Village people

Here’s the deal. Truth upfront. All the problems in the world, well, maybe just in the (un)United States, are caused by us. US, I said. Self-evident truth and all those civil liberties that have become buried and embedded into the strata of geological time. This has nothing to do with cerebral concepts such as the pursuit of doing what you love, finding happiness, being mindful and getting rich quick. The issue is breeding and duplication. It is out of control. Is humanity and adapting and making do with our rapidly changing environments or devolving from our terrestrial realms and merely grounded to our emotional subjectivity.
I want to know what the heck is happening to our offspring?
What are they being taught? What are they learning from us?

Who raises their own children anymore? How will they know what not to be?
Isn't this a bit scary?

I have yet to meet a person that appreciates being told that they are doing it wrong.
From investing money to parenting and from kissing to cooking, there is no one right way to get the most out of an empty well or to live a life of harmonic balance. Although I know less than nothing about financial investments (which matches my net worth to the penny,) I do know a thing or two about parenting and the investment of resources and time required to keep the job without any guarantee of tenure, retirement or security.
There is no balance to anything-that lasts longer than a moment. Balance is a constant adjustment.
Anybody that tells you about life-balance has fallen off their own ball.

It is sad, heartbreaking to notice that making more humans is not taken very seriously. There is no testing, no counseling, no random safety checks or quality inspections, and in my experience, although I lived in a real Village, there were no people to assist me with raising my children but I think I was better off knowing what I know now about that Village. 

One summer vacation my kids and I were visiting the tiny mountain town I grew up in and my daughter asked if we were going into the Village to see the Village people today? The sentiment was so innocent. She really thought all towns are called villages. People don't live in cities she informed me-where would they sleep? Cities have airports for all the people that come and go, she once informed me. Looking at it her way, the homeless were just displaced travelers waiting on stand-by.

So many people seem to be so preoccupied with all the other people. When did we start being so curious about what people we do not know are eating, or need to know where they go, or want to hear what they listen to or read and believe any of it is true or interesting?  We are all unique, but not that different. We were the very first- who knew how to find out anything with our fingertips but were too pre-occupied to notice that things figured us out first. 

When the parents of the world stopped raising their children's eyes from the screen, the window to the world became handheld. The world in the palms of our hands became a quite literal demand. The iPad is the babysitter, the teacher, the consoler, the nurse. It’s all fun and apps until your child points out that your smartphone is smarter than you, your car now knows if you are paying attention to where you are going while we trace our steps wondering if we are losing this game we have so much skin in. 

Village people are simple, not idiots. Villages were never meant for growth or else they would be called  Cities. To call a place a Village it must be larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town and is situated in a rural area. By this definition, Villages are endangered if not at the brink of extinction. Rural? Hamlet? Villages used to conjure up the idea of a farming or fishing community since these clusters of people living together often were producers of sustenance. A village is socialist, it is dare I say, communist in its ideal working conditions. And villages are described also as ‘unincorporated communities’ yet considering the alliance of the residents, I would dare to guess that Village people are more pleasant and productive than city folk. 

The way and how we live has changed dramatically but we still gather in groups, even if we don’t look at or speak to each other. We have a lot of the same needs and desires, we also share our worst fears which is why we leave the lights on in the city all night. Nobody lasts long doing the graveyard shift anyway. 

The number one function of a village is trade. I have only seen cash traded for various items in this village. One must give to get. When I gave birth I got a new job. When I accepted the new position and big title I foolishly felt like a part of the bigger world.  When I realized I was chosen, I did not choose otherwise it was humbling to learn that assemblies are always required of us. I recently quit a job that traded my life by the hour for a few dollars to buy dinner. The woman who was my boss suggested, “We should trade. I will take your kids and you take mine,”  she was serious. It was hilarious and preposterous.  She suggested I adopt her brother-in-law’s young son as if anybody could raise anybody's’ child. I guess there are still Village idiots thinking that working together means living together. I guess we are all over-spending our dumb luck?


Painting by Frédéric Bazille, 'View of the village' c. 1868 in [Public domain].

The muted mockingbird

When she decided to stay and discover what beautiful music they may make together, you should have seen the way he looked at her. Her plumage, her markings, her song seemed to be just what he always wanted. They swirled in a world of their own orbit sharing each other's wind.
She lifted his eyes, he lifted her wings.

The two created a distinct harmony, they found each other's notes and carried them-for each other- until those once juicy earworms began sounding like the same old shriveled song. 

He began a solo search for any new and interesting instruments he may have never heard before. 

His memory of her distinct beauty faded into the textured wallpaper. 

She stayed inside, dutifully pecking at the seeds he left thoughtfully strewn on the circle floor. He did not see that being free was what made her breed a thing of beauty. Her whistles turned into wheezes. 

She swung back and forth like a pendulum on her roost, passing the time counting up and down, staring at the bars and seeing the space between as just enough room for the stale air to pass through.

She never could have imagined such an enclosed life with nobody to hear her, nobody to sing to, nobody to pick up her next note, nobody to suggest a new one, no ears to perk and not a single tiny conscience to consider what happens to a bird in a cage. An Orca placed in a pool causes its dorsal fin to fold over, an undeniable six-foot sign of suffocation. She had never felt so isolated inside, inside, inside, feathers fold-over feathers, her heart feels muffled.

He, her master, must have clipped her wings out of security, his own. Now she would never notice her sky falling without the ability to see-above. 

He tries to reassure her, inside voices, silence is sweeter, don’t sound so shrill, you are missing nothing- outside. 

He said he prefers that she cannot soar, her helpless flapping is enough to demonstrate that she is still alive-inside. And when the first shadow of the evening ravens going west crosses the white wall, he is drawn to the changing light like a flicker of truth, a flame he cannot grasp, the murder moves on and on. 

She is told she should be grateful for her brass plated bars, the security, safety, the solitude and peace. Outside of the comfortable zone he made for her is a world full of predators, he warns her. She can only pray that one day she may feel the chase, the furious wind under her breasts once again. She thinks she could live happily without this peace of empty place. 

Noticing his neglect, she no longer manages more than a feeble peep. 

He thinks she could maybe use a feathered friend to share her sentence, to converse with, to occupy her while he is away. He is always away, even when inside, he is no longer at home.
He has forgotten their chorus.  

He does not reach in to touch her.
He no longer hears her song and conjures up memories.
He said he will never let her go. 

She knows that means, outside. 

She has heard that some species lose their voice from overuse, abuse and stretching it to the extreme, and others become muted, like the fallen tree in the forest, only to be taken in by the forest again.
She barely makes a breeze, not a spontaneous sound escapes, nobody picked up her last call, none saw her last tweet, without any melody, there is no need to wonder why her song is no longer sung.
There were no words to share. 

No echoes would carry her away.

Image in Alcide Dessalines d'Obigny, Orpheus dorsalis, c. 1847.

Purple Prose

When I say February, do you picture red? Love and hearts and all that? What about blue, since it falls in wintertime for the Northern Hemisphere? Do you even see a color or taste the temperature?

Between blue and red reside purple. February is purple. The stone, amethyst is always purple, unlike some other chameleon gemstones, amethyst is crystallized as the stone of February.

February and I have been in a lifelong relationship. Yes, I was born in the small month and I was probably purple myself on that day many years ago. February has always been purple, cool, aloof and superior. I am not over embellishing either, there is not much time or space. It is a condensed month, it is a mourning and morning month. Pink Jasmine, lilac vines, star quantities of white and pink blossomed trees are all in chilly bloom matching the steel winter skies.
February could care less about us and our expectations our resolutions, our plans, our dates, our hopes, our disappointments. It comes and goes leaving only a stain of chocolate in the corners of the calendar.

The first purple (Tyrian) dye came from a snail. My grandfather used to give me a bag of salt and instructed me to find and kill all the slugs I could find. I did not look very hard for slugs but now I wonder if a stain was left where they decomposed?

Purple is not violet, a common mistake. Violets are blue. Why do we like roses that don't smell? Purple doesn’t actually exist optically. And I bet my purple is not the same as your purple. Purple tinted moss and urine also make a brilliant royal purple dye. In 1993 a crayon was added to the box called ‘Purple Mountains Majesty’ to represent the Rayleigh scattering effect which makes distant mountains appear hazy purple. A purple heart medal does no soldier stationed in the grave any good. There is no such mammal as a Purple People Eater. Purple Haze and Purple Rain are music and not meteorological events. And Robert Burns used the word curple to make his rhyme making us all feel a little like a horses ass for reading poetry.

Purple is velvet, it is midnight seduction, jazz music, the reflection streetlamps in a street puddle after a rain, it is a mumuration in the sky, the soft folds of the human body that are never touched, purple is a marriage of hot and cold, it is a dance with two leading, a blur of friction, it is the aura of wisdom, it is the inside of my mind on a clear path.

'Inside of a geode' taken 2008 in Public Domain.

Re(a)dwood

I have a distinct memory about a vague object.
I don’t remember where it came from originally. I would never know its true origins-nor need to.
It was not in my house where I grew up-I don’t think. I am pretty sure it was in someone else's home. But I do clearly remember spending lots of time sitting on the ground next to it, admiring all of the tiny intricacies, ridges, I rubbed its smooth and rough spots and imaginatively stared at the shape of dust clumps like snowflakes which had settled deep in the crevasses that adults with big eyes seldom see. And there were many of these tiny recesses and pockets, places big enough I realized so I would place a penny inside, a broken crayon, a tiny rock or even cigarette butt. 

Sometimes objects own us, not the other way around.
There are certain matters in life that seem impossible to eliminate. These are the same objects that we cannot seem to free ourselves from, like this thing that had a firm grip on me. I am certain that what turned into a lifelong project was sparked by this first encounter with an object that was not mine. An object that I determined to make mine. Instinctively I knew I would need a place to hide my tiny trinkets in life.
At 16 years old when we are certain we are far more competent than most humans to have ever lived and we like to exercise and stretch our free will, I decided to buy a raw version of the object from my past.  Unfinished, a cut of it, a slice like a brain-the big top piece anyway.
I picked two pieces to go together of course. Like a matchmaker, soulmates scream for eachother and are more when in alignment, when thier strengths are stacked together, when one has the others back, or front, or wherever the spot is the weakest. These two would be fated to be an inseparable pair, mated for (my) life and on proud display- one day, when each was a bit more refined and presentable.

You wanna slice of me?

Yes. I will take that one. With all those jutting angles and a couple of deep nooks. I don't care if you think it will break, that is the one I want. And I like that other one for the base. It reminds me of something…like a knuckle or horses knee maybe…tendons.

I took the two home from the mill like an adoptive mother, nervous on the ride home.

And I spend hours with my two bare hands sanding, rubbing off sawdust, carving out imperfections, peeling back layers and making smoother. Eventually, I grew weary of trying to perfect what was already perfect. Not smooth, but perfect enough. There were some spots I simply could not get to. My toolbox was pretty empty at this young age. 

My stepfather reminded me often how much elbow grease was needed for getting any project done well. He developed tennis elbow. He never swung a racket. He did play the guitar. Guitars are also called axes. We did have a woodburning stove for a heater.

It sat in the corner of a room. I tried to rekindle the initial passion I had. I talked about it, intimately. I boasted about its unique properties, the way it had revealed itself as being better than I could have anticipated and yet, unfinished always seemed a better state to stay. That way, nothing is ruined.

A painter knows the epileptic jolts of paralyzation that spontaneously arise when something is potentially coming together as we envisioned, there is an implicit challenge to mess it up, to apply the human touch to the butterfly wings.

So it sat quietly, collecting dust. I threw a sheet over it at one point when I moved away for a time.

After one of my grandparents passed away my mom called me to see if she could throw it away. She wanted to make room for all the junk collected by my grandparents. The room that I once slept in had been converted into a music room by my step-father and was due to become a storage pod. I told her I would drive up to get it. She was very pleased and informed me I should take some more stuff. I agreed. I drove away with a rented mini-van of stuff, the details of which are a whole different tale. 

When I returned with it, brought it into my adult life, 22 years after the project began, there was an exciting renewed enthusiasm and appreciation for the wood pieces. I have noticed that most people from Southern California are stupified by and in awe of burly big trees-and rightly so. Palm trees are not nearly as characteristic as the giant redwoods of my youth. Kind of like Leonardo Davinci, who was intrigued by the wrinkles of aging men, how their life hung on their cheekbones and sorrows were stored in their chin as if any this could be read in wood. To me, the sculpture was merely a piece of home away from home.

“You did this all by hand?” I would be asked by friends that happened to pass where it then sat in our garage collecting different dust motes from a different latitude. I had hoped with the access to power tools, the project may get completed to a point where it would all just come together. And boy did we use tools. Several people stepped in to try to help clean out deep crevasses and sand rough nobs all with a strong loving hand as if to leave a couple drops of their own elbow grease in between the grains. Seeing the people from my future life handle the raw wood I hand-chose was one of those juxtapositions of time that I loved to savor. Of course, all of that combined effort and light machinery was still not enough to bring the project to a satisfactory completion. It sat-still. 

Five years later it sits in my living room under a warm glow. It is dark, the rich reddish-brown of a Chestnut racing horse. It has been sealed-only lightly. It sits proudly in the center of the living room occupying all focal attention with its intricate swirls, rings, knots, bulges, and recesses. There are stories between the lines, one gets lost looking inside the folds. The top is merely resting on the base or trunk. It is not permanently attached (yet? I haven't decided if I want to). I think of how this resembles us. It is burly but I get anxious when there is anything, a drink, a book, keys, a notebook, the mail, it could become unbalanced. Maybe over time I will stop caring so much. It only took me 26 years to put it all together thus far...and yet, it is only just barely composed-held together-by balance.
It is finally finished.

Last image R6, Private Forestry, California burl, c. 1920 via Forest Health Protection [Public domain].

Wrinkles in time

*****

My adult son and I were in the game store when an old man in his 70's peered inside the glass door his left making a door on the side of his left cheek

notices me and smiles widely, eagerly pulling open the store door, flashing his yellow teeth at me he catches his breath before speaking, his eyes change

and he says to me "Oh, I thought you were my wife, I'm sorry, " and walked out seeking his missing white-haired mate. This was just today, when I was forty-something. I wondered if I was the lost one. 

*****

I went to the racetrack to bet on the ponies this season, but really to see a concert for free-when you stay and play, you do not have to pay for the show. You have already paid-with losses.

While standing in the security line, among all ilks and ages, an older woman in her 60’s, with purple-white spiked hair smiled at me while simultaneously giving me elevator eyes. “Such a cute outfit,” she said pointing up and down my body. “I get to see what all the people wear, it is one of the reasons I love this job, it helps me stay in touch.” I smiled and thanked her. She added since the line had not progressed, “Just a bit ago though-I saw the saddest thing. A young man wore a jacket that had a cross, crossed out! So so sad! And underneath that it read ‘Bad Religion’ and I wondered who in his life had taught him about God, who steered him the wrong way?” I smiled wider, “That is a band.” Her mouth fell open, her face flushed, we laughed lightly together and all moved on. I now had second thoughts about my outfit.

*****

I had both of my children when I was young, younger than most women. I wanted to have the energy and relatability of a young mother. Now that they are adults and all the adults my own age have young school-age children I am even more pleased with my naive choice, I am unable to relate to my peers but have found my relationship with my own adult children in full bloom. They are wildflowers. I don’t even water them. They grow how they want, I observe their new beauty and admire their lack of fear when sticking their petals out tall. Strangers always mistake my daughter for being much younger than she is, my son is afraid of strangers. Other people are stranger than my children. We are all old enough to know there will not be enough time. We are all adults trying to save our childhood.

Painting by Jacopo da Empoli, 2nd half of the 16th century in [Public domain].

Leave a legacy on

When given a moment alone with ourselves a voice speaks up. Yeah, it's you. Maybe not the nicest you. Call it our subconscious voice, our hyper-critical mind, the hamster running on the wheel, a monkey mind, the ego, the problem solver-engineer or whatever title you may give yours, it is an all too familiar voice. And much like our closest family members lilt and intonations, this is vocalization we immediately recognize and listen to our entire lives without ever seeing the source. It is a mutable voice. We are even able to ignore at times-as if we could really be thinking about nothing (not in a Wittgenstein sense). That would be a nice staycation. I am not certain about the source of this voice, its sorted past, its questionable intentions, but mine nags me about the same thing all day every day. For as long as I can remember hearing my own thoughts, I have never thought of it as (a) God or a higher power. I have no proof that this voice is trying to help me or the Universe.
At times I feel like one of those dolls with a pull string in her back. The recording seems to offer only the following encouragements, “You should be writing”, “Reading, Read,”, “You are wasting valuable time”, “You could be writing”, “You could be reading”, “Write, Write,”, “Stop wasting Time”, “No wonder you are behind” and it’s not just that the voice is relentless but cruelly condescending. I probably need that, but it just never lets up, it never offers encouragement. If I write all day until my eyes are fogged glass, my fingers cramp, my pinkie stained with ink, that voice still chimes in to criticize me if I stop to eat or heaven forbid, lay my head on the pillow without a book or piece writing to edit.

John Irving said, “Your friends and family may honestly want you to do what you want to do, but they also want you to do things for them. Worse, they want you to do things with them-go to lunch, go for a drink, go to the movies. They may want to know how long it’s going to be. They will probably not accept the answer a writer has to give: It may be quite a while, it may be forever.”

I am poor in cash but rich in life experience. I raised two kids that turned into kind adults that love and respect me more and more every passing year-really. I am in a mutually loving long term relationship that is not bound by marriage but respect and fueled by making each other better navigators through life while sharing an incredible journey. I have cut the chords and anchors that bound me to my own childhood history and am now able to write right now. Money is tainted. It should leave a red residue. I do take (verbal) donations. I then give them away. I try not to get attached to any-thing. I am able to manage and budget but do not covet those with more money and less time to spend. Having loved ones support you in a creative endeavor is a suspension bridge, you can trust it in a storm. Honestly though, these same supportive loved ones simply cannot love me when I am the writing me. I am far away, I am untouchable sitting in the dining room, on the couch, I am out of office, I am late, I am jumpy, raw, I am smiling for no reason, I am irritable, and-in mid-sentence-
Unfinished and interrupted, all of my aspirations and notions are always simmering at the back of the stove while I am providing nourishment for others.
These words that taunt me, all the words, I wish to trap and splatter across white paper-they will wait, will be there, will come out, will participate with others and make some sense of all this disparate non-sense...One day, if I am afforded enough time, I will have something of myself that lasts forever. Someday my words will last an eternity. These shared words will be an investment, each and every word chosen with thought will never wasted. When I say how proud I am, when I tell them they must listen to their little voice. They call me a mentor, they say my failures inspire them and hearing them say I love you is the brilliant ending of the book I cannot seem to finish.  Not a single penny nor second-thought is wasted. I remain unfinished and completely full, filled, forever.




Painting by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 'Portrait of a Woman' c. 1787 in [Public domain].