Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm trying to catch up with my to-do list this week. Last week and through yesterday we were helping our daughter while her husband was away. Today I had an eye appointment, made an appointment for having my eyeglasses lenses changed, got a haircut scheduled for tomorrow morning, planned a walk with a friend and another for Friday and talked to our younger son for an hour as well as called a friend to see how she was doing. Our weather is sunny and warm, which is dire for the drought, but at least means its easy to be outside and pleasant. I will soon begin the task of writing holiday cards and figuring out what pictures to copy of the grandkids to put inside them. We've taken a break from organizing the photos, but we did do more work on the basement, and it was satisfying to put the Thanksgiving decorations in labeled boxes and away on an easy to reach shelf. I plan on weeding out more toys that are too young for our grandsons, and I know just who to give them to - my friend's new granddaughter. I adore reuse. It's so gratifying!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday was an eleven hour day helping our daughter care for her two boys, aged 1 and 5. It involved Fairyland, opening presents, a subsequent puppet show since we'd gotten a doorway puppet theater for the turned 5 year old, chaotic lunch where the delivery was completely wrong, a walk and fighting over a truck, dinner and finally cupcakes and candles. The 5 year old was so exhausted and overwhelmed he couldn't think of a wish to blow out the candles. Daddy being gone was making him sad, and he really couldn't understand it. The 1 year old starting biting, and it was downhill from there until his bedtime. The highlights were us helping the 5 year old build a new Lego toy, the show with a parrot, two kitties and two snakes, and just giving our daughter time to do her laundry. We went home fried to a crisp, but not being able to imagine how she could have done it without us. Today our son-in-law comes in late, so maybe when our daughter comes to pick up the boys at our house after preschool, she can stay for dinner and I'll go back with her to her house to help with bath and bedtimes. Right now I feel annoyed with my son-in-law. Last week was our daughter's teaching break, but he was the one to go east for a wedding (his cousin), partying and since the wedding was Saturday, staying longer than he needed to and leaving her with six days of parenting alone. Not my business, except it's torture to see her so frazzled. Witnessing. That's all I can do.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a nice morning yesterday, taking three grandchildren and their parents to a park with a rose garden and a long tall cement slide, which the six year old adored. Then we came home and had a New Orleans lunch delivered, with fried chicken, bisquits and other delights. Then are older son, his wife and the six year old packed up and drove home, and after recuperating a couple of hours, I headed over to my daughter's to help her out with the one and four year old boys, and we ate leftovers and after the boys were bathed and asleep, we watched a dumb romantic comedy which we thoroughly enjoyed. It had been a hard day for my daughter, as the four year old's best friend from preschool - his mother was in a bicycle accident and almost died. She was under the car, and not breathing when the paramedics arrived, got her out and rushed her to the hospital. She is now awake and expected to survive, but her pelvis is broken and she's pretty damaged. This afternoon my daughter will pick up her son's friend for a playdate. The couple also have twin older sons. So there was a flurry of meals to sign up for and just the shock of a sunny day turned nightmare. The mom was biking to meet her husband and sons for lunch, and she didn't show up. How the ordinary is mixed with the unthinkable. It is more often than we liked to believe.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I made jello salad and cranberry sauce this afternoon and listened to Christmas music on the radio. Just getting in the spirit. I love turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, the popovers I make and the pies my daughter-in-law bakes. We'll have three toddlers running around and a chaotic dinner very early to accomodate the early bedtimes, and I will and do already feel very blessed. My granddaughter will be doing her thing with her dad and friends, and our younger son will be among a mob of his wife's relatives and nine grandchildren, so I know they will be having fun as well. Perhaps the Thanksgiving story rankles a little, as I'm on the Native's side, but it's a good myth, and we all know the pilgrims would have starved without their Native neighbors. Being grateful is always a good idea, and it is the antidote to fear. So much fear is surging in this country that anything that encourages gratitude is helpful. I love living and am so grateful for my time here on earth. Life if precious.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I accompanied my daughter to take her two boys to little Farm, and we brought lettuce and celery to feed the animals. The huge pink pigs with black spots loved the romaine lettuce and were polite about taking it gently from the boys. The geese loved the lettuce as well. The chickens were mainly uninterested, and the bunnies are not allowed to be fed, so we traipsed up the hill to the sheep, who were indifferent to either lettuce or celery, so we mosyed on down to the cows, those dependable creatures. They stuck their huge tongues out and ate the celery with relish. Their faces are so benign that it's practically theraputic to stand there gazing into their liquid eyes. If cows get irritable, I haven't witnessed it. Then we went over to a bench for a snack, and the feeding of every creature was complete.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today we bought more bins for our photos, though we don't know how many we need. Just a kind of security blanket. The culling of photos is challenging, and I'm in charge of that process. I generally get rid of: blurry photos, people I have no idea who they are, views with no people, and buildings. Why do we have so many buildings, when we have no idea what they house? As we plug along it's becoming more cheerful work, as seeing all the happy events, birthday cakes, smiles of our family, and the extraordinary beauty of our daughter who died remind us of our history as a family. There were more pictures of my brother than I dared hoped for, and seeing my parents, aunts and uncles and friends I've lost contact with comforts me. They are not just in my head. They are evidence of a full, engaging, rewarding life. I hope when and if my kids and grandkids peruse them, they will have a similar experience.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm reading Thomas Perry's new mystery "The Left Hand Twin", which features Jane Whitehead, a woman who makes people disappear who are in mortal danger. I don't like Perry's other characters, except for the old man, but Whitehead appeals to me because she is Seneca, full of resources to protect oneself, and she fulfills a dream I had when I worked in safehouses: to save women from being murdered. The books with her in them read like safety tips for women in the world. She teaches you how to protect yourself and where to live and what behaviors are risky. And Whitehead is a spiritual person and is married to a doctor who also has a vocation to help people. Perry is a terrific writer, and I slow down my reading to savor the plot and details. I want to keep this book going for a while.

Wandering Along the. Path: Right Speech

I didn't want to hear the outcome of the Rittenhouse trial and I really, really, really don't want to hear the outcome in the Arbury trial. Accountablility is not a currency in our culture right now. Fearful people with guns terrorize all of us. They cannot see the humanity in others, because they live inside a vortex of fear of "other". Other is who the rest of us are. When I went back to the tiny town in Virginia where I'd lived for six years as a child, I expected changes, attutudes transformed. But when a childhood friend hosted a dinner party for me, the guests made fun of my being from the west coast, and therefore probably liberal, and taunted me several times because I was the fool, for believing in equality and justice, the definition of each being so different from their take on it. I remembered when we moved fifty years ago, there was much gossip and rumor that my mother had dyed purple hair and other bizarre stories. In fact my mother was battling brain cancer and suffering horribly, and so was our dad and my brother and I. We were not surfing or smoking dope or having wild parties. But we were no longer in the South, so we became alien. I pray with all my heart that my grandchildren don't have to live in such a polarized, paranoid culture. Because fear is the danger, and it results in acts that murders the souls and sometimes bodies of people we won't bother to understand or empathize with others.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

As we were walking this morning, my husband and I argued about the film "Hostiles", starring Wes Studi, Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike. Set in New Mexico after the Civil War, when the military was tasked with subduing the Native tribes, it illustrates what "hostiles" means at different points to different people. The Captain, Bale, is enraged with Natives for the slaughter of his fellow soldiers, but he has also learned their languages. He is charged by Presidential order to accompany Yellow Hawk (Studi) and his family to Montana where his ancestral lands are and he wishes to be buried (he has cancer). On the way they rescue a pioneer woman who has gone crazy after her husband and three children are slaughtered by Natives, though not Yellow Hawk's people. She hates all Natives, but along the journey she comes to like and respect Yellow Hawk and his people. There is a prisoner who hates and kills all Natives, and disturbs them all. After various adventures they reach the sacred land and bury Yellow Hawk, but soon after a man and his two sons ride up and threaten the group, and won't read the order of the Federal Government far away. They open fire and they are killed but so is all Yellow Hawk's family except for his young grandson, whome the widow protects. My husband hates the ending. But I argue with the shifting meaning of hostile, it opens the film up to not race against race but people filled with hate against those wishing to judge others on their behavior, not their race or situation. Both Bale and Pike grow and change, and in the last scene along with the boy, get on a train for back east to attempt a new life. So I like the symbolism but he hates that the Native women and son were killed. But that is accurate. Some whites were indiscriminate about killing women and children, as were some tribes. It's vicious, but the truth.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I took a walk with a friend this morning and for once we ignored Covid and updates of our kids and talked abouthe t the beautiful fall weather, the leaves, and holiday plans. They are having Thanksgiving on Angel Island, which they will sail to in their boat. Then for Christmas they will meet with all three of their kids in La Paz for a week of sailing there. Needless to say, they are very active and adventurous. She is from Switzerland and he from here, but his parents were German immigrants, so they are at home in the world. I think they met in Italy. And as I say this, I realize that I was adventurous myself, marrying at nineteen and after college graduation getting on a plane for the other side of the world, Fiji, and living and teaching high school there for several years, so I was very like them, without the sailing. Getting outside the box is a revelation, and I've been immensely grateful for that jolt ever since. But boats, well, I never met a boat I couldn't get seasick on.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I are trying to take photos out of albums and sort through, get rid of photos that won't mean anything to our kids, and cull out the views of mountains, waterfalls, etc. It's a huge undertaking, and it's going to take a lot of hours. Also, though the plastic containers said each would hold 1600 photos, no way, Jose. I'll have to buy more. My husband has been more disturbed by this process than I am. He slept badly the first night we'd worked on the project. I'm letting go, knowing how little of these family documents will be interesting to my kids and grandkids. And that's okay. Look ahead, not back, I figure. The photos won't tell the story, and neither will any other documents. We will be a mystery, as my parents are to me, and their story about us will change as they age, as my story about my family has filled out, become more complicated and yet still incomplete. I added to my parents' story by asking relatives close to them after they were dead. But my parents were all about the future, and kept no mementos of the past. They were both so poor as kids that there really weren't mementos, and when their parents died they inherited little, and didn't want much of that. They were all about the new. I'm more historically minded, but I'm not certain my kids care. And that is fine with me. I'm complicated, mysterious, even to myself, and looking back on other decades of my life, I barely recognize myself. I couldn't explain myself if they asked!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was feeling very grateful today for my women's group, which began a couple of years ago when a friend and neighbor suggested it as a way of coping with Covid and aging issues. We each asked two people to join, but one of hers declined, so I was able to ask a third person. We sat huddled in back yards in masks and down coats, finally, the last few months, as we are all fully vaccinated, without masks and sometimes inside if it's raining. I really bear my soul to them, and their support is invaluable to me. My frend who walked with me to the hostess' house and back, said she I come to appreciate the group and how much she looked forward to it. It kind of snuck up on us, how much we've banded together. We talk about our kids, our grandkids, or health, the worries about our friends' health, Covid and travel. I actually feel I can say anything to them. I'm not my usual guarded self. And I really care about them and their struggles. What a blessing.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer the same time as my daughter has just been given a diagnosis of metatasized cancer in the liver. Her case, six years ago, was so unworrisome that the stage was 0-1 and she had radiation, no chemo. It's a stunner, and she is being brave and hopeful, but her husband has serious health issues and is a few years older, and I'm sure they both expected she would be his caretaker, and now this. My heart aches, and I hate breast cancer and the havoc is recks on women. It comes out of left field, and swallows you up. Being a witness, as I said to another friend, is

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm feeling a bit like I'm reeling from blows of one sort or another. You know how things come in threes? Well this is way more than three. I'm trying to settle in my equanimity, but there have been little health scares, big ones, the memorial service to get through and then thank all the participants, our credit card needing to be replaced (long story), health scares of friends, struggles of grown kids, worry over grandkids, and then the rain/flood conumdrum. I want to escape, then the phone rings, and my heart begins pounding. This time of life, I know, is when health of self and friends is relentlessly troublesome, and also the kids begin worrying and trying to micromanage our lives. It hurts our feelings, and yet, they mean well. I didn't go through this with my parents, because they died at 61 and 65, but even the little I had to take over in my father's case, offended him, like power of attorney and how I wouldn't take the furniture in their house before he was even dead. I teased him that we'd have no where to sit if I did, but he wanted to know that his possessions had value. He was letting go and not letting go. Maybe that's what I'm doing as well. Trying to take care of myself mentally has been hard lately, with all the crises and the splintering of my attention. I want to rescue and every single problem cannot be fixed by me. Prayer, that's about all I've got. Frustrating.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I spent the middle of yesterday doing cosy things. I had lunch with my Buddhist swim buddy at a Thai place she loves to eat, comforted with the suchi like rolls with a crunchy center. We took a long time to eat and catch up. Then I declined going back to her place, two blocks away and instead stopped by the yarn shop and picked out bright yellow and bright lime green yarn so I can get back to my therapy knitting. Then I stopped at the bookstore there, and chatted with two women about "The Other Black Girl", which I loved when I read it. I searched for two old Lisa Gardner mysteries, and John Grisham's new legal thriller, and lugged the two shopping bags back to the car. I came home and read and made dinner of chicken quesadillas and we watched "Seabisquit". I love that movie, just as I loved horse stories as a child. Though my parents couldn't afford riding lessons for me, I made sure my first two kids had lessons starting in kindergarden and first grade. They did western riding for five years, then, when we moved to Colorado, switched to English riding, and our older daughter continued it through college. She was on the equistrian team. I empathasize more with horses and other animals than with people, I sometimes think. The movie is perfectly cast and with the narration by David McCullough, it is a heartfelt experience. I cry a lot anyway these days, but my tears watching the little horse with a big heart are relieving. My Buddhist name, given me when I took my vows over thirty years ago, is "Great heart, silence perserverence". I try to keep my heart open at all times.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I took a two hour walk with a friend today, one who had been gone for couple of weeks. We ended up sitting on a fence and crying. She lost her mother at the beginning of Covid, not from the virus. I lost my daughter soon after. We grieve together. She loved my daughter and I loved her mother, so we feel freed up to open our ragged hearts and just MISS them. I'm glad she's back. Sorrow is or can be shared, and I'm so grateful I have people to whom I am not embarassed to reveal that entirely moving on is not an option. The pain comes back like a rogue wave, sometimes when you least expect it. But there is so much love in my life that I am anchored and mostly steady.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I took a long walk in the fall sunshine today. The leaves are gold and red and falling now. The persimmon tree in our backyard is dropping huge golden leaves. My eyes are much better and we're thinking of gifts for the holidays and foods to prepare. Our youngest grandson trick or treated with skeleton pjs on, the second youngest was a caterpillar for a second year, the third was a vampire, and the fourth a cat for the second year in a row. I have no idea what my teenage granddaughter did, and will have to beg for a photo I guess. I've already put up Thanksgiving decorations and put away Halloween ones. Today I found a huge persimmon in the yard, and when it ripens, what a treat! My husband doesn't like them, but I am a big fan. I used to make persimmon bread and pudding but there is no one to eat it. There are lots of sugary challenges for a diabetic this time of year, but I control myself. But gee, a piece of pumpkin pie sure would be nice.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a bit of sun today, but it's still pretty gloomy. I went with a friend for a walk, which helped, then to the grocery store to get stuff. I had bought two coucous salads there, and it was so nice to have something I had not prepared. Tonight we're having Coq au Vin, which is easiest dinner to make. I wish my husband could cook, but he's tried, and several friends have tried to teach him, to no avail. He can make salads, and cook turkey bacon and do a mean grilled cheese sandwich. But anything else requires twice the time as doing it myself, because I have to instruct him every step of the way. I send him out to pick up food. But he cannot plan a meal at all. He also doesn't plan outings, or walks or gardens or anything. Yet he's not passive, and he will get up and go most places if I ask him to, but there isn no initiation. He was raised by a strong grandmother, and he just goes with the flow. At least around outings and cooking. He resists all change, out of anxiety. I pick my battles on changes and otherwise do my own thing, with my friends. That's how we cooperate. Our big compatibility was travel and art, and Covid has swept that away, but hopefully we'll resume gradually. He's got his Covid booster appointment Saturday, then we're good to go.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had to see the eye doctor again this morning, and again he was reassuring. I had this shadow thing that will take 6-12 months to go away, and now I have a syndrome that causes my brain to push up images onto my eyesight unbidden, but it will too hopefully fade. See him again in three months and try not to stress about it. In my case, seeing is not believing, and my brain wants to fill in the images that the shadow obscures. Don't believe what you see. The brain is an amazing, crazy, astounding thing! Mine especially. So don't listen to a thing I say, because what do I know?! We had a few trick or treaters last night, as we watched Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein". It seemed quite male adolescent oriented, but the silliness looked like it was fun to make. Great art it's not, but that wasn't what we were aiming for. Now it's November and panic time for the holidays.