Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Agnes Varda was an amazing filmmaker.  Her last film, "Faces Places" was delightful, playful and full of what makes us older gals interesting:  collaborating with and understanding youth (she worked with the artist JR on this film), letting her own buoyant nature bubble up with playfulness, her ability to engage with all kinds of people, and her self exposure as the director.  You come out of the movie smiling.  Her half gray half magenta hair tops a body short and chubby and solid.  This woman is grounded.  Of course she could relate to the blue collar workers she highlights in this film.  Her empathy and openness are refreshing.  You trust her.  She had an extraordinary life, and influenced many artists.  She lived long and prospered.  She was becoming more and more famous each year.  And she did it all her way.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I wait and wait for a new book from the mystery writer Harlan Coben.  Finally his latest came out this month and I devoured it.  "Run Away" is another domestic mystery which features ordinary people, put in extraordinary situations.  I always love the protagonist, in this case a father of three in Manhattan, and his tugs and pulls mirror mine.  My favorite Coben books are with the protagonist Myron Bolitar, a NBA basketball star whose knee is injured enough he cannot play any longer and he becomes a sports agent.  His goofy staff and weird best friend and adorable parents only prove his likeableness, and the mystery part is first rate.  This new novel involves a teenage daughter who suddenly drops out of college and becomes a drug addict.  The why and how of that transformation drives the plot, as her parents struggle to make life normal for the younger two kids while searching for her and attempting to get her out of the life in which she's drowning.  The book is filled with heart and at the center is her dad, who cannot give up on her.  He enters upon a strange set of circumstances, and the twists just keep on coming.  I needed this distraction this week, as we wait to hear about our daughter's MRI.  Come to think of it, now, this minute, I get why this was the perfect book:  parents worried about their daughter.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm feeling like all my friends right now have heavy loads to bear:  elderly parents, family dying, health issues of their own, and coming to grips with the aging process in themselves.  My gratitude journal last night had a prompt that asked me when was the last time a person met a need of mine unasked, and I struggled to come up with something.  When I did, it was something my younger son had offered to help me with three months ago.  I was a bit stunned, then realized my friends have so much on their plate, and are so weary from the demands of their families and personal situations that they don't have the "juice" to offer unasked.  And I am the same.  That flame is really low right now.  I'm glad I volunteered to help with a foundation that serves youth, but my friend had to ask me, I did not offer unasked.  This is not who I want to be, so now that I'm conscious of it, I'm going to make the effort to offer help to my friends and family by noticing, really noticing their needs.  Not big stuff, necessarily, but the help that shows I'm aware of them and their struggles.  I need to wake up a bit more.  There is one friend I offer help unasked, and that is because she does the same for me.  We are currently attuned.  She usually doesn't accept, but she knows I'm ready and willing.  Now I want to extend that openheartedness to the rest of my world.  Being careful not to do so much I drain myself.  It's a fine balance.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm exhausted, but in that mellow, dippy, happy way.  We returned yesterday from our anniversary weekend away with our entire family.  Yesterday afternoon we put our older daughter and granddaughter on the plane back to their home.  We saw Captain Marvel and stuffed ourselves with popcorn.  Though we were without a phone at home last week, we managed to have them reconnect us right as the plane was landing for us to pick up our daughter and granddaughter, and we went to the Monet exhibit that afternoon, then saw our younger son for dinner that night.  The next morning our younger grandson was dropped off early, and we all headed to the California exhibit at the zoo, then had lunch and drove in the rain to our getaway destination.  All twelve of us had a great celebratory meal that night, and the next day we lounged and swam at the mineral hot springs pool, then had another meal at a different Inn that night.  The next day we swam in the morning, packed up, ate at a bistro, then drove to the petrified forest and had a lovely hike and lots of two and three year old bungling as well, then we all headed back here.  I bought petrified polished stone hearts for the three grandchildren.  It seemed the perfect gift.  My heart is very full with the blessings of my dear family.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My younger son and his wife texted us last night asking for family names of males.  They had already gotten the names of her family.  It was kind of fun looking up my family tree again, and as my mother was one of thirteen children, it brought up a lot of memories.  I have many uncles, and I included the grandfathers.  If I'd listed male cousins it would have been a epic account, but since I'm mainly close to one male cousin and one female cousin, and the rest are vague memories, I didn't burden them with a mountain of names.  Many of the cousins are named after their fathers, so it might not have been as varied as possible.  But remembering the faces of favorite uncles, some of whom are dead, really brought up warm memories, and one uncle and cousin had a name I really love.  But I didn't editorialize.  Let them see if anything appeals.  It's really interesting to me what my kids name their kids, and I stay out of the selection.  My mother wanted me to name my younger daughter after her mother, but it was also my husband's mother's name, and he had a troubled history with her.  I now regret not giving her at least that name as a middle name, because we gave our younger son my dad's name as a middle name.  Actually, my real regret is I didn't give our daughter MY mother's name, as I've always loved it.  Either her first or middle is lovely.  Instead her middle name is from a friend I haven't seen in two decades.  Oh, dear.  Life does play jokes on us.  When my daughter married, she took her husband's last name and made her maiden last name her middle name.  So she efficiently got rid of the lost friend.  There you go!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had a lovely day yesterday, attending my daughter-in-law's baby shower with my daughter and other daughter-in-law.  The mother-to-be looked beautiful and so very happy.  Then I played with my two grandsons for a couple of hours at my daughter's house.  I came home and read until we went to our dear friends' newly renovated house for dinner.  We hadn't gotten together in a while, and it was great to catch up.  It was a day of connection.  In between, my older son, his wife and our older grandson went to my favorite bookstore, seven houses away, and we each picked out a fairy series for the grandson, as he is very big on fairies these days.  He went home with three sets of seven books.  I did this with my granddaughter and foster granddaughter, so its my tradition, and last year we had a scare that the bookstore would close, but neighbors invested in it to keep it open.  It's a mystery/scifi/fantasy bookstore, with a huge inflatable dragon out front.  Inside is chaos, but cosy, with books spilling from everywhere and stacked on the floors.  You have to go up narrow stairs to the second floor to get to the children's books, but the owner has everything you can imagine and didn't know was ever written.  We got down on our bellies to find the fairy shelf, and there were many complete sets just on that topic.  It's a magical mystery tour, that bookstore, and I treasure it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, the black blanket may be gone, but I wonder if it forecast the terrible tragedy in New Zealand.  I have relatives there, though not in Christchurch, and since I married a Muslim in 1965, and though we are long divorced and he died decades ago, I keep connected with my Muslim relatives, especially the ones where I live, and I feel devastated for them.  When I married my first husband, no one blinked twice at his Muslim heritage, including my parents.  They never once spoke to me about it, and when they visited us in Fiji they also saw many of our family there, without prejudice or any mark of judgment.  But after 9/11 and other events, people have confused terrorists with ordinary Muslims from all nations, who have no agenda and no quarrel with others.  My Fiji relatives immigrated here to escape persecution there, and now, ironically, they are nervous here as well.  Because they are labeled with a cause they do not represent, and because they practice their religion.  When I married the first time, I loved the generosity of spirit and concern for the poor that Muslims practiced.  Some of their cultural customs were uncomfortable for me, but not their attention to kind behavior.  Their ban on drinking and other bad behavior was appealing to me.  I often joked I was a better Muslim than my husband.  And I've respected those who are religious ever since, whatever their faith.  And an overwhelming majority of Muslims do as well.  Terrorism is not religion.  Killing is not a precept of Islam.  These terrorists in New Zealand are violent, cruel anti-Muslims.  But they'd find a target in any time and place, in order to spread their hatred and nilism.