Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In the middle of the night my husband woke me up and told me, "I don't think we're going to make it through this".  I spent most of the rest of the night feeling our vulnerability and powerlessness over this pandemic.  I am so grateful to the people delivering our groceries, and yell at them as they leave "thank you" and stay safe.  I hope safety is put in place ahead of profit, and yet I am dependent on younger people to deliver food and medicine.  I do not order takeout, because that seems a frivolous risk in these times.  I thanked my doctor this morning when she called to clarify a prescription, and we wished each other safe and well.  The future is always uncertain, but now it is filled with movie like scenarios that terrify us.  I worry about one of my kids or grandkids, then another, then another.  It's soothing to get the photos on my phone, but at the same time I wonder if I will ever see any of them again.  This is, of course, the situation my dearest older daughter is in up north.  My husband and I are traveling up soon, but will she is any of her siblings and nephews again?  The only thing we can do is try to appreciate all the little moments this day, and soak in as much beauty as we can.  Life is so precious, and we must treat it with respect.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The promised rain didn't really appear, just occasional sprinkles.  It feels like the earth should be crying, but that is anthropromophizing.  I lay in bed with my husband this morning while he told me his two dreams.  I understood their meaning immediately, and we talked for an hour.  When I went downstairs and checked my phone, a story about Fiona the hippo in the Cincinnati Zoo caught my eye, and I watched the fifteen minute video of Fiona and her mom.  Fiona was born prematurely and had to be saved by human handling and care.  Thus, she likes and trusts people, especially her keeper.  I learned amazing things about hippos:  how they cannot swim, that they are related to whales and dolphins, how fast they can be on land, and they can hold their breath under water for five minutes.  But it was Fiona's sweet face that touched me, and the love her keeper clearly had for her.  So among the other unsung heroes right now, there are the zookeepers caring for these animals all around us, making sure that their charges' trust is proven right.  Fiona, be at peace, you have made my day!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The night before last I awoke hearing our doorbell.  It was the middle of the night, and I was confused, wondering if a prescription was being delivered or someone mistook our house for another.  I lay there for a long time.  Then yesterday afternoon my older daughter phoned, which she seldom does, and told me the cancer was growing rapidly in her brain, they were discontinuing the chemo, and she would need us up with her soon, probably in April.  She said she'd talk to her oncologist first, and see how he thought things would progress. 
So the doorbell was death calling.
We will drive up when she tells us, and help her through physican assisted suicide.  My hope is gone, and I can only be a witness to my daughter's unimaginable suffering.  And my granddaughter's.  I hope I have the strength to show some of the courage she has shown.  She is my guide.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I was not my best self.  I was restless when I read my book, switched books, and it didn't help.  I was cold when we went out for our walk.  I wanted to call someone, but felt I'd overburdened all my friends.  I only did one wholesome thing yesterday.  I baked two quiches, one with chicken, onions and mushrooms, which we gobbled up last night, the other chicken, peppers and cheese, which I froze.  I was able to do this because of the kindness of my daughter-in-law, who dropped two cartons of milk on our picnic table, as she was heading up to use my studio.  They were delivered to her place.  We had used the last of our milk for cereal that morning.  My husband got himself in a dither and took it out on me, being grumpy and abrupt.  I waited for an apology, but he was mightily self absorbed.  I hugged my resentment like a baby to my chest.  I couldn't let go.  I was clinging to my righteousness.  Never a good idea.  At bedtime I asked for an apology and got it, but it was not freely given, and nothing was healed. 
Today is a new day, and I believe I need a walk by myself  to get my own head screwed on right.  Wish me luck with that!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night my husband and I watched "The Count of Monte Christo" again.  As a kid I first read a comic about it, then a child's version, then by 12 the whole book.  I loved and am still fond of Alexandre Dumas.  I suppose I was a romantic, and still am.  We joked about the Chateau D'If, and imprisonment, but frankly, we've got it easy.  Poor Edmond Dantes suffered beatings, rats, and separation from his father, friends and fiance for 13 years.  It's a revenge story with a deep tinge of religion, a la the meek shall inherit the earth variety.  As a child I considered myself meek, we were poor, and I would have loved to have been a countess.  It played to my weaknesses, but it is also a great tale, full of wisdom about humanity.  That is why it still resonates.  As an adult, when I read a biography of Dumas, called "The Black Count" in his time, so much more was revealed.  This was a man of mixed race, on the edge of society, instead of a part of it, who triumphed, much like the Count of Monte Christo and the Man in the Iron Mask.  He had a passion for justice and the poor and overlooked, as did Victor Hugo, my other fave, and that still appeals to me.  Edmond Dantes, c'est moi!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had a long phone conversation with a Buddhist friend last evening, and we mainly discussed trees we could see from our windows, though both of us do take walks in our neighborhoods.  She lives in a senior housing complex, and she described how it felt to see a photo put up of someone who has passed away.  I joked that out here in the "real" world people are also leaving this earth at an alarming frequency, and I figured it was our age.  We are of the age for losses, sometimes piled upon each other.  Soon it will be us, because well, we are of that age.  But these Covid 19 deaths are startling, terrifying and mounting up beyond our comprehension.  All we can do is admire the trees, who, by the way, outlive our human lives in lots of cases.  Here, we have many redwoods, so we know they've seen and experienced much history, and watched the struggles and joys of our shorter lived species.  My friend and I find comfort in them:  what they stand for, their resilience, their beauty, the way the clean the air we breathe.  Trees.  Ahhhhh.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today is my dear friend's birthday.  No bear hugs, cake or going out to dinner.  Our new reality is to celebrate remotely, without gifts, and perhaps it's a good challenge.  Words are our gifts these days.  What we say, our tone, our carefulness and skill are needed when we are staring at a FaceTime screen or speaking on the phone.  Right speech has never been more in demand.  Our president will evidently never learn that lesson.  He offers false, contradictory and ill informed comments, instead of allowing doctors and scientists to speak to us with facts.  His fake heartiness is frightening.  He has no idea what real reassurance would look like, because it would involve trust going both ways.  He trusts no one.  Luckily, there are factual sources that we can turn to in this crisis, and we must.  If he lifts restrictions on social distancing, he will be responsible for American deaths.  It appears that he is ready and willing to do that to keep the economy afloat.  I guess he cannot imagine what others of his age are feeling - expendable and undervalued.  There may be fear underneath, but he prefers to show us an image of a tap dancer on stage.  Hale, hearty and utterly delusional.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Another day, another closet organized!  Since I have a old house, there are hardly any closets left.  Still, it feels good to really be doing a spring cleaning.  After all, we've all become obcessed with wipes, clorox, lysol, and other tools of the pandemic.  I've never cleaned so much since I was 19 years old and my husband and I were the housekeeper and gardener for a huge estate.  My job entailed 14 enormous rooms and 7 bathrooms.  The kitchen was a cooking room, a pantry, and a breakfast area, which my Junior League born rich boss insisted had to be spic and span, meaning on my hands and knees to polish the floors.  The library had a huge fireplace with sofas on either side, dark wood shelves, and as I vacuumed I dreamed I was Jane Eyre at Mr. Rodchester's estate.  I was a hard worker, but all the cleaning urges dissolved after a few months of that job.  I've been a reluctant housekeeper ever since.  I have attempted to be a pick-er-upper instead.  I put things away, make the bed every morning, do the dishes, and hang up my clothes.  That makes it seem everything is neat and tidy.  Or so I like to think.  But now I have visions of tiny virus menaces lurking everywhere, standing between me and my health.  So my casual reading these days is often about how to clean, and with what products.  Fascinating!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm grateful for livestream that allows me to watch my Buddhist teacher's dharma talks.  His guidance and equanimity ease me in this time of upheaval.  I talked briefly on the phone earlier with my son, who is disturbed that their plans of moving, his beginning a new graduate program, his wife working remotely, and other big changes seem to need to be put off right now.  I feel for them, but this new normal is uncertainty, and none of us knows that the future will bring.  "Rehearsing" as they call it in Buddhism, is unwholesome right now especially.  My Zen teacher's mantra "don't know" is a better state of mind, which leaves us without the false responsibility of our future, so that we may live in the present.  I wish I could comfort my kids and grandkids.  But I know I don't have the power to "fix" anything, including their states of mind.  Praying is the best I can do, and sending love and energy to them.  And all of you as well.

Wandering Along The Path: Right Speech

I checked in with several friends yesterday.  One friend, who shares a house with her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter and grandson is now full time caring for the out of school kids, since their parents have important jobs in the this crisis:  one's an epidemiologist and the other helps small businesses survive.  They are desperately needed.  I asked my friend if she was exhausted each day, and she said she was.  I feel for her, as her passion is ice skating and since her husband died that has been her link with others, and with the grandchildren, who she would take to their own ice skating lessons.  But she's indomitable.  Her German group now meets online, all ten of them.  She's a great quilter, and I know she has enough fabric at home for many quilts. 
I cleaned out my pantry yesterday, and was so proud of it I took a photo and sent it to my younger daughter.  Now I'm about to try walking a reservoir with my husband.  Getting my exercise!

Wandering Along The Path: Right Speech

I've been sending a video each morning to my grandchildren.  It's one way of keeping in touch with them, as I miss them sorely.  And it's an extension of what I have done with them at naptime or when we rock in the rocking chair; make up stories with them as the protagonist.  So far, they have been bunnies, ducks, kittens and crocodiles.  I think ahead of time about what I want to say, but write nothing down, I just wing it.  It's fun for me as well.  The hardest part is seeing my face in the video:  the crooked teeth, the wrinkles, the splotchy skin, the disheveled hair.  Oh, boy, I am not a sight to see! 
A deeper part of me faces the uncertainty I will ever see them again, given the COVID 19 and my age and vulnerability.  This may be my final testament to my love for them.  Last night I spoke on the phone with a friend who is 90, and she said to me that she might be dead soon, but her will was in order and she was communicating with her grandkids by phone.  She was able to laugh and still was concerned about a mutual friend that she was afraid was too isolated.  I was able to assure her the friend was fine and I'd had a walk with her this week.  She faces her death but with compassion for others.  We are all attempting to do that, to be our best selves in this crisis, and to have each tiny, ordinary act be one we are proud of.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went for another walk this morning with a different friend, and we did an admirable job of staying six feet apart, with her ahead and me behind.  She has a tricky problem, because a university student from Germany is staying in their guest room, and now the girl is aimless, with no studies, no travel, and no guidance.  My friends would like her to leave, partially because she is young and still in crowds of other students and not taking seriously the shelter in place order.  And it sounds like if she doesn't go back to her family in Germany soon, she will not be able to leave, which saddles my friends with a responsibility they don't want.  I see that 40% of the Corvid 19 cases are young people between twenty and forty, so there is a substantial risk.  She is supposed to talk to her parents today, and hopefully they will urge her to return home, but they are probably fearing the long airplane ride, and perhaps testing and isolation after she lands.  It's wrenching, these decisions that must be made when so much about the virus is unknown.  We do the best we can in the moment.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went for a walk this morning with a friend.  Then I talked to my daughter and granddaughter on the phone.  We are all figuring out how to stay six feet from each other.  My daughter said she and her neighbor decided they could set a lawn chair six feet from each other and talk.  Walking is harder, as we weave a bit too close and then one lags back but then the other instinctively lags as well.  It takes some getting used to, for sure.  I'm videoing stories for my grandkids.  The little ones like it.  My almost twelve year old granddaughter is missing all the social activity, which at her age is essential.  We all know now this is going to be a long haul.  Luckily, I had just bought a book by Stephen Batchelor about solitude.  There's going to be a lot of that.  Last night my husband and I watched "Raising Arizona", and laughed a bit.  The last line:  "maybe Utah" is my favorite in all of filmdom.  We all need to dream now, about the fuzzy future, where we will all be together again.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

First day of our sheltering in place.  Our younger son has ordered us a few groceries, which will arrive Sunday.  But we are fairly well stocked.  I emailed my older kids stepmom in Ireland, and she is walking everywhere and meeting friends to stroll, but of course six feet apart.  There is a solidarity in experiencing this pandemic across nations.  I'm sure my brother-in-law in New Zealand and relatives in Fiji are under precautions as well.  I have my list of tasks, which I normally avoid like the plague, but wait, it IS the plague.  Perhaps I will tackle my pantry today.  But I believe I will begin with oiling down my wooden benches on my front porch.  I've been meaning to do them for, well, I can't remember that far back.  My comfort is my stack of books, at least ten bought recently, in a premonition of doom, perhaps.  They vary from legal thriller to memoir to historical fiction to history.  I also have three new Buddhist books, one about silence, one about compassion and the other more general.  I could also reread my books.  I can never remember who did it and therefore it will be the same thing as a new book. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, as of midnight, our whole area of over six million people has to shelter in place.  No going out for anything social, everything is closed but grocery stores and pharmacies, no visiting of friends or family.  We live within walking distance of two of our kids, their spouses and grandkids, but unless we're out walking keeping 6 feet apart, we won't see them.  I believe officials are doing the right thing, but it's going to be very strange, as if we've stepped into a sci fy movie.  My husband will do puzzles, I'll read and write, and text and phone.  Today, however, we cleaned the house top to bottom, and I've made a list of activities for myself:  clean the pantry, clean the studio, work on my grandchildren poems, order surprises for my grandkids, take more photos to share.  I may walk with a friend at a time, if we can keep apart a reasonable length.  The grocery stores are going crazy, with lines around the block, according to my younger son.  My younger daughter wonders about sending her son to preschool, even if it stays open with 12 or fewer kids.  I told her today that these decisions are excruciating.  I cried a lot yesterday, thinking about not seeing my grandsons, about whether I will be able to travel to my granddaughter's birthday in April.  One day at a time.  I'm praying we can keep this pandemic from becoming a nightmare.  It will involve a great deal of cooperation.  I hope we're up for it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've just returned from my friend's mother's funeral.  We met in my friend's house, and through the internet, participated in the funeral in New Jersey.  My friend spoke and also her brother-in-law there as well as her cousin in South Carolina.  Amazingly, it felt intimate and immediate.  There were 14 people here and about the same number there.  They could not use the chapel, due to coronavirus, so it was held outside, and the rabbi shoveled fourteen times into the grave for us here.  My friend gave a beautiful eulogy, and we all wept, then after the last prayer, we had lunch and remembered her mother, who was lively, funny, and adorable.  I often talked movies and books with her.  She was 96, but sharp.  I brought my grandsons to see her, and she came to my house for holidays, showers and dinners until the last year, when she pretty much stopped going out.  Thursday I brought her potato leek soup, but she died that evening.  She was beyond our world and slipping away.  Her daughters and grandchildren have an abundance of stories to keep her alive, and my husband told me a funny one on our way walking back home.  At her granddaughter's wedding, my husband, a friend and she were sitting at a table while most people were dancing.  My husband asked which table the friend had been sitting at, and she replied at yours.  My friend's mother said:  I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't remember anything.  The three of them laughed.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Thursday afternoon, after trying to adjust to not flying up to see my daughter, I walked over to have tea with my dear friend, and while I was there, part of the time, she was on the phone attempting to get a morphine prescription for her mother, who was feeling poorly and struggling a bit to sleep.  My friend thought she had gotten the same flu I had, but the symptoms were wrong.  I said goodbye when her partner came home and they left to pick up the prescription.  I offered to stay with her mother, but she said she would be okay for the brief time.  My friend is a doctor.  But when we said goodbye, she was crying and then I was, because her mother is 96 and has congestive heart failure.  I came home and told my husband I was so sad about my daughter and my friend's mother, whom I adore.  The next morning around 7 am I got a text that the mother had died, and it was just a slow ceasing to breathe.  Her mother did not want to go into a hospital, and the morphine was not necessary.  She died before her daughter could administer any.  The mother wanted to be buried on the east coast, where her husband, son and sister are buried, and my friend had planned the transport of the body when her mother did die, and to fly back there for the funeral.  But her kids begged her not to go, because of the coronavirus, and her sister on the east coast will take care of the burial and funeral on that end.  Tomorrow we will gather in my friend's house to watch the live stream, and later there will be a memorial.  It's a blessing her mother went so peacefully, but this pandemic is tearing family from each other and the important rituals that shore us up.  It's such a sad time.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We were walking out the door to go to the airport when our daughter called and told us she had canceled her book launch and she was too worried about us flying up because of our ages.  She also realized it was risky for her to be exposed to us, the other friends flying in, and the people coming to the bookstore.  The good news about this is she is more hopeful about her survival and I am as well.  Her chemo is working and she has the possibilities of trials and other treatments.  She is taking better care of herself.  But I am not going to get to see her and our granddaughter, and I was so looking forward to the visit.  Well, this virus is wrecking havoc with all of our lives.  We have to be patient and careful and see what develops.  Waiting is challenging, but is it hard?  Maybe not, when the stakes are this high.

Wandering ALong the Path: Right Speech

Uncertainty.  A principle for Buddhists and a glaring fact for everyone else right now.  It is interesting to see people's reactions to the Coronavirus.  As I said to my younger son yesterday, our family has been living and breathing uncertainty due to my older daughter's cancer.  All plans must have a way out, insurance, and the ability to look forward without "counting on".  We are practiced at this uncertainty business.  And my Buddhist practice has prepared me to take deep breaths and ease in to What Is So.  I find my mind scurrying around what if this happens/what if that happens, but then I detach from that "rehearsing" and fall back into one day, one minute at a time.  I'm I'm attempting to enjoy those moments and fully take them in.  Each could be my last.  Don't know.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Greetings from the new polar zone.  Saturday night our furnace failed, and yesterday I wore my bathrobe over my clothes in an attempt to keep warm.  Luckily, we found two space heaters that still work, and fired one up while we watched a movie, and had the other heating our bedroom.  We have an old house, few double paned windows, all downstairs so that doesn't help at bedtime, and our little guest bedroom off the TV room upstairs has no heat, as well as our bathroom and dressing room.  I said it was an old house.  Today it's supposed to be warmer, a high of 66, and the furnace people are coming, but if they have to replace it, it may be a while.  Coming off one month of flu/cold, we really didn't need this.  But then, nobody needs the coronavirus, the stock market plunging, the drought, the election.  Well, wait a minute, we do need to have a change of President, and hope springs eternal, or is attempting to spring.  I'm going out for lunch with my daughter and baby grandson, so I'm in a good mood regardless.  And the news is good from my other daughter as well.  The really important things are stable.

Waandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I found out yesterday my Zen teacher has metastasized cancer.  My friend from that sangha sent me two photos of her, looking lovely and at peace.  She is exactly ten years older than me, but so indomitable that I'm stunned she is facing this.  She has fought cancer several times, has dementia, and just lost her dear husband several months ago.  Many blows, but she is still standing.  Her wonderful daughter takes care of her, and her partner is as generous and kind.  She has a son nearby also.  Her voice still guides me daily, and I feel enormous gratitude for her teachings and her friendship.  In one of the photos, a little brown curly dog is in her lap.  In the past, she usually had three or four dogs, rescues and Skiperkees.  Now she has a new dog to comfort her.  Her love of animals has defined her.  I once worried about a sad looking horse in the pasture next to her property near the coast, and she later told me she called the owners and the horse was placed in a situation with other horses, so he wouldn't be so lonely.  My heart is with her now, knowing her equanimity will serve her well with this new challenge.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend called me and at 75 she has found love again.  I feel exhilarated for her.  He kids are cautious, but is there ever a time when anything is risk free?  We need, as we age, to feel fully present and alive, not letting go before we have to.  Love at any age is worth a gamble, and reaching for something just for yourself, especially if you are a woman, is unfamiliar and alien to people around us.  But the truth is, at this age we know ourselves.  We've stopped lying to ourselves and only want to speak and feel the truth.  We can finally care for ourselves more than our kids and grandkids, and have the time and space to make fully informed decisions.  Leaping off a cliff is the most sane it's ever going to be.  So I hope she embraces love, taking her time with getting to know him and making small adjustments at first, but she deserves the best.  And as Suzuki Roshi said, it's never too late.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I took a walk with a dear friend and she told me her daughter, a friend of my daughter, has a medical problem that will require surgery.  Her daughter is a doctor, and in the best hands, but I feel her fear about this sudden surprise.  My friend has been so supportive to me and my family over the years when first my younger daughter, and now my older daughter have struggled with serious illnesses.  My heart goes out to her, and I'm praying the surgery goes well and the recovery is swift and easy.  My friends and I now have kids who are old enough to have their own health issues, and it's a hard adjustment to make.  There is always the possibility of random accidents and the like, but pretty much we float on their youth and good health, and have to deal with only our own health problems.  Now, though, the kids are not kids, and the grandkids bring a whole new set of risks and anxiety.  As my Zen teacher Yvonne used to say, old age is not for sissies.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I went to our doctor this morning, and the news was good.  We are both recovering from the flu, and now antihistamines will probably get rid of the nasal drip.  I wanted to be sure we were on the mend before we went to see our daughter next week.  If we do get rain next week that could help dampen the allergy frenzy in the air right now. 
I have the 10 month old grandson today, and he's fun.  I bought him an anywhere chair, as I have for all the other grandkids, and his parents sent me a photo and video last night of him using it as a jungle gym, and just having the time of his life.  Because it is on the ground and foam, it's hard to hurt yourself, though he was trying by standing on it facing backwards, crawling over the arm and basically wrestling with it.  Later he will sit and read in it, watch Daniel Tiger, and carry it with him anywhere he wishes.  Next on the agenda, maybe a wagon or a pretend kitchen.  They've been mighty popular with the other grandkids.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, we trudged up the hill this morning and voted.  On our way back, my husband said he felt like he was never sure his vote was really counted.  He had been set to vote by mail, but his ballot didn't come, so they made him do all this rigamarole to make sure he didn't vote twice.  His vote will be held back to see if his mail in ballot surfaces.  I told him all these methods have flaws.  It's so complicated.  It didn't help that the first person looking for our name and address was so elderly that everything flummoxed her and she couldn't find anything.  It did not inspire confidence.  I know, she was volunteering, but still.  The voting, the drought, the coronavirus; what a spring!  I'm going to attempt to put all the bad news to the side and Enjoy the sun, the birds singing and the blossoms.  So what if it causes hay fever.  I'm already sick anyway!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend and I went to a Garden about an hour away, and wandered around looking at pots of daffodils, hyacinth, and blossoming trees and tulips popping up.  Usually, there is a field of daffodils behind the house, but we were too early this year.  We've had a coldish winter, not much rain, none the last month and it's inhibiting the daffodils.  But there were thousands in pots and crowding in the meadows where the fruit trees are.  Only the plum and nectarine trees were in blossom; the cherry and apple trees are still in buds.  We'll have to come back to see the tulips, as they were just coming out, and to see that huge field of yellow.  We also took a woodland path back to barns and a nature center, and saw huge tree limbs down at various places from the recent windstorms.  We then had lunch at the cafe and returned to the little shop and I bought two daffodil pots and three pansy pots.  Pansies used to be my favorite flower as a child and now daffodils are.  I came home chipper and infused with the beauty of the garden.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend and I went to see "Seberg", starring Kirsten Stewart and Anthony Mackie.  I had remembered seeing Jean Seberg on the cover of Life Magazine when I was a kid, and how Otto Preminger, the director, searched the country for his star of Joan of Arc.  It was as if a princess had been discovered, but I never actually saw the film when it came out.  I was a student with no money.  I did not follow her career, but I knew she died young.  This story of her life, focusing on just a couple of years, stirred my friend's and my emotions.  We were both married to black men, and this era portrays her affair with a Black power activist.  Her support of "the revolution" caused her to be hounded by the FBI, and it destroyed her career in America.  My friend and I remember how much unwanted attention we received for our marriages.  And how our children from those marriages faced and still face racism today.  I thought the film was fascinating, because Stewart's performance is so tense and vulnerable and she is not a stereotype in any way.  My friend, as we were eating after, compared her destruction to Jane Fonda's weathering of her radical stance.  But as my friend said, Fonda did exercise videos to get herself back out of the limelight.  She had to wed herself to Ted Turner to become America's darling again.  Seberg never backed down.