the same essential idea of to accomplish several things with the same effort – multitasking, as the new vernacular would express it. However, the two expressions do not convey the same underlying implications, do they? If you are an animal ethicist, you get the difference immediately. So, then what happens when I consciously and intentionally use the pun in place of the cliché? Don’t I feed more birds with the same scone?

Now the pun above did not come from a second language student but here is another twist of language that does.

For years I have had students early in their English language learning use “love” in place of “law” when attempting to express the relationships of in-laws. They would say, “sister-in-love,” or “father-in-love,” and of course, when they would say, “mother-in-love,” we would make some comments about how few folks love their mothers-in-law. Thus, we continue to reinforce a stereotype of the intervening, overbearing, meddlesome, mother of a spouse. A person whom we can hardly tolerate, who makes our lives a misery and comes between us in our spousal relationships. I have reconsidered this “mistake” much has I did the bird and the scone and I have a new take on it too. Please follow along a bit more.

I first met my wife’s mother in 1991, when a Fulbright Scholarship took us to Nicaragua for six months and we lived with her for that time. She’d never met me before then. Our wedding was very simple and civil. Yet there she was waiting at the airport with literal and metaphorical open arms. She loved me on sight (I not so fast.) She treated me as the family I obviously had become. So, later in our lives, when she needed to come live with us, I had learned a bit of how love gets spread and held open my arms. She has been a part of our Miami home for almost ten years. There is no way that I can call her “mother-in-law” with all the attending connotations that it produces and its profound inaccuracy of describing the reality of our feelings and the true nature of our relationship. She is my mother-in-love, as dear to me as my birth mother, and she is as caring for me as my birth mother. She is bound within my heart and soul in a manner than no law could forge.

Now, as my family expands, we have come to use the love in place of the law for all the relationships: daughter-in-love, father-in-love, son-in-love, brothers and sisters-in-love. It trips off our tongues easily now and surely it draws attention. But the attention it draws is similar to the bird and the scone. They are intentional changes in words that hopefully call attention to changes in meanings and more accurately express the meanings we intend and perhaps the readers and listeners will reconsider their own language uses.

Of course, those of you out there who are sticklers for… might just now be mumbling under breaths: all well and good and perhaps even a bit interesting but what is he going to tell the students? Is he really going to teach them the wrong expression? Well dear reader, what I do is tell them the above story and let them choose and if they mistakenly or intentionally say, “…-in-love,” I say, “isn’t in love wonderful!”

not a one trick pony

to captain david

not a one trick pony

perhaps you have a tricked out car?
don't turn any tricks.
can you do any tricks?
by the way, how's trix?
has a treat followed any of them?

not a one trick pony?
there is the cat and mouse trick.
i always root for jerry – and you?

careful not to trip
over the trick of another.
watchful knowledge
of your steps and self
awareness limits us
and the trickster
who is a character
of some amusement
and some danger.

isn't it curious that the mind can play tricks on itself?
how can you "play tricks with your mind?"
how can you play tricks without it?

do you have any tricks of speech?
i know you have a trick for accents
and you should have many tricks of stage technique.

then there are those optical illusions -- mere tricks of light.
who knew light had a sense of humor.

but the trickiest trick of all is the trick of life.

Recovering Life

There have been some who have used addiction as a metaphor or an actual analysis of over-consumptive and abusive relationships to our world; so, it is appropriate to refer to the teachings of a group that seems to have some expertise in recovery. In Alcoholics Anonymous, there are steps that are suggested to recover from addiction and to create a sane life. These steps can lead folks into a spiritual, loving life rather than the selfish, abusive, isolated life of addiction. With all respect to Alcoholics Anonymous, I will paraphrase these steps and view them in the context of the developed world’s addiction to consumption and its corruption of our relationships within Earth.

The first step is to admit and accept that we have the addiction and that our relationships and behaviors are unhealthy. We must realize that the current situation has gotten out of hand, that we cannot manage it, and that we cannot continue to behave as we are. We must arrive at a turning point through desperation for a profound life change.

In the second step, we have to believe that some power greater than ourselves can restore sanity. That power could be community, god, love, or something else but we must allow that it is a power greater than our selves.

Third, we have to decide to turn our selves over to this power. We have to move towards becoming selfless and unselfish and begin to act according to the natural order of the universe and for the good of all.

Fourth, we have to make a fearless moral inventory of our selves. The fearless aspect goes to what Hooks means when she says that love and fear cannot co-exist in the same heart. The inventory is the realistic naming of our assets and liabilities and acknowledgment of the truth of who we are with Earth.

Fifth, we have to confess. We have to admit the errors of our past and honestly and truthfully share them with others who within a healthy community can hold us accountable and help us to act in new and healthier ways. We cannot allow despair over past wrongs to prevent us from moving towards a new way of thinking and living.

Sixth, we must be sincerely ready to make changes. Some of these changes will be minor and over time, but we must be willing to make profound changes in who we are and how we relate to the world.

Seventh, we need to let go of our old ways, readjust our attitudes towards Earth, and make right our relationships. We need to move into a spiritual life that lovingly connects us with our surroundings at a deep level.

Eighth, we have to make amends for the mistakes that we have made. It is not enough to confess them. We must make sincere efforts to restore the destruction of our past action and we must do so with a mind towards not creating more harm.

Ninth, we need to take direct action. Merely saying we are sorry and that we want to be different are not enough without profound psychic and concurrent behavioral changes. There must be real action to make change manifest.

Tenth, we must be willing to maintain vigilance and constantly monitor actions and our lives. We cannot complacently think that we have changed and that is that but rather we need to frequently reflect on our lives and make continuous assessments of our new way of being.

Eleventh, we need to seek to improve and maintain a constant connection with our natural world and actively seek to be aware of the universe’s intentions. We need to act according to those intentions; this requires quiet minds and active listening – some suggest mediation within a natural setting.

Twelfth, if we have a spiritual awakening and a psychic change through these processes, as we should, we need to share our understanding with others. This should not be evangelistic but rather by example and modeling. If we practice an ethical, principled, spiritual, and loving life in all aspects of our existence, we will not only institute change in our existence but perhaps, influence others.

Smells #1

Hyacinth is a flower that grows from a bulb and does not tolerate the south Florida climate. So, why have I spent an exorbitant amount for one that will not last more than a week? It’s the smell.

I sniff the small petals and even through my smoke damaged sinuses, I can whiff her fragrance that zips me back to a past. I can exaggerate the sensation by closing the house, turning the ac way down, and then take a hot shower. When I come from the shower I go immediately to the blossom and inhale deeply. ZOOM!

I am back in the Pioneer Valley. It’s winter. The hyacinths are blooming in the hot houses and are just getting into the stores. I walk across pristine white snow, listening to the crunching of the children’s shoes breaking through the top crust. My nose is a bit runny from the cold. The cold dry air is cleaning my nose like water cleans the palate. The snowfall has cleared almost all aromas. Perhaps, smoke from a chimney passes but on the campus there are few of these. Central heating now.

We arrive at the college botanical green houses. We walk quickly through door, anteroom, and the second door and into the first house. The humidity and smell of the hyacinth hit us all right inside the door. It is a sensual blow that is captivating, exciting and quieting at once. There is nothing else going on in our lives at that moment. It is a sensual meditation.

The children quiet and move from flower to flower. Hyacinths, roses, orchids each with a particular fragrance and look. The hot house is unseasonably heated. There are oohs and aaahs and a few zipper sounds as jackets are opened to the warmth. By their own volition the children have adopted their library voices. We are dazzled by the splendor of nature even in this unnatural setting.

Gently their animation returns as they politely jostle to show each other a discovery. Yet unnamed to the four-year- olds, stamens and pistils wave at them from within the petals. Colors not seen for months throughout the winter are now demanding early attention. We wander through the aisles of plants. It is ok to touch, to see, to feel with all the senses. It is wonderland.

Afterwards we rezip the winterwear, clamor back into white clean world outside. We wade through the snow back to the school room, hugging our memories of odors and colors and textures that won’t be seen again for weeks more.

For this I pay $5.

To Giulio

looks like sleep but…
O2 mask doesn’t hide,
belies what’s true.
paint the nails, slick the hairs,
still for me you’re not there
where you generated grins -
ear to ear perhaps you’ll hear -
grins so slyly filled with teeth;
some even yours we’d joke.
i stroke your stroked head,
hold your cooling hand,
massage forearms hard
from hammers and saws,
all my way, viejo amigo,
to say, adios;
saw you when...
hasta luego.

Yesterday at Starbucks

LucenThoughts

At 4:10 yesterday, in a Starbucks that at one time was a pub called the Varsity Inn, and where i was once arrested, for drinking underaged, i met an old friend (is that the proper term?) whom i'd not seen for more than twenty years... the recounting of his catching me up was interesting at one level, and very much about him, as those monologues are, but during this encounter, i realized that gaps in relationships need to be jumped. catching up sometimes is far less important than digging deeper and seeing if there are any threads left to the relationship that can be rewoven into meaningfulness -- clearly not a relationship as it was as we are not who we were but something of this moment and within this context.

i very much miss real conversations. i miss conversations that explore, imagine, deepen, expand, stimulate, that exchange, elaborate, share, mix. i miss the dining and talking that we used to have and i miss it in some profoundly existential manner that leaves an emptiness somewhat like having eaten cotton candy. in some ways i missed in our phone conversation that dinner/talk. twice in one day. perhaps it is a function of where i am now, surrounded by talk that often truly lacks cohesion/coherence and requires multiple attempts and much interpretive guesswork on my part. so often my thoughts aren't so lucent and my time not mine.

And so i begin these quizzical explorations.