Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Last week, when I went to Sherman Oaks to get my hair done, I remembered why I drive so far every few weeks to get my hair (ahem) "back to natural."  My hairstylist, a very pleasant older woman, reminds me very much of Rafael's aunt: caring, nurturing, feeding.  She is impeccably on time and there is never any drama.  When I arrive, she is ready for me and we share a few pleasantries, then it is quiet enough for me to read my book or magazine, and my hair is perfectly colored, trimmed and blown out in an hour.  Plus, she's next door to Starbucks.  All told, it's a delightful experience each and every time.


And so last week, as I waited for my roots to return to a color better than gray, Parvan quietly handed me a cup full of mulberries.  "Just like last year," she said.  "They're back in season."


I took the first bite and I remembered them, all too well.  Last year, I had called her in a panic to please do my hair before Max's funeral.  I didn't know her, but she was conveniently located and highly recommended by a friend.  Grieving, I just went with it, called her, set up an appointment.


While my hair processed, I answered sympathy texts and listened to sad voicemails, but I could hardly talk.  Mostly, I just cried.  Quietly, Parvan came over, humbly offering me a plate of juicy red and purple mulberries from a tree in her yard. I remember that I had to wear sunglasses because my face was so flushed and tear-stained.  "I've never had them," I said, sniffling.  "Are they good?"


She shrugged sweetly.  "Try them," she said, nudging the plate at me.  


Mulberries have small berries along a 3- or 4-inch stem, and they are sweet without being too tart.  Almost like a cross between a sweet red grape and a blueberry, but not as juicy.  I devoured them, even as tears pooled over the plate. I'd sob, and eat another, then sob some more, then eat another.  Even I knew there was nothing more to do.  Just go with it.  Be with this moment.  It will pass.


And somehow a year has passed.  I only know because Parvan's mulberries are back in season and now Max's grave has a headstone.  I find it interesting that my grief has a taste, but it does.

Passages

It's always interesting to me that I think about upcoming life passages so far in advance that I can forget about them and they will still surprise me when they happen.  For instance, when all of the kids were babies, I had thought, "When Marlowe's about 5, Serena will be 8 and Emme will be 9, so that would be a good time to go to Europe."  And now it's been nearly a year since we went... POOF!  Like a dream, the year has passed.

Similarly, when Marlowe was born, I had dreamed of the days when she would be in school with her sisters.  As a mom of three, I was excited that there would be 2 solid years when all three kids were at the same school.  Somehow, life kept me distracted and I was brushing my teeth the other night and realized that those 2 years are now coming to a close. In just over 2 weeks, Emme will be done with elementary school and she and Marlowe will never be at the same school again.  Sure, Mar will have Nina nearby, but it's not the same as Marlowe having her oldest sister with her.  For a 1st grader, it's been a big deal for her friends to see her hugging and hanging out with 5th grade girls.  For Emme, it's a chance to have someone look up to her in a real way; Serena is so close in age to Emme that she scoffs at Emme's authority, but Marlowe doesn't.  I had been so focused on Emme's passage into a new chapter that I nearly missed out on Marlowe's.  And my own, as a mom with "older" kids (meaning: not babies).

Life happens when you least expect it, doesn't it?  I suppose it's one of the things I like most about it.  The surprise, even after all these years.

Growing Up

Two very significant things that I have been waiting for – for a long time, each of them – happened this week, within days of each other.  The first is, my birth father found me.  The more important one is, my cat died.

I hadn’t seen or heard from my birth father since I was a baby.  So for all intents and purposes, I really never knew him.  He and my mom were married when she was 20, then she had my brother – BOOM! – and then me a year later – BOOM! BOOM! And by age 23, they were no longer together.  A lot of shit happened in-between and I have surreal memories of him being abusive to my mom.  My mother, who was very young and beautiful even with two very small babies, got remarried when she was 25 and my brother and I were raised by a loving father who gave us everything we ever needed or wanted.  He and my mom are still very happily married. 

It has taken me nearly 40 years (and a lot of therapy and yoga and deep breathing) to excuse my birth father for his absence, although I feel as though I can attribute a great deal of my inner self-loathing and former perfectionist tendencies to his abandonment.  When my dad read me the letter that my birth father had sent to my mom via Facebook, I felt ready to hear it.  I was not destroyed or confused or… anything.  I was very surprised by my reaction, which was kind of a shoulder shrug and head leaning, my eyebrows pinched together as my brain processed it.  Huh.  That’s all I felt at first.  Huh.  It was precisely the same reaction I’d have if someone told me that they’d run into my old boyfriend.  Is that so?  Huh.  Another shoulder shrug, then onto the next thing.

I won’t lie: I also went through a very quick series of feelings that ranged from anger to disbelief to disappointment.  But I didn’t feel like my core was shaken.  If anything, I felt like I was more “me” than I ever had been.  All this time, I’d thought knowing that my birth father was out there or looking for me would do something… I don’t know if I expected unicorns to blow rainbows or bubbles out of their horns or lollipops to rain from the sky, but all I know is that it didn’t.  Instead, I felt like this person I’d become in 39 short years was just a small part nature (the DNA that he and my mom had contributed), a bigger part nurture (the family and environment that I’d grown up in) and the majority was self-evolved and created through hard work and dedication to learning about my own human spirit through the very act of living.  And so this letter, which upset my mother because she thought it would mean he was going to “take us away” (never gonna happen), really had very little impact. 

And so the day ended.  

The next day, however, it became clear that my cat Bootsie may not live through the weekend.  There are medical details and there were sad choices to make – I won’t elaborate on them here because it’s still too fresh and I’m too sad to make sense of it – but I decided it would be best to let my beloved cat go.  She was nearly 19 for god’s sake, much older than many animals ever get to live (too bad I didn’t fall in love with a Galapagos turtle, I suppose).  It was time. 

I sat in the vet’s office this morning before 8 am, knowing that I had to be the one to choose her fate: live uncomfortably or die compassionately.  Be a grown-up, I told myself.  This is what your life is about.  You cannot let this moment be chosen by someone else besides you and Bootsie.  And so I said goodbye to her, hoping she could understand me as I said, Come back to me.  Hoping, of course, that my fairytale of reincarnation is true.

After they took her back to put her to sleep – I couldn't make myself go with her, it was hard enough to know I’d been the one to end her life – it was only about two minutes before they brought her back to me in a box (so that I could take her home to bury her in my yard). They said she hadn't struggled a bit.  They said she seemed like she knew it was time.  

As I took the box, which was still warm on the bottom from the life slowly escaping her body, and slowly walked to my car, I was flooded with memories. I used to, for instance, serve her water in a crystal goblet.  She ate dinner on the table next to me. She came to me the weekend I moved into my first apartment in Hollywood and survived my crazy single girl years, then my marriage, then my kids, then our move (in which she traveled with us from temporary house to temporary house magnificently, even as we grieved over Max, until we arrived home).  She is a part of me and I am (I’m sure of it) a part of her.  She tolerated Raf and the kids and the dog, but she loved me.  Only me.

The point of this missive is merely that we choose the ones that we love.  We don’t have to be obligated to give emotion or power to the people or things that have not nurtured or loved us back.  This week, I learned to call a duck a duck – my birth father will never be my dad, although I am grateful for the part his DNA played in my creation – and I allowed myself the space to impart the ultimate act of kindness and love for my beloved cat. I don’t know if either one is the “right” choice, but they are my choices and I feel like I must be growing up because I feel like I can stand tall next to them.

Amen!

I just happened upon this gem from Ira Glass of This American Life.  I soooo needed it....

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.


— Ira Glass 

How I Spent My Spring Vacation

Generally, I don't talk a lot about my writing.  There's not a lot to tell, really.  I write, ideas flow (or they don't) and then I get distracted.  Or there's laundry to do.  Or I have to run to pick up the kids because I've been so lost in thought and words that the scant time I have alone has flown at an exponential speed. 


That being said, I still won't divulge much about my current project, except that I was utterly inspired by Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga.  Before you get all eye-rolly with me: No, it's not about vampires. Or werewolves.  I love that stuff as much as the next tween (or her mom) but those things aren't even on the periphery of my project.  


Instead, a few years ago I was told by a friend in my writing group (who was utterly, involuntarily gripped by the Twilight series for several weeks of her life) that she felt my writing voice when she read the books.  "I know it's not the same," she said as our group dispersed into the late Encino evening, scratching her head, amazed that we were two women in our, ahem, late 30s/early 40s discussing Twilight.  "But I keep hearing the way that you write in the words on the page.  It's not the same, naturally, but there's a... quality... to it that reminds me of your writing."  She shrugged, jingled her car keys. "I don't know.  What do you think?  You've read them, haven't you?"


And I hadn't.  All of my friends had already devoured them, but I just hadn't been interested.  I mean, sure, I love the movies.  Who wouldn't want to be a part of the debate Edward vs. Jacob?  It was all the rage among the women I knew.  I had even gone so far as to acquire all four of the books in the series, in hardback, because I was CERTAIN that I'd love them.


But each time I tried to read Twilight, the first book, I was so bored.  Edward, Edward, Edward.  Bella seemed like a spineless, lovesick twit.  I couldn't stand that girls everywhere were inspired by her graceless, hopelessly romantic character.  She was not the kind of female role model I wanted my own girls to emulate and, honestly, I had a hard time stomaching my time with her, even on the page.  I took the hefty book with me on countless trips, only to shove it to the bottom of my suitcase or backpack after just a page or two each time.  Instead, I chose to immerse myself in the craze of the Twilight movies, the behind-the-scenes footage, info about Stephenie Meyer, articles about the stars, a mild obsession with Taylor Lautner.  And, in the meantime, I began my own writing project.


As I packed for Palm Springs a few days ago, I realized that I had forgotten to buy People or Oprah Magazine.  I scoured my waning bookshelf (I'm hoping to buy a Kindle soon, so I'm lightening my tangible book load) for something, anything to read.  There at the bottom, below my well-worn Harry Potter series and design books I love to skim, were the Twilight books, neatly stacked in order.  I ran my index finger along the spines and decided on the last book, Breaking Dawn, to get ready for the next movie this summer.  Not like I'll even finish two pages, I thought, smirking.  Whatever.


I tossed the 700+ page book in my backpack... then took it out... then put it back in... Ultimately, with no magazine or back-up paperback in hand, I decided to take it and absent-mindedly put it under my arm on the way to the pool on the 2nd morning in the desert.


Maybe it was the absence of Bella's hand-wringing or the magical descriptions of her wedding and honeymoon, or the clever use of Jacob's POV for the middle swath of the book, or the satisfaction of seeing that Edward was finally right about Bella being an extraordinary person (jeesh! finally!), but I was hooked... to the point of getting a sunburn on my knees because I didn't want to flip over on my chaise lounge in the middle of a chapter.  It's been three days and I am nearly done -- I would have devoured it, if it hadn't been for all that crazy family stuff (dyeing Easter eggs, laundry, sleep, feeding my kids, feigning interest in the sitcoms I usually love).  


I guess the most fascinating thing to me, at this point in my writing life, is my appreciation for how well-crafted the story is.  I know that there are so many people behind the scenes here, helping Ms. Meyer to present her vision in a fully accessible way -- readers, editors, agents, copyeditors, everyone giving copious feedback and support -- but the story, and the way it foreshadows each event and how each character is so fully realized, no matter how insignificant (s)he seems, is dazzling... and I know it comes from a pure place in the author's imagination.  Sure, it's not Hemingway or Pynchon or Steinbeck.  But I don't read those authors anyway.  And I doubt I'd inhale their words in the same way that I've inhaled Breaking Dawn.


Okay, so it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Easter Sunday and I'm still in my sweatpants.  I've eaten jelly beans and chocolate eggs for sustenance and my hair is unrecognizably unruly.  But I've read 250 pages since I woke up (and that's despite spending time on an egg hunt and a morning walk and a meaningful conversation over breakfast).  And that's maybe the most important lesson I've learned, as a fledgling writer: write what you love to write. Because when you do, when you've caressed each thought with love and attention, the right person will find it and will love it as much as you do. And I suppose that's what my writing friend was trying to tell me: just write what what you want, in the way that you want to write.  The right audience will find you.


Sigh.  Enough of this writing stuff.  Gotta get back to the book...

Destination Unknown

This was written a few days ago, on Thursday, April 21st.  Due to spotty WiFi at the hotel and piles of laundry upon my return home, I am just getting around to posting it...

I have been traveling a lot this year, more than in any other year of my life.  Every 4 to 6 weeks, it seems, I’m in another fabulous place wondering, “Well, how did I get here?”

This time, I’m in Palm Springs again.  It’s just past 7 am and the kids are still sleeping.  It’s just the girls and me in the room – a deluxe patio room on the 1^st floor of the very centrally located Hotel Zoso – although we met up with friends for this short getaway.  The morning air in the desert is so alluring that, even though I could probably feign exhaustion or vacation and sleep another few minutes, I’m sitting on the covered patio and gaping at the majestic palm trees, soft pink mountain mounds rising up behind them. 

I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating that I grew up near Palm Springs.  Not as close as I’d like to believe, but about 60 miles up Hwy 60, in 29 Palms.  The interesting part is that, as hard as it is for me to visit the desert of my youth in 29 Palms – the dusty trail my brother and I walked to get to school, the hard plastic table-with-attached-bench at Foster’s Freeze that seemed to hold so much promise to a 7-year-old with serious ice cream lust, the cactus “garden” in our front yard, the fact that my childhood home became a meth house eventually – I love Palm Springs.  My car will travel the hours and distance until we arrive in Palm Springs, then stop and hover for a few days, then turn around and go back home, to MY home, the home of my choosing.

I’m digressing, however.  The occasion of this journey is one of a leap of faith.  Sure, it’s Spring Break and most people try to find at least one little getaway during the week, even if it’s to a nearby park or beach, something to take them out of the ordinary and into vacation mode.  Curiously, I hadn’t planned on any such trip for the week.  With all of the trips I’ve been taking, I guess I was just going to wait and see what happened, maybe let my kids sleep in every day, catch up on a little writing, organize a closet or two.  Here’s what happened instead…

On the very first day of school, I saw Marlowe sitting near another little girl, probably just two feet apart, and both of them were just watching the other kids play.  They were each smiling, quiet, observant.  It wasn’t sad, like they were being excluded or anything like that, but sort of sweet.  They had a nice, comfortable “being together” that I really loved.  And that girl, Bella, has become a very sweet friend of Marlowe’s. 

Okay, so you’re still with me… About a month ago, Bella’s mom and I were talking on the phone and she mentioned that she really wanted to go away during Spring Break, that she and another friend were hoping to just take their kids – no husbands – on a short trip.  A breath later, thinking aloud, she said, “Would you want to bring your girls along?  I know Bella would love having a friend there.”

Now, I don’t know Bella’s mom very well, but you know how you get a good sense about someone immediately?  Much like how I knew Bella would be a great friend for Marlowe, I just knew her mom would be a sweet, easy-to-get-along-with travel companion. I found myself saying yes, not with a question mark or a long pause, but with conviction and excitement.

Still, yesterday, as the girls and I drove from the overcast, chilly northern bits of Los Angeles to the windy Hwy 111 that leads from Interstate 10 to Palm Canyon Drive, I had a few moments of wondering, “What the heck am I doing?” 

I had to remind myself that I did the same thing – exactly – as I boarded the plane to Rome in February, and wound up having one of the best times of my entire life.  I thought about the Anais Nin quote (I’m paraphrasing here) about how the day came when it took more energy for the flower to remain tightly curled up in a bud than to bloom.  I decided to let myself bloom.  And I pointed my car and my kids toward the desert, MY desert, the desert of my choosing. 

(Postscript: By the way, it was a blast.  There was a friend for Bella’s twin brother, Bella & Marlowe were in friend heaven, and Emme & Serena enjoyed time together without a little sister tagging along every moment.  I don’t know about all of them, but this leap of faith seems to be going along fine…)

Magic Horses

"Every horse has a bag of tricks."

Marlowe's riding teacher said this gem yesterday and I wrote it down.  Somehow it seemed like it meant more about the world and life in general than just about knowing your horse's personality.