Impermanence & Possibility

I work once a week as a hospice volunteer in San Francisco.  

Today I sat at the bedside of a beautiful woman in her 60's who is dying of multiple cancers, the worse of which is bone cancer.  I learned that bone cancer is excruciatingly painful, it erodes the bones from within, and courses through the whole body relentlessly.  When I learned that the reason she couldn't stay awake this morning was because her disease was consuming her, I began to feel something inside in my own bones that softened my heart, and brought me into the present.

My god, we humans have so much difficulty to go through in life, AND we're rarely prepared for what lies ahead...

Uncertainty.  And just how we will deal with that uncertainty.

All of us want to know that what we do is going to have an effect, that what we dream will become a tangible reality, that those we love will be with us always.  And, guess what, that is not the case.

I have seen so many things in my life morph into something else.... I was a lonely child, and then not... I was married and then not ... I was a teacher and then not ... I was a jewelry designer and then.....   One of the things I have always been, it seems, is a traveler.  And now I am trying to write a story of my own journey from the time I was about 4 to the present moment.  I am hoping that this fragmented story will both teach me something and find a voice in the world at large.  I want to communicate that all our lives as human beings are ones of change and impermanence.  We all dream, and then we see what happens.

Back from my beach refuge and in my little house on the alley in San Francisco, I reposition myself to work on my book, my piano practice, feeding the wild birds in my roof garden, caring for my two cats, and being grateful that I show up each morning for a new day.

Beach refuge, the Fall, & What to Call My Book

I am coming to the end of my ten day retreat here at the beach where I set out to edit and rewrite the final chapter of my memoir.  Have abandoned my earlier critique that memoir is simply a narcissistic exercise, and have forged ahead because time is running out and I'm the only one who can tell my story.   I followed through with my plan, did the work, and managed to practice the piano, walk on the beach, and daydream while watching the wild birds come to their feeder.  A rarified opporutnity for sure.  This house sits perched over a creek, Salmon Creek, and has a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, which both inspires and distracts.  I can hear the waves crash and roar on the beach five minutes away and feel comforted that I live in the container of the natural world.  The rhythm is hypnotic at times, and I find myself slowing way down to be in the middle of everything.  The egrets swoop down and root themselves in the creek to dine, the ducks perk along, and the Canadian geese go honking overhead to some unknown destination.  The place has magic.
The air is cooler now, and the darkness descends earlier.  I've noticed how crisp everything looks in the briskness of fall, and inhale deeply to take it in.  I love this season called Fall, that time of letting go and falling away, only to be re-formed in time.
I have struggled with what to call my memoir - this fragmentary journey of the mind through my past and present.  I keep thinking I will find just the right words to capture what lurks in the book.  To that end I decided to write something I called a "preface" - a piece that summed up my thoughts about the experience of crafting this work.  And in doing this, I think I found one beautiful phrase that said something essential.

The Preface:

Pablo Neruda wrote in the beginning of his Memoirs:  "Many of the the things I remember have blurred as I recalled them, they have crumbled to dust like irreparably shattered glass."  These words come close to the sense I have about my collection of narratives -- the various momentss in time when I was a traveler that elicit both philosophical and emotional responses, that pose the questions one might ask when faced with the disturbing facts of foreign-ness, and lead back to the haunting journey that came before all of this, that tortuous path through childhood.  From the beginning I felt as though I was looking through a kaleidoscope, with beautful, seductive colored shapes of glass dancing about separately but rarely forming a solid image.  Memory is like that, I think, offering up very parrticular pictures and sensations that we believe to be real.  There is always a feeling of uncertainty and doubt that any of what I have conjured of the far past is "true."  The moments land on the page because at the time I was contemplating my story, they seemed authentic.  Anyone who has taken on the writing of memoir knows how painfully subjective and unreliable memory is.  But because I agree wholeheartedly with another great writer, Joan Didion, when she says that we write "in order to live," I place these kaleidoscope bits and pieces before you so that you can see that the beauty and chaos of one person's journey is connected to your own, and perhaps recognize yourself in this person who was compelled all her life to travel and disappear and return again to home -- and to herself.


New thought about the title of the work:

    Bowing Camels & Bloody Red Roses
  Travel and Life Seen through Shattered Glass


We do write (create) in order to live, to understand, to be complete, and we travel because in the journey we understand more clearly who we are.  Paul Theroux wrote this:  "On my own, I had a clearer sense of who I was."

Think on this, if you wish, as you pursue your own journey...

In the Land of Words and Memory

October 31, 2014


It appears that it has been almost three years since I last posted on this blog, and I'm here to try this another time, hoping that whoever read this in the past might revisit, or that I might actually find some new readers interested in one writer's reflections on journeys, books, the writing process, art, music, food, cats & elephants …. yes, just plain everyday life!

I have traveled back to Asia a couple of times, to Cambodia and Vietnam (2013), and to Burma just the beginning of this year, touching base again with a wish to understand more of Southeast Asia.  Take pictures less, and really look more.  Out of the trips to the Killing Fields in Cambodia where I grappled with death, and Hanoi where I struggled to find the legacy of the Vietnam war, eventually came a book project.  It had been brewing in me for many, many years:  "I must write a book before I die" kind of message, and I envisioned a rich collection of travel writings that would provoke any intellectual or armchair travel reader.  What happened instead is a compilation of kaleidoscopic pieces that talk not only of Paris and Bhutan and Africa, but also - and perhaps most importantly - of my past, my eccentric childhood that had always seemed a blurred landscape.  The connections between my past and my present obsession with travel started becoming very clear, with the help of writer Paul Theroux who wrote that he traveled in order to know who he was, and that any journey "out" is a journey back home…

I want to explore the process of digging into memory, of playing with what shows up, and staying confident that all of it will come together in something beautiful or at least interesting.
The writing process, the inner critic who must be understood and tolerated … the urgency of creative effort at time in life when you feel that your time is slipping away….  These are just a few of the directions I am contemplating.  When you traverse the territory of memory, you are immediately on shaky, uncertain ground.  That's both unnerving and a little exciting at the same time, because it opens the door to playing with the so-called "facts."  You must get over not begin able to remember a lot, because that's what happens to many of us, especially when we've lived a fairly long time (try 70 years!), and so you must do a dance with what you do remember, you breathe in and out and trust those creative juices, that drive to speak your truth.

Tonight is Halloween, a holiday I haven't celebrated in a long time, but one that brings to mind the world of the dead, and the spirits that lurk about us.  I believe in those spirits, for I think that it is the presence of both my grandmother and mother who have showed up for me in dreams and thoughts in the last year and half as I have been writing that have helped to point the way.

Welcome back to Mag's reflections, and may everyone be filled with wonder at the beauty of the fall...

Thanksgiving in Oregon

Oregon is cold and grey, with some intermittent moments of sun accompanied by damp chilling temps ... it is winter here, for sure, and once again the family gathers for Thanksgiving.  In a large house in the Oregon suburbs four (or is it five?) generations from two sides of the family mingle, cook, watch television, take walks, play cards, take showers, do more cooking, and play with the terminally cute schipperkee puppy called Tugboat, and the noise/energy level rises and falls, but mostly rises.
We prepared a beautiful and very generous turkey dinner, complete with several kinds of potatoes, roasted root veggies, green beans, succulent shimmering cranberry sauce, and we ate with great appreciation.  Good red wine abounded.  The talk was light, but I think the hearts were full:  of appreciation, each in our own way, for being alive, being with people who care about us, for having the abundance....  Daughter #2 whose home we inhabited made four pies.   Pie making is something she truly loves and is proud of.  Lemon, Pumpkin, Chocolate candy, Apple.  They were quite something -- a parade of pies!  This may be the only time I eat dessert, and I must -- to honor the heartful effort she put forth.
Journeyed to Portland yesterday to visit the art museum, a pristine bright, light space filled with art old and new.  The contemporary collection feels pretty significant, and my heart warmed to see some painters I knew well.  Looking at art makes me SO happy.  I feel complete.  As though this too is enough, just the way it is...  The kids tagged along of course, and occasionally related to the work on the walls.  Mostly I think they just loved walking through the spaciousness of the museum, feeling the freedom of that spaciousness.  I saw my desire to teach my family arise and I kept it as quiet as I could.  I know so much more than they do, and part of me wants to impart all that knowledge, and then, too, I have to realize that they may not need or want that information.  Knowing about art has been essential to me, from the time my mother dashed off to art school, and subsequently filled our environment with her dashing, brave abstract paintings...  It was a survival thing this relating to art.
Lunch at an upscale boisterous Peruvian restaurant in the Pearl district was a foodie's adventure.  Lots of small plates and succulent flavors, from paella to ceviche to seafood wontons and avocado stuffed with crab (oh so good!).  We ate and we ate and finished, of course, with dessert:  three kinds of creme brulee, some chocolate extravaganza, a shortbread cookie sandwiched over a rich caramel.   Then out into the chilly streets to explore this warehouse district turned upscale artsy neighborhood.  It was getting darker (our lunch had been a long and late one!) and colder by the moment, and while I wanted to relish the character of the brick buildings and interesting storefronts, ducking inside was a relief.  Cargo -- a funny eclectic store that seems like a maverick cousin of Cost Plus, and much more daring.  A sprawling warehouse of kooky, enticing, imaginative goods.  I wondered:  could one do ALL one's Christmas shopping there??
Last night we played poker, while others watched some strange sci-fi movie with very loud sound effects.  I realized in the midst of all that how sensitive I am to sound.  It's the living alone, I guess.  There was movie sound, shrieking of children sound, chips on the table sound, miscellaneous interchange at the table, occasionally the high pitched bark of Tugboat when the children screamed at their movie.  It felt like physical assault at times, and I tried very hard to roll with it, but at times I found myself reacting before I could stop myself.  When I got in my car late into the evening to motor to my very quiet motel by the river, I relished the silence - I turned the radio off, and just drove...   I LOVE quiet.
Since earlier in this visit I had finished my knitted scarf project, I had little to occupy myself with as we sat around the family room with the giant TV screen showing a movie that seemed meaningless to me.  I wondered about conversation, and why there was so little of it.  Just another moment of many where I realized what a different world I inhabit from the rest of my family.  Sitting there feeling separate, and much of the time being at ease in that separateness.... There were times when I wished I was more a part of their world or they of mine, but then I remember how impossible that really is.  And, in fact, it is NOT what we really want.  Aren't our wonderful unique differences what help us to appreciate, respect, and treasure one another?  Unconditional love is born out of that acceptance and maybe even gratitude as well!  We are all separate AND connected.  And as long as we don't expect (or crave) respect and adoration, we can simply roll with what comes in this ever changing dynamic of family...
When I return to my sleepy little house in SF, I know I will feel twinges of loneliness -- really alone once again, and in this season of darkness and the dying off of things, this season which invites melancholy no matter who you are with  (or not with!).  The 20th anniversary of my mother's death is December 1, and I will try to mark it in some ritualistic way, so the sadness doesn't envelope me, but rather so I can invoke and honor a life that gave me life.  For twenty years now I have been the matriarch in this family!  And I can't help but wonder :  how long will this continue?  Ah yes, death and dying are with me, with us, now.  BUT, I am just now reminded of the Pablo Neruda quote that Jack K. loves to offer up on retreat:  "You can pick all the flowers, but you can't stop the spring."  That sounds pretty beautiful to me right now.
May all beings find peace, joy,  light ... and the inevitable spring

Less Light, More Dark ...

The air is cooler, and the darkness is more upon us now, as the winter season makes its presence known.  This is the time of year that my old melancholia tries to nudge its way back into my life, with a free-form anxiety coming along for the ride.  I have realized that the amount of solitary time I spend is directly related to the tenacity of my dark spirits...
But this weekend I had a chance to spend time at the beach interacting with visitors coming to Salmon Creek for their "art walk," and the change in momentum is clear.  To the prevailing enthusiasm about my art (my eclectic, eccentric necklaces), I feel myself becoming animated, attending to my words, actually liking what I hear.  I feel authentic and solid in those moments.  In keeping with the ever changing nature of things, these weekend days went from grey and drizzling to bright and sunny (today), and you can feel that "nip" in the air, which is invigorating.  I go to bed listening to the roar of the ocean, and wake up to the beginnings of bird conversations, and in moving about my little house I pay close attention to the minutiae of life ... the warmth of the teacup in my hand, the ivory keys of my piano under my fingers, the smell of some exotic new soap in my bathroom, my cat posing on the windowsill in the sun ... all this and more, when I'm not ruminating about our terminal human journey.  Impermanence is with me through all my waking moments it seems, and there are many times I have a hard time opening my heart to it.
Have been reviewing my photographs recently in preparation for doing a photo show, and that has been a gratifying process : to view one's own work with objectivity and respect.  I see a thread in the work : the spiritual character of our human existence.  As I look at the Burmese children with their wide open smiles, the Bhutanese monk proudly gazing at my camera, the Balinese couple with their hands raised in prayer ... I realize the need we all have for the divine realm, that place where we are all together as members of the human family, and there is no separation, no judgment.  Which leads me to wonder whether I should move out of my hermit self, reach out more to the world, offer more of myself to life, much like I have this weekend with the art enthusiasts... Connection is a lifeline.  It vibrates.  Solitariness can be retreat -- ever so still;  one's line of sight becomes so much narrower the more time one spends alone.
Yes, now that there is in fact more darkness (the season for hibernation!), and, yes, the 20th anniversary of my mother's death, I will take some steps outward.  And I will see perhaps that I am not as alone as I believed I was.

Magpie's Beads Returns!

My website which I've been shepherding along over many months now is officially launched!  And it is quite beautiful, thoroughly personal, and a tad brainy (lots of information on beads and bead history).
The artist profile casts me as an eternal traveler, one who has been shaped in every way by all the faraway places I've visited.  To me beads are in and of themselves carriers of human history, uniting all peoples because of trade, and because of the commonality of human vision and imagination....
Take a look and see what you think!  And, I must confess I have crossed over that line that I once refused to tread:  I have created a website that actually sells the art.  I am an internet merchant!
You can find my treasures at:  www.magpiesbeads@yahoo.com

Giving Up House Decorating

How long does it really take to feather your nest, before it's ready to live in?
Woke up this morning remembering a line in a conversation with a good friend yesterday, and it went like this:  it's time to stop decorating my house and start living in it.  We were driving along the sunny Sonoma coast on our way to lunch, and the statement seemed picture perfect -- metaphoric and quite true to life at the same time.
I have been hauling all kinds of beautiful and useful things up to the beach house each time I make the journey, and then lovingly arranging them once I get there.  Then I sit back and smile happily at my ability to adorn my environment with some pizzazz!    Turns out I haven't been really LIVING in the Bodega Bay house, as much as dressing it up.  With a new laptop sitting on a brand new cherry wood desk in front of a window that opens to the creek and the magnificent wildlife, I have my working set up all ready.  And do I sit down to write, or work on my photos?  No.  Not yet.....
I have been also helping to decorate my new website - to be launched in the near future - and watching as this virtual space becomes more and more interesting, and lovely to look at.  The perky, very smart web designer is responsible for teasing out some of my quirky uniqueness, and it has been a fun journey doing this collaboration with her, and feeling inspired by the creative work I have done with beads over the years.  But, I am still decorating the house, as opposed to working in it.  I am not actively working on new pieces, claiming that I have no proper work space.  Is this a cop out?  When will I stop worrying about the particulars of the website's "look" and get down to business of making art?

Getting out to the beach with two dear friends this weekend opened up the door to DOING rather than planning and envisioning.  We sat about and knitted and talked and worked and talked, and I felt that wonderful satisfaction of creating some THING in the world -- in this instance a kooky colorful baby hat for a friend's newborn.  And as the conversations unfolded, and the life stories popped up, I realized I want to tell stories.  It is an integral part of who I am, and I want to offer  this to the world in some tangible form.  And then there's always that romantic notion of handing down one's own peculiar wisdom to future generations who might easily forget they had a remarkable great great grandmother who dared to cut her hair and smoke in the 20's, who studied classical piano, and became a liberal thinker and intellectual though she had been raised in the deep south.  Yes, stories are good.  Not only are they a gift to those who don't know, but to ourselves who find ourselves in them at every turn.
Decorating the house is like creating the beginning of a story, laying out the landscape for the narrative, and it is pretty easy to do.   If you keep returning to this, you are not moving your story forward, but you're like the writer friend of mine who when trying his hand at book reviewing spent all of one long night perfecting the first paragraph of his piece on Hunter Thompson, because in his view getting this paragraph to be "right" was essential to launch the work.  I saw that as wheel spinning then, and now I fully understand that as I continually rearrange art, place rugs, move objects in my sweet little house, trying to get the project perfectly completed.   And let's not forget the security and comfort in all this spinning...  The catch is that I believe perfection and "just right" to be illusory.   Just as I believe in the wonderful mysteries revealed through doing the work!
There are so many stories to tell and beautiful necklaces to make and photographs to print, and it is time.  Summon up some trust and faith, breathe, and begin...