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Heart of a Butterfly, Skin like a Rhinoceros

Kicking back last night on the sofa with my honey, we hashed out some challenges that had recently reared their ugly little heads.  My hands were flying all over, and his remained in their church roof pose, the one where the tips of the fingers on each hand are steepled together.  It makes him look wise and when he looks wise I think, ok, better listen to this. 

It's not that he's always right, but he's a very thoughtful fella and he comes up with perspectives that have never tipped my horizon.  We had a decision to make and plenty of time in which to do so, but my temperament can be a little premature in its expression, (that's a nice way to say I've had a tendency to blurt and later wish I hadn't) and we were getting a head start on the matter.  He can be every bit as irreverent and hilarious as I can about anything (behind closed doors, very little is off limits) and in no time he had me chuckling and wagging a finger as if to say, "ooh, you SO baad".  It helps, this way of laughing, it helps me and I believe others too, in navigating the uglier aspects of life, to just remember some simple truths:  we're not perfect, we do our best, we try not to hurt anyone but people will be hurt anyway, forgiveness must be swift and sincere, and, above all, he says, keep your heart beating with the beauty of a butterfly, and remember to keep your hide tough.

LAST POST FOR BIG MOTHER

Big Mother has mouthed off her final posting.  She is undergoing extensive interior remodeling and will reappear as Quirky Kirky.  Big Mother was offered a golden parachute retirement and will be taking her leave of this space.  She wishes to thank all of her devoted followers and friends for their patronage and support.  It's been a fun ride. 

Ma Ain Folk

Terrible jag of homesickness came over me last night as I drove away from a friend's book launch party.  There's a line from an old Scottish song about it, that desribes it perfectly: "..and it's aww that I'm longin' fer ma ain folk, be they simple and plain folk...".  There's no place like home no matter how dysfunctional.  In ours, there was love and laughter and horror all mixed together.

Another friend I met at the party is a jazz poet, working out a tv deal on his documentary film.  He handed me some of his publicity materials including  t-shirt, dvd and poster.  The poster is the same as the cover for the dvd and image on the t-shirt.  It's a photo of him in front of a redbrick house, taken in the back garden, all mossy and shrubby, in London.  "Touch of home for you" he grinned, having no idea where I would go with that.  Which was  straight down a path of nostalgia, reliving some of the best parts of my younger days in London.  It stirred something very deep in me, took me by complete surprise.

In the old days I might have gone to a British pub and downed a few, but instead I played a cd of some bagpipes, beating out the rhythms on the steering wheel and weeping.  Couldn't go straight home, so went to TJ's for a small grocery run, noted the Hallowe'en decorations, and that set me back a bit, reminders of my mother's tales of Hallowe'en in Scotland, where it all started, minus the pumpkins.
As I was being checked out, someone shouted over to the man at my cash register, asking if his wife had had the baby yet.  One of those moments that are golden for someone with mild ADD, so I jumped away from Scotland, London, Hallowe'en and into his world instead.  He tells me with a huge smile that the baby is due in a month, their fourth child, hoping for a girl as they have three boys already. I am cheery now and back to the car.

The best way to avoid suffering, is to be here, now, present with what is, I tell myself and smugly drive home thinking the jag of emotion is all dealt with.  It was all my own fault, looking back with longing and planning for the future.  And so forth.  When I got home, things were not actually behind me because I had to lug in the signed copy of my friend's beautiful new book (Opening the Gates of the Heart" by Carolyn CJ Jones,  www.gatelady.com) and the dvd, poster and t-shirt from my other friend, along with the groceries and mail, plus my purse and a sense of envy that my friends are "out there" doing their artist thing and I come home to a phone message about an accident my daughter has had.  I find myself unable to speak and later it gets unloaded with Larry, who, innocent bystander that he is, simply asked "How did it go sweetheart?" to which I initially lie and say 'fine".

This life business ain't easy.  Today I will accept the offer of a massage and get my hair cut.  And of course visit my stitched up daughter and be loving and mommy like, and remind her for the thousandth time of the importance of holding on to her caregiver's arm and not go stomping off on her own.  Larry let me swear my way through my feelings about it last night, and now I feel better.  The fact is "ma ain folk" (my own people, my present day peeps in case you didn't get it yet) are the ones I love best, the ones I want to be with.  There's NO going back.  That way is a vale of tears.

Burka at the ObGyn

Visiting my dermatologist today for my annual redhead's skin cancer checkup, I saw a full length burka wearing pregnant woman coming into the building, accompanied by a bare-armed, bare-headed man, both holding hands with a sweet toddler boy, swinging happily between them.  A happy family picture except for the visual jolt of the blue burka.  I couldn't help wondering about the counter clerk's dilemma when the moment would come for a request for picture id from the expectant mother, and further, how would the obgyn exam be conducted with proper cultural and religious decorum?  I was between bemused and amused just thinking about it all.

There are days when I can well imagine the benefits of covering up from head to toe just to run to the store, when I've slept badly and missed a laundry cycle for clean jeans, so I don the American equivalent by covering up with baseball cap, sunglasses and sweats, not nearly as elegant as a flowing gown, but worn by my free choice.  Having just written that, I see that's arrogant of me,  to presume that the woman I saw today, and others just like her are wearing their burkas under protest.  Why do we presume that?  There are orthodox Jewish women in this northern California county,who choose to cover up their hair and arms with long clothing and wigs.  There are days when that, too, sounds appealing to me.  I'd cover up my arms because they're cosmetically challenged these days and my hair isn't very obedient, so I'd wear a wig, if I wanted or needed to. A friend of mine looks great in her long blond tresses, made in China, and chooses different looks for different moods and seasons. 

One thing that's certainly true is if I actually had covered myself from head to toe when I lived in the tropics years ago, I wouldn't be worried about skin cancer checkups and arms that look as if someone spat tobacco juice through a sieve all over them.  Just makes me think about the wisdom of covering up and the freedom to stay that way if I wanted to.

Ex-Pat Gurus - Trash or Treasure?

We attended a lecture recently given in a major venue, by an acclaimed guru, whose last name happens to rhyme with Oprah - you figure it out.  He began by reminding us, as if we needed it, of the perilous times we live in and how dire the human scene looks today.  He proceeded to enducate us (this is an attempt to educate people and entertain them at the same time -rarely possible, unless you're a pair of crazy car mechanics on public radio) with his singsong lilt, which has the unfortunate soporific effect of putting me into a coma.

Since I was coming and going in various states of consciousness, which, by the way, was one of his topics, I felt I was right at home.  His power point hit some glitches and froze the screen on an early development of a human fetus, which stayed up there staring down at the audience in a way that was hardly endearing, resembling as it did at that stage, more of a caricature creature than a cute human baby.  Dr. Rhymes With Oprah didn't miss a beat, just droned on, sending my brain into more ZZZ waves so I can't actually recall verbatim the specifics, but in general: consciousness is a good thing, but so is deep sleep.  He mentioned the importance of both, several times.  I feel good about that.

My Indian friend was surprised that so many Westerners put so much store by the wisdom of so many gurus from her country.  She tells me "India is far better off if all the gurus were exported to the West".
Hm, I thought, a reverse outsourcing.  Interesting idea. 

DYSPEPSI for breakfast?

I was invited to speak to a political group at a breakfast meeting this morning in my hometown.  The issue was about affordable housing, a subject that affects me directly as a senior and my daughter, who's disabled.  My sweetheart is still paying off student loans, bless him, so he's in the market for affordable anything.  My presence was to put a face on the topic, people who qualify for and need affordable housing look like me, talk like me, have families like mine.  And so forth.  You get the picture.

I had imagined I'd be preaching to the choir, but if I was, they must have been deaf.  The attacks were pointed and swift and I was glad I had a belly full of bacon and eggs to prevent me from getting sick to my stomach.  We were told, in effect, by a couple of well-heeled looking ladies (ok, I didn't actually see their shoes) that local citizenry were opposed to development of affordable housing because of the numbers of poor people who will live there and bring crime to the neighborhood, thus bringing down property values and disturbing everyone's quality of life.   The disabled, seniors and young working families who all qualify for affordable housing were, thankfully, not present to hear themselves portrayed thusly, by fearful and ill-informed but otherwise intelligent people.

I'm not going to argue the issue further today, except to note that one of the women was sloshing down diet Pepsi for breakfast, and repeatedly allowed her cell phone to ring.  Those are enough for me to qualify her as an idiot.  And I'm grateful that the chairperson of the meeting had a firm grip on the proceedings, snipped at the offending cell phone perp, told the other one that our purpose today was NOT to debate the density of units to be developed, but to put a human face on the issue.  She gave me a little pat on the elbow, for which she gets many brownie points in my corner of heaven, while the other will be relegated in her afterlife to a special place reserved by dentists and dieticians for people who supped on too many sodas.  That's only if there's any justice in the afterlife.