Jeffrey

Everything is beautiful in the summer
Except a Jeffrey Pine.
Unfettered and shaggy,
He reaches towards the sky.
Trying to be light and frivolous
But failing.
Only the squirrels and bluejays
Manage to play and mock
The Pine standing stoic.

When the snow comes
The pine is triumphant.
Plastered with snow,
The boughs pull down,
Branches winched in
Like an umbrella.

The Jeffrey is beautiful in the winter,
At his most glorious assaulted
By snow and wind.
Here he is not stoic
But vigilant and brave.
Beneath the snow, the Jeffrey waits
For summer to reach
His shaggy branches upwards.
The same tree, but so different.
Turned inside out. Always
waiting for the next season to take
An opposite form.

Wholly Me

Language enthralls me. Certain phrases that I tell people in my day to day life swirl across the soft palate of my mind. "I am separated." That sounds so harsh. Separated. Split. Divided. Fragmented. Torn asunder. The images are brutal. Because, of course, I am not separated; I am whole. Leaving my husband was the first time I was wholly me. For twenty some odd years I lived like a host. Marriage for me was more of an inane parasitic relationship. I was the nurse shark to my husband's pilot fish. Always there, he survived off the flotsam that surrounded me. I swam and swam taking his presence for granted. When I left (because the pilot fish had turned into a problem), I worried about how the pilot fish would survive. Are there pilot fish without sharks? But I was on my own for the first time. Separated? Not exactly. Whole but apart. Who knew that the shark gets as attached as the pilot fish?

Now I tell people: "We are reconciling." Sounds like we are balancing our checkbook, settling our accounts, aligning our stars. It's surprisingly easy. Natural. Not passionate nor a struggle nor work even. Simple, comfortable, smooth. I thought it would be hard, but the hard part is how easy it is to slip back into our roles. What should our new roles be, though? Our old roles were not good.

However, a pilot fish remains a pilot fish and a shark remains a shark.

Choices

I will survive this.
I am strong.
Bullies are not just little kids,
I will not be ashamed and hide.
Come at me again and I will come at you.
Shame on me for flinching once.
I will be honest and clever.
I know who I am again.
Ready!

One of the Lucky Ones

I used to lie in bed when I was a little girl and think about my place in the world. I remember being grateful and slightly awed that I had the enormous good fortune of being who, where, and what I was and, in particular, when. What that was was an American in a secure home during the most exciting time in history.

Now, looking back I see how wise I was. As a 50-year old, I have seen so much revolution and change. Born in 1959 on the tailcoat of the baby boomers, I passed my childhood in the sixties. Everything was groovy and classic in the classic-rock sense. All the teachers played music, the kids read books and rode bikes, most moms stayed home, and the neighborhood was a giant block party with barbecues, hide-and-go seek, freeze tag, and swimming parties. We'd listen to the Jackson Five, the Osmonds, sing along to Mr. Big Stuff, Cherokee People, and Band of Gold. And we had heroes. Real ones. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the world and taught us what equality was. Ghandi changed the world with peace. Neal Armstrong took a giant step for us. Gloria Steinem, Camilia Paglia, and Miss Piggy built on the foundation laid by Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, and Abigail Adams. On Saturdays, we watched, the Flintstones, the Monkees, and Johnny Quest;  afternoons after school were old-time musicals and cowboy-and-Indian movies; at night, we watched Batman, the Avengers, That Girl, the Carole Burnett show, Ed Sullivan, the Smothers Brothers, and Laugh-in. And always there was the Vietnam War. We hated that war. Our young adults protested it, Walter Cronkite counted the bodies every evening, and we felt shame. This is the time when we were raised to call the police cops or pigs, flowers were power, war was bad, bras were to be burnt, and you were to never trust anyone over 30. I looked up to hippies and radicals but I remained afraid of them. Charles Manson was pure evil. Pot and LSD could kill you. The hills were alive with music, Harold and Maude were in love and Billy Jack kicked everybody's butt who wasn't an Indian. This was a great time to be a kid.

A teenager in the seventies, Nixon and Watergate taught me to not trust the Man. The Beatles broke up. Girls were good at English, boys at Math. The war was over. Brooke Shields was close with her Calvin Klein's. We were in the middle of the sexual revolution and everyone was horny. Magazine covers discussed orgasms and g-spots, women smoked Virginia Slims, and love was free. Cocaine wasn't addictive, pot had names like vacation spots, love was free, and the music was even better. Led Zeppelin, the Doobie Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, and the Eagles. I was embarrassed to be a virgin so I hid it from by friends who were keeping the same secrets themselves. We dreamt of surfing, boys, Karmen Ghias, going to Hollywood clubs but all we got was Rocky, King Kong, and Grease. At least we had Annie Hall, Cabaret, and . At night we drank wine coolers and beer, danced at parties, listened to the comedy albums of Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams, watched Saturday Night Live in packs, and cruised Whittier Boulevard. Strange, but blow-jobs were considered sex and was the most intimate and forbidden act. It was okay to have sex because the worse thing was getting pregnant and Roe vs. Wade had taken care of that.

Rolling into the eighties I was in college and the party was going strong. We danced and drank and felt like adults. Doctors were handing out the pill and diet pills. Nights we'd drink and dance to Lionel Ritchie, the Gap Band, and....who cares there was no AIDS! What a miracle. I was attractive, young, a product of the sexual revolution, and I couldn't die from sex. The only people ostracized were the ones who weren't having sex...or at least claiming to.

But the AIDS virus changed it all and we were in shock. Then came technology and we were at least entertained. The internet, emailing and work became our new obsession. All done while wine-tasting, reading Harry Potter, blackening some poor fish, and smoking a cigar. Which of course brings me to Lewinsky. Clinton shocked even my generation when he said he didn't think blow jobs were sex acts. So, with one blow (pun intended), they changed oral sex to hooking up. And you can't get pregnant or AIDS from head.

Now it's all about blogging, texting, and Botox. We used to discuss music and sex and our heroes, now we talk about who is having what done and where you can get it cheapest.

I wonder what we will obsess about in the next couple decades? I just hope it is not Soylent Green. Which is not a vacation spot or a type of pot.

Seeing the Shadow by Dairyu Michael Wenger Sensei

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.—Marcel Proust You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.—Bob DylanThe film Groundhog Day demonstrates the wonder of living each moment as a totally new event. It follows a day in the life of weatherman Phil Connors, a sarcastic curmudgeon. He wakes upon the same day, Groundhog Day, again, and again, and again. His namesake, Phil the groundhog (himself a weatherman), sees his shadow, is frightened and goes back into his burrow, thus predicating six more weeks of Winter. Phil Connors is frustrated by living the same day over and over again. He wants to get somewhere else, find new circumstances, he tries to escape each day with the scenarios of his life. He pursues sex, but after a while it is a dead end. Crime is exciting but becomes tiresome. Drinking, therapy, suicide, finding a love relationship, all are explored. The habits and shadows of his life are found wanting.

Each action has consequences. This is the law of karma: he has a choice, but each choice leads to a new reality. Perhaps the turning point of the movie is when he tries to save a homeless man day after day after day, and, no matter what he does, the man dies. He really wants something and is powerless to insure its happening. We have freedom, but within limits. This is "samsara" in Buddhism, the cycle of becoming driven by our karmic intentional activity. We have desires and wants but we may never reach them. Eventually, through many days [lifetimes] he chooses a life of service, works through his demons, and breaks the cycle of Groundhog Day.Each moment becomes a new opportunity, so the same situation is brand new and his unique response leads to a unique result. If we recognize what is driving us, and clarify our true intention, the unexamined shadows are no longer about some solely external reality or objective weather, but about us. Each moment is a new beginning. Our projections and stance in the world can cast a long shadow on our lives, and the Spring of each moment is postponed for a long Winter. If you examine and test your perceptions, each moment brings forth a new world. If we lead an unexamined life, we feel each day is different, but it is really a rerun of our habits. If we examine a disciplined life closely, each instant can blossom into a unique flower. This film parallels Buddhist practice. In a training temple, the wake-up bell rings the same time every day. You go to the same place, wear the same clothes, and follow the same routine, and yet each moment is unique. Not distracted by your desire for changed conditions, you can live each moment not knowing what it will bring, seeing the familiar landscape with new eyes. Phil Connors in the end "wins the girl." He gives up trying to possess her, so that true intimacy, true participation, can occur. Affecting and being affected by each other and each thing is the true interpenetration of self and other. The cycle of samara is broken, his shadows are seen through, and each moment blossoms. As in the tenth ox-herding picture, Phil Connors comes out of his burrow to the market place with gift bestowing hands. He sees the shadow of his reflections and bows to it, as it must to him.

Poem #4

There's a brief magical time
when I lie in bed
cuddling my warm lap top.

The sleeping pill starts its lull-a-bye
pulling me to the soft spot
Where consciousness, sub-consciousness,
and unconsciousness meet.

I write, and post, and chat.
My thumbs dash off misspelled texts,
I blog and my thoughts mingle
With Queen Mab as my editor.

In the morning, I awake.
Cookie boxes, water bottles and socks
Amid books, papers and dreams.

I open my laptop and begin
To retrace my dreams and ego droppings
Left under a URL pillow.

So Screwed

Co-dependence makes sense.

It came as a shock to me when my therapist told me I was co-dependent. Even after she told me and I skimmed a few books, I didn't get it. I remember asking people, "How is being a good, loyal wife any different than being co-dependent?"

I stick. I put on a smile, take a Xanax, and stick. I try like a saint to fix it and endure...both of my chief ingredients in my formula to a happy marriage. After 10 years of a pleasant marriage, my husband became a gambler and a verbally abusive alcoholic. He had always lied so that wasn't new. For the next 5 years, he ruined us financially, insulted and degraded me, and terrified our children. Finally, I  left with my girls after another especially rugged five years of rabbit punches to my sanity. And then, after months of arrests, frauds, and vulgar voice mails, he joins AA and gets better.

Now he wants to make it up to me and make amends. He is better than he has ever been. Kind, thoughtful, loving, reflective, and sober.

However, this one fact is impaled in the back of my mind and I cannot extricate it: He was bad when I was there, and he got better when I was gone.

Oh, yeah, co-dependence is a mother-fucker.

Negative Space

Snowflakes drift solidly down landing on endless snowbanks
At first standing out unique but eventually relenting
And becoming part of the mass of absorbed flakes.

Birds light together but separate,
Scattered at first, they come together as a flock
Silently turning, thinking, flying as one.

A winter-bare tree explodes into bud every Spring.
Without a sigh, thousands of vibrant green leaves
Fight their way from tight-fisted coccoons.

An old woman falling a sleep forever,
The electric quiet before the bell,
A drifting petal, the rings on a pond,
A lover's kiss.
These are the sounds that ring in my ear.

Ambien Ramblings

I "was over served" the other night (that ubiquitous term for being embarrassingly drunk in public). So sitting at the bar I started bragging to my two new best friends about how much I love valium and xanax. I even gave them a couple from my purse, which they snatched up more quickly than dirty bath water goes down the drain. Then they warned me to be careful. I wasn't doing anything illegal. But the bartender came over and told me to change my conversation or I would have to go. I sky rocketed from drunken cockiness to drunken indignation, and trust me there is no indignation like that of an indignant drunk. I left and got driven home.

Flash forward two months. Having a cup of tea in a restaurant bar waiting for my girls' matinee to end. They have Fuel TV on all their big screens. A blindfolded man is unknowingly licking the asshole of another man. This is supposedly hilarious to the panel. At lunch yesterday, at a local Mexican restaurant, Fuel TV is playing on all TVs except one. They are having excerpts on this day from girl on girl sex from the Playboy channel.

Hmmm? Just saying.

Poem #2

Is there a dress out there for me to buy?
That clings and swirls and makes me young again,
One I will wear to give it one more try
To attract a glance, a smile and a man.

Are there arms out there to hold me softly?
Bringing me close and holding me tight.
Strong arms that make me small but safe to be
There with a man who understands the night.

Are there lips out there to kiss me once more?
To focus the warmth, mingle my breath,
Falling into a cherry sweet embrace,
Whiskers scratching cheeks across and in depth

Is there another man out there for me?
To love and protect me and keep me safe,
Who won't lie and yell and forget to be
A man who will honor me all in good faith.

Forgiveness

Harry has been sober now for 86 days...85, I guess, since today is just beginning. It is wonderful to see him going back to the man I loved. He is anxious to get me back with all my bells and whistles: daughters, support, intimacy, and friendship...plus I am a damn good cook.

That's not easy. He has lied to me for such a long time. That, more than the verbal abuse and neglect, hurts. And I can't wash away the shame and anger as easily as I should. Or shouldn't I? Many of his new friends guarantee that we will know a greater level of intimacy and love if we come back to one another. They also say that he will be successful once again if he just doesn't drink. I cannot lie: I have a lot of fear.

I stubbornly hold on to my marriage. Why?

"I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take and still somehow,
It's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all."
-Joanie Mitchell

Poem #1

In the morning, I pour my hope for the day
Into a cold cup of fear.
I add cream to mask the bitterness
Until clouds pillow up in my cup changing it
Into a softer,  more tolerable brew.
I commune with it for a minute or two,
Until I leave it on a shelf or bureau
And forget about it...
Only to return in the evening to discover it,
Waiting with memories dried to the rim
Where my lips had been.
A mocha star of sapphire winks up at me,
So I hesitate before
I pour my cold, forgotten hope down the drain
And scrub at the ring that doesn't want
To give up it's position stuck orbiting
Halfway to the top.

Opening scene of my screenplay

SCENE 1: EXT RESORT SKI TOWN. MAIN STREET.
TEXT ON SCREEN READS: CHRISTMAS 2011
Early afternoon on a crisp, clear, winter day. Fresh snow lines the picturesque streets filled with fancy SUVs and luxury sedans carrying skis and snowboards on roof racks. Camera pans the scene and lands on an older model Jeep Wagoneer, with fake wood panels on the side, pulling into a gas station.
On closer look, this car really stands out. License plate rim reads “Mammoth Local.” The back window and well-bumped bumper are covered in ski/snowboard company stickers. No skis on top, but car is packed with boxes, suitcases, toys, etc. Obviously, this car is leaving town. 
Driver's side door flies open and we see GRACE, wearing an old parka, ripped sweatpants, hair disheveled. The car door slams into a post in front of the gas pump.
GRACE 
(Loudly)
God damn it.
We hear giggling girls, Haven and Finder, from the back seat.
GRACE (CONT’D)
(Sotto)
Remember girls, you can only say that when you're driving.
She gets back in the car, turns it back on, and inches it forward. Opens the door, only to hit the post again, even harder this time.
GRACE (CONT’D)
(Even louder this time)
God damn it.
Girls giggle even louder.
HAVEN & FINDER (O.C.)
God damn it God damn it God damn it!
Gaggles of giggles erupt.
INT WAGONEER, back seat.
Giggling girls Haven and Finder are surrounded by duffles and tote bags, as well as a variety of books and games to keep them occupied on their forthcoming road trip.
Eight-year old Finder wears a quirky knit cap, faux fur vest and skinny jeans. She is happy, adorable, effervescent, and precocious. Her piercing, mischievous eyes are full of life. Haven, just 13, is fresh-faced and beautiful. Her skin has that Noxema-clean glow. (Though she is a real beauty, there is a sadness deep in her eyes.)
Grace moves the car forward again and finally manages to get out of the car. She grabs the gas nozzle only to find it won't reach the gas tank.
GRACE
(Under breath... cold air steams)
Fuck.
We start to see how frazzled Grace is. She suddenly notices the well-dressed, rich tourists giving her dirty looks. She smiles apologetically. She hurriedly moves car back again, as the girls bicker over a DS player. 
Grace gets out of car and swipes an ATM card...declined. Swipes credit card, same. Grace's eyes dilate and slightly moisten and hands gently shake. Close up on pump screen reads:
“SEE CASHIER INSIDE”
GRACE (CONT'D)
Fuck me hard.
Grace glares at nearby tourists, then opens the back door of the Wagoneer and sticks her head in.
GRACE (CONT'D)
I'll be right back.
FINDER
Can I come?
GRACE
No.
FINDER
Why not?
GRACE
Stay here!
FINDER
(Whines)
Pulleeezzeee...
GRACE
NO!
FINDER
(Super whiny)
Pretty pulleeeezze?
Whimpers and mocks a damsel in distress, eye-lid-flapping pout.
GRACE
(Resignedly sighs)
Alright.
HAVEN
Can I go?
GRACE
No! (hesitates) Oh, alright!
HAVEN & FINDER
(in unison)
Yay!
Girls triumphantly high-five and giggle....another battle over mom easily won.
Girls exit car head into gas station with Grace. Obviously a long-time local, many locals say hello and Grace puts on her well-worn smiling mask easily, one that she has worn many times in this small town of gossips. They enter gas station. Door jingles as it opens. 
SCENE 2: INT GAS STATION.
Grace, Finder, and Haven enter and approach the clerk, MANNY, who is behind the counter. Haven tugs on Grace’s arm.
HAVEN
Just a little snack, Mom?
GRACE
(Whispers to girls while smiling through clenched teeth)
No. We don’t have money for snacks, honey.
Grace smiles at Manny.
GRACE (CONT'D)
Oh, alright. (Hesitates) Nothing with sugar.
Girls run straight for the candy. They start up a serious conversation about which candy to get.
GRACE (CONT'D)
(to Manny)
So, uh, how's Zach? He was always one of my favorite students.
MANNY
Great, great. You know he’s down at Santa Barbara City College -- majoring in English. Following your lead, I suppose. He always asks about you -- said you were the best teacher at Mammoth High.
Manny shifts from familiarity to slightly uncomfortable.
MANNY (CONT'D)
I'm really sorry, Grace. Sorry you lost your job. Big loss for the school.
Grace, equally uncomfortable, forces a huge, plastic smile.
GRACE
You know, fucking budget cuts. (she stops herself, embarrassed) -- Sorry, I never cuss. Sorry. Besides, we kinda need a fresh start. (smiles) Anyway, can I get $60 on number five?
Grace leans towards door to check the actual pump number.


GRACE (CONT’D)
I mean four. Pump four.
She opens her wallet. $36. Beat. Stares into the wallet. 
GRACE (CONT'D)
(Still staring into her wallet)
Uh, Haven honey? Hey, you know that birthday money Grandma sent you? I think it was a hundred?
HAVEN
(still by the candy aisle)
Yeah.
GRACE
Umm, go get it for me. I'll pay you back.
Camera captures Haven, juggling her candy selection.
HAVEN
Mom, you already owe me a hundred.
GRACE
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll pay you back.
(softening her voice)
Please, honey.
Haven gets it. Starts to head out to the car as she's been asked.
HAVEN
Okay, mom. I'll get it.
Haven exits as Grace smiles back at Manny, trying to hide her shame.