Kernels of Haiku

from a few stained sheets of notebook paper, torn out messily, undated but written sometime early in 2007. Kernels of haiku from which the haiku never emerged.

The swish of her blue jeans and the creak of her shoes as she walks through the cubicles.

Malcolm's coughing early in the morning.

Logs ready to crumble in the wood stove.

Thoughts that flit like dragonflies and are gone.

Jerry's chemo hats — misshapen, warm, soft, and not often used because he didn't lose his hair from the radiation for his brain cancer.

Matisse's rage-driven writing.

The ache in my belly.

Leaves shining in the sun.

The compliments my gloves get everywhere.

Counting calories: cookies, salad, carrots, a clementine.

Unable to visit my folks because the boys have whooping cough.

The clarity of knitting stitch after stitch, trying it on as you go, getting the fit right. Winding yarn, a slow rhythm ever alert for tangles.

The leaves shining in the brilliance of the morning sun.

The calico cat Nell trotting across the yard to meet me.

Remus John's fierceness over his math.

Garry's unexpected tendernesses.

The scent of orange/tangerine being peeled.

Degeneration of handwriting long unused.

Poetry in motion.

The sounds of a copier: kerchunk kerchunk beep beep beep kerchunk kerchunk thump beep beep, shuffling paper.

Shapeless green corduroy knapsack/purse, appealing somehow.

Zipping my life into packages/compartments: laptop, papers, laptop power supply, water bottle, commuter tea mug, lunch stuff, keys, wallet, change, badge, knife, fork, napkin, tupperwares, chapstick, handkerchief, pens.

All the stuff to keep track of.

Years of carrying a diaper bag in one arm and the baby in the other.

Was that an earthquake?

The rains are back.

After a dry January, the rains started about 2 weeks ago. We got about 10 inches over Valentine's Day weekend, and it's been raining on and off ever since. The ground is like chocolate pudding, and everything is green and alive.

When we started getting ready for bed Sunday evening, our driveway looked more or less like this:

As we were winding down for the night, we heard a low rumble and the front of the house started shaking.

“Earthquake!” I thought as I scrambled for the nearest doorway.

“That tree's down!” reported the children from the sliding glass door.

It didn't look like a big tree when it was in the ground, maybe 70 feet tall and between 2 and 3 feet thick at the base. Some of the douglas firs across the street are 8 feet thick and substantially taller, and, of course, the redwoods get bigger than that.

Spread out across the driveway, however, it was big enough:

It took out two fences (but not the posts) and a couple of retaining walls, but managed to avoid doing any serious damage. Once Garry had cleared away a few of the branches, we were even able to get our cars out.

Sombrito thought the newly upturned soil smelled very interesting.

And Malcolm ventured off for a walk in the woods.

Bricks from the walk were sprayed all around, and one of the boards from the retaining wall was flung 15 feet from its original location.

Tree cutters stopped by to offer their services, and the neighbors came over to survey the damage and lend a hand.

We have a start on next winter's fuel supply anyway.

Venus and Mars in Opposition

15 February 2005

Yesterday was one of those lovely Hallmark holidays. On Sunday, the boys and I made fancy valentine cookies. Malcolm was the child most into making valentines this year, and we have lacy hearts scattered around the house. Remus John pretended to be Cupid John, shooting everyone with his little plastic coat hanger bow. He delivered valentines for people, and we made a great show of falling in love with one another whenever we were shot.

I decided to forgo the romantic candlelit dinner in favor of water aerobics. When it comes to atmosphere, water aerobics has it all -- soft lighting, intimate apparel, mood music, good company. Plus, you get a good workout.

I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few odds and ends. I shop at this store twice a week, but I've never seen it like this before. The place was swarming with men, especially the card and flower displays. I was practically the only woman in the store.

I got my prosaic groceries (snap peas, string cheese, cereal, mushrooms, pepperoncinis, french bread, and laundry soap) surrounded by men carrying roses, chocolates, and bottles of wine.

Over the cheese display, I commented that I had never seen so many men at the grocery store.

"I didn't forget!" the bearded guy snapped, rolling his cart away.

Hmmm.

I mentioned the gender balance to the checker.

"Hey," he said, "these guys are all regulars. It's safe to turn them loose with a grocery list."

He conceded, however, that it was extremely unusual to see so many men in the grocery store. He then treated me to a diatribe against Valentine's Day, how it was all about men doing things for women. Being long opposed to the guilt aspect of Hallmark holidays myself, I appreciated this, but I could not resist needling him.

"What's wrong? Did your honey forget Valentine's Day?"

"She dumped me a week ago."

I commiserated in a maternal sort of way, and he told me that he'd be all right. It was just making him a tad bitter.

A young woman took my groceries out to the car. On the way out, I commented on what a shame it was that the checker's girlfriend dumped him.

"He probably deserved it," she said darkly.

No wonder roses have thorns and Cupid shoots arrows. Valentine's Day is a major engagement in the war between the sexes.

Scenes from a Marriage

(23.5 years in, on a warm July night, cuddling in bed)

I had been thinking about broken hearts. I looked back over my life and realized that my heart had broken exactly once, in the summer of 1982, when Garry and I renounced one another for reasons that seemed good at the time. Pondering this, I wondered if it really counted, because we ended up getting married 2.5 years later. Could it really be a broken heart if it ended up in a happy marriage?

Me: Have you ever had a broken heart?

Garry: Only once.

Me: Tell me about it.

Garry: It was that summer when we gave each other up. I'd been hurt before, but I never knew what it was like to have my heart break until then. I never believed in true love until then, either.

Me: Wait. You believe in true love?

A rare and precious thing to discover after 23 years of marriage and 4 kids. I appreciated learning it so much more now than I would have then.

(after 24 years of marriage, on a cold winter night, cuddling close for warmth)

We were talking about my weight loss and its effect on the male half of the population.

Me: Well, I did get issued a pretty nice body.

Garry: Oh yes, I noticed you the minute I set eyes on you, on the first day of class.

Me: You noticed me the first day of class? What did you think?

Garry: I thought you were gorgeous. And then I thought, 30 years from now, we'll be married and have four kids and we'll be lying in bed together naked talking about this moment. I'd describe what you were wearing....

Me (in utter disbelief, because he has no interest in my clothes): You remember what I was wearing?

He went on to describe my outfit, and I remembered the shirt he was describing. Amazing.

It is strange and wonderful to discover these tidbits about our early days after so many years. Almost like being on an archeological expedition and discovering signs of an earlier society.

(later that same night)

Me: Marry me.

Garry: I'd love to, but I'm already married.

Me: Well dump her and marry me instead.

Garry: But I like being married to her.

Me: What do you like about being married to her?

Garry: Well, for starters, she's brilliant and sexy.

Me: Sounds like tough competition.

Garry: Very.

Some things in life just keep getting better.

California Dreaming

Over the past few years, I've realized that I don't really consider myself an American, any more than the average Scotsman considers himself British. I am an American, but foremost I'm a Californian. I understand deep in my soul the importance of water. I know how hard we need to fight to save our environment, our towns, signs of the past. I know that the soul of the land is the tough manzanita that re-sprouts after wildfires, not the redwood or the palm or the showy California poppy. I know the importance of basing one's diet on fresh fruits and vegetables. I know that the cardinal sins of human existence are social, environmental, and dietary rather than sexual.

I know that earthquakes aren't a big deal (except when they are), and that building codes are our friends. I know that snow belongs tidily in the Sierras instead of scattered willy-nilly all over the state. I know that the real seasonal variations are wet and dry, and that it never rains in the summertime. I know that farming requires irrigation. I know that every drop of water that sustains our cities comes from the snow in the mountains, and must be conserved.

I know that real trees are thousands of years old, can be 30-40 feet thick at the base, and that they can tower 400 feet in the air. I dream of climbing some of those trees like mountains and spending a night in their canopies. I know that real mountains are 10,000 or more feet tall and made of granite, while the ~5000' ones near the coast are more properly called hills.

I know that the ocean is large, wild, and cold, and that the sun sets over it. I swim in it anyway, even in January. Some places the ocean rides gently into beaches while other places it smashes into the mountains at the edge of the continent. I know what a microclimate is, and always dress accordingly.

I know the meaning of diversity: in the land, in the culture, in viewpoints, in the economy, in languages, in religion, in diet, in dress, in social mores. I know the costs and benefits of rapid growth and the struggle to create a meaningful, workable post-industrial society. I know that the state is large enough to embrace the Imperial Valley and The Land Behind the Orange Curtain as well as Berkeley, Marin, La Jolla, Garberville, and Eureka. It does not cause me the least bit of cognitive dissonance to put Spanish and English place names in the same sentence or to drive through neighborhoods where the store signs are in Cambodian or Vietnamese.

I grew up knowing how to eat an artichoke. I know that vegetables come loose in bins, not shrink-wrapped on plastic trays. I can eat a Cabo San Lucas chicken sandwich on pita bread without a second thought. I know that I can always find a recycling bin, wherever I might be, and that reusable trumps recyclable.

I know that deep-fried foods, public consumption of tobacco, single-use diapers (or single-use *anything*), SUVs, failure to take turns on the approach to the cloverleaf, incandescent light bulbs, ethnic or sexist or heterosexist jokes, transfats, and pushiness are rude and quite possibly ought to be illegal. I do not know how to send a restaurant meal back to the kitchen, but I can pass the time of day with the wait staff in basic Spanish.

I know that, even though we have 1/8 of the U.S. population, California is not taken seriously, and our concerns are routinely ridiculed and marginalized. This is one of the reasons I don't consider myself an American, really. If the rest of the country wants to stick their heads in the mud, so be it. We'll just keep on trying to invent post-industrial society and they can get there, like, whenever. No hurry, because hurrying is not, in fact, cool.

I don't hate people from other regions of the country, nor do I feel superior to them. I don't call the middle of the country the fly-over zone or make cracks about Iowa farmers. The folks I've met from the Midwest are pretty nice actually, a lot like the folks I've met from Mideast. (And I don't understand why Kansas isn't in the Mideast; American geographical terms don't make a lot of sense when viewed from this coast.) I don't get the cultures of the Northeast or the Deep South, let alone that of Texas, but hey, whatever.

I think about Asia a lot. Europe and Africa, not so much. I feel a cultural affinity with Mexico and Central and South America; we're all part of the same Spanish and Portugese colonial expansion.

It's January 8th and I noticed this morning that my roses are blooming.

When I Grow Up

In our living room, just after Christmas

Morgayn: When I grow up, I want to be a gypsy.

Me: When I grow up, I want to have children who don't drag their feet on their chores.

Matisse: When I grow up,  I want to be a velociraptor.

Morgayn: When I grow up, I want to be a parasaurolophus.

Me: When I grow up, I want to be a really big pterosaur.

Morgayn (using an English pronunciation with a short e): Quetzalcoatl, maybe.

Me (using a Costa Rican pronunciation with a long a for the e and a soft s for the z): When I grow up, I want to be a quetzalcoatl!

Morgayn: You can't pronounce it like that; it's pronounced kwetzelcoatl.

Me: Why can't I? Quetzal is Spanish, isn't it?

Morgayn: Yeah, but kwetzelcoatl's name isn't pronounced like Spanish.

Me: Okay then, when I grow up, I want to be a kaytsalcoatl that doesn't speak English!

Dissolve to a fit of laughter.

I'll Be Dyeing At Christmas, Reprise

I could probably retrofit these to Japanese motifs, but that's not how I found them.

Instead, I got bored and just started folding and tying.

The towel above was folded in half and then tied in a complex flower petal kind of fold. The top motif was on the outside when the towel was dyed, and displays the intended flower pattern. The bottom motif, surprisingly, delightfully, has lost both the upright and cross pieces almost completely and is a grand and glorious purple flaming X.

This is why untying shibori is like Christmas. Every piece turns out differently from how you imagined it. Wonderfully, gloriously different. (And sometimes, particularly when you're just starting out, disastrously "Wow, I just wasted my money on clothes I wouldn't be caught dead in" different.)

But then, I've seen normal and I don't like it, and my kids' mom dresses them funny.

A fairly decent chevron-y fold with pretty good pleat action.

I have no idea what I was thinking when I tied the above one. No clue. It was almost 2 years ago and I was at a party. The fold looked kind of like it wanted to be itajime, but it's definitely struck off on its own.

Not only that, but it uses two colors that I have decided I don't like but have therefore not quite managed to use up. The maroon bleeds well but is ugly with everything. The mustard is so ugly that even mixing it 3:1 with delicious golden brown could not dim its ugliness.

A candidate for overdyeing with something like turquoise.

Chocolate-covered cherries anyone?

Seriously, I like that fold. A lot. If I can figure out how I did it, I'll do it again.

And yes, I did go a little overboard on the hot pink. I like its bleed action.

I have managed to painstakingly imitate itajime without using a folding technique anything like it.

I could make a wicked Scottish flag with that fold. Or the crossbones for a skull-and-.