Something’s Amuck in Paradise

My first brilliant thought this morning: Something’s amuck in paradise. No coffee. No newspaper. And the phone rings, bearing wild anxiety from a woman I sponsor.

Mr. Coffee steams like mad to produce a thimbleful of lukewarm coffee. A hike into the colder-than-crap outdoors produces no newspaper. Both are essentials to awaken my bleary brain and allow me to produce speech. So I’m pretty pathetic when my frantic friend calls about her new medical insurance bill.

I tell my friend to hit her knees, then unearth the old percolator from the garage’s camping gear and crack open my morning meditation book, which discusses faith overcoming all adverse conditions.

That’s when my husband enters, bearing a hot latte and the newly arrived newspaper.

My Higher Power’s sense of humor is busy on a chaotic Wednesday morning.

The phone rings again: A service technician wants to postpone today’s scheduled maintenance so he can fix the heaters of those who are without heat on this 21-degree morning. Again I’m reminded that things could always be worse. I could be flat-broke like the woman I sponsor. I could be both broke and frozen too like others whose heaters aren’t working. I could be headed for chemotherapy this afternoon, like my own AA sponsor, or for radiation, like a man my hubby sponsors.

I shouldn’t ever take my first brilliant thoughts seriously. I can be as sour as I want to, or as joyful, because I’m free to start my day over again any time I like. By returning to a position of gratitude, by remembering to be thankful for what I have, I can make my home a better place in which to greet the world.

Today I have no legitimate complaints, as a man used to say in the early AA meetings I sat through 22 years ago. My humorous Higher Power converts even trivial adverse conditions into teaching moments about the value of faith. There’s nothing at all amuck in paradise today.

Scenes of Winter

The catfight wind yowls
churning the shrubbery
scrabbling over fences
staggers even the stoutest trees.

The stalk of a budded lily
arrow dipped in blood
aimed at heaven
quivers in its invisible bow.

The moon’s white opal
glows on blue velvet
rainswept with diamonds
swallowed by clouds.

Inside your love
is a woolly blanket
abrasively delicious
on a bitter night.

What reasons do you have to be grateful today?

Over at Poetry Jam people are pondering the power of home.

Thank God My Car Was Smashed, Not Me

A tank destroyed my rear end this week. I’m grateful that it was my automobile’s and not my own posterior.

I didn’t see that at first. My initial reaction was a lot of effin’ this ’n’ thatness when the young lady in the souped-up Suburban plowed into us at full street speed, having failed to notice the cars ahead were stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk. Her apologies seemed inadequate to my shocked and whiplashed self as I confronted our seriously wounded beautiful car.

Afterward the 12-Step training kicked into gear and waged a rousing battle with resentment, armed with those formidable “Thank God” weapons. It’s not a walk in the park to be grateful in the face of crap, but it’s doable. Thank God for insurance on both automobiles, for no serious injuries, for credit cards and car rentals and trustworthy auto-body specialists owned by AA friends.

We’re off now to spend Thanksgiving amid the blessings of family, friends, and our old AA home group. A study of gratitude made the news today, finding that gratitude is good for the brain and the body’s well-being. Alcoholics Anonymous has preached that for 75 years. May you swim in thanksgiving, no matter what adversity you face.

"Every decision I make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle. I relinquish all regrets, grievances and resentments, and I chose the miracle."

(Deepak Chopra, “The Soul of Healing Meditation”)

Glad Tidings of Great Joy I Bring

The state fair has opened here and the tidings were good for the first group of competitions I entered. The rusty iron garden marker I made garnered a blue ribbon, and so did my kite (see post below). My floral arrangements did well, and I was happy to see firsts on six out of ten, including the one above, representing “On Golden Pond”…

and this one, representing “Indian Summer”…

But it was my big fair-theme exhibit, illustrating “Mountains of Fun,” that really knocked me sideways. Using things passed down to me by my mother, I made a “mountain” camping scenario with flower arrangements in her cast-iron frying pan, her Dutch oven, her old coffee pot, and her old gray-wool blanket. I found it covered with big ribbon rosettes: First Place, Best Fair Theme Award, Judges Award… I don’t have a photo of the whole exhibit because I constructed it there at the fairgrounds, but here’s the frying pan with its batch of “eggs”…

I sat on a bench and wept for the resilience of the human spirit. For the grace and mercy of God, who brings healing after a long season of sorrow. For the great blessing of my parents, who, in spite of their imperfections and the tragedies of their deaths, helped make me the person I am today. For the tenacity I’ve learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, to discover myself by simply being willing to put one foot in front of the other in pursuit of dreams. The ribbons meant more than just a prize; they represented rebirth. They proved to me that you can accomplish meaningful things if you're willing to just make a beginning. And everything that happens in your life, both the miseries and the untold many ordinary events, combine to enrich you and bring you joy if you make the smallest attempt to view life with eyes of hope.

Epiphany after Winning a “Best of Show” Ribbon at the State Fair

I was taking a piss in a bathroom stall
at the fairgrounds when everything changed
between God and me.
Dad, I said,
inexplicably since
I was raised with Almighty God
on the Judgment Seat,
Dad, I said, you’ve been good to me.
I’m a sinner and a cheat but you don’t knock me
upside the head & say, To hell with you!
You say, Here, sweet thing,
is food & water
& more than you have wished for.
I have a drug addict heart but you see
the thing in me you made on a good day
when your creative juices
were pumping up a storm.
You see me with love that says,
You are really something,
my blue-ribbon child.
I left that toilet a woman changed
just because
for reasons I don’t understand
I called him Dad.

Busy Hands Are Happy Hands

If it’s true that busy hands are happy hands, my hands are rolling in ecstasy.

The skeleton of a Conyne-style box kite is drying on the floor of my office. Drying on trays in the guest room are five kinds of herbs. The dining-room table is covered with flower vases and ikebana practice arrangements in the moribana and nageire styles. In the garage are three large silk-flower arrangements ready to be delivered. Out on the patio is my version of a Picasso face made of rusted iron hinges and bits of machinery.

The regional state fair begins next week, and I signed up for competitions in kite making, flower growing, dried and fresh herbs, vegetables, garden signs, and floral designs. All I do all day long is make things and do the prep work to make more things during the 10-day run of the fair.

The weather is glorious and I make mad forays out into the garden to keep things groomed and growing out there. The triple-digit heat vanished, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. The tomatoes aren’t ripening, and the sunflowers haven’t even set buds yet. The dahlias are dallying, which means I have almost no flowers to work with right now. There’s only a week before the flower competition begins. I got the bug infestation under control, but only God can make flowers bloom, so I’m starting to sweat a little.

In getting my work space prepared, I went through some boxes of my mother’s things, shoved into the garage willy-nilly last August when she died. It was an occasion for gratitude. I read her little scribbled notes, marveling at her valiant attempts to cope with her dying brain. I found the last little bits of quilting she was able to do before the skill of sewing left her. I read the random newspaper articles that she cut out of the paper, wondering why those particular subjects caught her attention. It all made me realize how much healing has taken place in the past year. Handling her things gave me pleasure and I felt joy again. Her idiosyncratic habits made me smile. I’m thankful for my mother and for what I learned during that painful last year of her life. I love you, Mom.

I dug out some photos of my floral work from two years ago to inspire me as I do prep work this week. This piece won “Best of the Day.”

This piece won “Best of Show” among both amateur (my class) and professional work.

This bride’s bouquet took a first.

This is a cake made of flowers.

The "Purple Tiger" rose at the top of this post is faithfully blooming and has taken blue ribbons in the floribunda rose class. And here is my entry in the garden sign category. It resembles how I look after all the work this week.

Beware of Expungement

Every now and then I get bummed out. I love that phrase: "Bummmed Ouut." Or the more prosaic: "Bummed." I get bummed every now and then. I'm proud of my generation for dreaming up that one. Otherwise I'd have to go with "sad," "mad" or "bad" or visit Roget's Thesaurus, where I can get lost for days.

It has been a long nine months, beginning back here with the FBI raiding my demented mom's care facility and giving her the boot. Then she had a horrible couple of months and died. Then pneumonia, then a family feud, then yada yada yada, culminating with me on the pity-pot this week. Not a comfy place to sit.

In everything give thanks, sayeth the Bible. My 12-Step program makes gratitude a numero-uno priority. So I'm working on my y attitude. Meanwhile, I thought I'd let you have a peek at the unedited me. Part of my love affair with poetry is that I get to expunge (!) (is it real, or is it Roget's?) expunge the bad stuff that would otherwise stew inside and grow toxic.

Caution: expurgation going on here:

End of December

I lie down on my bed with my fat dog
beside me growing old before his time
slowly dying of his master’s love
for feeding him relentlessly

If only I could fall asleep and awaken
next spring, like the trees in my yard
or the magnolia in the garden, then
I might remember happiness or even

contentment. At 5:30 p.m., Dec. 28,
sleep is a dream that keeps me awake
as do the past year’s march of miseries
and I name them in case I should forget

starting with my mother’s demented
implosion on the Ides of March
then her slide into madness and death
and all that followed, discord, illness

the tapestry that was my family
unraveling thread by thread faster
than I could piece it back together
My fat dog snores, snuggled close

and I try to believe this is love
this is enough to keep going on
this is a blessing big enough
to balance the accounting sheet

But in the end I lie awake counting
my woes, angry with myself
for being wretched when I have a dog
beside me growing fat and old with love

Enough Is Enough

Enough: as much as is needed.

I poked fun at Walt Whitman the other day for being, um, excessively excessive. But then I ran across this bit of his, and it struck me as a perfect example of a thankful heart:

"I have perceive’d that to be with those I like

is enough.

To stop in company with the rest at evening

is enough.

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh,

is enough."

May your Thanksgiving be blessed.

Water, Water, Everywhere

When I'm beside the water, I'm always doing something at its edges. Photographing it. Picking up things. Tossing things into it.

I like bodies of water, from rivulets to oceans. From dew drops to rain drops, from pools to lakes.


Water makes me feel fresher than I am when I'm busy on sidewalks, in rooms, on roads, in shops.

I like water being water, sometimes serene, sometimes moving somewhere.

I've written about the sea and about rain. The sea depends on rain. Rain depends on the sea.

Today, I'm thankful for water, a fluid friend, a reflection, a plaything, an ever-changing sign of God.

Thanksgiving

Some days, there’s nothing in your head but a song.
An old hymn called “Farther Along” is on my mind today. You’ll hear Johnny Cash singing part of it if you click this link.
Its refrain goes like this:

Farther along we’ll know more about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

And the rest of it goes like this:

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long;
While there are others living about us,
Never molested, though in the wrong.

Sometimes I wonder why I must suffer,
Go in the rain, the cold, and the snow,
When there are many living in comfort,
Giving no heed to all I can do.

“Faithful till death,” said our loving Master;
Short is our time to labor and wait;
Then will our toiling seem to be nothing,
When we shall pass the heavenly gate.

I’m not going to think on the sadness in my life today. Yesterday was a day of mourning. Today is a day of thanksgiving for the moments of goodness.

I give thanks for yellow iris. I give thanks for those in Haiti working for the good of the suffering. I give thanks for laughter, which feels like healing. I give thanks for blue skies and puffy white clouds, for green hills and purple wildflowers.

What do you give thanks for today?
~~~~~

Strange Birthday Gift

I was flashing by at 55, keeping to the limit.
When the sirens flared, I pulled over in a minute.
His face was stern as he approached my car
And asked to see my license, brandishing his star
As he gave it back he doffed his hat and sniffed
Happy birthday, sweetie, a happy fifty-fifth.



To write your own Flash Fiction 55, go see Mr. Knowitall

Photo courtesy Hoover Dam Police Department

It was a fine Thanksgiving. I had some expectations, which failed, and some other expectations, which came to pass. But my main expectation, that I could create a new tradition for the day and enjoy it, was met in spades.
Instead of a big family feast, stressful and messy, Joe and I invited our youngest daughter Milo and her beau to dinner, with plans to snatch up my demented mom at dinnertime and get her back to her living quarters after pie.
I had dreams of Mother teaching Daughter the secrets of stuffing turkeys, and preparing side dishes so everything is ready and hot at once. Instead, Daughter slept in, missed the turkey stuffing lesson, and we bonded over catalogs while making Christmas lists. It was fun, and all the prep work happened in good time.
The other expectation, that my mom would be utterly confused by the whole thing, came to pass. I have to let go of my wishes that I can talk to her still, carry on a meaningful conversation. The best I can do is give her a change of scenery and some family time, even if she doesn't quite take it all in.
We had a fine, mellow feast followed by pumpkin pie and carrot cake, with football in the background and mother-daughter bonding in the kitchen, even if it was me bonding with my daughter and not my mom bonding with me. It's a grief thing, this losing of my mom a little at a time.
I don't think my daughter understands the ordeal of it all. She said I talk funny and act differently with my mom in tow. Joe says I do too. Mom has only one hearing aid and words are like a foreign language to her now, since she can't track a thought from start to finish. I have to treat her like a child in many ways because she needs the guidance. It isn't fun.
But it's life, and you live it one day at a time in the best way you can. I was thankful today for so many gifts, my beautiful daughter, her wonderful beau, my hard-working husband, the richness of our lives.
Daughter and I are headed out at 6 a.m. for the Black Friday crush. I expect it will be a blast.

Contrails of Love

Contrails

You shoot across the blue sky like an arrow
with a shining point, oblivious to me,
yet I know we exist together in this plane.
You know only your cocktail, your thoughts,
the surface of the world.

I am familiar with the feeling of distance between us:
I’ve seen you before like this,
taking flight and vanishing.
All this evidence of your passage
makes me feel wanton,
as if I should hurl myself after you—
arms outstretched to bridge this great gulf
between us.

*******
We get a lot of contrails in the sky overhead where we live. One day I was pedaling my stationary bike and watching a jet shoot across the sky, and I realized there were people up there with no idea I was down below, pedaling my bike. I turned it into a love poem because I like poems about conflicts between people.

After a couple of days of serious thought, I wanted to get into fantasy and silliness. I’m making up my Thanksgiving shopping list and smiling over the small gathering that will come to my home for the turkey dinner. I usually feel lonely at Thanksgiving since my sister-in-law died, she who was my partner in cooking. But this year I am stretching out my wings to fly ( pardon the bad turkey pun).

So happy days preceding the great day of Thanksgiving to you all, and next time you see a contrail, reach out your arms to embrace the poor oblivious people aboard, traveling to God knows where.
Cheers, Chris


The photos are not by me but by Wickipedia and Vormedia.

Gratitude Is Work Well Worth the Effort

October here on the central coast of California brings brisk mornings and hot afternoons.

I'm obsessed by my sleeplessness and a little bit of woe, and it makes me overlook the things in life that are good and sweet.

So today I'm working on thankfulness:

My house is a mess, my garden is a mess, but I have a great cup of coffee in front of me and will work a ninth step with a beautiful sponsee.

My kittens make me laugh.

My Creator loves me and all the rest of God's kids.

My spouse is loving and funny.

I have dear friends.

The blogosphere has put me in touch with an interesting, supportive community.

Poetry brings me joy.

The list could go on and on.

I have a lovely grandson is enchanted with bubbles. I've posted a picture of him.

My dear friend Betsy, who suffers from Parkinson's, has laughter in her heart. Here's a poem about her.

Have a blessed day, all you good people.

Rainbow Sky

Quivering Betsy, with her quavering voice,
rides her wheelchair as if it were a dead horse
It’s hard to tell if she’s laughing or crying
because they sound alike, that hoo, hoo, hoo
While her lumpy body slumps in the chair
like a lump of clay waiting on the wheel
tremulous hands flutter around her face, like birds

Yet she can sing to her Jehovah
in the clear bell tones of an angel
and I heard her sing
The joy of the Lord is my strength
plus part of the Hallelujah Chorus
as I left her alone in her chair in her home
Rainbows spread across the sky
like the scattered petals of a rose
and I swear I saw her dancing

Chris Alba (c) 2009