Sometimes Life…

The face of my dead mother comes to me at the strangest times.
The last time was in a yoga class.
Savasana.
I don’t know, maybe that’s not so strange.
Dead man’s pose.
Dead woman’s face.
Dead woman’s daughter in dead man’s pose
spilling over with grief.

My belly didn’t convulse as with my usual crying.
It’s just liquid this time,
like her face in my head turned on a spigot
in my tear ducts.
Little drips of ocean out the corners of my eyes,
onto my cheekbones,
onto my shoulders,
onto the mat where I lie
remembering the time I told her I hated her,
the time I made fun of her behind her back with my friend Rose,
the time I asked my daddy what I’d look like if she wasn’t my mommy
and was disappointed by his answer that I wouldn’t be me
without her.

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I tasted death
on the lips of the woman who bore me.
I kissed her cheek.
I held her hand.
I took the candy from her very last breath.
It was sweet and I was surprised.
I sang her to The Gates that night
on the lyric of a song she taught me
long before she forgot my name.

There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole.
There is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
If you cannot preach like Peter
If you cannot pray like Paul
Go tell the love of Jesus
And say, “He died for all.”

She is standing by the Rock with her feet in the River, I’m sure,
charming that Gate Keeper with her jokes
and whistling for Eula Mae.
They’ll watch Jeopardy
and know all the answers.
She’ll spin her Wheel of Fortune
while Ed McMahon waits
with a check made payable in her name.

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Before I became Catholic, I was a Presbyterian, and before that, a Baptist. But after 40 years, I grew tired of Protestants, tired of their protesting, tired of their reforming, tired of myself and my own small wit trying to make the whole conflagration cool enough for the privilege of my presence. So I gave up and turned to the Mother Church where I now sit in the pew, kneel at the altar, eat the body, drink the blood, confess my sins twice a year and call it good. I can’t make the Church better with my lying, cheating self, so I hope to be made better by Her. So far, I’m not sure it’s working.

One of the things I grew to loathe about Protestant churches is the sermon. A 30, 40 sometimes 60 minute long exercise in self-important blathering on the part of someone who thinks his thoughts are original because he went to seminary. Catholic priests don’t really preach. They give a homily that, even if they’re long-winded, lasts 10 minutes. Then it’s on to the main thing. The Supper. The Last One. Every mass is a recounting of those three crucial days we Christians celebrate big at Easter time – A little dinner with friends, a little death by frenemies, a little taste of the glorious resurrection. Afterward it’s a bottle of wine and a Sunday ham, and we’re off to Monday to start it all over again. Frankly, this is why I like being Catholic. Just get to it, you know? Keep it moving. Life is short and donuts are waiting on the patio.

One sermon, though, before my Catholic conversion, almost permanently secured my spot in the protestant pews of Church-dom. It was the best sermon I ever heard.

It is January 2005, maybe a week after the Indian Ocean tsunami that wiped out more than 250,000 people at once. Everyone everywhere is undone, and all the big questions are colliding in everyone’s heads like plastic bottles in a furious, littered sea. How could this happen? How could God let it? Did God let it? Is God powerless to stop it? Is there a God at all, because if there is, he clearly lost his nerve some time before the turn of the 21st century or he surely would’ve prevented it, right? When questions with no answers like these get bandied about, sooner or later someone gets blamed – usually George W. Bush. But the fine churchgoers at Bel Air Presbyterian aren’t big on Bush bashing, and they haven’t as yet concluded that there is no God. They do wonder in earnest, however, how their loving, peaceful Deity could allow to happen such a horrific thing, with such horrific death on such a horrific scale.

“Why?” is the question on everyone’s mind as they await the beloved Protestant sermon from their beloved Protestant pastor. Though a visitor here, I want an answer too, as I’m no longer inclined to blame Bush for the world’s woes, yet not cynical enough to conclude there is no God. “Why?” indeed.

Pastor Brewer reads from Luke 3, a New Testament scripture quite unpopular amongst warm fuzzy Christians. To paraphrase: Some folks are inquiring after Jesus as to why a group of regular ol’ people minding their own business sweeping their dirt floors just got rounded up and pounded to death. An appropriate scripture for the day, I’m thinking. The people asking the question in this passage are religious and expect to hear Jesus say something like “Well, they were taken out because they have offended God! They’re getting what they deserve! They’re paying for their sins! But Jesus answers with just one word: “Repent.”

Oh he’s a sly one, that Jesus.

“Repent” repeats the pastor. I sink my head into my hands. Here we go. Here we go with the proselytizing. I can sort of take it from Jesus, but not from some modern day, BBQ-bellied pastor in a Hawaiian shirt. The Bible lays unopened on the pew beside me, next to it a short pencil with no eraser, the kind I used to scribble with as a kid as I listened to my daddy preach The Gospel all those years ago. A plastic communion “shot” glass lies empty on the floor at my feet, likely missed by an usher from the 8 am service.

“I don’t mean to sound callous,” says the preacher “and I know you all are looking for an answer. You want to know “why,” but I think we’re asking the wrong question,” he says. “Did you know that more than 150,000 people die in the world – every day? I hate to break it to you, but we’re all going to die. Some sooner, some later. The question is not “why?” but “are you ready?“

He does not launch into any kind of accept-Jesus-in-your-heart-or-burn-in-hell altar call. I think maybe this particular protestant preacher may actually, in good evangelical spirit, be talking to the cynics in the crowd, who upon hearing such Christian-ese would just walk out the door. Cynics like me.

“Kay”, I hear someone say from the pulpit, I swear I do, as a fog comes over the sanctuary and razor-sharp clarity steals my breath. “Do the people you love know you love them? Have you forgiven your parents? Your friends? The lovers who used you, scorned you, left you? Have you made amends for all the shit you pulled? Did you say thank you for the sunrise this morning? For your double espresso and your organic half and half? For your marvelous daughter and your steadfast husband? Did you tell the truth when you wrote those poems, or were you just looking to please everyone? Because if you haven’t and if you didn’t, and if you were, I suggest you get a move on and make it right, because you’re gonna die one day. Maybe soon. Maybe today. And to go to your grave with the people you love wondering if you really loved them, while still holding those grudges tight in your fist… To go to your grave with your truth untold, well that’s a particular kind of hell for you and everyone who loves you, now isn’t it?”

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” begins the Doxology. The plate is passed as a wave of sorrow crashes over me and sun light from the north window clears the fog from my brain. Everyone stands for the Mandate; heads are bowed for the Benediction. It isn’t until the sanctuary is empty that I feel Tim pulling at my arm. “Come on” he says. “We have to go get Esther.” I walk down the steps and out of the sanctuary without a word, my eyes wide open like glass, my heart torn asunder for the monstrous love I’ve left unspoken, and for the vast love murdered and maimed by a deep, cruel, disinterested sea half a world away, sunk in finality at the floor of the Indian Ocean.

Yep. That was the best sermon I ever heard. I don’t much ask “why?” anymore when something awful happens in the world. I light a candle for the dead and the mourning, and wonder, when it’s my turn, if I’ll be ready.

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I’m writing a book of letters to my daughter. On the eve of Esther’s 9th birthday, here is an excerpt.

Dear Esther;

Yesterday, just before you drifted off to sleep, you asked me why it is that everyone in your class is so much faster than you are, why you are so slow getting your work done at school. This question hit me hard. It’s the first time you’ve verbalized any knowledge that you are different than your classmates, and I was worried that you might be starting to doubt yourself and your abilities. So, let me explain something.

It’s a little more complicated than this, but basically, there are two sides to your brain, the left side and the right side. The left side is… well… it’s black and white, it moves left to right, it’s logical, orderly, and analytical. The right side is in full blooming color. The right side moves in circles, wanders around a lot, and finds answers outside the lines. The right side dances with tree frogs and paints with a spoon. The right side is magical and knows you’re a part of everything and everyone. The lines on the right side are squiggly and blurry but sometimes there just aren’t any lines separating anything from anything else. Life on the right side is open and boundless and hops on one foot from gumdrop to marshmallow. You, my little cabbage, are a right-brained girl.

Now it just so happens that you go to a left-brained school, which, frankly, sucks. I mean, it’s a really good school; it’s just not a really good school for you. Most schools are left-brained, and the schools that are right-brained usually cost a lot more money than we have, which is a bummer. If we had the money you’d surely be attending one, but since you’re not, you’re having to fight quite an internal battle to get the right side of your brain to do stuff better suited to the left side. You’re the square peg, sweetheart, working to get into that pesky little round hole. So, the truth is you are NOT slower than the rest of your class. In fact, you are likely working a million times harder than the rest of them and your brain is going a zillion miles a minute. You’re thinking about 25 things while they’re thinking about one! And that’s why it’s so hard for you to concentrate on just the one thing your teacher asks you to. Besides, you’ve got far more interesting things on your mind than writing the answer to 341 minus 267. I mean, who cares about that when there’s infinity to ponder and a unicorn prancing on a rainbow right at the edge of your eyelashes?

You also happen to be a very bouncy girl who hates to sit her bottom in a seat, so a classroom chair for you is like prison. You’d much rather be jumping rope and doing cartwheels and handstands to backbends, right? Well, you put that right brain together with your bouncy body, and doctors and teachers and psychologists like to call that ADHD, and they like to call it “disordered” and they like to “medicalize” it and medicate it and make it out like there’s something wrong with you. But there is nothing wrong with you. You just don’t fit into their left brained, black and white, orderly, logical world. Did you know, Esther, that your mommy is right-brained too? Did you know that when I was little they didn’t understand people like us at all, and that my 2nd grade teacher actually called me stupid? Isn’t that the silliest thing ever? I knew you ‘d think so…

I’ll tell you what else, Esther, right-brained people are the ones who make the world beautiful with paintings and poetry and purple pixie lipstick. And we don’t care about time. What is time, anyway, except an arbitrary boundary some left-brain people decided to place on our planetary experience? For you and for me there is no time, there is only right now. So how are we supposed to solve 50 multiplication facts in 15 minutes? What does that even mean? I’ll tell you what it means. It means nothing. Nothing at all. We can solve those problems, no doubt, but what’s with the clock? Why is that important? Why are only the ones who can finish in 15 minutes called smart? Why can’t we take 3 earthly days to finish? Why does that make us stupid? I know, Esther. I don’t get it either.

So remember, sweetheart. You are not slow; you are timeless. While others live bound by subjective time restraints, you live in infinity, so you’ve got forever to ponder 12 times 9. And when you finally decide to write it down, you’ll do it with your favorite markers and make the answer come alive with every color the world’s palette has to offer. You’ve got a beautiful brain, Esther. And one day, you’ll realize not only how lucky you are to have it, but that left-brain people envy you for it, and are awestruck by it, and wish they could be like you.

Love you, honey…

Mama.

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My favorite Christmas song is Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel. Well, actually, it’s not a Christmas song. It’s an Advent song. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus. Advent encompasses the waiting for a Savior. I’ve discovered of late that I’m more a fan of Advent than Christmas itself, because even after all these years, I’m still waiting; waiting for good news, for the turn around, for a sign of life, for that glimmer at the end of the tunnel, and on most days, for the other shoe to drop. I worry and I wait. I’ve grown accustomed to it.

It will come as no surprise then for me to say that by most people’s standards I’ve turned into a bit of a Scrooge at Christmas time. I dread the holiday. I dread the shopping, the fight for parking. I dread seeing greed and gluttony in action. I dread the Christmas music that starts before Halloween. I want it over before it begins.

Even so, I am hopeful. Really I am. But I do not hope as I did in my youth for presents and things, for more shoes I don’t need, a new kitchen gadget or an iTunes gift card. I do not hope to find ornaments on sale on the 26th. I hope for an end to conflict – mostly in my own life because I’m kinda self-absorbed, but most certainly I hope for an end to conflict on the planet too, because it all just seems too much for a world with so much unrealized beauty to bear. Maybe I notice all the tragedy more acutely this time of year because it looks so stark up against all the glitter of the holidays. Maybe I really am just a Grinch. I don’t know…

Now if this post doesn’t make you want to come to my house for Christmas dinner, I don’t know what will…

I started making a slide show video set to my favorite rendition of Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel late December last year, after the floods in Nashville, TN. I never finished it, because Advent had passed and it just didn’t feel like the right timing. Last Sunday at mass, I was reminded that Advent and the beginning of the liturgical year start this week. The video project I abandoned 12 months ago suddenly popped back into my head.

It seemed somewhat dated when I first revisited the project in iMovie three days ago. Yes, that Nashville flood was sooo “last year.” But you don’t have to look far to find tragedy in the world, do you? How about an earthquake? A tsunami? A hurricane? A war? A protest? A famine? An AIDS crisis?

Now I seriously don’t mean to rain on your Christmas parade, really I don’t. I want you to have a happy one. Honest. All I wish to provide in having pieced together this little video is some perspective – mostly for myself, if we’re keeping it real. Seeing and assembling these photos didn’t depress me, per se. It put my own small woes in their place. It made me mindful. It made my heart bigger. And if that isn’t what Christmas is about, well then I’ve got the whole thing wrong. There is so much to be grateful for without spending a dime, without having to overstuff ourselves with 3rd and 4th helpings of turkey and pie, and without trampling one another on Black Friday for an X-box and an iPad2. Am I right?

No matter the time of year, no matter the continent, no matter the people, there is sorrow to be found. Where there is sorrow, there is hope that needs to be restored… and there is a peace worth waiting for.

And so… I wait…

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Everybody’s an expert.
Go to a surgeon,
he’ll tell you to have surgery.
Go to a hairdresser,
she’ll tell you to get a haircut.
Go to a bankruptcy attorney,
he’ll tell you to file.
Go to a priest,
he’ll tell you to confess.

If you ask me,
I’d say
worry,
sing,
write,
announce your arrival;
then have a pint of beer
and get over yourself.

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My surf instructor, Mary Osborne. Photo by Tim Burgess.

1. Just Me

On the day I left for Ventura to surf for the first time,
I had a premonition:
a premonition that my life was about to change.
There was nothing specific,
nothing clear,
nothing to latch onto.
Just the sense that I was climbing an onramp
to a new highway,
even though I’d travelled the 101 North from L.A.
a million times in the last 25 years.

10 days later, I still feel it:
a new existence
rising on the Rincon.
It’s still unclear,
but it looms.
It scares me,
but I want it.
Surely, I am changing.
That’s no surprise.
But into what?
Into whom?

I stand at the water’s edge, and I won’t look back.
I want a double espresso with steamed half and half
and my sunglasses.
Oh, and a cigarette, please.
But I’ll have none of them, thanks,
nor anything else to propel me
or lull me
or hide me
on this inaugural swim
with paper sharks on sea-foam pillows.
It’s just me,
myself,
and my open, hungry heart.

2. Premonition

I could write about the current
or the easy south swell.
I could write about my childhood islands
watching me from 30 miles off shore.

I could write about my useless heartache and how I left it behind,
or about the long, feathering waves I’ve missed
since Friday afternoon.
I could write about the ones that pummeled me
or the ones I let roll by.

I could write about how saltwater makes my hair curl
and how I didn’t expect to love the taste of it on my lips
or the sting of it in my eyes.
I could write about being a lead balloon on top of that board,
and how it mostly felt like wrangling a giant pissed off sea lizard.

I could write about how I landed wrong
or why I jumped off the board when I did.
I could say I was a klutz or I could say I was my own hero,
and both of those things would be true.
I could write about how it changed me, this little weekend,
just like my premonition said it would.

I drove 60 miles north to discover something I’m terrible at.
But thank God I have no talent standing in my way
because that means with enough time in the water and on the board,
I will learn to surf.

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She is on a pilgrimage.
She’s walking the 500-mile Spanish portion
of the walk to the Church of Santiago de Campostela,
The Way of St. James,
and I am envious.

She traveled alone to France
and then on to Spain to walk this walk,
without knowing a word of French or Spanish.
She is meeting other pilgrims along the way, to be sure,
but without a friend or family member
and the baggage they inherently pile on,
it is still a solitary journey.

She is walking with a pack on her back,
which carries just enough water for the day,
an apple, a bar, or a bag of pretzels,
and one change of clothes for the evening.
She has brought with her only what she can reasonably carry
for a daily trek of 15 to 20 miles.

She stays in small villages along the route
– in hostels and albergues.
She washes out her walking clothes each night,
and every morning she begins again.

I carry my life on my back.
Lost and unrequited love,
anxiety and failure,
rage and regret,
self-criticism and the disapproval of others.
You name it.
It’s on my back.

I want to be a pilgrim,
a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago.
I want to shed this useless baggage
and be alone with my body and my thoughts,
my blisters and my tears.

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“Mommy?” she asks, taking my hand as we walk our afternoon ritual to the pool. “When people go to college, do they take their stuff with them when they go?”

“Yes” I say. “They do.” She stops in the middle of the street.

“Everything? Even their beds? Even their toys and their clothes?”

“Yes, sweetheart, everything. Now, keep walking. Don’t stop in the middle of the street.” I pull her along as I always do, trying not to rush her out of her thoughts, which frustrates her beyond measure.

“Well I don’t want to do that when I go to college,” she says, slowing down, hopping on one foot. I let go of her hand and let her hop. She’s happy when she hops.

“I’m guessing you may very well want to when you get to be that age.” I reply. She stops hopping, runs to my side and buries her face in my belly after poking it with her index finger a few times.

“No mama. I never want to leave. I always want to be with you. Always. I love you toooooo much. I could never leave you. Never.” She unwraps herself from my body and opens the pool gate. She runs for the water and I watch as she leaps.

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I thank God for little words
which, when strung together by brave souls,
can bring tears over the brim of my eyes
and waves over my flesh where no ocean lives.

 

Once to my ears, and only for a moment,
they are quakes in the core of my heart
and music to the dead of my bones.

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