Where we come from

I was wondering today about how my father grew into the man he was, with views of the world so much broader than those of so many men of his generation and culture who clung to a small and narrowly prescribed role that was both domineering and scarred.

In part, I think, it was something about how his parents thought and treated him that allowed him to imagine a bigger life. I find this extraordinary because neither Louie or Amelia had a chance to explore much beyond the bounds of theirown Italian immigrant backbone. Neither had the chance for education, yet Mikey got his Master's at Boston University. (I was two when he graduated and have the pictures of daddy in his cap and gown holding onto a pouting me.)

Perhaps it was the way his mother read to him and took him to the library or the way Louie, a barber, allowed more for Mikey than life on the same block, in the same shop. Amelia, before she died so young, may have told Mikey about her dreams of an easier, richer life. She never had it easy, abandoned by her mother at 12, pulled out of school after the sixth grade to care for her father and brothers, never once taken on vacation. Imagining a different life took a kind of courage I can barely conceive of.

How to Write?

Find a sacred place, one that draws you to it with its beauty or smell, strong coffee or lively conversation. Some writers light candles, invoke angels, hold river stones, to give them the courage to open up one large artery and let blood pour, over the page, onto the table, through the door, into the lake.

A woman told me, "After writing for many years, happy and bright things that I believed would draw people closer to me but didn't, the dark stories inside of me starting screaming to come out, 'We are here too, your monsters and demons, we want to be heard.' It was either let them out or stop writing. But I needed to write to stay alive. So I wrote about wanting to kill my husband, with the knife I carried around the kitchen to cut up eggplant, children snug in their beds. I was too tired to walk up the steps to do it so didn't kill him. But, I wanted to." She paused then looked into my eyes, "I read that to people I trusted and no one hated me. The writing drew them closer to me. And I felt free enough to fly."

I prefer the strong coffee, long wooden tables, jazz music places to write, where you can sit for hours nursing one strong brew and nobody will notice or care, where some of the same people come day after day to wrangle with words, ideas, theories, memories.

What is the story that you are compelled to write, that you can't put down, that pulls you over the edge like water falling? Who are the characters that come to you, unbidden, with their wounds exposed, their hair teased and bleached, their ignorance, and failed attempts at life, their unruly loves? How do they wrestle with the questions you can't stop asking even though know there are no answers?

One Wild and Precious Life

In her poem, "The Summer Day," Mary Oliver asks us to consider: "..what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Its a good question to consider but hard for me to do. Because, I keep forgetting that I have only one life. My mind tells me, "You can do that later, next time, once things settle down and you are more secure. You have other lives to live, this one is just practice."

My mind draws comfort from these these words "next time" and "later" convinced that what really matters has either already happened or is yet to come. But, in truth, as the sages have taught us, "next" and "later" don't really exist. All we have, for sure, is this moment. This present moment in which we breath in and out, where we feel the hard knot of loneliness, the baby's soft cheek.

Surprisingly, time is infinite in the present moment, spacious, forgiving, and kind. And when I am awake, it is where I find my one wild and precious life.

Father's Hands

Mother packed a new pair of boxers and a t-shirt to go under the dark wool suit. She wanted to bring dark socks but I insisted on the white cotton socks that he preferred later in life. N. brought a light blue shirt to go under the suit and A. picked out a dusk blue tie with narrow black stripes.

The night my father died a woman from the organ bank called our house. I answer the phone. She asked me if we might want to donate father's legs and arms to help children born with cleft palettes. "The bones and tissues would help children to live normally, heal them," the woman from the organ bank continued through my silence. "We would put in prosthetics. He could still have an open casket."

My first thought was that this sounded like a good idea, that in his death he could help others to live better. It is only a body now, I reasoned, he is not "in it" anymore, there is nothing left he needs from those skin and bones.

But, we had picked out such a beautiful suit for him to wear. And whether or not we could actually see the legs, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking of them cut from him on ice in a plastic bucket. And my stinginess made me feel small and brittle. "No," I told the woman from the organ bank,"This is not something we are interested in doing."

At the funeral home the next day, we saw father laying in the brown glossy casket his head "resting" on a white pillow. It didn't look much like him, though, unless you focused in on a single eyebrow or one of the age spots on his large hands. I would have missed seeing his hands one more time, the oversize thick fingers folded together and resting over his belly, the rosary draped around the knuckles. They were cold now, though, and yellow not like in the hospital when he seemed to squeeze just a little tighter if you asked loud enough.

How will I find happiness if I don't seek it?

Adyashaniti writes, "The old Zen Master knew that seeking happiness (or truth, or reality or fill in the blank), is as silly as a dog thinking that it must chase its tail in order to attain its tail. The dog already has full possession of its tail from the very beginning. Besides, once the dog grasps his tail, he will have to let go of it in order to function."

If I possess, already, what I yearn for - love, acceptance, serenity, gracefulness, health, (a seemingly endless list if I am truthful) - why do these things often feel out of reach? My mind rebels against such ridiculousness as the dog story and tells me, "Surely, you will be much happier if you (and you can again fill in your own blank), had "enough" money, practiced more yoga, ate more organic vegetables, gave more to charity, traveled, were more successful in your work." My mind is convinced it can protect me from suffering, pain, illness, loss, boredom, fear, failing.

But, the mind is not to be trusted. That is what the Zen Masters teach us. The mind longs, yearns, pesters you for your slouth. "If only you worked harder, did this with more devotion...then you could be happy." The mind is an unruly monkey.

The Buddhists tell us, then, to watch the mind but not let it lead you astray into that place of "not enoughness". In the present moment, we already embody in the all that is. Watch the mind, quietly, and then see if you can surrender your thoughts to the heart which provides all that you require and can show you the way.

Who to give my change to?

There was the injured vet, (that's what his sign said) a clear plastic jug that once held candy, a top of a milk crate, which he stood behind while smoking. The woman with diabetes (it said so on her cardboard sign) crocheting hats in exchange for change. The two men, their incense smoking the air, who ask me every time that I pass, "Dollar to send poor kids to camp?" or "Dollar to feed a hungry child, just need $100 then I can go home." One tells me how pretty my smile is or how much he likes my hat. Another man, no front teeth, with a voice like port, strumming his guitar. Whatever he sings sounds blue. The young hobos, usually with dogs (Feed my dog! their signs say) dred locks, filthy calves, barefeet. The man that stands at in the middle of the median, unemployed (his sign says) needs money for food, and by the way, god bless.

First Summer's Day

On the first day of summer, I rise early and stretch towards the sun. Red looks at me from the floor raising one eyebrow and then another as if to say, "Are you done yet?" She is anxious for her walk. But I take the time to reach and bend, to bring summer into my bones and muscles, the deep joints of the hips, under the shoulder blades.

We take the trail by the river, not too many bugs, but lots of other dogs and their people. We all look goofy in our own way, the dogs with lathering tongues and lopsided grins, the people with floppy hats, mis-matched socks, glasses fogged with sweat. Red cries when another dog approaches even the old ones that limp along still happy to be a dog outside in the sun. She tolerates puppies who can't help but jump and nip at her red ears.

It is a good morning to drink hot sweet tea on the front steps, read the paper, take a nap.

It smells so fragrant, the day after a night of rain, the air rich with chamomile, pitch pine, unfolding ferns.

A good day to read a poem or two, Mary Oliver, to watch the dog sleep in the sun, wave at the young child next door drawing with chalk on the driveway.

There is time for more tea, writing in my journal (not the computer), talking on the phone with an old friend.

And late in the evening, when the peepers start to peep, the red wing black birds cease their chatter, the cattails rattle in the wind, a swim in the cool dark lake.