Hey there, How's it going?

My little condo is in grave danger of being turned into a rainbow.  So far, I've done this.

The green looks nice with the balcony cushions. And the green will be especially nice during the winter, I think. The balcony is coming along nicely. There's a nice wooden bench now. And the pansies are finally raising their heads above the rims of the pots. A dinner party for four! Oh...wait...

I've also done this. Ditto the winter thing.

The kitchen is already bright enough. When the sun shines in at its afternoon angle, it looks psychedelic in there. I'm resolving NOT to put color anywhere else.

Instead of painting, I'm going to go back to demonstrating when I need something to do. Today I staged a protest at the Guthrie.

Honestly, if I see another anti-lockdown, anti-mask protester carrying a sign that says My Body, My Choice, I may totally lose my shit.

What's pushing you to the brink? There are so f-ing many things, right?

Spring

Poppies at Arroyo Verde Park in Ventura

My adult children and my grandchildren spent much of last week at my house. We climbed a hill to see these poppies. We went whale watching and saw at least 30 gray whales and several hundred dolphins. It is a glorious thing to survey the ocean around you and see dolphins in every direction. We kayaked; we walked on the beach and hunted sea glass, shells, and interesting rocks. We visited the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and Planetarium. We ate out at a restaurant on the sand, had high tea on my patio on the newly refurbished teak furniture, and ate delicious food at my table. I can't think of a better lead-up to the first day of spring--all the love, conversation, and the sheer bounty of this life.

I know that spring can feel like a false promise, a let-down, a so-this-is-all-there-is, but not for me this year. Of course, perfection always eludes, but at this stage of the game I'm calling even that perfect enough.

Three of the tag-team kayakers. The other two were picked up by their mom and taken home for hot showers.

Even this bear looks happy.

Photos of sand castles in progress, in ruins, or perfect always make me happy

Happy Spring!

Feeling Owlish

My balcony. Terrifying to pigeons. Hahahaha.

It's almost spring. Love is in the air.

Sunday I removed the stalagmites of pigeon poop from three years ago. If you visit here often, you know I love birds, but I do not love pigeons pooping all over my balcony. This spring, I'm  waging war, not love--or so I tell myself. There was a dove sitting on the couch out there this morning and I'm clearly insane because I added a third owl. Two plastic owls weren't doing the trick, so now there are three plastic owls. Snakes, my aunt told me on the phone earlier, get some rubber snakes. Rubber snakes, plastic owls. Pretty soon I won't want to go out there.

There''s also an owl in the palm tree below my balcony.

I have an owl suspended above my front door too. It startles me sometimes when I catch a glimpse of it from my upstairs hallway.

The swallows will begin to arrive any day now. The best solution for that is to take off the window screen and spend a lot of time upstairs by the window where they like to nest. I stalk them with a spray bottle. Eventually they give up, but it's a full time job for a couple of days.

Uh-oh. I gotta go. I hear pigeons cooing.

Bird of the Day

Let's start with yesterday's bird:

Staking out a nest in a dead palm tree, the hawk refused to budge while two ravens lost their minds circling round and round.

Today a turkey vulture and some gulls fought it out over a sea lion carcass on the sand. I'd never seen a turkey vulture on the beach before, but they are pretty unmistakable. I can't think of another bird that is more emblematic of death. Nature's dracula-winged clean-up crew.

Say what you want about spring. Renewal and rising from the dead, birds chirping, bunnies doing what bunnies do. Yes, go ahead and picture this:

It's there right outside my window. And it's part of the story. But Mother Nature likes to clean her house too. Now excuse me while I throw another load of bedding into the washing machine.

Happy Second Day of Spring!

I know... Who are you and what have you done with Denise, right?

While I could tell you it's quite possible that my attorney has already spent my retainer, and then I still have not gotten what I need from the Someone to get the re-fi on my house, I think I will simply say that the rose pictured above is blooming outside my front door. Carted here in its pot inside a friend's truck, it took months to adjust to the cooler temperatures and sea breezes, but adjust it did.

I will also tell you that a heron just flew by my window--legs outstretched--its long neck seemingly in the future while its legs are already in the past.

I will tell you, too, that my mom's gastroenterology appointment went well, and that the doctor is as handsome--nay, I'd say even more handsome--than ever. My mom endured nearly constant stomach cramps for a long time, and she is much improved. I think of all the figures of speech we have that relate to this central element of our bodies: turned my stomach, he doesn't have the guts to do what is right, intestinal fortitude, it takes a strong stomach, too much to stomach, bust a gut, butterflies in the stomach, I have a gut feeling, we trust our guts, we gut it out, some things are gut wrenching, divorce is an emotional punch to the gut, some people eat to live, sometimes my stomach is in knots. The sympathetic knot in my stomach is loosening now that my mom is feeling better.

I will tell you that my mom is now wearing earrings everyday--not just when we go out to a doctor's appointment. And I will tell you that today, she put on lip gloss. A true beauty in her red sweater and pink shoes.

My House: The Aviary of Desire

Yesterday I heard moaning. You know, "Oooooh, Ooooooh, Oohhhhhh." I was sitting in my living room with the patio door open, and the moaning seemed to be coming from upstairs. My upstairs. I was home alone...or so I thought. 


Two pigeons were perched on the balcony off the master bedroom, and well....they were in a rather interesting position. One of the birds was straddling the other bird's head while the cooing continued apace. I raced downstairs to get my camera, but when I arrived back on the scene, they'd separated.

This morning, as I made us fresh carrot-apple-kale juice, the man who loves me read an article to me that he'd just stumbled upon on the Internet. It  began like this: "Do these beetles have oral sex? By the window of a country house I found two celeoptera performing an incomprehensible dance for me: the ..."  I'd include the link, but have only been able to come up with this message when I search for it: "But the Requested data is not available Currently." Perhaps too many people have read the article and now no one is at work.


It's spring. As Cole Porter sang, "Birds do it. Bees do it. Even Educated Fleas do it." Soon the heat of summer will be upon us. Enjoy those balmy breezes now before the urge to eat ice cream and drink beer engulfs you in lethargy.


photo of cliff swallows' nest under my eaves

Just remember, this could happen to you. 
Not to me, fortunately. But perhaps to you. Baby birds will be peeping soon. Parent birds frantically feeding them. Defending them. Protecting them. Teaching them to fly. 

swallow's nest #2--with a third in progress

Have a lovely evening, dear readers. Look at the moon as she fills herself up. Savor the coming of the sweet dark before summer delivers its longest day.

After Two Weeks at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts

A lot of people brought bottles of wine to dinner the other night. Wow, I thought, everyone’s in a pretty festive mood for a Tuesday. Turns out it was Friday. I’m not sure where those lost days went; that’s the way it goes here at the VCCA. Life is so streamlined that the writing just runs away with you, and the next thing you know half your time is up. One day you walk in the woods and it looks like this:

And the next thing you know, there are about three times as many leaves on the trees, and you think, that was quick.

Here’s what’s working in my streamlined writer’s life:

Laughing at breakfast.

Walking from the residence to my studio alone while dawdling as much as I want. 

Firing up the laptop and the electric kettle.

Sitting in my comfy chair and meditating. (Which for me is kind of like chasing a wood chuck  around the barn and through the pasture.)

The wood chuck insists on no more breathing in and breathing out.

I shuffle through my new system of index cards.

I start writing.

This past week, I’ve been looking at the cards that say, “Tidbit” and “Short Story” and when I find something that gets my attention, I begin a story. I’m on my 4^th story—which is to say I have a very shitty first draft of four stories.

And also…..I’m proofreading….the memoir…..manuscript two…words at….a time.

Ten pages…. at a…. crack twice…..a day. Again.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

FYI a woodchuck is the same as a ground hog. Another name for that cute little critter is “whistle pig.”
As they say, "You can't teach a pig to sing," but I guess whistling is something else entirely.

Day 6 at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts

Spring is unfurling here in Virginia and so is my ability to concentrate and work. 

Now that the notebook project is finished (see previous two posts,) 

I have been dividing my time three ways: working on a short story, polishing my memoir manuscript, and sending out sample pages and/or a proposal—or at least a query letter for my memoir. My A list submissions are ready to go.

In a couple of months, I will move onto the B list if need be. There will be plenty of time while I’m here for digging into my next manuscript, too--the divorce manuscript. Working titles: His Big Fat Indian Wedding, The Geography of a Divorce, Flying Blind (since I flew around to be with family and friends because after 32 years in L.A. with Mr. Ex, I could not tolerate being there.) Suggestions? Feel free. I also like The Marriage Museum or the Marriage Mausoleum because he’s living in “our house” with the Little Missus and raising his new family there where we raised our girls. A little creeeepy. There’s something wrong about sleeping in the same bedroom, occupying the same space with the Little Missus that he occupied with me. Even the same bed—though at some point, they got a new one, I heard. There’s only one wall in that bedroom that will accommodate a queen size bed—so the two of them are right there where he and I used to be. The only way to change it up would be for him to sleep on my side of the bed…..which is even creeeeepier. 

Apricots, Blueberries, and Stories

This morning I finally wrestled the remnants of  last year's bird netting out of my apricot tree.  The widow's veil has been cast off, and

the first blossom has opened.

The blueberries are flowering too

and tonight I teach a memoir workshop.

Let there be apricots, blueberries, and stories.

Rising

A day bursting with Spring things. Colored eggs (real--not plastic) on a green lawn. Tiny lizards no bigger than my pinkie.                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                    A riot of blooms. 

Add to this the joys of good company, beer golden in the sunshine
and....





art.

This is Rubens' The Women at the Sepulcher. Critics do not agree on the identities of the women present at the door of Christ's tomb. Which one is Mary Magdalene, which is Mary Jesus's mother. Who is the woman in red? I don't really care, but the painting captures me. The rendering of divine light, the range of emotions on the faces. I see disbelief, the lingering numbness of grief, joyful anticipation. These feelings come into play as we persevere through the long darkness of winter and find the earth finally awakening to spring. The wealth of what the California landscape has to offer amazes me every morning. I have a tree bursting with apricots (green now & the size of olives). I have blueberry bushes with so many blossoms I can't quite imagine how many bowls full they will fill.

But my new life hasn't come fully out of the tomb. The unfinished business I have with Mr. Ex holds me in darkness. More of his lies have recently been revealed, and I find the deceit chilling and eerie. The man I loved died a long, long time ago. I was living with a ghost and didn't know it.