up n' down

I've been gone for a while. Out of the country. In Switzerland and Italy. Visiting my beautiful daughter. Climbing upstairs and downstairs... the difference between Phoenix, Arizona and where I've been for the last ten days as far as I am concerned. Phoenix is flat... even the hilly parts are flat, or have been made flat... In Geneva, in Italy, nothing was flat. Stairs everywhere. Liz is four flights up. Every hike we took involved stairs. Walks through town, into and out of the hotels, all stairs. I lost four pounds from all the climbing up and down, but also did a number on my knee, so that the last four days of my stay I felt limpy and gimpy. Still it was wonderful
And I did find one flat place to sooth my feet... but I didn't get to stay there for too long.

We started at ocean level and came up, then dropped back down... then up and down a couple more times. No wonder Europeans tend to be slender... but look at the view. This rusty thing I'm standing by has handles, can you see them? A motor bike of some kind that was reused as some kind of motorized pulley system . Beautiful day and second day of our walk from one end of the Cinque Terre to the other and back again.

Villages and paths hanging onto cliffs overlooking the blue Mediterranean. Spectacular views... and being able to do it with this used-to-stairs-now daughter of mine was wonderful.

I got back to Phoenix Tuesday night. Wednesday, three times I walked out of my house to the car, got in, and went on one errand or another, got back in my car and then walked the twenty or so steps back into my house. If I'd been at Liz's I would have had to climb down four flights of stairs, walk to the store or bus stop, walk back to the apartment house, up for flights of stairs before I was in the apartment. Kind of an eye-opener for me.

I've been recovering from jet-lag and still nursing my knee, but I need to get moving. I need to build climbing up and down back into my life style... there are ways, I tell myself...

what I'm thinking about

I'm thinking about my trip and trying to look forward to putting on jeans and -gulp!- support pantyhose for the 17 hour plane ride... My sister tells me the support hose will leave me feeling energetic and with no swollen ankles when I land in Geneva... she better be right.

I'm thinking about the kids the teachers tell me are rats when they drop them at the door and they are never the ones who turn out to be rats for me... and how I wish they would never do that.

I'm thinking about the bailout and debt and this never ending campaign that leaves me on pins and needles. I'm thinking about where I will spend election night... not home this time... I want to be with other Obama supporters for this one. Where are Obama people gathering on election night?

I'm thinking about Pete who has had a fever and a rash and a little kindergartner who was stung by a scorpion that was in her hair!!!

I'm thinking about the things I don't want to forget and things I am sick of thinking about.

I'm thinking that since I took that writing workshop I have absolutely nothing to say and that I find myself boring and redundant.

I'm thinking about how much I love tempera paint and how glad I will not have to mess with it for a couple weeks.

I'm thinking I need a manicure and an eyebrow wax.

And last, I'm thinking about Fabian, who when I told them to draw a picture of their family and to include pets, drew a picture of an elephant who he told me slept with him and loved peanuts... isn't that great?

happy ending

I met Natalie and Joe this summer in water aerobics. They're in love... crazy, sweet sixteen kind of love... smile at each other silly kind of love... blind to everyone else kind of love... and I think they are about 76, 77 years old... you really feel good just being around them.

Tonight, at our end-of-season BBQ I asked Joe how they met... and he said in high school. They dated for four years in high school... but he went one way for college and she went the other and then the Korean war broke out and he was sent to Korea and when he came back things had happened and Natalie had married Hank, another guy they'd gone to high school with.

Then he and his wife attended their fiftieth high school reunion and he saw Natalie and she saw him. Within four years later both of their spouses were deceased and within months they were together. Natalie has told me she has never been happier in her life. I should tell her it is obvious...

Natalie then tells me this happens. A friend of hers had dated a guy in high school who became a Jesuit priest. She had married and divorced four times, Nat says, trying to find the right guy. A friend of his who knew her encouraged him to call her and he did. When they met they flew into each other's arms... each other was what they had been missing.

The Britcom, Time Goes By was on last night. I think I've seen every episode at least twice. When Lionel bumps into Jean, three decades have gone by. They have misfires and misunderstandings but attraction wins out in the end and in their bumbling, stiff way they end up together.

Lately I have found myself trying to just live today. Trying hard to not think, not dream and for God's sake not speculate on what I am or am not hearing... but today it has been particularly difficult.

the workshop

Spent the weekend in Sedona. Inside. It was beautiful outside, but I was inside. Inside a theater/lecture hall of the Red Mountain High school for two full days taking a workshop with Natalie Goldberg.

I learned some important rules:
use a fast pen. continue no matter what. keep your hand moving. don't be tossed away. don't cross out. be specific. write from your whole body. figure out what your obsessions are. tell the truth. lose control. read it aloud. it is not a precious something... it is just writing!

Some words I heard:
I stopped sleeping on Sundays. symbolic pools of blood. Ramon brought me back to life. they were not killers. I was a hog man. six months away from a heart attack. it's coming and it's coming today. red grass. one, two, three. is is is unraveling. dumb and slow. fuck. all the different kinds of years. my heart is as full now as my desire was full then. he didn't know he was beautiful. unballing.

Some words I wrote:
I didn't have a camera or maybe the energy to pull one out. in the midst of this somberness were light and life. whatever it is, it is not the future. begin to think about the important parts, like shoes. now I'm thinking about it. flotilla of mushroom. polished skull. her neck in cinnamon warmth. light cast with a shade of cool. rough skinned and still cool after all these hours of resting next to my water bag. peel-pull, break off a segment. sits like plates, cockeyed and stacked in the sand. the woosh of snow as it leaves the shovel. soaked through, teeth chatter, can't even talk.

not much else to say right now, but I think you could start in any one of these places and there would be possibilities.

spinach pie and other food for the soul

Cooking is not my first love. I find it nearly impossible to follow a recipe, usually adding or substituting something along the way. The other day I made spinach pie and added some grated zucchini which made it a bit soggy but added little to the flavor and a whole wheat crust, but apparently these additions satisfied my need to dink around in the kitchen... and the outcome was good.
But as usual, too large for one person, so I have been on a spinach pie diet most evenings this week. I've found that a dash of Tabasco really adds to it, and last night I included a dollop of sour cream which wasn't as good as plain yogurt might have been.

While I eat my spinach pie I have been reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, as I will be attending her workshop this weekend. Now that is food for the artistic soul.

She wrote the most amazing thing: The problem is we think we exist.

Don't you love that?! I've been toying it with it all day.

this is about me

Seems this last week strife and conflict has erupted all around me. A friend of mine lost his job, several people at work are bent out of shape, there are pastor/parish conflicts where I attend church and since the Republican convention the tone of the presidential campaign is about anything but the issues.

Often when these kind of things have cropped up around the outskirts of my life I have wondered what to do. How do I effect change? How do I resolve conflict? When do I stand back, when do I step up? Most things I've learned are beyond my control. Most of the time the best thing I can do is bear witness, pray, and live in compassion. Most of the time I am okay with this, understanding that my ability to send love, compassion, and hope to a situation is the way I best serve it. And that is what I will do, except in this one case. Barack Obama.

I am going to work the call centers for Obama, and in fact, today have been calling people in his Neighbor to Neighbor program. For the past two presidential elections I have voted, I have prayed, I have put bumper stickers on my car and endured people driving by shouting obscenities at me, and I have sent money. In the two prior presidential elections I have been disappointed by the outcome. I do not want the same thing to happen again. Obama is right. This is not about him. This is about me.

I want a country my grandson's can grow up in and be free to express their opinions, disagree, without someone else shouting them down and calling them names. I want a country where every family can have a doctor and every child is provided the best health care available. I want a country where people can earn a decent wage for an honest days work. I want to live in a country that realizes we must love out neighbor as ourselves regardless of his faith, age, nationality, color of his skin, or sexual preference, and find a way to live and flourish while remaining constant to that golden rule. I want to live in a country where being educated, innovative and thoughtful are not only valued, but considered essential. I want a country that looks beyond the moment and considers the future when it makes decisions on the environment, military action, and social reform. I want a country that cherishes values but understands that core values can be nurtured in diverse beliefs.

I believe that Barack Obama would stand with me on these issues, that he would listen, that he would refine what I have only roughed out. His opponent would not.

I don't expect a free ride. I don't think these things will be easily come by. I think it will take years of hard work and no little sacrifice to make all I can see for this country, for my grandchildren, happen. But I believe the American people are equal to the task if we tell them the truth. If we explain the steps we need to take to get from here to there. I am done with fear and manipulation. We are a great nation only when we think great thoughts. The time is now. We have waited nearly too long as it is.

My sister told me Obama needs to get tough and attack back and I asked her if that is really what we want from him. Win at any cost? Win even if you have to hit as low as your opponent? I don't know. I don't think we really win when we play their dirty games.

But this is important. Too much is at stake to let this election slip through our fingers. I have to stand up and do what I can.

food

I have noticed that I have not been eating well. Oh, I do all right for breakfast and lunch. For breakfast I eat basically the same thing every day, and lunch I pack in to school and it usually involves a salad and rice or beans or hummus, and maybe a small granny smith apple. Almonds to snack on, or maybe half of one of those new protein bars. But it is dinner I have really been slip-sliding through. I eat with disinterest and I am beginning to think, poor judgement. I eat like I don't really care about myself and this has got to stop. I have this really beautiful kitchen now and I feel like I'd like to begin celebrating it and myself with delicious, healthy food.

This morning I browsed through my Real Food Daily and Vegetarian cookbooks and began to look at some of the beautiful, healthy entrees I find there. I tend to like the vegetarian cookbook better - fewer, simpler ingredients and plus they are smaller, so I don't feel like I need to throw a party to get rid of all the food - and identified a couple things I'd like to begin with. A spinach pie or a tomato feta pizza. Each easy and straight forward and nutritious... the protein-carb-fat ratio is within the realm of acceptable. And they look yummy and just right for still hot late September in Arizona.

I need to clean this desk I am sitting at, and the whole room really, then clean my refrigerator, which still has not been organized since the remodel. After that I will know what ingredients I need to produce my first dish.... I think the spinach pie....

I want this to be a new leaf I am turning over. One that says I value myself and I am worth beautiful healthy meals every day.

peace, love and vote Obama : )