My Own Little Renaissance

I went for a walk today after work.  I really didn't want to.  I was torn between passing the time before picking up my daughter from soccer practice by (a) stopping at the local taqueria and having a beer or (b) getting. in. my. steps.  

(If you say those last four words like you're the Economics Teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, you will capture something of my feeling about going for a walk.)

But walk I did.  I made the smarter choice.  I'm glad I did, but I'm also struck by just how hard it was to make that choice.  It was, like, super hard.  Like, teenager who can't get out of bed hard.  Like, tween who doesn't want to take a shower hard.  Like, toddler who doesn't want to hold hands across the street or do anything else remotely reasonable hard.  Made me feel very wimpy.

But I digress.  This post isn't about my walk, but about something I've discovered recently, which I was reminded of on my walk.  Here's what I have discovered: There is so very much I do not know.

Put another way: There is so very much to learn about in the world.  And this is a cause of great excitement for me, almost as if I am having a little renaissance of my own, in which the world is opening up to me, new ideas are pouring into my brain, new knowledge is layering on top of the foundations I've built so far in my life.  And I LIKE IT!

I am kind of excited about discovering how much there is to learn, and feeling hopeful about the process of adding new and different information to my life.  There are so many books and articles to read, and people to ask questions of, and things to contemplate.  Here are some of the great things I've learned lately:

• I learned that Bob Dylan went through a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian stage.  HAD NO IDEA.  Fascinating.

• I learned about Zora Neale Hurston's ethnography work, notably her work to interview and document the words of Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor of the last known slave ship from Africa, which landed illegally in the US in 1860.  This story is remarkable not only for the story of Cudjo in his own words, but for the story of why her book about him, completed in 1931, has not been published before now.
  
  
  
• I learned that there is a very cool little agricultural oasis, right in the middle of Berkeley, called the Urban Adamah. I walked past it on my walk, and surely would still not know of its existence had I opted for that IPA I'm still hankering for. My walk took me into a sweet little wooded path, behind buildings and alongside a creek, and eventually, the path meandered along one side of this little oasis. I spied winding pathways, vegetable gardens, a round building probably used for retreats, benches, canopies, fields, cool earthy looking projects...and nary a soul in sight. I walked around the front of the property to find out the name of this very peaceful, soulful-looking place.  And then I consulted The Google: Urban Adamah is described on its website as "an educational farm and community center that integrates the practices of Jewish tradition, sustainable agriculture, mindfulness and social action to build loving, just and sustainable communities."  I thought it was super ironic that they also have big NO TRESPASSING signs posted in several places and high fences all the way around it...but it looked absolutely peaceful and mindful.  I'm happy to live in a world where places like this exist, even if I won't ever be able to trespass there.  And yes, I would like to.  

• I learned, no joke, that my great grandparents lived in a house in San Francisco in the very early 1900's, and they lost their house in the 1906 earthquake and great fire.  They lost their house, and my great-grandmother's brother lost his business: a bar at 1st and Mission.  HAD NO IDEA.  I've lived my whole life knowing about that earthquake and the fire that destroyed nearly the entire City, and never knew I had a close personal connection to it.  I also did not know there were bars in the family, before my mom and dad were the original proprietors of Murphy's Pub in Sonoma. 
 
• I learned that in 1966, my father had front row balcony tickets to a London performance of Swan Lake, featuring Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.  Epic.  Absolutely epic.

And those are just the things that popped into my mind in the last 10 minutes!  Those last two have me pretty much wanting to corner my dad, stick a recording device in front of him, and pepper him with questions.  There is so much to learn in the world, and in my own family.  

I'm excited to know that I will always learn new things for as long as I live; as my friend Lori says,  "Just TRY to get through a day without learning something: it's not possible!"  I'm grateful that I went on that walk today: I learned something new and am reminded of how much awaits me.

Pretty sure I can learn something from a good IPA too, but that will be for another day.

What have you learned lately?

Teenage Girls Are Awesome: Here's Why

 simpler time: before they were
so confused about me. 

When she was around eleven or twelve, my middle daughter once threw her arms around, pulled me in tight and close, and yelled in my ear, "GET AWAY FROM ME."  There was a beat of silence between us before we cracked up.  We both enjoyed the absurdity of that tortured pre-teen moment.

She’s speeding towards 14 now, and she still does some version of the "push-me-pull-me" dance on a regular basis.  Sometimes, she comes up to me and encircles me with her arms while trying not to touch me.  Or she’ll grab my arm and fling it away.  Repeatedly.  While squawking.  Basically, she’s confused.

I have three daughters, so opportunities for absurdity abound. Today at the 9am Mass, I took a chance with Daughter #1, who is 15: I put my arm around her.  Mothers around the world know what a foolhardy mission this could have been, to open myself up to ninja level rejection and scorn like that.

But lo, a miracle occurred, and she let my arm stay where I had so boldly placed it.  She even snuggled in.  We sat there for a few minutes, listening to what can only be described as an interminable homily, with at least one of us grateful for a few extended moments of closeness.  I reveled in the sweetness, and even believed that maybe she didn’t think I was quite as cringe-worthy as usual.  And then, she raised her head from my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said plainly: "Your presence is irritating me, and I don't know why."  Having spoken her piece, she put her head back on my shoulder.   And again, there was a beat of silence between us before the pew shook with suppressed giggles.

There it was, a simple truth.  We both knew it: she just decided to put it out there.

I remember being a teenage girl.  In between giggles, I told her: "It's OK.  I remember being 15.  I know what that feels like."

But here's where she differs from Teenage Me: she put her head back on my shoulder and left it there.  She felt that mother-daughter confusion, named it, and stayed right there with me anyway.  And like her sister before her, she found humor in that confusion, and let the laughter flow.

The moment lingered.  It felt as if her funny, edgy words had cast a spell over us.  I tried not to breath or move, hoping to stay there with her for as long as possible.

* * *

I was not nearly so gracious about my conflicted feelings towards my own mother, and I certainly could not find humor in them.  I am almost 50, and while I have known for a while that Teenage Me was grossly unfair to my mom, it's only recently that I wonder what that must have been like for her.  I can't ask her: she died this past November.  I can't tell her I'm sorry I was a jerk.  I will never know if she felt the slings and arrows I silently volleyed in her direction when I was 15.  Did she feel me shudder when she pulled her shirt down tight over her hips?  Did she realize that school clothes shopping with her felt like having a disease?  How did I go from falling asleep in her lap to running laps to get away?

I wonder if she ever saw her daughters, my sister and I, wrestling with our Feelings About Mom in the same the way I see my own daughters doing today.  While there are many times I am discouraged by their scorn, or weary from reminding myself that they aren't even human yet and their scathing opinion of me matters not, lately I have started seeing their vitriol, coupled with their need for me, as something else: The Truth about All Relationships.

I am beginning to suspect that the hormonal tsunami that is a teenage girl is the most honest source of truth about love and family.  We love the people we love, and they simultaneously drive us painfully crazy.  We want them, and we want to flee from them, all at once.  We are terrified by and drawn to intimacy.  Teenage girls are just more honest about it than the rest of us.

In those brief, conflicted and funny moments with my daughters, that honesty feels like the greatest gift I have ever been given.

Perhaps it would be wise to be grateful for their confusion and for the way they express it.  Sooner than I can imagine, they will be settled young women who don’t cringe when I touch them and whose eyes have stopped rolling around like pinballs when I speak.  Sooner than I want, the tension and strife will have packed their bags and moved out, leaving echoes of “what if” in their wake.

The tsunami will subside.

The absurdity will be gone.

These too, I will miss one day.

Big Problems for 2018

Oh dear.

I am in the vortex of New Year's Resolutions.

In years past, I have eschewed resolution-making easily, tossing aside the urge like so many flyers home from school, avoiding the pull of self-improvement without a care.

But this year is different.  This year, I want to change ALL THE THINGS.  I want to be better in ALL THE WAYS.   I feel the desire to be better and the temptation of resolve, and I strongly suspect that waiting for me on the other side is disappointment and failure.  As a woman who has increasingly lived by the mantra "The Secret to Happiness is Low Expectations," I am confused and concerned by this sudden urge to set the bar high and reach for the goddamn stars.

Let's put the devil in the details.  Let's list all the ways in which I seek to be a better human being in 2018.

1. Pray more.
2. Read more books.
3. Exercise more.
4. Write more.
5. Eat better: includes eating more vegetables and fewer carbs, and drinking more water and less wine.
6. FlyLady my house.
7. Plan meals and grocery shopping consistently.  And execute on those plans.
8. Keep up the family calendar (AKA: reduce scheduling chaos)
9. Learn to play the violin.

And those are just the ones I thought of in the last 5 minutes; I'm pretty sure there are more.  Which means: this list is far too long for one woman.  Those are too many things to improve upon.  I can't decide what to cut! What to focus on!  What to shoot for!  

I think I know why I'm feeling the need for so many positive transformations.  2017 was terrible.  I need 2018 to be better, and I want to feel like I have some degree of control over making it so.  

On the one hand, I have this oh-so-strong urge to take charge and make everything better, and on the other, I have this knowledge that I am not in control, that I cannot force myself or the world around me to comply with my wishes.  I cannot bring Ann back, I cannot bring my mother back, I cannot turn back time and save my children from the particular pain of losing a beloved dog.

It is very likely that the best course of action for me is to resolve instead to breathe, be still, and practice mercy, patience and kindness, to myself and all around me, starting with my family.  I suspect the Pope is on to something here:

So, crazy unattainable plans on one side, the Pope on the other.  What to do...what to do...

* * *

  

THANK YOU MOM

First I want to thank everyone for being here to honor my mom and support our family.  We are incredibly appreciative of your love and support.

The thing I most want to say today is thank you mom.  Thank you for giving me the life I have, the faith I have in a loving God, and the experience of being raised by someone who worked quietly, consistently, and with great integrity, for her family, community, and world.

Thank you mom, for the gift of laughter.  Many of my favorite childhood memories are of laughing.  Laughing really hard at Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and especially MASH.  Laughing at the Sunday comics, the Far Side and Bloom County.  Even Doonsebury, which I rarely got, but which I knew must be funny because my mom and the rest of my family sure thought so.  Laughing about our family lore – the inside jokes and stories that made me so glad I was a Murphy.  Looking through family photos this past week, I was struck by how many of them capture all of us laughing – you can almost see the tears streaming down our faces in some of them.

Even as she got sicker and less herself, she kept her wonderful sense of humor, and seeing it pop up was always a bright spot in my visits with her these past few years.  Not long after my folks celebrated their 50th anniversary, I asked her if she had any words of wisdom about how they had stayed married for so long.  Her instant reply: "Nope.  Just a lack of imagination."

I can't truly express how delightful it was to hear her crack that joke.  It was playful, hopeful, hilarious...and just so completely her.  

Thank you mom, for the gift of caring about the world.  Bob talked about her many causes, the organizations she supported and the ways she was an activist here in Sonoma and beyond.  Talking with my family this week, I realized how many things she was involved with that I had no idea about – and my dad even remarked that some of her philanthropic efforts even he never knew about.  Hers was not a “selfie” kind of activism – it never would have occurred to her talk about, much less promote, her contributions.

 

The cause that left the biggest impression on me as a kid was her involvement with Sonoma Action for Nuclear Disarmament, and the weekly vigils she attended at the Plaza.  She stood there, with her candle and peace sign, every single week.  As a kid, I admit I sort of thought “What the heck is the point of that?  Standing there with a candle?  In this tiny town?  That’s IT?”  I didn’t have the long view then.  But now I think she did even more than bring about nuclear disarmament for our entire country and world: just as significant to me, her daughter, was the example she embodied, of standing for what she believed in and of doing whatever she could to shape the world she wanted to live in. 

This past January, I went to the women’s march in Oakland with a group of friends – other moms I know from soccer fields and birthday parties.  And every single of them said that this was the first time they had ever participated in ANY kind of march or demonstration: to which I responded: “Seriously???”  As our friend Kaeti Bailie joked when I told her this story: “WHO RAISED YOU?”  Not Rose Murphy, who carried many a protest sign in her day, most frequently one that proclaimed peace and love.  I learned from her life long example that you show up for the things you care about and that gestures large and small make a powerful difference, sometimes in ways you don’t expect.

Thank you mom, for the gift of literature and language. 

Mom was a huge reader, and as a teenager and young adult I got most of my reading recommendations from her.  Great novels, volumes of Irish poetry, the ever-present New Yorker magazine – these were some of her favorite things, and were always ways she and I connected.

And clearly, mom was a gifted writer.  In her books, articles, and reflections, she knew how to express herself, how to make ideas clear and tell captivating stories.  Her writing is now, for me, a way to continue my conversations with her, to keep getting to know her and learn from her.  Reading Dervla, The Secret Irish Bard, is particularly delightful – her creativity and imagination leap from the page.  I am grateful beyond measure that as my children grow up – and their own children someday -- they will be able to read her words and get to know the beautiful woman she was.

Even today, she is still giving.  Because of who she was to each of us, and to each of you, I am still receiving gifts and blessings from her.  So many of you have shared stories with us about how she helped you or how much fun you had together. I’ve heard about her college days, her San Francisco days, her wonderful friendship to others, and her contributions to Sonoma – each story is another gift, and each of you has helped fill in the gaps that a daughter naturally has in understanding her mother.  It is a joy, even as we have to let her go, to see more fully the impact she had and the ripples of love she spread in every direction.

So thank you, mom, for bringing all of these people together today; thank you for the countless ways you actively loved us, your family, and the entire world. Thank you for showing me how beautiful each person is in the eyes of God.  I love you, I miss you, and I look forward to being with you again. 

SUSTENANCE

Charlottesville is consuming me. I admit to being obsessed with all the coverage and interviews. It cannot be good for me to watch too much CNN and listen to too many talking heads, but I cannot look away. I am fascinated by how human beings can grow such hate in their hearts and minds, hate that leads them to see others as less than human. It’s a specific kind of selfishness that is truly terrifying. It’s fear. It has always been fear and it will always be fear.

Look into your own family, look at the people you love. Why do they lash out, why do they do hurtful things, even to people they love?  Fear.  

I look at my own children, who I know are good and kind people, and I’m shocked multiple times a week at how vicious they can be with each other, how immediately defensive they are when they feel threatened and fearful. If they are about to get in trouble, if they know they did something hurtful, if they think they are about to get steamrolled -- they are virulently defensive. They feed each other to the wolves.

It’s disheartening to see, partly because it suggests that we, their parents, aren’t doing a very good job at helping them navigate interpersonal relationships. We want them to know, in their hearts, the power of a sincere apology, of raw empathy and kindness. As parents, we know that these things are the foundation of relationships that sustain us and ultimately bring us peace and joy.

Relationships that sustain us: this is what we need in our culture and communities. What is so terribly sad to me is to look back 25 years, to the way I saw the world when I first joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and to recognize that at that time, I thought I lived in a progression that was taking the country forward. I thought I was on and part of a path that was bringing more good into the world, more love and compassion, more empathy and understanding. Less divisiveness.

But when I look at what’s happening -- everything from the Neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, to the way we attack "neglectful" parents when their children get hurt, to the relentless viciousness of social media -- I am chilled by how far it seems we have gone in the other direction. Children of the world, THIS is why parents are alarmed at what the culture is teaching you, showing you and planting in you. We do not want you to look around and see the nastiness and the vapidness and grow up breathing that air. I do not want my daughters to see the Kardashians, laugh at the shallowness with which that family is portrayed for the sake of ratings, and simply be entertained. I do not want my sons to see tasteless memes about sex, and simply be amused.

There is a through line, for me, between these mindless, slippery slope allowances and the hate and hurt assaulting our communities. Both are about demeaning others and putting things (profit? power?) before people. Neither will ever help us build the relationships we need.

When Trump was elected, I wept bitterly because I felt fear. It was, then, an unnamed fear of something sinister coming, or more rightly, being revealed. I knew, in my bones, that the weeks and months ahead would be filled with things that would make me ache for people, for my children and for the children of people I don't understand, like the neo-nazi's filling the TV screen. Watching recent days unfold, I feel as though I am watching my fears materialize, those fears of what Trump’s presidency would usher in. I knew this would happen. Standing in my kitchen on election night, I wept each time my son came in to tell me that another state had been called for Trump. And I knew we should be bracing ourselves for ugliness, for the infliction of pain and for all manner of affronts to human dignity and goodness. I knew Charlottesville was coming.

How can simple human kindness make a difference? It doesn't seem strong enough in the face of hate marches and seas of swastikas and weaponized cars. It doesn't seem like enough, until I look at the most important times in my own life, those that have transformed me and brought me peace. They are all intimate and personal occasions of connection -- falling in love, the birth of a child, listening to a friend's story of suffering.  The private moments when we are most present to each other are the moments that make us the strongest.  

This is my activism, paying attention to the private moments that connect us all and looking for more and more of them to sustain me.

My children, my sweet children, those I’ve given birth to and those I haven't, I know who you are. I know you are made of goodness and kindness to your core. I know, and you know, that the behavior we are witnessing is antithetical to love and humanity. Find ways to rise above your own fear and defensiveness; find ways to rise above others’ as well. Reject, resist, and repel the hatred you see swirling around us. Learn about it, understand what is out there, but turn to the people around you and cultivate the habits of being that drive out hate. Start with the people closest to you, then turn outwards to others, but keep it going. Never stop radiating love, patience and empathy. Never, ever stop. You are what the world needs now.

Thank God for Freezing Soccer Mornings

We were up at 6am, in rural Turlock, California, ready to cheer on a field full of 10-year olds competing in their early morning State Cup Quarterfinal.

It was 34 degrees outside -- not so impressive if you're playing winter soccer in Chicago, or New York, or Kansas, but pretty freakin' cold if you happen to be 10-year old California girls and their parents.

The grass crunched beneath our feet. We blew frosty smoke rings from our mouths. We stomped our feet and talked about how it was damn cold but WOW it could be even colder, and at least the sun was out.

We cheered on our girls, hoping to will them to victory with our support and encouragement. And then, we felt heartsick and helpless as we watched them go down in defeat. We fretted to each other that they deserved this win, that the score didn't tell the real story.

We joked "At least we'll get our Sunday back," since by midway through the second half it was clear that we weren't returning for a 2pm Semifinal. None of us really wanted our Sunday back.

We high fived the losing team -- our daughters -- as they ran by our outstretched hands at the end of it all. I slapped my own daughter's hand as she ran by in a blur, and saw eyes full of tears and a face crumpled in torment. She, with visions of being the next Carly Lloyd, had run smack dab into the wall of 10-year old failure and was feelin' it, big time.

We took the team to crepes afterwards, in rural, sleepy Turlock, where we enjoyed the parent table a few feet from the player table, where they stuffed themselves with crepes piled high with nutella and strawberries and whipped cream: no need for our young athletes to be smart and healthy with no afternoon game beckoning.

It was a bittersweet morning, and I will forever love these days, as gut-wrenching as they can be.

The owners of the Creperie in rural, sleepy Turlock were absolutely thrilled to see us pile into their small cafe. Thrilled, cheerful, welcoming, and then, as our large group kept streaming in, ever so slightly panicked and then downright stressed out by the impact we had on their three crepe machine establishment. It took forever to get our food. For. Eh. Ver.

The owners of the Creperie in rural, sleepy Turlock are, as it happens, Syrian immigrants.

That’s how we spent our Sunday morning, and thank God we did. Because had I not been there, riding the wave and crash of U11 competitive soccer, I would have been in front of a screen somewhere, swallowing up the fear and rage that I find rising in me lately when I see my Facebook feed, check Twitter for the current outrage, and scan npr.org’s pages.

There are more than enough horrors happening in our country these days to fill our every moment and every breath. There are marches to go to and phone calls to make and airports to occupy. There are difficult conversations to have – with people we agree with as much as those we don’t. If we are to be responsible and well-informed, we have to do the work to make sure we are getting real information.

We will see more horrors. Of course we will. The time to wonder if this will be the thing that does him in is over. The time to make this – or the next thing, or the thing after that – be the thing that wakes up our country and unites us in ridding ourselves of this orange cancer is here and now.

But for today, I am grateful for the freezing cold pitch beneath my feet and the chance to watch my daughter lose her soccer game, because I needed a wee-bit of a break from the chaos of the real world. Today, I am grateful for delicious crepes, sweet balm after a tough loss, prepared with love and enthusiasm by a lovely Syrian couple now living in the middle of California.

My daughter is sleeping on the couch next to me, still in her stinky soccer socks.

Tomorrow morning, she will shower. And tomorrow morning, I will call some US Representatives who need to know that I oppose Betsy De Vos’s nomination as Education Secretary and that I want him or her to vote against it. Tomorrow, I will tell a friend of mine that yes, I will go with her to my local representative’s office to thank him for opposing DJT so far and to let him know that I expect him to continue to do exactly that at every turn. Tomorrow, I will search for reliable news sources, and I will resist the click bait that beckons me and my righteous indignation.

Today, I am grateful that I got to watch my 10-year old daughter play her heart out and lose her State Cup Quarterfinal. There’s always next year, and maybe we can go back and visit the Syrians.

What Can Be Our Response?

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.
It is wide open. The sword is taken away,
but we do not know it. I am present
without knowing it at all, in this unspeakable paradise, and I behold this secret, this wide open secret which is there for everyone, free.

– Thomas Merton 

Thank you, Thomas Merton, for your words, and thank you to my friend Linda for sharing them on Facebook this morning to usher in 2017.

Perhaps this is what all angst and anxiety stem from: we are present in unspeakable paradise without knowing it, even while we search for it high and low, with desperation and urgency.  We are searching for that paradise with every resolution, every firm decision to be better, do better, love better.  Paradise is all around us: why don't we see it?  Why aren't we aware of every moment we are living in it?  Why don't we know it?

That existential crisis will be even more palpable in this, our beloved country, as we watch Donald J. Trump assume the mantle of leadership and tweet his strange brand of narcissism and megalomania into the world.  

What can be our response, not only to Trump but to the slings and arrows of daily, difficult, wrenching life?  We must see, enjoy, create, share and demand beauty.  We must make something beautiful and put it out into the world.  We must light that small candle in the darkness.  We must.  It is essential.  It is all that matters.  

Write.  Make music.  Paint.  Draw.  Grow things.  Tend to animals.  Read.  Cook.  Teach.  Design.  Push.  Resistance takes a million forms, so pick the one that fits you like a warm and loving sweater, but pick one or you will spend your time in this paradise feeling cold and shackled.  Pick one, so that you can begin to see the paradise all around you.  Pick one: it is there for you, for everyone, free.

* * *

Comedy Planet with Little T

Overhead:

Little T: "Daddy, we're learning all about the planets and the solar system!  Did you know that Pluto is not considered a planet anymore?"

Daddy: "No, I didn't know that.  What about Uranus?"

Little T: "Your anus is considered a moon."

She'll be here all night, folks!  Really.  Aaaaallll night.


* * *

An A+ on at least one thing

Not sure we've done much right as parents, but I take great comfort in knowing that my kids will forever find joy in brand new sketch books. 

On Migraines and Laughter

OK folks, I come roaring back to the blogging world with two things.

Thing one: Yesterday, I got a migraine.  The kind that makes you weep and call for your mommy when you're pushing 50.  The kind that makes decapitation seem like a viable option.  The kind that makes you shake your fist and curse at whatever creature you were in a past life. 

Come to think of it, there is no another kind of migraine.  They are all like that.

My kids know what to do when I get one of these: keep the house quiet.  But knowing what to do and being good at doing it are two very, very different things.  They mean well, of course, but their execution needs a bit of work.  

Case in point.  This is a picture of the sign my daughter made for the rest of the family and propped up on my bedroom door last night:

She propped it up on my door.  On a hard wood floor.  Where it kept sliding down and clattering on the floor, banging into the door on the way down.  Not to be deterred, she kept putting it back.  Roughly.  Noisily.  Slamming it against the door in an effort to make. it. stay.

Then she would pound down the stairs.  And the damn thing would slide, bang and clatter.  And she would pound back up the stairs and slam it back into place.

I was, sad to say, sorely desterbed.

* * *

Thing two: As of tomorrow, my parents have been married for fifty-one years.  FIFTY-ONE.  612 months.  2,652 weeks.  18,615 days.  That just boggles the mind.  My beloved and I haven't even made it to 20 yet, and there are days I'm amazed he hasn't woken up, realized what he really got himself into, and walked off hysterical.  (I mean, who could blame him, I'm kind of a nightmare.)   Here are Larry and Rose back in 1965:

I'm willing to bet that the thing that has helped them last so long, perhaps more than anything else, is their great big, generous senses of humor, and their complete joy in things that make each other laugh.  Just yesterday, my dad remarked on how wonderful it is to see my mom laugh at the Frasier re-runs they've been watching for weeks now.  And even in my mother's current situation -- struggling with a vague diagnosis of dementia and unable to live in the home she loves -- she is still "killin' it," as the saying goes.  I asked her if she had any words of wisdom about how they have stayed married for so long.  Her instant reply: "Nope.  Just a lack of imagination."

There aren't words to describe the breadth and depth of delight I felt when she said that.  It was delightful, joyful, hopeful, hilarious…and just so completely her and them.  The past few years, we've all struggled with her not being able to be more herself.  And in an instant, there she was.

There is no lack of imagination there whatsoever.  So I guess they must really love each other.  

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!  And thank you for all the laughter!  

* * *

(Hmmm, note to self: make Rick laugh more and maybe he'll see this thing through!)

------------

Postscript: I had to edit this post after a dear friend and reader did the math. FIFTY ONE NOT SIXTY ONE!  I'd be embarrassed if I didn't have that migraine to blame...

I Came From a Dry Creek Bed

my beloved creek, captured on a
rainy spring day in 2012

My sister and her family recently bought a house.  They moved in this past weekend, just in time for Thanksgiving 2015.  It must be a thing our family does: exactly forty years ago, my family moved at this same time of year from San Francisco to Sonoma.  We enjoyed our first "country" Thanksgiving -- pizza -- on paper plates, sitting on the dining room floor in our new-to-us (but built in 1918) home.

My sister's move prompted me to tell my kids about that Thanksgiving in 1975 and about moving when I was seven.  My daughter asked me if the new house was a lot nicer than the one we left behind in Bernal Heights.  No, I told her.  I loved our SF house, as much as I loved this new one. I loved the way our old house was actually two of those classic San Francisco houses, smashed up next to each other.  Ours was connected on the inside, with our bedrooms and living areas on one side, and my dad's pottery studio on the other.  I loved that we lived right across the street from Paul Revere School, and I loved the community mural on the street side of the school wall, where my dad had painted my brother and sister and me.  I loved that our house was perched on top of a great big hill.  I loved my bedroom and our kitchen.

I loved the new house too: it's old fashioned style was perfect for my Laura Ingalls-leaning imagination.  I really loved the attic room I would share with my sister for the next decade.  Both houses were wonderful.  But the SF house just couldn't compete with the single greatest thing that ever happened to my childhood: Nathanson Creek.  For a day-dreamy, reader of a girl like me, whose imaginary friends were far more plentiful than real life ones, there could be nothing better than moving in right next door to a creek, one that ran full and fast in the winter and dried out completely in the summer, providing the most amazing set for my elaborate and long-running imaginary dramas.  In the Spring, when enough rocks and "shoreline" emerged that I could play next to running water, I pretended to go fishing for my meals.  In the summer, I jumped from mossy rock to mossy rock, climbed under the bridge at the front of our property, conjured long drawn out stories that were part pioneer girl and part romance.

Our yard was also amazing.  To my fanciful imaginings, I could add feasts of blackberries, apples and plums.  Cherries, if the birds didn't beat me to them.  Figs and kumquats.  Persimmons in November.  Mind you, if I were given a chore by my parents to pick those apples and plums and whatnot, I complained like a champ, but if it happened to blend in with whatever narrative I was spinning at the time, then I could work for hours.

The entire property was magical, with just enough room to get lost and feel far from home, but close enough for lunch or dinner to be moments away.  When my parents put a small vineyard in the back forty, they provided me with yet another landscape for my silly and serious adventures.  Growing up on that land gave me many, many gifts that I didn't know I'd cherish until years later: the sound of gravel crunching under foot; the feel of hot, dirty, sweaty skin after playing outside all day; the sting of blackberry brambles scratching my skin.

But what I remember most about that creek -- the place I think I truly come from -- is the smell of a hot, dry summer day, down in the rocks.  It smelled like dirt and leaves, and utter freedom.  Today, that smell makes me feel like time has stopped, like there is all the time in the world for dreaming up stories and acting them out.  Like there are no burdens or demands on my time.  No place to be but there in the brambles and rocks and dry grasses of Sonoma.

Did you know that nostalgia causes actual physical pain?  Or is that just me?

Still, that pang, that stab of sweetness, is how I know that I come from Sonoma's Nathanson Creek.

I wonder where my children will say they come from, forty years from now when they look back on their childhood, a much more urban one than my own.  It feels like a loss to me, that they haven't grown up next to a creek.  I hope there is a good smell or a good memory that takes them back and makes them feel, in their very bones, who they are.  I have no idea what that might be, but I hope they feel that pang and then tell my grandchildren all about it.