Night Poem

The memory of this life
just might be more painful
more joyful than it actually is.

Who knew when we met that yesterday
and tomorrow would happen so quickly?

I left only knowing what I was looking for
forgetting all that I would need
taking for granted all that I had
and spent much of the time
recovering what it was I thought I had lost.

Slowing down does this to a person.
Brings the now into the forefront
as the past beckons for attention
writhing in regret and I forget…
I won’t do that again
A sure bet .
And so I sit and soak in the winter rain
and snow without a coat or boots
only the knowing that this too shall pass -
the chilly air, the frosty trees,
the eternal nights and blink-of-an-eye days -
as it always does where seasons mark
the obvious passage of time –
Keeps me warm and protected
against the elements
and memory.

My hands no longer open and close
Only my heart.
In not clasping, I don’t ever have to let go
In passing, I know there is nothing I have lost.
I indeed have everything
whether I remember or not.
I tell you this
as I tell myself.
This is not a mystery.
No slight-of-hand conducts this illusion.

I tell you this as I tell myself -
we once knew each other.
We once knew each other well.
And now we know a memory of each other
like we hold the memory of the life we have lived…
Both are gone.
And for both,
I am grateful.

Morning Poem

The accent of rain on naked trees
crescendos like the applause of a million
hands clapping in gratitude: a delicate
ocean of sound in this winter forest.
I stand dressed for sleep amidst the elm and oak,
still while they sway and dance in the rain bath.

The brilliant green of the pine
pops and points, "Look at me!"
on this otherwise dreary morning.
All the pines in fact...
their seasonal chorus.
Their time of year to celebrate
another truth of winter: life does not stop.
Life beats, booms, and thrives
when the chill blanket of winter lays itself down.
While some slow, slump and pause,
and others die, there are those
that rise up singing every singular day.

The pines, for instance.

I should stand so grand as a pine: soft
and regal in their pine needle coat,
ready for winter, and loving it.

The Bully in the Bedroom

Yesterday, I was at a meeting and had the fortune of hearing a father tell a great story about his daughter.

It had to do with being a victim, the flip-side of bullying.

She is a junior in high school. Since the beginning of the year, she had been bullied by a fellow classmate. Classic emotional abuse. For three months, the daughter came home and told her father about the cruel taunts this boy delivered practically on a daily basis.

Her father listened and provided advice but the cruelty continued as the crippling emotional toll escalated in his daughter.

Last week, after listening to her tell another story, he took her hands and said, "What I am about to say to you, you are not going to like. But I say it because I love you. How long are you going to continue to play the victim? How much more are you going to take before you stand-up to him and speak your truth? There are things you can do and say that will stop this. I support and encourage you to take this kind of action."

Three days passed, and then he got a phone call. It was his daughter calling him from the school bus, telling him she stood up to the boy, and it worked.

Seems in the middle of class, with 30 students as her witness, after listening to his jeers being whispered at her from behind her, she stood up and let him have it. The teacher rushed over. Hearing what was going on and what had been going on, the boy was escorted to the principal's office where he was placed on "red alert". Apparently, the student had several offenses already, and since the school is taking a very proactive stance on the issue, the student is finally being faced with consequences.

*****

With so much focus on bullying in the classroom, I have wondered when the news is going to focus on the bullying that happens at home. Here was a perfect example of how a parent didn't perpetuate bullying or victimization.

Having been raised in a physically and emotionally violent household, I experienced first hand the tacit condoning of behavior that in a very simple way can be viewed as parental bullying. Friends and family alike turned a blind-eye when they witnessed the abuse. When I went to friends, my school and my family for help, I was often told not to speak about my mother that way as she was a well-respected business person in the community.

A respected business person isn't necessarily a well-equipped parent.

One form of socially accepted "bullying" is sibling bullying. How many times through the millenia have parents condoned the aggression of one sibling towards another? Parents, for the most part, make excuses saying, "Oh, that's just what siblings do." Family and friends laugh it off, in essence justifying the aggressive behavior of the perpetrator and the wounded behavior of the victim.

In the case of children who witness domestic violence, often the perpetrator is kind to the children. This sends a very confusing message to the children but in essence teaches the children to keep quiet. "Daddy is nice to us. He plays with us. He is a nice man. If only mommy wouldn't make him mad, he would be nicer to her too."

This also teaches children to make friends with bullies at school or to at least keep quiet when they see bullies acting out at school. Among other things, it teaches them to walk away and keep the silence.

Granted, all too often when a child tries to intervene on behalf of a sibling or a parent when there is violence in the house, he or she is wounded.

But when the abused parent laughs off the abuse, or doesn't at least tell the children that what they are witnessing is wrong, the victim parent sends a message to the children saying what they are witnessing is o.k. Is acceptable. Is in fact, normal.

Unfortunately, when family dynamics are looked at closely, subtle bullying is very acceptable, like in the case of siblings who fight all the time. This kind of bullying is often perpetuated by the inappropriate aggression of one sibling towards the other/s.

It is easy to point fingers at the obvious transgressions of adults and children who are physically violent. It is not so easy to look at and shift the dynamics at home where, in truth, bullying starts and victims are refined in and with silence.

Unfortunately, finding excuses for behavior is easy. Parents teach their children to accept excuses when they say, "Daddy had a hard day that is why he is not present, that is why he is not kind. Let's be extra good today." "Mommy had a hard day. She is not able to play with you right now." The list goes on.

How often do we make excuses for ourselves when we fall short of our own goals?

Excuses have become intrinsic to our coping skills. And we pass this on to our children in so many obvious, but more importantly, subtle ways.

I believe each of us has reasons that drive our actions in any given moment but never should they be used as excuses for avoiding consequences. So many parents role model this for their children. Parents might be held accountable for their actions at work but when it comes to their children, each of us at one time or another feed our children excuses to justify why we can not or will not do something.

Children then learn to take excuses. Children learn to let a person be mean to them because it can always be said, "Hey, little Joey gets hit at home. That is why he is mean at school. We need to be nicer to little Joey."

Yes...and no.

I have heard parents brag that their children were friends with the bully at school. "I am so proud of my son. He had the ability to make friends with the kids that no one else would friend at school."

Yes...and no.

I believe each of us deserves compassion and understanding but never at the avoidance of consequences. I have watched families be ripped apart by the cruel actions of parents who never were held accountable for their actions. Yes, mom and dad deserve empathy but when mom or dad step out of line, they need to be held accountable.

Why?

Because being held responsible teaches our children that accountability isn't terrible. Appropriate consequences are actually good. They are necessary. It teaches "victims" that they do not have to be victims, that it is safe and necessary to speak up. And it teaches the "perpetrators" that by changing their actions they can actually enjoy friendships that are not based in intimidation.

There is a saying, "Say what you mean without being mean."

It is possible to stand up to a bully without being a bully.

That kind of action comes from dignity and self-respect.

Dignity and self-respect are taught at home.

Dignity and self-respect are taught by parents who are willing to be honest about how they are feeling, who are willing to take responsible action, who talk to their children about hardships, who validate their children's emotional and physical experiences, and who give sound, viable advice and who actually role model that in their lives.

Indeed, the bully and the victims in the classroom are relevant and need our attention, but because of society's tacit agreement to turn a blind eye to our own actions at home, the bully and the victims in the bedroom are who I am most worried about.

A splendid re-emergence

There isn’t much to do in the face of illness or death. I just sit in its presence: not waiting but being.

As winter takes hold, the trees that danced with red, yellow and orange leaves just six days ago reveal their bare nakedness: the humble skeleton of strength that births spring, holds life and pauses with death. Such pride it takes to stand utterly bare in the face of all others. Still tall. With purpose. Still offering shelter to other living creatures.

The squirrels scamper around without apology. The birds burrow deep into hidden nooks.

One tree in particular has a vicious vine wrapped all the way around it, from base to treetop. A strong vine: thick, determined. I want to cut it off the tree, saw right through it. It is nothing but a noose. A self-determined noose.

Who knows how long it will take to tear down this tree. Gracefully, the tree pays it no attention. It continues to grow. But the vine will be the death of the tree one day. Some day. And I don’t like it.

The vine reminds me of some people who have entered into my life with malicious intent. People I welcomed into my life unsuspectingly. Who would presume that people have agendas of taking away the happiness of other people? I mean, I thought that was left for politicians and serial killers.

Unlike the tree, I am free to walk away from people who are not kind. Thankfully, I am free to choose my friends, and free to request from friends and family both that I be treated a certain way. But this tree, it isn’t free in quite the same way. This tree lives with whatever comes, and nobly makes the best of it.

Perhaps there is a lesson there.

For the past three days I have been home recovering from a stomach bug of some sort. All my plans and intentions for the week fell away as I had to rest in order to recover.

Honestly, there has been a part of me that asked, “Why this week? Why, when I had so much momentum, did I get hobbled by illness?”

The truth is this: momentum is always there. Sometimes it is hindered by circumstances beyond our control, ie. a vine or an illness. However, like the tree, I keep growing whether I intend to or not. The key is to see this and honor it and make the best of it rather than falling victim to thoughts of failure.

As I say that, the reddest Cardinal I have ever seen just lighted upon the tiniest branch of the dormant vine tree. The purpose of the tree is still there. The tree is still needed whether it has leaves or not, whether the vine is wrapped around it or not. Similarly, though my external activity might not look exactly like I had intended for the week, my purpose has not changed. My activity has altered to accommodate my current circumstance but my purpose has not.

For the first time in my life, I see this so clearly. My purpose, like the tree, does not alter even though my activity might. I am here doing the very things in life I am called to do. A tree goes dormant in winter to conserve and create energy for the upcoming spring. I am like the tree. Conserving. Generating. Cultivating. Readying myself for one splendid re-emergence. Thankfully mine is just a matter of days….

In the Palm of My Hand

I woke up this morning facing east. The sun had risen and the leaves were falling. Falling. Fall is nearing it's end here in the Blue Ridge, and it is happening fast.

Outside my back door is a forest rising up from a small ravine. My back porch looks at trees mid-trunk, about the 20' mark. The tops of the trees tower and sway another 20' sometimes 30' above me. Crazy vines climb and swirl around the stands of Black Walnut, Tulip Poplar and Oak. Here and there a wild splash of vibrant red among the yellow, green, brown and orange dying leaves catches my eye as they wiggle and dance with the wind. Still, they hold on amidst a shower of falling leaves looking like an impressionist painting set into motion.

I woke up this morning looking out at all this color and imagined building a home with a wrap around porch. I imagined tall Pampous grass planted at the front stoop and saw it sway in the imaginary wind. I imagined large terra cotta pots of maroon decorative grasses with colorful Lantana cascading down the sides. And then my mind wandered to my house in Santa Fe: not just my house but the house I lived in when I was married - our house.

At the back gate stood a huge oak barrel. I filled it with dirt and planted exactly what I had just imagined. Every day I watered it, and grass, Lantana and vine Geranium grew and spread and greeted those who entered with colorful abundance.

The flagstone walk way winded it's way through Lavender, catmint, various salvia, Jupiter's Beard and Echinacea. At it's height, the garden was a gracious wonderland in an otherwise ungracious land.

In the midst of this memory, I came back to the present as the sun broke through the clouds and illuminated four red leaves. Quietly as if to say, "Look here. The sun still shines on this gray day, and look, look. Look now because in a second, it will be gone." And sure enough, the clouds blew over again dimming the highlight to the muted but still beautiful palette that I woke to only 30 minutes earlier.

And just as the rapid passing of clouds shrouded the sun, in what seems to be the same speed, the garden and our marriage were gone.

What I held in the palm of my hand for those brief seven years wasn't only all a beautiful lush garden. It was also a stark and desperate time against which I struggled to keep the encroaching desert at bay. But with limited natural resources, water and family being among them, my garden and the garden of our marriage succumbed.

The sun has danced in and out of the clouds this morning, and its rays have acted as a spotlight on different sections of my backyard. Now a hot spot of yellow glows just beyond the tiny red leaves that were illuminated just minutes ago. The wind picks up plucking one of the red leaves from it's tiny hold, and sends it soaring. I feel sad and elated all at once. By a stroke of luck I saw this leaf's last grip on life, and now I watch as it ascends, its last show of glory before its death and final return to the rich earth below.

I imagine the glimpse into my garden and my family's beautiful home and marriage was exactly that: a look at a highlighted moment that in its breath held all the beauty of the days of abundance; a remembrance of what I, we, held in the palm of our hands and what by the sheer forces of nature tore from our tiny but also intrinsic hold.

Every day, every moment is like a leaf in the palm of our hands. It's a fine line between understanding that things naturally pass, that if we grip too tightly we crush the leaf and lose its beauty, and if we don't hold on at all, we never fully know what it is we had to begin with.

I am grateful for the natural time of the season - that it allows me this moment to take in the final curtain call until the last leaf is holding, standing as it were, before its brave and humble farewell.

Anything but Pokemon

Enough said.

I am so not ready

Can somebody show me where the pause button is?

This morning I was walking with my son to his classroom as I have been doing for the past ten days. The autumn air hovered around 54 degrees. I looked at him bundled in lofty fleece and khaki shorts, and thought to myself, "Good call on the extra layers."

A fellow classmate approached with a proud spring in his step and announced, "I can walk to class by myself these days."

Oh no, here it comes.

But it didn't. Wilson continued walking next to me though he did look at me. I saw the question roll over in his mind and across his brow like a subtle current shifting in a calm ocean tide. He looked ahead down the long sidewalk to the elementary school building watching the other children enter and exit with and without parents as if to measure, to count, to assess the proportion of children with parents compared to those without.

Still we walked, and he is classmate chattered away about this and that. I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy counting my steps knowing full well that these might be my very last walked with my son to his classroom. Each leg up sent me whirling into space as if without gravity; my anchor gone. I placed each foot down with relief that I still remained tethered to what I have come to know is my life-rope to my purpose: I am a mother still connected by an albeit invisible umbilical cord so not ready to cut the tie...for the length has been stretched to capacity. This time, it is not up to the doctor or me to cut the tie; this cut is purely, 100% up to my son. And I am not ready.

I believe I got about 24 steps in before Wilson turned to me and said, "I can take it from here." Though he said it quietly, I heard him loud and clear. I so wanted to ask him, "What did you say?" (lovingly, of course) or ask, "Are you sure?"

But I knew he was sure. After all, he said, "I can take it from here." Not, "I think I can take it from here."

Gulp.

"Ok, my love," I said. I knelt down and hugged him, kissed his soft cheek. "Have a great day." I stood and watched him walk away from me towards the giant doors that swing out and envelope all those who enter with warmth, laughter, rules, negotiations, games, queries, telephone calls, instructions, choices, consequences, seen and unseen, known and unknown, but all in the pursuit of growth and becoming more independent.

I stood and watched as his classmate ran through the door letting it shut in Wilson's face. He turned and looked at me. Gulp. "Stay put," I coached myself. And before I said, "You can get it," he turned back and pulled it open. The door flung wide. Surprising himself by his own strength, he hopped out of the way and entered.

Bye-bye, Momma.

Bye-bye.

I stood and did not want to turn around to return to my car.

Can I stay here in this one spot all day?

Can I stay here and wait for him to make sure he comes back out in 8 hours?

Can I stay here so that when he does come out he will know that I waited for him?

Better yet can I build a memorial right here on this spot and engrave the date and epitaph: "On this day, September 14, 2011, Wilson Riley Harold Vest did bravely depart his beloved mother, Michelle Lynn Baker, for the shores of independence at 8:04 a.m."

Before I made an utter fool of myself, I turned and walked, and looked at all the other mothers whose children left them at the curb. They jumped into their cars - professionals by now - some even with young precocious preschoolers. Wow, I am so glad mine hung on a little longer.

Yes, call it selfish but I can't help it. I am so not ready for Wilson to be any older. Where is the pause button? I want to press it right here, right now, and stop time: these moments when he still asks me to play with him, these moments where he still reaches out and takes my hand, these moments when he holds my arm when I read him bedtime stories. Please don't let it end. This is way too hard.

I keenly remember the early days when he was just an infant. If only I had my wits about me then to relish the sweetness of those days. It is not fair they are wasted on exhausted and shell-shocked parents. I'd love to be able to go back with the energy I have now...but I don't suppose that goes together: new parents with newborns who have all the sleep, nutrition and support they need. Ok, maybe the rare few do.

I remember being so eager for Wilson to walk. I can honestly say mothering for me began to come more "naturally" once he began to walk. And it has been these days from Wilson turning 1 to now being 6 that have been preciously magical.

I know, I know, I've heard everyone say it only gets better. But right now, in this moment, no, it doesn't get any better than the moment leading up to "I can take it from here."

And it is precisely the beauty and stability of all those moments that lead to "I can take it from here."

Life is deeply bittersweet. I savor this moment...quietly, reverently, humorously, lovingly, sorrowfully, proudly...fully.

This is the pause.

In memoria: 10 years gone

It is Friday, September 9th, 2011. I have just learned that emergency responders in NYC have not been invited to the memorial this Sunday marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11.

I don't really want to remark on that other than I feel very sad about that, and this sorrow runs deeper, down the river that was etched in my spirit and heart that day 10 years ago.

On the one-year anniversary, I attended a service at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, NM. As I left, people were handing out names of people who died that day. I got the name of Michael Debrenzio. My friend got the name of Angela Pena. Within the moment I read Michael's name, I felt my hand touch a hot railing, and felt my legs crumble with nerves and fear as I tumble-stumbled down endless stairs unable to see through the dense smoke.

A flash of imaginative insight, I rushed home and wrote this poem. I offer it in remembrance.

No I will never forget that day nor will a million or so other people. I will spend the day skipping stones on the river with my son remembering and creating new memories.... May each of us cultivate memories of love and trust to juxtapose the many obvious and subtle memories of pain and deceit. We are free to do that...exactly that.

*************

FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
BY
MICHELLE BAKER
written September 18, 2002

Angel Pena
81st floor
nylons running
heart racing
teeth chattering
as she glanced out the window
just in time to see
an airplane
eye level.
The air condition was on too high
and she wanted to turn it down
but there were no controls from within her office.
She sat there
frozen
disbelief guiding her fingers
to the tear in her hose
and in the next instant,
she was gone.

Michael Debrenzio
stairwell of the 2nd tower
trudging up the stairs
cursing to himself
the electronic voice
that spoke the words
that lead him to his death -
the words that lead him out of his office
in the first place -
racing down flights,
bringing him and his office mates
to an abrupt halt ,
about face,
to ascend again
the path he sped down.
Tired and worn,
weary with worry,
The financials weren’t working out
and then two men passed him,
begged him and the others to turn back around.
But the computer says it’s ok to return to our desks.
Fuck the computers. Who ya going to listen to? A computer or a fellow human?
The computer. It’s programmed to know.
We are programmed to follow those things that are programmed to know better.

Onward Christian soldiers
into the Valley of Death
where the innocent will fear no evil,
raising their pens to their foreheads,
wiping the sweat of duty from their brows
at the command of Hal.

We, the people,
rise up
and fall back down
each time a siren beckons our attention
to turn and run
then high-tail it back
to our assignments
chasing the tide of orders
because we weren’t meant to leave in the first place,
we weren’t meant to abandon our designs of fate,
spiraling outward and inward,
snaring us in our own short-sightedness,
blinded by our own progress,
evolving beyond common sense
so that our fates
lie in the fiber optics
of a generated voice
placating our fears
with scripted rationale.

I taste fear.
I tasted it from 3000 miles away.
Fear stained the insides of my mouth
as I bit down on the bold reality
that life is brittle
and there is nothing I can do
to stop the mayhem
that entangles us in this web of emotion.

Tragedy and love collide
breaking us in twos, threes and fours,
shattering us
into the tiny particles we are
floating about in a space
that can hold absolutely everything
and does
and has
and will continue to do so
from this day forward
Amen.

In the silent glow
of aftermath,
I consider
the irony
the loss of those lives
has shed upon my hushed heart –
In the desert,
rain has fallen for two days -
the quiet tears of God
and all angels
that know
the sun can not rise
if it does not set.

To New Mexico with Love: Part VI

Ahhhh...lilacs.
Wysteria.
Spring.
After the longest, most beautiful, snow-kissed, glistening winter I'd ever experienced, Spring walked in with the grace of a 1920s Hollywood starlet.
Subtle but definitely noticeable.
Noticed.
Sweet.
Fresh.

Next to me in this rugged cafe near the corner of Coxe and Patton in Asheville, two 20-somethings contemplate geometry...non-Euclidean geometry...and I swear I am in the coffee shop on campus at St. John's college....

That spring I wandered farther and farther from campus, up and down muddy roads that dead-ended at streams and homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright or Juan c de Baca....

There was nothing familiar about the land but it called me deeper and deeper into itself, and I found respite there. Serving as cushion-y juxtaposition to the rugged land was the sweet scent of the air. Like the Sirens luring Odysseus, the lilac-scented air compelled me forward.

Scent being the most primal of our senses etches memory like a surgeon with a scalpal. I fell under the spell and hand of divine olfactory exactitude...what the hell does that mean?

It means this: everything else fell away. I followed my nose....and in this way, I learned about that place. And yes, this is the second way I fell in love with New Mexico. I fell in love with her scent. And I will never forget it. Thank god.

After living in Santa Fe for those decades that opened me to the power of scent, I now swear I was a bumble bee in a former life.

So here's to having been a bumble bee in yesterday's life.

The scents here are more subtle. I haven't found the ones that bowl me over yet. Right now, it is still the blue haze of the Blue Ridge at sundown that has me mesmerized. Layers of mountain peaks each a paler blue than the one in front of it look like an air-brushed movie back-drop. I can't believe it really. They are just as they are named....And I thank the people that walked before me and named the land so appropriately so that I can always know just where I am....Just like the Sangres...the dried-blood-red mountains of the lower Rockies...I always knew where I was.

It's nice to keep it that simple when life has me chasing my tail in many ways with work, errands, and sports teams; I can stop, and look, and know just where I am.

To New Mexico with Love - Part V

Pinch me because I am certain I am dreaming.

While the rest of the country feels the pinch of recession, earthquakes, fires and hurricanes, nestled among the trees at a 3,000 ft plus altitude, the restaurants are teaming with people, the breweries are over-flowing, the wine bars are packed, the champagne bar has a line out the door, the chocolate houses have lines longer than the one champagne bar, the book stores are even packed this evening, and the several town squares have live music happening right now, this very minute, and they too are filled with people dancing, sitting, singing, talking, sleeping, eating, enjoying, and living life.

Pinch me because I know I am dreaming.

Walking up the street in evening attire and computer slung at my side, several people complimented me, men and women. Complimented me. I almost fell down. After living 20 of the past 25 years in Santa Fe, NM where compliments are rationed like food in a war-riddled country had me believing that I didn't know how to dress or better yet, simply was invisible.

Not here. Several times a day people tell me how happy I look, how well I am dressed, how pretty my necklace is, whatever...compliments. They are refreshing. And no, no one is hitting on me. These people are nice. I listen. I watch. And everyone is treating each other this way. Not just me. It is a generosity of spirit that reaches beyond clicks, cliches and pick-up lines.

Welcome to the South.

The other day at Target, I left the store with my cart piled high with things to help me better organize all the stuff in our 600 sq ft nest. Two large boxes holding large metal shelves teetered on the bottom of the cart.

As I loaded one bag after another, a gentleman approached and offered to help. I told him no, that I would be fine...certain he was...um...I don't know...lying? Anyway, thank god he insisted. Wedding band on his hand, he lifted the two large boxes into the back of my car.

"Thank you," I said. "Really. That was very kind and helpful."

"You are welcome," he replied. Simply. Politely, and walked back to his car.

No agenda. No attitude. And he didn't even ask for money.

I was stunned. In the decades I lived in the southwest, I can not tell you how many times I struggled with bags and boxes three-times my size in parking lots, in stores, and never had anyone offer to help. Even while holding my infant son, men and women walk past, opening doors for themselves and allowing them to shut in my face. After having a child, I see how this continues to happen, and have made it a point to extend a hand to moms and dads whose only arms are occupied with carrying children or diaper bags.

That same day when I got home from Target, city sewer workers sat outside my house on a 5-minute break from fixing a sewer line next door. I opened up the back hatch, and began unloading bags. Wilson had one and I had one. As we turned to go to the door, a voice called, "Would you like some help?"

This time I learned: this is the south. These men are serious.

"Yes, that would be very helpful. Just these two boxes would be fine."

All six men came over and unloaded my entire car! When I saw what they had done, they actually had to put stuff back. I couldn't believe it!

I was so thankful they laughed at me.

All I could offer them was my heart-felt, giddy gratitude and juice boxes. They were happy for the thanks and passed on the juice boxes.

Welcome to the south. So much more polite than the southwest. Seriously. It just is the way it is. Not that one is better than the other...well...I happen to think manners matter and make for a better community living experience but I also realize it isn't for everyone.

I believe manners don't exist in the southwest the way they exist in the east simply because every one in the southwest has to pitch in to make it work; the formality of men holding doors open for women didn't much apply when firstly, there were no doors, and secondly, men were very far away looking for food in barren lands while the women dug the soil and kept the dust at bay. They had to open their own doors. And hey, there is nothing wrong with that. Clearly I can open a door. But what is awesome here is that men and women offer to help each other, and they accept it. It's not just an old-fashioned, chauvinistic thing that some ERA-era women might believe. No, this is people helping each other because there is a generosity of spirit. And generosity of spirit comes when there is an abundance of spirit. And abundance of spirit comes when people are not so busy scraping together their own needs, digging for water, and living on a drop of rain.

Don't get me wrong; the people of Appalachia are working people. There is very little wealth here. The abundance is in the land. There is water. And where there is fertile land and water, there is food. And where there is food, there is general happiness...and the willingness to share.

I can't say no one shares in the southwest; it's not that at all. But my experience was so much one of invisibility. I still can not believe how many years I lived in a town where people for decades complain that there isn't enough...of anything. There becomes an elitism that is so arrogant it is frightening. Frightening because no one notices the sense of entitlement that comes from believing a place actually "chooses" you or kicks you out. No. A person can either handle life in a desert or can not.

Entitlement comes in all forms. I understand the pride that comes when a person has worked hard for their life but entitlement, elitism, no, I will never understand. And that is what I didn't like about the southwest, about Santa Fe: the arrogance that the community overall cultivates and brags about.

I am not bragging about life here in the Blue Ridge. I am, on the other hand, enjoying it. It is amazing to me that here in one country two very different life experiences can occur, and all along the same interstate, I-40.

That is the beauty. Diversity.

The southwest taught me about diversity. Funny, that I learned it there and not my years living in San Francisco. It was New Mexico that showed me my hidden prejudices and presumptions.

And now I am having a similar experience.

I remember first driving into Asheville October 2010. I was adamant about not living in another "hippy, mountain town". I joked and would sing the musical theme from the movie 'Deliverance'. I would say to my friends, "Do you hear it? Do you hear the banjo? I'm telling you, we are going to end up dead and barbecued, never to be seen again."

Well, I hear the banjos, and I see all kinds of people wearing all kinds of clothes, driving all kinds of cars, people with no cars, people with no teeth, and well, so far, what everyone has in common, again, so far, is manners. Manners. Manners go a long way...and in hard times, they go even farther.

Welcome to the South. People are people, sure. There are rude people here and generous people in the southwest. Climate doesn't really define a people; but in a way, it does. After all, the U.S. government knew exactly what it was doing when it took the Apache indians from Arizona and New Mexico and sent them to Florida, and displaced the Seminole indians of Florida and the Cherokee of North Carolina and sent them west. It messed them up big time.

Well, I don't think that experience is unique to the Native Americans. Though I enjoyed those decades in the southwest, I have always known I come from 12 inches above sea level, that I am of the land that is barely land and mostly water. And though I am still several hours from my coastal heritage, I feel at home here where the earth is soaked with H20, and the people are soft and kind and generous...just like the land.

Manners matter. And with that being said, I sign off with a sincere thank you for reading and thinking about all that I have to say. There is so much for each of us to do...thank you for taking some of your time to read these words that I share.

Humbly and graciously.

To New Mexico with Love - Part IV

It is eerie to recall the past with such detail: to know that my imagination has held onto a single moment in time and has fleshed out the details with poetic license is, I don't know, eerie.

It is eerie to know that this Halloween will mark 25 years since that first Halloween-winter in Santa Fe.

Having just moved, I am particularly sensitive to the changing seasons. Seasonal changes have become my barometer of how I get to know a place. Already, the seasons shift. Leaves are falling from the trees: only a few but they are the foreshadow of the Fall to come.

Growing up on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, winters weren't exactly always beautiful. But that winter of 1986, where the first snow fell October 31st and the last on my birthday in May, changed my experience of winter. I fell in love with it.

Fluffy white snow against stellar blue skies, winter was spectacular. People huddled in their homes burning fragrant woods that permeated the air. Breathe in: pinon. Exhale. Breathe in: cedar. Exhale. Breathe in: juniper. Exhale. Breathe in: repeat. Exhale.

Scent-ual.

******

As I try to write, I realize I am tired. I'm ready for winter. I wonder how I will fair an east coast winter. Granted, we are several hours from the coast. Nevertheless, I wonder.

I look out my back door at the wall of trees. My eyes look at the hardwood canopy and wonder how this will look when the leaves are gone: like a crazy line drawing or something. Black twigs and branches, trunks and stumps.

It's been a long haul to get here. I clocked 21,000 miles in three months worth of travel last year. Not much if you are a pilot or someone famous or someone who travels for business. But I'm none of the above. I was/am, however, a mom on a mission to find a good school for my son. I am now officially exhausted.

I am ready to hunker down. I feel like Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh, running around gathering provisions for winter even though it's at least 90 days away. Nevertheless, I feel it coming.

It's been a long time since I've had a winter. There have been few winters like the one I first tasted in 1986. Last winter I was traveling from west coast to east coast searching for that place to call home. And with the drought in New Mexico, well, it just never felt like "winter"...as I defined it...or as it was first defined for me by that first Halloween.

I am looking forward to a good hibernation. I am ready for it. I need it. I want it.

Winter is coming.

Thank God.

To New Mexico with Love - Part III

Dust.
Red.
Fine.
Red.
Present.
Here. There. Everywhere.
In the air, in the trees, on the window sills, in the doorway, on the plates, in the sink, in the bed, on my sheets, in my shoes, between my toes, in my eyes, in my hair, in my clothes, in my books, between the pages, between all spaces.
Dust.
Easily blown but never away.
I always thought my grand-mother would go crazy here.
She spent a good portion of her life rubbing furniture down with Pledge to rid it of dust. And it worked. Dust-be-gone and shine-like-new.
Not here. Not New Mexico.
All those years she and my mother and every other grown woman in my family groomed the girls to be perfect housekeepers with Pledge as our pledge. I often wonder what else I could have learned in place of dusting had I been born and raised in New Mexico....nothing more liberating I am sure but possibly more practical like skinning green chilies.

October 1986. Halloween. Winter came with a vengeance.

As we bustled around campus in holiday attire, the winter sky thickened. Old Man Winter exhaled a giant blast of snow into the lungs of Father Sky, and as his lungs expanded, His great chest pressed down upon the earth. At 7,000 feet above sea level, it is hard to ignore the sky.

Dressed in combat boots and a white cape coat, I ran from the lower dorms to the cafeteria where the evening's festivities were going on. The wind whirled. The air was crystalline cold.

Inside The Smiths moaned. The radiant heat of dancing bodies was a welcome warmth to the cold plunge of the night. I joined the dance but kept my eyes trained to the windows. The wind and the deepening darkness were giving new meaning to All Hallow's Eve.

I do not recall the precise moment when the dark turned gray and the gray turned white but I do remember the seconds it took for the black night to disappear. Two breaths and the entire building was whirling inside a tornado of snow. We were Dorothy again flying through space, head over heels, tumbling and singing, "I am the son and the heir...."

Nothing but snow particles.
Teeny tiny pointelistic realism...
Spin and fall.
Twirl and dive.
Dense and vast.
The mother of all snows
on All Hallow's Eve...

We danced among every single spirit that walked upon this earth from the beginning of time...each snow crystal a particle of spirit, unique, unlike any other. We danced in defiance of death knowing yet not believing for a single second we too will pass as does the snow: a shimmering crystal, perfect radiance, and brutally fragile.

Whirl on...shine on...crazy, crazy diamond.

To New Mexico with Love - Part II

********

In elementary school, I learned that twenty-five years was considered a generation. Crazy to think an entire generation has passed since moving to and moving from New Mexico.

In New Mexico, I dare say a generation is more like 14 years...and, well, here in Appalachia, it just might be the same.

Yesterday, my son made a list of things he missed in New Mexico. His friends were at the top of the list but then came the land:

"I miss the small river that runs through my back yard."

"The arroyo?"

"Yes, the arroyo." Pause. "I miss my garden and the sky, the smell of rain and the ice cream with cookie dough in it."

"The ice cream with? Wait a minute, you mean the ice cream we had last week with Freddy?"

"Yea, that ice cream."

"That isn't from Santa Fe, silly."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. I still miss it."

Time for children is truly a loopty-loop within the minds eye threading in and out of the imagination like a memory of a dream.

So to is my memory of Santa Fe.

In the morning when I first woke in the Land of Enchantment, I tip-toed over bodies in slippery sleeping bags, and stepped outside. The morning light illuminated the silvery green leaves of a Russian Olive tree. The scent filled my lungs impressing upon my memory the permanent signature that only scent can.

The road the house was on was dirt, bumpy red dirt. The pine trees clustered tight around the house. The brilliant blue sky was simply that: brilliant. I exhaled relieved that I was not flung into a vast orbit high above the earth but clearly, I was in terra incongnita. Every cell in my quaker, seafaring ancestral body shivered with uncertainty; I had no idea how to be in a land composed of only one element: dust.

Those first weeks of college I wandered around Camino Cruz Blanca. With camera in hand, I photographed everything I saw: tall stands of wild sunflowers, thick bushes of blooming chamisa, flaming petals of Indian Paintbrush and tiny adobe homes tucked between and no higher than the ancient Pinons.

Each night, Orion's Belt rose above Atalaya. For the first time I saw his full context among the trillions of stars I had never seen before. For the first time I grasped the magnificence of seeing the very same stars the Greek philosophers gazed upon millenia ago.

As the nights grew cooler, the air filled with burning Pinon, cedar and juniper. I wept with the richness of the air. I had no idea scent could be so pure in a dry sauna. My heritage was 12 inches above sea level. At 12 inches above sea level, dry saunas were manufactured and for adults who belonged to gyms.

I remember one day in October watching the blue sky turn to blood red with the setting sun when I realized New Mexico was a land of simplicity. Only four colors made up the entire landscape: blue of the sky, red of the earth, white of the clouds and snow and green of the trees. I was hypnotized. Thus began my 25 year enchantment. Like Dorothy in the field of poppies, I laid back, laid down, and drifted for an entire generation...or two.

To New Mexico with Love

Twenty-five years ago to the day, I sat in the back of a packed van shuttling me and twelve other people from the tiny Albuquerque airport to Santa Fe.

The night was blacker than any night I had ever seen; I could hardly differentiate between the land and sky.

As we descended from the crest of La Bajada, someone pointed to a tiny cluster of lights that spread only an inch's width between my index finger and thumb. "There it is, there's Santa Fe."

I panicked. I looked all around looking for more lights. I searched for a larger city that for me would serve as an anchor to what appeared to be a satellite lost in space.

"THAT is Santa Fe," I asked.

"Yes," said the driver.

His affirmation only confirmed in me the fact that I was officially lost, never to be found again. Never mind that I was to start St. John's College as a Freshman and that someone on campus was awaiting my arrival. I was certain it was all a ruse. I was convinced there was no St. John's College because there was no land for a college to be built upon and that in a few short minutes the road was going to drop out beneath us setting our van to drift among the stars in the sea of blackness.

Needless to say the road did not drop out beneath us. We pulled into a parking lot of a hotel made of fake mud. Within moments, a dusty black London-style taxi arrived. Six Johnny-s bundled into the cab; I sat in the fold-down rumble seat. I knew one other person among us, my boyfriend. The rest certainly looked like the Johnny-s I knew from Annapolis; perhaps I was going to school after all.

*****
Four weeks have passed since I moved from New Mexico: a moment in my life I was certain would never happen, a moment I set into motion exactly nine years ago, a moment that is now a past occurrence, a moment that seems so unbelievable I have to pull over every time I see the hazy ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

From the craggy red rock of the Sangre de Cristos to the velvet canopy of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Red to blue...old blood to new blood...dry blood to fresh blood...mix red and blue, and the passion of purple explodes, pours, erupts like two lovers intertwined, guided by pheromones and instinct....

The soil here sticks to everything: feet, fingers, face and hair. The soil there blows away leaving only traces of itself everywhere.

Here is the flip-side of there; we are one coin...I am far away and yet not away at all. I see and feel exactly how the blue of these ridges flow and form the red of those. There is no us and them though there are those who live comfortable amidst the bristle and brawn of high desert life; I find I enjoy the softness of earth and flora infused with water.

But I am not away; I am not gone from the land of Christ's blood...if anything, I am more deeply in it here in Appalachia. After all, these people are the heart of the bible belt. "Do you have a church?" is synonomous with "How are you today?" I gotta say, I am much more comfortable with "Que Viva?" but hey, it's water that gives life, not words...and so, I'll take this land over that land, but those words over these ....

Pocket book with a purpose

"She had what I almost had: a life with a purpose and pocket book to support it."

I like gathering snippets of conversations at restaurants or when walking down the street. Taken out of context, there is a lot of humor without having to tune into Comedy Central.

Better with butter

If it weren't for Madonna's 'Borderline' blaring over the speakers at the airport, I just might be able to write the blog that I have had on my mind all week.

Instead, I find myself thinking about scapegoats, and how humans love to have a scapegoat for all that goes wrong in life. About three weeks ago, I was the scapegoat for a woman who thought I was to blame for the end of an engagement that she believed, and for all intents and purposes probably still believes is, destined for fruition.

I think about my ex father-in-law, and how I use him as the scapegoat for my failed marriage.

I think about my son and how he likes to occasionally blame the wall when he falls and hits it.

Certainly politics are all about scapegoats but I'm not going to go there.

I want to know why, why do we, why do I, need a scapegoat?

Admittedly, it's hard to take full responsibility for my actions. I believe in doing so but it is definitely not easy to do.

I think it is particular hard to admit when I have made a mistake. Especially when I see that I made the best decision I could given the circumstances and the information I had at any particular time in my life.

Hindsight is 20/20 and still, what does it serve? What does it serve when a very big part of life is about making mistakes?

I don't know about anyone else but I hate making mistakes. I don't like being wrong about people. I don't like believing someone is kind only to find out he or she went out of their way to hurt me or others.

I find it hard to accept that I allowed myself to be blindsided especially when others saw what I didn't see. I find it hard to forgive myself for walking into a lion's den when I was warned. I have a really hard time with that. It's moment like these when I definitely feel like I am not the brightest bulb in the bunch.

I also don't like being guarded. I don't like how it feels to be so suspicious of people and their possible agendas. It's too hard. I am very much a literal-ist. If someone says they like me, I believe they like me and wish me well. If someone doesn't like me, I believe just that. I don't want to waste my time trying to figure out if someone is telling the truth or not. So I believe what I am told.

But, actions speak much more loudly than words.

I've had a giant learning experience with some people who were very good at lying, who said they liked me and cared about me and my family, and yet went out of their way to hurt me and my family.

And so, as I raise my son, and I watch people who have never met him before, who have never even expressed an interest in getting to know me, reach out and send him very expensive gifts twice a year (birthdays and Christmas).

I wonder just how to explain to him that these people are not to be trusted. Period.

How do I explain that gifts mean nothing from people who have never met him.

It's called bribery. Advertisers do it. Politicians do it. People who claim to be "friends" do it.

People bribe.

People are bribed.

I am not quite sure how to talk to a 6 year old about bribery but I tell you, I want to. I want to tell him that just because things taste better with butter, it doesn't mean we should eat a whole bunch of it. I want to tell him that just because someone is related by blood doesn't mean they have his best intentions in mind.

And yet, I don't want to tell him these things.

What I really want is for him never to have to experience any of this. I want him to know love. I want him to know forgiveness.

And then I realize this: how do I incorporate my own forgiveness around these hurtful experiences especially when no apology has been offered?

I guess I begin with myself.

I begin by really knowing that I believed these people because I had no reason not to. I believed they loved me and my family because I had no reason to believe otherwise.

I need to accept my apology, that I made a mistake...but it wasn't even a mistake...I believed them because I loved them.

And when the facade fell apart, I did what any person with half a mind would do, I ran for cover.

But they are still in my life to some degree.

And they send my son gifts.

And he has never met them. And frankly, I hope never will.

And thankfully he has never played with their gifts, their Trojan Horses...and I hope he never will.

I remember when I stopped asking for gifts from my own family; it happened when I saw they were just trying to make up for their lack of presence. This was very much repeated with my in-laws to some degree. It's nothing new; it's the American way. It's the magician's wand. It's the hand of the Illusionist: let me distract you with all that is shiny while I rob you blind with the other.

It's amazing to me what kind of excuses people will make for blood relatives.

Why are we afraid of the most psychologically fragile people?

Yes, they often are the most dangerous.

But what I am realizing is that exposure is the biggest thing any of us have on our side.

As I watch family and in-laws cower at the beck and call of known perpetrators, I pray to God that I have the strength to teach my son otherwise even as the exact opposite is being role-modeled right before him.

I pray to God that the oppression of those who bully others into "protecting" them will eventually fade away.

I pray to God my son will never know the wrath of a bully at school or a bully in his family.

I pray to God that I can convey to my son that bullies don't deserve to be "bullied" in return but also, they have no place in our home.

There are consequences to people's actions.

Unconditional love does not give license for inappropriate behavior. Somewhere that got lost in translation. Somewhere someone got confused and has misguided entire generations of people into thinking that unconditional love means making excuses and allowances for those who hurt and bully others.

As my son enters Kindergarten and attends a school that offers trainings to parents and teachers alike on human dynamics, I pray to God that I can trust and enter into conversations with the intent of learning a new way to engage with scary or risky situations.

I pray that I can let go of the need to have a scapegoat, and to instead, focus on my own behavior. I pray that my son will grow up not knowing the oppression of psychologically insecure people, and instead, can see through it with compassion. I pray that he will pursue his loves and interests not at the exclusion of others but will know the difference between healthy family relationships and friendships, and oppressive manipulation and bribery by people who claim those titles but have done nothing to earn them.

As we finish a week with two friends who are fairly recent friends, I see that I have made a tremendous shift in my choices when it comes to friendships. Perhaps it is a reflection of my self-worth: as I have a great sense of self, I choose more genuine people to be around. Maybe it isn't that cut and dry but maybe there is something to it.

I pray I can learn all the lessons I pray my son learns...and I pray to have the grace to acknowledge when I haven't, when I have made a mistake, so that I can say I am sorry - to myself, to my son, to a friend, to a stranger - and to correct the course with love, not suspicion.

After all, things do taste better with butter and sometimes we put too much on - even when we know better. This doesn't mean we are bad, or that I am a horrible judge of character, it just means we are human. I am human.

And mistakes are just part of it, of life...and so is butter.

It's a Perfect Wonder

Seems lately I'm in a constant of wonder.
And I wonder if "wonder" is the same as "wondering"?
And I wonder if "wonder" is the same as bewilderment?

There is so much I thought I knew at one time in my life.
For instance, as a teenager until my late 30's, I was certain I was cool. Now as a parent, I sincerely doubt it.

And I wonder if it really matters at all...to be cool that is...
and I wonder what, if anything, really matters?

I think apologies matter.
Real apologies. Apologies where I see that I have obviously hurt someone's feelings, and I can apologize, sincerely.
I think it matters not if someone accepts my apology.
I used to think otherwise. I used to worry and fret and bend over backwards to "prove" to people just how sorry I was for whatever it is I did or might have done or might have been perceived as doing.
Now, I only hope my apologies are accepted...the rest is not my work.
My work is to accept my own apology, to ascertain my own sincerity and not worry about whether or not the world believes I am sincere.

There are days when my son and I get along marvelously; this does not mean there is no hardship. The days we get along marvelously are very much inclusive of apologies. He'll say to me: "Momma, that hurt my feelings." And I will hear him, and I apologize, eyes steady, hug at the ready. He believes me and we move on. I do my best to remember not to repeat that thing. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I do not.

There are moments when he apologizes for his random acts of independence that might accidentally hurt me physically, or are borderline "socially acceptable", and so after a talk or sharp correction, he apologizes, and we move on.

It's fluid. It's like an emotional and psychological check-and-balance system that begins the pattern of how to relate to the world.

As I encounter the world and watch him interface with others, I see not everyone works that way. It breaks my heart when I see him encounter a child who has no idea how to apologize. I find myself at times thinking "why do I bother?" especially when having to deal all too often with adults who have no concept of apologies and their importance, their subtle and great impact on the heart, the soul, the world.

There have been times in my life when I have not offered an apology, when I've held onto pride and justification. It never feels good.

So when I watch my son and I dance the dance of relating to each other and I know these are the moments that will color his expectations of how the world operates.

I don't know how the world operates. And I don't want to pretend to know, and pass on to my son something that I pretend to know.

The only thing I do know is that the world is a place of wonder, and when it doesn't go the way we were "taught", then wonder at it. We judge because we are human...but that is not all we do. We can wonder as well....

1400 sq ft to 600 sq ft

Was it architect/philosopher Michael Alexander that said a person really only uses 400 sq ft of any given living structure?

Living in my 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home built in 1940, Santa Fe, NM, I was acutely aware of all the space I never used. It was used to neatly arrange my belongings but nothing else. I nor my son "lived" in any of those parts of the house. Our stuff inhabited it.

After seven donations to St. Vincent de Paul, Salvation Army, one two-day yard sale and several "giftings" to friends, I have managed to fit what is left into a 600 sq. ft apartment in Asheville, NC.

Now this is a bit of an exaggeration. I still have several places that are inhabited by my belongings: belongings I have lived perfectly comfortably without using for decades and belongings I have only recently relegated to storage.

So why hang on to it?

I'll get to that in a minute...or not....

What I am so pleased with is how little I and my son really need.

We cook on a two-burner hot-plate. We bake in a 1 cu ft convection/toaster oven. We have three shelves for dry food and a refrigerator full of the freshest produce I've seen since living in California.

The only time I "panic" about not having "enough" is when I consider my son. Entering a fairly affluent private school, I find myself worrying that his friends will make fun of him for not having the latest, greatest gadget, and that he has only one shoe box full of lego as opposed to several trunks full.

Thankfully, when I have a thought of that nature, I take a look at him playing: he doesn't know that he has less - or more, for that matter - than anyone else. He does know precisely what he does have (i.e. the tiniest of the tiny legos will go missing and he will know it. Baffling.)

We share a bedroom. My bed miraculously "floats" 7 feet above his twin. It's simple and simply cool.

And then we share the bathroom.

And yet, in this space efficient 600 sq ft apartment, there is still space I have not really used. That is the approximate 30 sq. ft of loft space next to my bed that I had imagined I would use as my writing space. Nope. Not happening. Instead, all that time I imagined I needed to be "away" in order to write or do anything for myself computer-wise is done right here on the couch in the presence of my son. I need not to sequester myself away in a room somewhere but I simply need to say, "It's mommy's turn to do somethings for herself."

The first week...well, we had some struggles.

But now, going into week three, we are in a grove. He gets it. I get it. I am embarrassed to admit how conditioned I am to "retreat" (that term is so often and wrongly only attributed to men in the post-Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus era.)

Thing is humans like to retreat. And modern world like lends itself to everyone "retreating" from the bombardment and onslaught of media, only to hide away in tiny offices or bedrooms to plug back into a one-on-one media onslaught as represented by YouTube, Facebook and general internet surfing. It's ridiculous really; we retreat from each other in order to "plug-in" to one another artificially.

I understand and welcome the need to be alone, to spend time with people other than the ones we live with or work with...but what I am really sensing right now as I share this paired-down space with my son, is the need to live together and make space for each other...not the other way around.

Up until this moment, I think I believed that each of us was alone and that it was by choice that we made space for each other in each other's lives. But now I see that is an illusion: the illusion of modern American civilization, and so harshly lived out in the desert land of the Southwest: each person holding onto so desperately and vehemently to the things they have knowing if they share it, they will die of thirst...literally and figuratively.

What I am experiencing so acutely here in the fecund mountains of North Carolina is that life is quite the opposite (and I knew this very well while living in the Southwest but had not the resources to experience it differently) is we do live together: even if in neighboring houses. We live together, and though actions always speak louder than words, it is nice to speak, to ask for what I need, to have my son ask for what he needs, and not only to be heard, but to then have the resources to access what is needed.

And to ask for space from a six year old while occupying only 560 sq ft of a 600 sq ft apartment is more about role modeling the ability to find that space within without having to remove myself physically and indulge in a separation that I previously believed I and all of humanity was entitled to. Not the case.

This is a paradigm shift for sure.

Seeing the lens or through the lens or without a lens...

There is this: living in the past will keep a person from having a future...and yet, if we forget our past we are destined to repeat it. Living in the past vs. acknowledging the past...a fine-tuned difference...and understanding that memory only is as accurate as a clouded lens. Perhaps time is best spent not cleaning the lens to see the past but rather to see what is now.

The philosophy major in me enjoys about this much of the inquiry as I know all too well that philosophical inquiry is a never-ending process that often keeps a person bound by mental processes at the expense of the heart and body.

So here I am, enjoying a moment in the morning in a a nest among trees that I have not seen since childhood. With a morning practice of Qi Gong, I breathe in and exhale with the earth and know that seeing is not believing, that seeing is just one aspect of being, and that the experiences of all the other senses are guiding me, are expanding me, and that I am beyond what I might ever at one time or another "think" myself to be...and for this I am humbly grateful.

The choices I have made, both large and small, of consequence and inconsequential, have led me to this very moment which is filled with life...such a contrast to the moments that were so certainly filled with the promise of death....

Knowing this not with pride, for pride comes before a fall, this knowledge comes with a deep, simple gratitude that I practice to remember with humility, with humbleness, and to remember not to take this very moment for granted. There is nothing humans are "entitled" to. We live and we die. We choose so many things...and yet this act of choice is still not an entitlement. It's just something we do. And yet, so much of our lives are guided on instinct...not to be considered a lesser experience than those of our "choice".

The "animal" of my "self" is purring. And I "choose" to follow this...and to remember that like a cat, we don't always purr. But when we do, it is good. But the hunt, the flight, the sleep, the eat, the observing, the prowling, all will come and are necessary to flesh out the experience of life. One not better than the other; each complimentary of the other.

This moment is certainly a much needed respite and compliment to the moments that weren't filled with purring.