yesterdayjane

[yesterdayjane]

Deep Snow

How deep you calculate the snow to be depends a lot on your perspective. But however deep it is, you can usually get where you want to go if you persist. 

[yesterdayjane]

Twice-picked Oranges

I picked the oranges first in Camarillo with garden sheers. Yesterday at Tahoe, I plucked the very same oranges with thick mittens. Which is to say I rescued the ones the bear dropped after he sauntered into our garage and followed his nose to the canvas bag which he dragged to a nearby tree for an afternoon feast. Clearly it was an enjoyable interlude for the big guy because he stayed until there were no more oranges and then  stomped the empty bag well into the juicy ground before cruising the neighborhood to see if he might find another door left so carelessly open. 

[yesterdayjane]

A Mug of Memory

We’re wrapped in another storm, the snow is light and the silence is deafening. It’s like being in a cocoon. I’m safe and dry and holding a mug of hot coffee, which I chose carefully. I always do because every single one of our eclectic collection of mugs is connected to the place it came from or the person who gave it to me. This morning I chose a mug that a neighbor gave me years ago. It has a bear on it. She died last year because, I think, life had become too much for her. She was a linked talker and it was hard to get a word in edgewise, but she was a geyser of information about people she knew and she thought that I would know because our family paths crossed decades ago. I never did know who she was talking about, but I liked her anyway. She got married when she was 19 and she lost herself when her husband lost his mind. 

Maybe the dementia slipped into his brain when he fell off his bike and landed in a ditch by the side of the road.  At the hospital, they wanted to do a bunch of tests on him, but she said no. He was old, she said, of course, they would find things wrong. She took him home and everything seemed fine for a while then he started forgetting where he was or who he was and he started wandering away, looking, perhaps, for the self he had misplaced. The family wanted to put him in a home, but she said no to that, too. The family thought it was about the money, but I’m pretty sure it was that she didn’t know how to live without him. 

[yesterdayjane]

Snow Snake

You just never know what you might find when you take a walk in the snow. On the first day of the New Year, my tracks, big galumphing snowshoe tracks, were the first on the beach. 

It was so quiet, I thought I could hear the air breathe. But hit wasn’t the air. It was the snow snake wriggling along the fence, her nose pointing at the sunrise and whispering that a walk in the snow is the best way to welcome a winter day.

[yesterdayjane]

To Be Engaged

The end of a year is always a time of reflection for me. On the last morning of the year, I wandered from thoughts about my mom who passed away in August, leaving us with boxes of letters collected over the years and some stuff, none of it valuable, to thoughts about the next generations working hard to make their livings while making their lives meaningful. It’s snowing here, big flaky dollops that sound like crinkling paper as they land in the snowy silence and I landed on the idea that life is best when one is engaged. 

To be engaged originally meant to pawn or pledge something, but later it came to mean pledge oneself in life or combat. That suggests that being engaged is a complex amalgam of interior commitment to a goal and the willingness to overcome exterior challenges that distract from that engagement. In  2023, I resolve to engage in loving, in creating, in being present for my loved ones. So there you have it: a peripatetic journey to my New Year’s resolution. 

[yesterdayjane]

The First Snow People

We had some good storms at Tahoe the last couple of weeks. Power lines came down,  heat and lights went off,  the road into our little cove was blocked by the top of a tall pine that fell. Behind our house a towering tree also lost its top,  but  the wind was on our side as it crashed to the ground a few feet behind us. Two neighbors were not so lucky as the treetops near them pierced their roofs. It’s a winter sky today, but sunny,  too, and the first of the snow people are beginning to populate the beach. Mostly their expressions are happy like the people who built them because if you’re lucky enough to be able to spend time in this beautiful place, you’re lucky enough.   

[yesterdayjane]

Platinum not Gray

A while ago, I read a book called How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People, which is a pretty presumptuous title. The premise of the book is that people over 70 harbor some wisdom that might be helpful for the younger set. The author was 45 when he wrote it and now that I have crested his high water mark, rolling into my eighth decade on the planet, I could be one of his subjects. I could be someone tapped for the wisdom that is lurking in my cranial space crowned with hair that you might call gray, but I call platinum. That’s wisdom for you: Pick the story you want to tell about yourself and stick to it. 

[yesterdayjane]

Compassion Fatigue

Yesterday we went to a group of art studios, where artists are selling their wares for the holidays. We were meandering through the former grammar school when we came upon a head we knew. Well, a face, really, smiling up at the ceiling from his position on the table. We stopped because we know that face and we know how, when he smiles, lines fan out from the corners of his eyes to the side of his head where he was missing an ear. This prompted a conversation with the artist about her process, which was odd this time as she had started out making a bowl so our friend’s head is hallow. I imagine that makes him chuckle. 

We got talking about ears as she molded the missing one from my friend’s upturned visage, measuring from a photo how long it should be. She remarked on how fun ears are to sculpt. I told her that in some cultures long and lobey is said to be an auspicious sign, an indicator of a good memory, curiosity and engagement with other people. She didn’t know anything about that, but she did know that when she embarked on a sculpture of her husband, who is a therapist, she would make his ears droopy. I imagined her husband’s ears as big megaphones of listening dripping into a dangling clapper, like a bell. She would name it “Compassion Fatigue.” 

[yesterdayjane]

Believe

It is the season of holiday traditions and I love them all. I love the lights and the trees and the snow, which we got in abundance  at the lake last night. But I’m not at the lake; I’m in Southern California where people decorate their mantlepieces with real pine boughs threaded with fake snow. I like that, too. 

Recently I heard about some young parents who have decided that their children will not have the pleasure of a Santa Claus because, frankly, Santa is a lie. Well, that’s true. I mean, Santa as a fat guy gliding around the world on a red sleigh pulled, not by lithium batteries, but by reindeer is surely as fanciful as it gets. That he brings gifts, free of all charges including taxes is unbelievable. It’s ludicrous, in fact. Wonderfully, gloriously, imaginatively laughable. 

And isn’t that the point? The laugh, the smile,  the idea that all that is real cannot be seen. Because surely Santa is real. Like grace or goodness, Santa is the idea of goodness, of generosity, of our shared humanity. As  Francis Pharcellus Church wrote in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897.  “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.” 

So there you have it. I love the traditions. All of them. 

[yesterdayjane]

When a Fingernail is a Shovel

In the salon, just before Thanksgiving, a zoftig white woman wearing baggy  purple pants and a drapey black coat with two cartoonish gold characters twined on her back talked nonstop about the dinner she had planned. She described in great detail the turkey (”you put dollops of butter under  the skin before roasting”) and stuff it with a cornbread mixture ("with butter chips for flavor”), and  potatoes mashed with whipping cream (”and butter”) and creamy green beans (”sautéed in butter, before you add canned mushroom soup”)  and bacon bits (”which I make myself  so they’re the real thing”). The meal would end with a pecan pie with “the  most deliciously buttery crust you could ever imagine.” 

I was thinking about all that butter and its attendant cholesterol when Zoftig’s voice rose in a crowning crescendo  after the last of her talons was glued on and painted.  “You want presentation?” she fairly sang,  “I got presentation. I got china. Real china!” 

She wiggled her newly  clawed hands  in the air and admired them in the mirror. Her nails were long and curved, like  little scoops. I imagined them carving a stick of  butter into a sculpture .   I  imagined how they would clink against the cutlery; I imagined  each nail stuffed with a little mini-meal: a dab of stuffing, a chip of turkey, a splash of cranberry all jammed into that scoop of a nail and crusted with pecan syrup. Sometimes my imagination goes too far. 

[yesterdayjane]

People Labels

Humans are interesting animals because while we’re born with certain attributes, we use all manner of pharmaceuticals and clothes to add and subtract from what is there naturally. Yesterday I went to CostCo which was crowded, but not too crowded and it was cold, but not too cold so coats were unbuttoned revealing t-shirts with labels like “Great Abs” which in this particular case was more aspirational than real. The t-shirt made me think about how  what we present to the world is a matter of choice, but it’s also accidental because our bodies and faces are not great liars.

The Abs guy might have some work to do, or maybe his abdominal muscles are exactly where he wants them: hidden and well-protected. Then there was the beautiful woman at the pharmacy window, who (I overheard) was born in 1941 and wearing a “Forever Young” jacket. The twinkle in her eye and the bounce in her step suggested that she was exactly that. She reminded me of the advice my mother-in-law  gave me forty years ago. “Today you are as young as you  will ever be!” And that is true of all of us, no matter the shape of our abs.

[yesterdayjane]

Toiling in the Dark

Recently  I went to hear an author speak at the local library. I hadn’t read her books; I knew nothing about her topic, which seemed to be horror film monsters nor was I interested in learning about them. Monsters terrify me and when Mallory O’Meara stepped up to the dais with her purple tinged hair and black lipstick. I expected that it was going to be a trying hour. 

Then she began to speak. At first I was intrigued, then captivated. She was an excellent speaker and while her topic was, indeed, a very particular monster from the Lost Lagoon, her focus was, in fact not on the monster, but on its creator, Millicent Patrick, who was never credited with her creation.  This is not, of course, new territory  in the 21st century as a spate of movies and books have resurrected many women from obscurity, but it did make me think in a new way, which is, after all the purpose of exposing oneself to new ideas.  

Though I will likely not add horror films to my leisure activities, I will think about monsters in a new, less terrifying, way. Perhaps, like Millicent Patrick who was as beautiful as she was talented,  they are all women, toiling in the dark.

[yesterdayjane]

Happy Birthday & Bon Voyage

It would have been my mother's 96th birthday today, except she died 47 days ago. She visited me this morning in a lovely dream and she was dressed in a beautiful ivory wool suit, a blue scarf at her neck, matching her blue eyes that glittered with joy and expectation. 

We were traveling and she and Dad were ready to go, their carry-ons neatly at their feet. I, on the other hand, had stuff everywhere - ideas and words and underwear and too many bulky sweaters. I asked Mom if she had room in her carry-on for something of mine and she wanted to say yes, I could tell, but she was flummoxed, too, because she was so neatly ready and I was so clearly not. Luckily for me, because this is what makes the dream end well, instead of pursuing my request, I said, "You look beautiful!" and then I hugged her. And then she went on her journey, the one she always said she needn't pack for. 

[yesterdayjane]

The Weight of Worry

Some people eat when they worry and some people don’t. Normally I’m a don’t. My stomach kind of cramps up and chewing seems like too much of a chore to be worth it. But I broke new territory today because I started out with my usual not-eating, but because I had to wait-wait-wait before the worry monster was put solidly and finally to bed, I had a little time on my hands. 

So I went to the mall where I proceeded to buy $4.71 worth of dark chocolates and a warm, doughy, salty pretzel for $4.80. Having just eaten my yogurt and apple, which is what the non-worry-eater part of me had packed, I was not hungry, but nevertheless I managed, like Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar to munch through every bit of that pretzel and every single chocolate in the little bag. 

I’m not sure what worry weighs, but I’m pretty sure that the worry-effect will clock in at about a kilogram. 

[yesterdayjane]

Rooster - 3

First of all, his name is Richard. The bird that is, and his owners are  delightful and they had no idea that their raucous rooster was creating a disturbance in their new neighborhood. We had a friendly chat and in the end, they thanked me for letting them know and they asked me if I wanted any eggs. 

I struggled with my answer, wondering if I would lose negotiating points if I accepted a gift before the deal was done. 

I said yes since it seemed the neighborly thing to do. 

That night, midnight came and went. Then,  one, two, three AM. No Richard. Stars shimmered. An owl hooted.I wondered, briefly, if the braying rooster had, after all, been consigned to the stewpot. I need not have worried. At 6:40, Richard began to belt his morning aria. I congratulated myself; 6:40 is, after all, morning. I told my friends and gave myself a neighborhood diplomacy award. Except .. 

And it’s a big except ... 

Richard’s midnight moratorium didn’t last.  A rooster, after all, has a job to do. So maybe that’s the end of my saga.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “ “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” I suppose that little morsel of wisdom goes for Richard, too. 

[yesterdayjane]

Rooster - Day 2

Defeated. That’s the way one neighbor described how he felt being wakened by a warbling rooster every morning at 3 o’clock sharp. 

“Have  you talked to the owners?” I asked. 

He shook his head. “No, when the crowing starts, I just close the windows and doors.”

It seemed to me that he was waving the white flag before it was necessary, so I continued canvassing the neighbors and was only slightly surprised to find out that while no one had actually talked to the cock-a-doodle family, everyone had a solution: (1) Relocate him (2) Ring his neck (this came with a demonstration of just how easy it is) (3)  lock him in a dark place in a cage not big enough to allow the cock to stretch his neck, which is evidently required to belt out a tune. 

None of these options had been presented to the people who actually owned the offending chicken, so I headed down the lane to the chicken coop and had a surprising reception.  

[yesterdayjane]

The  Rooster - 1

Ventura County,  is sandwiched on California’s south coast  between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and despite the mushrooming of nearly look-alike houses on land that used to be striped with orchards, it’s still an agricultural county quilted with strawberry fields and avocado and lemon groves. We drive from Tahoe to our neighborhood, of forty years, which  looks about the same as it always has. There are no sidewalks, no boom boxes, no hum of traffic nearby. At night you can hear the stars. 

Except. 

And this is a big except: A rooster has moved in and so happy is he to be in this peaceful neighborhood, he begins a sickly kind of warbling at 3 o’clock in the morning, which he continues until dawn. I wondered when these serenades had begun and what my neighbors thought, so I resolved to ask them. 

I’ll keep you posted.