Setting Moon/ Rising Sun

Life in Pillville feels mostly unbloggable these days. I tell myself it can't be worse than holding your dying lover. It can't be worse than being dumped for a woman twenty years younger. It can't be worse than wailing in the doctor's office that anti-depressants are needed right now. It can't be worse than standing on a bridge and looking at your shoes and imagining them wet, the wet crawling upwards.

All those things happened. And I think that might actually be why things feel so bleak. I've got some kind of cumulative thing going on here.

But really, I'm all right. Every morning I wake delighted with the day. Good morning, world, I say aloud. And I am truly so happy to be alive to see the full moon set and the sun rise.

And I ask myself what kind of person I want to be. Kind, I say. Patient, I say. Full of love, I say. And each moment feels like erosion. Like sandpaper to the soul. Start over, I say. And I do. I do. I really do keep starting over.

But there's nothing like a situation that feels stuck to prompt one to get other stuff done. That tree that's needed trimming? The cruddy under-the-sink spot in the laundry room where the catbox used to be? Done and done. New hairstyle? Why not. If you can't change your life. Change your hair.

And I'm working toward some other changes too.

Of Tributes and Trees

This magically appeared in my Dropbox yesterday. After the tree planting ceremony a couple of weeks ago various friends asked me what kind of a tree had been planted in Dan's honor. I was at the ceremony, saw the tree, took a picture of it--but I had no idea, really. Some kind of evergreen, I said.

So it's a deodar. One of my favorite trees, though I've never seen a young one, which I guess is why I couldn't put a name to it. In adulthood, deodars are massive beings with spreading branches that seem like arms, ready to envelop everything. I fell in love with them decades ago when my children began attending a school whose campus was graced with nearly century old deodars. And the only Christmas attraction that I truly love is Christmas tree lane in Altadena. I've even blogged about it. Really, click on that Altadena link and look at the photo. At Christmastime the trees are hung with colored lights, and people walk silently in the dark or drive two miles an hour with their headlights off under the spell of those trees. The street is as  hushed and holy as any church.

When Dan and I took walks together, he always seemed impressed because I knew the names of trees and flowers. When I moved from the San Gabriel Valley to the beach, I took on i.d.-ing birds, and he would always listen while I explained how to tell a long-billed curlew from a whimbrel or a marbled godwit. How did I know these things, he'd ask as if I were some sort of naturalist genius. I've always thought that because I'm a writer, it's just my job to know.

Anyhow. A deodar.
And two Christmases ago, there he was.
My mom looks about a million years older now.
Well, so do I.

Birds, Bullshit, Sunshine, and Santa

It's a beautiful day full of birds and sunshine here in Pillville. The buffleheads are buffle-ing. the hummingbirds are hummering. My mother's bruises are transforming from purple to green. She's busily pinning out her snowflakes and starching them.

Bufflehead ducks wintering here from the far north

Hummingbird at our kitchen window

The one-armed snowflake maker at work

I see the same look of concentration here in Vermeer's famous painting The Lacemaker

And me? In just a bit the nurse who does the intake for the caregiving agency will arrive. Better than Santa and his eight tiny reindeer, if you ask me. I spent all morning trying to log into my mom's credit union accounts--let's just shorten that story and let me say that experience made big banks look really, really good. It took weeks for one of credit unions to really fess up that the problem was on their end. They had to add my i.p. address so I could log on. Whaaaat? And the other lost the Power of Attorney paperwork and would not speak to me since my mom could not understand the person on the phone who was hell-bent on verifying her identity. Oops. I didn't make the story short, did I? But I feel better now. Thanks.

And I'd like to feel even better, so let me just remind the great Interwebs and everyone out there that here under the GREATEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD (cough, cough)  Medicare does not cover dental work, eye glasses, hearing aids, or custodial care. I feel fabulous now. Thanks.

My antidote to that bullshit is going to be Christmas lights. Everywhere.

Ventura Highway in the Pouring Rain

The title of this post is a song lyric I imagined into existence. The lyric is really "Ventura Highway in the Sunshine" (from  the band, America, 1972) which makes a lot more sense. It is, however, raining here in southern California as I write this. My research does support my recollection that there was another 1972 song called "It Never Rains in Southern California." We are obsessed here with rain in this very dry place besieged with wildfires and besotted with swimming pools, golf courses, and non-native greenery. So it's raining, and there will be mudslides in the area that recently burned. If I were to turn on the TV which I won't, there would no doubt be a newscaster in front of a graphic titled Storm Watch or Storm of the Century. It's all hype as many things are here--except of course for the poor people whose houses will fill up with mud.

The batten down the hatches oh my god it's raining mentality is a southern California phenomenon that used to bemuse me when I first moved here. I was doing theatre then and a rainy night always meant no-shows and the not as cozy as it sounds experience of having more people on stage than in the audience. But I've lived here far longer than anywhere else and now I feel that way too. I'm sitting on my couch watching the rain hit the water and waiting for my mom to wake up. I'm still in my pajamas and I'm thinking, wow these are nice pajamas and I just might not get out of them today, because, you know, it's raining. And of course I can't really go anywhere anyway since I don't have a caregiver lined up for my mom yet.

And now she's up. Question for the day. Will I be at the orthopedist's office this afternoon....or drinking champagne in my pajamas with friends.

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This just in. Orthopedist.