Thank you, thank you, thank you, and oh, thank you, and thank you too

Frantically scrolling in my inept way through Nextdoor posts on my phone last night, I kept accidentally thanking people, sometimes 3 or 4 times a piece, en route for more neighborhood sharing about safety, community, and connectedness amidst so much unrest.

How many otherwise nameless, faceless neighbors did I thank for their offers of free wood, gutter tips, inciting political comments, cross country skis for sale, complaints, calls out for lost keys, wanted mulch, unidentified insects and shrubs, vandalized or stolen cars, missing packages, rants about social distancing, designer facemasks for sale, alarm system recommendations, private conversations, salon recs, lost souls, vigilantes,  disgruntled, privileged, curfew breakers, Lake St cleaner uppers, immunosuppressed, recovered, heart opened, looted, lucky, lovingkindness, fearful, mamas and papas, sons and daughters, yogis, gardeners, bankers, lawyers, mowers, tea makers, drummers, all alone, all one, freaking out, keeping calm, all and none and more of the above? Who knows.

 But why not? It feels good to be thanked for our offerings, however big or small or mundane or unworthy.  Spirit lives in those offerings. So thank you everybody.  For everything.

Sending love

Hello Writers,
I hope you're all doing ok. Please write if it helps. Feeling anxious myself, I keep coming back to the stream of words, the river of words and the love they carry-yours, mine, ours across the ages-and I let the rhythms and melodies guide me, ac accompany me from one moment to the next.

Write if it helps. Tune into the river of words we've written and shared together and to those you keep in your hearts. I'm listening.

What's still going on

My son is dancing on the Wiii to The Final Countdown
We got quite a large delivery of mulch today
I just ate a really juicy mango over the sink while admiring my neighbor's garden
We chatted with our neighbors outside and I told them about this envy
We used a green wheelbarrow
Mail came
It was beautiful out
Lolabelle ate heartily
I am going to take a semi cool shower
And practice piano
And ice my herniated neck
And revive my electric fingers
And maybe have some lemon water
And sleep ok
All of this is thorny with guilt and also bittersweet

My son got his Wiiii back

Who knew he was such a good tennis player? TCF ain't bad either. Look at me: I got a front row seat!

Zoom PTSD?

Hello Baby Zoomers!

Can you hear me? Can you see me? Am I coming in okay? Did you hear that? Did you catch that? Should I start again? Where was I? Should I start over? No... go ahead. What? Who's talking? Should I turn off the video? Can you see me? Hold on... I'll be right back. If I cut out, hang in there. I'll be back. Ooops. Sorry... internet cut out. I can see you, but I can't hear you. I can hear you, but I can't see you. Can you see me? Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Anyone? You guys are talking as though I'm not here. Hello! I'm here! I'm here! Okay. I'll try my phone. Is that better? Hello? Hello? Sure... go ahead and write without me. Yes! That's good. I'll be back as soon as I get reconnected. Hello? Can you see me? Can you hear me? Really? Are you sure? No delay? No scary glitch grinding gears sound? Are you sure? You can see me? Okay. Just making sure. Just making sure you're still there.

Day 1 of Xfintiy Internet
Better.
Lasted all class long.
There may be hope.
Can I trust this?
Will it run out?
Is is safe?
So far, so good
But when the "your internet connection is unstable" warning came on and your voices started to warble, I got that old new abnormal panicky feeling again.

Complaint

I caved and signed on with Xfinity because my Zoom connection is so awful with my hotspot. I have to call them to activate it when I have all the supplies, which I'm cobbling together from Nextdoor, Amazon,  and Dada, immersing myself, once again, in all the techno micro details and vocabulary for which I have no room in my brain as it is and which interest me not in the very least (last week it was a dryer "baffle"; remember that?). Even so, it may not work because the cables they might need might be the ones we cut off of the house, thinking at the time there was no way in hell we would ever get cable. No way we'd ever use Zoom, whatever that was. Who knew a pandemic was coming? Maybe the cables are underground? Under water? In my head? Isn't that how it works these days? Do you think this pandemic is forcing tech people and dryer fixers to learn all the ins and outs about writing memoir? One can hope.

Did that man just yell at us?

Is it just me (and I'm okay with it if it is), but can you feel the vulnerable air? The ripe and hungry  and mutant air where anything and everything can hide and breed? Is it just me, or does it freak you out when the person ahead of you hangs out of her open car door at the drive-up window, sprawling toward the intercom seductively, like something you might see bellied up at the bar at closing time, spilling out her personal, private facts for all to judge?

Is it just me (and I really hope it isn't), or do you sometimes hoard righteousness for following the rules? For your mindfulness and your "right action"? After all, we brought along our masks, our sanitizer, our common sense and goodwill toward all. We planned ahead.

Is it just me, or are you afraid?

"Is he yelling at us?" I asked TCF after we yelled back the numbers he shout-demanded from us out of the Walgreens window intercom.

"Copay and ID," he said.

"We prepaid," we said.

"COPAY! You also need COPAY! COPAY!" he insisted.

"But we prepaid," we said again.

"Then you need the CODE! The CODE!"

Naturally, we had it ready and took our cue, said our line, the one we prepped for. "3—"

"Wait sir! Wait sir! Wait sir! I'm not ready! Can you wait a minute? Wait sir!"

We turned off the car. We waited. We hung out of the car like drunks at closing time and shouted back the code when he was ready. Meanwhile, the cars lined up behind us shook their heads, righteous in their obedience.

Why was it so emotional

When the Zoom play that my son was in last week ended and one by one all the parents starting popping into the screen to applaud? Oh look, there's that parent of that kid we haven't seen in years. And look! It's the mom we see everywhere, waving and smiling with her other 4 kids in her cheering section and wow, that must be the dad.

And there...is it? It is! Sure enough, materializing out of the darkness is my son's dad, Dada, all smiling and waving "yaaaaaaaay" the same way he did when J took his first step and said "dada" and ate his first Cheerio or smiled the real deal smile, not just the gassy reflexive one, but he cheered for that one too, or when he took his first drink out of a sippy cup, clumsily grasping it for the first time in his little dollhouse hands,  and all the faithful, level applause and cheer he surrendered on the bleachers at baseball, 4 rows back at the piano recital, from the curb when J stepped off the bus for the first few times or from the top of the steps, beneath the basketball hoop, in the soccer goal, on the sidelines, , catching the ball, on the ice, fork and knife, the first time he made a streak of purple across the blank page, pressed the Up button on the elevator, turned off the light, closed the lid, wrote his name, waved bye bye
Bye bye 
                Bye bye
                                bye bye
and said nightnight nightnight nightnight or sang Heeeeey Jude
or rang the bell for trick or treat or said thank you or gave a big big big hug to aunty or pet the cat nicely or ate all his peas or slept in his own bed or had his first sleep over or picked up a bug and cradled it to his heart like a prayer or so so so many things that it becomes a whirl of love all that applause as if it was his only commitment in life, to be there cheering and waving whenever J entered the scene, that no wonder it hurts like it does

And there he was at the end of the play, sure enough, waiting across town, out of the darkness and into the light of the theater smiling and waving his arms as though he'd been waiting his whole life for only this

What we're talking about when we talk about writing it down

Because someday you'll be grateful
Because someday, 22 years later
Because Mother's Day
Because Zoom
Because your mom, Ma, picks up the little chapbook as though it's product placement, and says "what's this?"
Because she forgot she read it
Because "Happy Mother's Day!"
Because it's been sitting there on her bookshelf in her office, my old bedroom, for 22 years, within 6 feet of her every day
Because of all the poems I wrote about all those women who were also like mothers and always would be
Because that part was so important
Because I gave it to her on Mother's Day 22 years ago today
Because what a fucking bizarre weird ass coincidence that there's no way it's a coincidence
Because my 13 year old wanted her to keep reading
Because TCF said my writing is just the same now as it was then
Because I'd forgotten
Because I'd forgotten
Because I'd forgotten
Because I'd forgotten
Because I probably couldn't cry about it then
Because even if I didn't like myself then, I really like myself then now
Because even though I would have liked myself now, then, I'm not sure it would have been for the right reasons
Because someday in 22 years I will read that line and love myself again
Because I'm so glad I wrote the truth
Because I'm so glad I wrote it down
Because I really wrote it for her
Because I really wrote it for me
Because hers was the best one even though it was hidden between ones with more sparkle
Because I had no other way to tell her
Because it feels like yesterday
Because it feels like years
Because part of my soul has been waiting patiently for me to find that little book again
Because it made me remember
Because you forgot something
Because I knew someday we'd all read it together and it would be much more than okay
Because I vowed from then on to write it down because you never know when there might be another pandemic, you never know what the future holds, why all the things you're hoarding aren't satisfying you
Because most everything you need is right here in your stack of spiral notebooks where you come walking through your childhood front door looking for the lost piece, wave goodbye to your mother and go out the backdoor empty handed
Because on second thought you go back inside for one last hug for the road

Here you go, Amber

One of my first and likely, who am I kidding? only literary pilgrimages was to William Faulkner's house in Oxford, Mississippi, where my dad, brother, and I drove from Los Angeles. Took "the Ten" all the way.

Have you listened to his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech lately? Some of the terms are of course out of date, but the way he speaks of endurance and the writers duty to write the truth is phenomenal. It's the heart gut where it hits you. The reminder to live life in tandem with the truth you write, with the weight and the levity of the written word. Every word doing it's full potential, its work on the page. Read it.

 As far as all this goes ...all the daily endurances: dodging people on walks, the chess game it has become, the online gamble for groceries, the waiting for fresh greens, the waiting in general, the ones who aren't social distancing, the climate, all those who are suffering, the hoarding and the lack, the chaos at home, the endurance we all must have, as we wait. The need to have repair people over, the broken appliances and too long grass in the yard.

There is all that, yes, and  I find what I'm having to endure the most, the most challenging, is my own mind, my own habits, ingrained thoughts, all of me right in my face. And when there's nowhere to go to release or relate or filter through or bounce off etc, it really all becomes a constant meditation practice. Here I am face to face, breath to breath with my fear, my gray area, my  inabilities, my stuff. My stuff I said I'd work on, my weaknesses I thought I'd strengthen, my despair, my apathy, my hunger and my longing. Here it is.

Here it is. Here's my childhood bedroom and the way it felt at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., when no one else was home and the LA light, desert desert light, frosted my bedroom with succulent filtered sunshine, gauzy through all that protection between me and a lemon tree. Here it is.

Here's that time on Venice Beach walking with Lisa in 11th grade and those biker guys with long greasy hair who always sat in that one spot with their shirts off drinking, next to the skate shop, yelling at us you ugly goth hippie motherfuking cunt, freak fuckers. Go home. And the missiling of crudities that ensued every time we walked that patch of the boardwalk, where we could feel it coming, feel our bodies slacking with shame. We endured then.

Here it is. Here's my cat Cleo in my arms and here's me so happy. Here's her a year later living at the neighbors and here's the pain I endured.

Here's the pain. Here's the joy.
Here's the moment.

Here's the one thousand nights I've wondered how I'd make it to morning and here's the evidence, as I write, that I did, that I endured. That we've been here before. We've moved through it. We've transformed and let go and what was once something we endured becomes something we miss, something we're grateful for.

So here it is. Here we are. Enduring. Endurant. Endurons. Not too far off form endearing, now is it?

Endearing ourselves to ourselves and one another as we endure. Otherwise, why bother with any of it?

And the writing keeps going, and the writing stays the same

 After a week of frustrating glitching in and out of classes, catching the debris of poetry and memories and fiction crafted and shared on the spot in this magical way that we practice here at The Beach, I am grateful and not surprised to be reminded every time I sit down to write that there's nothing that can replenish and restore and renew and bring me back home to myself,  into the moment, like writing. There may be a million things to pay attention to and no way to regroup. I can find myself shattered and split like broken glass, but as soon as I remember to write, I catch my breath. I'm back.

This morning, one of my students who I have known for over 12 years or so wrote about the things that bring her back. Like red wagons and little cups of ice cream with those little wooden spoons, and so many miraculous everyday things that live on in our bodies, in our heart's eye, waiting to be milked by the moment we sit down to write,  brought to life again, on the page for witnessing.

So far, so good

After much debate, we gave in and had Home Service Plus over to fix the dryer. The boys tried hard to fix it... ever heard of a baffle? We hadn't either. In case you need to know, it's the little fin inside your drier that you never noticed until it fell off.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. It seems like the "least handy people in the world," is a narrative that is no longer helpful during these uncertain times requiring much skill. As we often joke, if it was up to us to run the machines, build the computers and the cars, and put together Ikea furniture, everyone would be fucked. Why does everything—everything!—have to be about learning something? Why is there always—always!—a takeaway? A growth opportunity? Why does all the yogi talk keep coming back to taunt me?

So, the boys did fix the baffle. Woohooo! Score! Miracle! But that was after they took the wrong side of the dryer apart and accidentally dropped part of the door hinge into the black hole between the dryer door and the inside of the dryer, lost in space. While they were accomplishing that, somehow the hose got disconnected from the wall. Hmmm. Maybe we should quit while we're not too far behind?

Well. You can imagine the dilemma there. Call HSP and risk death or hang stuff on the line for a while? First of all, what line? Anyway, we called. We're not stupid. What kind of life is it, after all, to have to hang all your laundry every day?

So we got to work. We sanitized. They came. We sanitized. We sanitized some more. Dryer works. Took less than an hour. And here we left them a long note and what was broken, micromanaging from upstairs, the same way my grandma used to micromanage the cleaning lady, following her around the house with a microfiber cloth whenever she came over to clean their apartment in Palm Springs. 

Anyway, it's done. Maybe we'll brave the laundry room today or tomorrow. I figure we can stop worrying in a few days.

It amazes me how much this virus adds story to the most mundane of details. I finally fully understand what my playwriting teacher meant when she told me to "write every single scene "as though as bomb is about to go off under the table." Raise those stakes! Who knew those stakes would be a virus, but I suppose it's as likely a plot conflict as any. Antagonist=virus=tension=conflict=good story. And here I thought that was the easy way out. After all, it had been done so many times before.