Saturday, December 29, 2007

Two Scenes

Scene in the bathroom...
My child, hysterical: "I have soap in my eyes, I have soap in my eyes!  I can't open my eyes without it hurting me, Mom!  MOM! I need a washcloth!!!"
Screaming, crying, whining, splashing - dramatics, all of it.
Me, calmly: "It's tear -free shampoo, honey."
My child: "Oh. It is?" (a revelation)
Me: "Yes, babe. Says so right on the bottle"
My child: "Okay [shrugging shoulders]. My eyes don't hurt anymore."

Scene in a comfortable setting...
Me, despondent: "I have so many unanswered questions, I have so much strife! Why is there so much pain in life? I can't open my eyes without seeing a child suffering or people being mutilated on the news. I need blinders!"
Hand gestures, raised voice, anger at nothing and no one in particular - temporary anxiety, nothing more.
Teacher (who appeared when I was ready), calmly: "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
Me: "Really?" (something worth considering)
Teacher: "Really. Google it."
Me: "Okay [head nodding, fear receding] . That should get me through the next twenty minutes without panic."

One bottle of tear-free shampoo, one question at a time, we're getting less afraid to open our eyes here.
************
SIDEBAR:
Two movies I didn't list in my last blog on my favorite movies:
Titanic
Crimson Tide




Posted by Sam at 21:03:17 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, December 28, 2007

Where You Find It

People who attend places of worship live longer.  Another fact my husband read to me as we drove up to the Santa Clarita Valley yesterday to visit my family. This would have made the family we were going to visit cheer and say "Told ya!" but good-naturedly.

I can totally see how believeing in something, a divine order, someone watching over me can prolong my life. It makes sense to know that suffering as well as joy are not random but that our lives are involuntarily intertwined to bring us closer to an awesome purpose, being, and idea. Call it heaven, consciousness, whatever you want. But trying to get there is not why I have attended houses of worship in my life. In fact, and I am about to make my Uncles, Aunts and cousins cringe, I feel the same power of the Creator, pure love and sanctuary at a ball park, shoreline, library and in my children's rooms when they are sleeping, that I do at church.

But that is just one of the spiritual differences I share with people who are from the same bloodline as I am. Ironic - we share blood, but radically different theories (religion) on something which we all believe in (God). We sat yesterday eating guacamole and watching football and discussing our monotheistic similarities and political polarities.

Isn't everyone's holiday like this?

I drove home from Los Angeles County with the Hollywood sign to the west of me and it occurred to me - I have relatives who say Bible verses like I quote movies, books and songs. I refuse to write a blog about how my relatives and I are so different but love each other anyway, duh! And boring. What is moving me to write now is the way faith infuses people, like, all roads lead to home, and how many roads there are to get there. I am talking about where people get their juice; how people find comfort and the tools people utilize to reason things out. For me, a serendipitous book, song or movie shows me what I need to see, calms me and spells it out. Because I may call myself a believer in God or a benevolent Universe but I am also a writer, and someone using words to summarize me or my experience IS coming directly from that divine force. I am very comfortable on my road, but I won't call someone else's path a detour. I have my favorite books and movies, but won't challenge the words someone else holds as Truth.

And that is about as far as I go in my thoughts on religion, God, and the meaning of life. Partially because AFI's Top 100 Movies are on again, right on time (told ya!), because I am sure I need to hear something I am meant to hear, in the form of someone else's words, in a format that really reaches me.

Did you know Snow White is #37 and Jaws is #56?

What I was meant to hear (I think) was George Lucas saying about American Graffiti someting like "They told me no one would ever be interested in this movie, it would never amount to anything." Or something like that. Or Steven Spielberg saying about It's A Wonderful Life "That movie shows that everyone has an impact in this world, everyone matters." Or something similar.  

George Lucas was turned down. Steven Spielberg took a glitch and inoperative movie prop (the non-working mechanical shark) and created an amazing horror technique and masterpiece out of misfortune. That is so inspiring to me. That gives me faith about one of the reasons I think I am here (on my road). Because I am a writer, and I know words are valued differently by people. I know twists of fate reveal themselves dramatically.

With words, common denominators are found. Words reach and seek. Words.verses/lyrics/quotes start romances and move people to smash barriers (dare I say it - change the world) and even cause...enlightenment. And comfort, don't forget comfort.

Whose words are divine, whose answers are correct and with something as thick as blood, does it matter?

It's where you find it. Who is to say where it should come from?

*******

SIDEBAR: My favorite movies, not necessarily in order...
Jaws
Bull Durham
Field of Dreams
The Big Chill
West Side Story
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (newly added to the AFI list)
True Romance
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Heart and Souls
Only You
Heaven Can Wait 
The Last of the Mohicans
Gone with the Wind
Meet Joe Black
...but I am sure I am forgetting some.

 
Posted by Sam at 20:03:52 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, December 21, 2007

Paying Attention

I have been overly proud about how the holidays do not turn me into mush.

My December state-of-mind is contingent upon how I can be uneffected by Christmas Carols or sentimental cards. I feel stronger than ever when I resist cookies and candy. And I swear I am made of steel when I don't buy the little things by the cash registers at stores or absorb the ads that tell me: "You need to buy this in order to be complete."

Yep. Speeding through the mall in my boots without heels (I am efficient as well as pragmatic), I cannot be stopped. I will not concede to even a Mocha or pause to gaze at a store window displaying Pooh or a puppy with a Santa hat on and say, "Awww...I love Christmas!"

Nope. I budget, plan, shop and wrap in December, that's my job. I read cookbooks and magazines, stock the pantry, and bake until powdered sugar and all purpose flour become indistinguishable. That's what I do. I need to stay stoic. I won't shed a tear, not when hand-made holiday arts and crafts are brought home from school, made especially for me, not when my girlfriends thousands of miles away leave messages on my cell phone, "I wish we didn't have to be so far away from each other." Huh-uh. Just because I am a Mom does not mean I collapse into weepiness while watching made for TV holiday movies. Come on!

It takes timing and clever reaching into the deep recesses of my mind (back when I didn't know the definition of vulnerable) to crack me.

Like a song lyric or hundreds of happy voices singing in unison from a school auditorium.  Yesterday I began to crack.  I had been on a roll, too.

I was playing the CD I bought for my husband but decided to keep for myself - Sawdust by The Killers - and I forwarded to track 16, "Romeo & Juliet". That's not a new song, I was thinking.  I'm intrigued. I want to hear how The Killers write about star-crossed lovers, if indeed it's an original. So I'm driving to the mall, baby in the back, asleep. Listening to this song thinking, yes, I have heard it before, but when? It's well written, it makes reference to West Side Story (big plus for me), it's almost like a poem or love letter set to music, then I hear the lyric...

..."How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?"...

Okay, I remember now. It's 1988. I'm seventeen, in my room, and my friend is playing me a song she thinks I should listen to (Relevant I think to a boy I knew, yeah, that's it). It's a Dire Straits song.

After that I played Track 16 over and over again, without even turning on the radio for two days. What can I say, the defrosting cycle begins with nostalgia.

Today, I pull up in front of the school to pick up the kids - last day of school before their two week holiday break - and I am relieved because I have already given the teachers their gifts. I am a little tired from spinning class, baking and shopping, wrapping and revising my to-do list five hundred times so nothing gets missed. I am prepared to say an additional five hundred times "Merry Christmas," or "Enjoy your vacation!", I am practically chanting these over and over in my head so I don't have to think when I greet people, when I hear it...every child in the elementary school singing holiday music. In unison, like they've rehearsed these songs all of their lives. And here's what really got me...they sounded so carefree, so ... happy.

Before I realize I'm melting faster than Frosty, I have placed the baby in the stroller and I am running my tired legs up the stroller ramp to hear, to listen, to take in this, well, joy. I see Seni, my amiga, before I get to the top of the ramp and I ask, out of breath, "Who is that singing?" and she replies, subtle smile, "ALL of them."

Every child in that school, including my third-grader and kindergartner, reading song lyrics  off a screen and singing as if Santa Claus himself were outside the auditorium, waiting to hand out hot-off-the-shelves gifts to the kids who sang the loudest.

My little girl is sitting on the steps to the auditorium stage surrounded by her no more than four foot tall girlfriends, all wearing paper Rudolph hats. My son is sitting somewhere in the auditorium, I can't see him, but I am certain he is here and that he is smiling. That I know.

(..."I love you like the stars above I love you 'til I die"...)

I know they do this every year, too - this singing of holiday songs right before school breaks, but I had forgotten. "They do this every year," said Susannie, my Mom-friend who pays attention, to another Mom.

I've been paying attention, haven't I? I mean, to more than my own nerves of steel and expiration dates on baking powder?

I am certainly paying attention now as I put on my sunglasses to conceal the salty little tears  leaking from the corners of my eyes.

My daughter waves at me as she sings, a spread out hand going from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock while the words "HOW shall I send thee?" escape her mouth, loudly.

She looks so happy.

Alright, OKAY! Thank you, Universe, I understand. I will smile and mean it, I will lick the batter off the spoon and indulge a little, I will do more than put thoughts and puns and metaphors into my words and greetings, I'll try to feel the well wishes I vocalize to people, I will listen to the crinkling of the paper as I wrap gifts, I will take pictures (digital and mental) of facial expressions during toasts, saying grace, and gift exchange. I will live in the moment and out of myself, and definitely beyond the to-do list.

Because you're showing me, everyone is showing me, and I want to see.

In between frozen and mush there is a state of readiness and grace. In between happy and overwhelmed there is an explanation I am sorta getting the hang of. Like changing lanes and hearing the covered song that came out of nowhere (I don't believe in coincidence, by the way), I have felt released from old animosities and even unphased by people wanting more than their share. As of late, I haven't really had to work on that. I swear the weirdest things happen when I am just driving along to a destination or arriving somewhere I already thought I was.

So I get it, thank you. I received the call, I played the message back (and over and over), I read the complete transmission.

And then I felt ... happy.

Posted by Sam at 17:05:55 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Skate At Your Own Risk

"Momma, I wanna go ice skating for my birthday."

Who can say no to their pleading, hazel-eyed little girl, on the eve of her sixth birthday? Especially when she has just voluntarily cleaned her room AND put away her birthday gifts from her way-too-expensive party two nights before.

We've been celebrating Sagittarian birthdays in our fanily since late November, what's another festivity? Ice skating is one of the few sports I can do well. So I said yes, hoping my husband would go along with it (and after we scheduled said activity around the Chargers game to appease him).

I love chilly December evenings in Southern California, that is to say, nights in the low 50s or 40s.  I have never had a White Christmas, haven't had the pleasure of shoveling snow from a driveway, would be a nervous wreck skating on a frozen lake somewhere. Makeshift ice rinks the size of postage stamps in suburban shopping malls are about all we get - but it's okay. It works.

When we get to the rink, there is a line, and only one hour of skate time left. Being a school night, we consider this a battle we don't have to wage - someone else has scheduled the end to the fun besides us. "I'm so excited!" Zoe jumps up and down, in capris, a dress, and a hoodie. We finally get on the ice, and my weebly-wobbly almost six year old clings to me. She is much better at this than she remembers, she took lessons at the age of four, but that was ages ago in her little girl mind. She may not even remember, though I have it fresh in my frontal lobe somewhere.

With my girlfriend holding our two year old on the fringes of the rink ("Wave to Mommy!") and my son at a friend's house, my husband and I get to hold our five for one more day baby girl, her two hands placed in one each of ours, and give her all the attention she desires and requires. She's the middle child, in the middle of us now, and our guilt and hopes for her are soothed here on the ice as she giggles and flails back, forward, and all about, in be-who-I-am girlishness. I drink her silliness in like warm hot chocolate, and she infuses me with thoughts of my own ice skating lessons thirty years ago. Same rink, different girl. I wore red, she wears pink - only pink.

I hope you're smarter than me, baby girl. I hope you're stronger (you already are), I hope you never feel like you have to please anyone and I'll die of you aren't always as happy as you are now. I'll cheer you on as you drop kick anyone who stands in your way. Really. (But please count to ten first).

As we leave the ice, my husband points to a sign that says "SKATE AT YOUR OWN RISK." It's a very plain white sign with red lettering, I wonder what he makes mention of it for, my husband, who rarely points out the obvious to me - a simple glance at each other usually suffices our tandem thinking. So I retort playfully, "It's everything at your own risk, honey."

"Yeah," he nods, sideways smile.

I have a white sign/red lettering list of signs in my head by now, of course.

Start a family at your own risk.
Fall in love at your own risk.
Stay in love at your own risk.
Drive your kids on the freeway noted for fatal accidents at your own risk.
Swim in a rip current at your own risk.
Hop a plane to Vegas at your own risk.
Shop without knowing exact sizes at your own risk.
Love with complete abandon at your own risk.
Take HGH at your own risk.
Confess at your own risk.
Get out of bed at your own risk.
...I think I could go on and on, but at the risk of losing my own attention...

If it doesn't involve a risk, is it even worth doing? (isn't there a song from the 80s...Ratt, maybe...nevermind). No, it isn't worth doing if it doesn't involve risk.  Really.

When "I want to go ice sakting, Momma" becomes "I'm backpacking through Europe" or " I want to join the military, Mom," will I so fearlessly and agreeably stand by the same convictions?

Lacing up ice skates and getting (myself and three children) out of bed every morning demand my attention now...better enjoy it while it lasts. When the time comes for my daughter's existential decisions, if I find myself wonting, I have a hunch I'll be able to draw from her strength.

Scared as I am to send her out there, I am raising a risk-taker. Out of all the ironies I pick up because I just do, the risk of instilling risk-taking is at once thrilling and petrifying. A bunjee jump into her future, me hoping she's tied tight enough at the heels, but not so tight she'll be hurt.

Another exhausting night of being a family comes to a close. A "we made it through another day, honey," satisfaction washes through my husband and I with the green light of the cable box illuminating our faces enough to see faint expressions. Still in tandem. Next, I do the only thing I have left to, and can, do...for my five years old for another two hours daughter.

I pray.

So personal that is, so superstitious I am, I can't list that white sign with red lettering (too risky). But I hold on to it, my faith in all and for her, hoping the ice doesn't crack from under us.

Risk and prayer...my daughter and me.










Posted by Sam at 20:02:14 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

On the Edge of...37

Despite my best efforts to stay immature, I aged past the age of 21.

Tomorrow I turn...37.

Last week I received the dreaded "Save the Date" postcard for my 20 year high school reunion.  And this past Saturday night after a little birthday dinner I heard "Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks and only then, driving home in the rain, did it hit me - I've gotten older than I really ever thought I would.

Not that I thought I would die an early death or anything, I just did not consider how I would feel or who I would be at this age.  I knew in my early twenties I'd graduate college.  I knew in my mid-twenties I'd get married.  And I had babies at 28, 31 and 34, three years apart as I had predicted. My only remaining goal was to be published by age 35, and I did that too.

I didn't account for time carrying on. I didn't forecast writing about this topic.

I didn't think certain things would catch up to me, but they did.  Is this a bad thing, though?

I suppose I have the maturity to say no, it isn't.

My skin is showing signs of teenage sunburns and excessive tanning. Then again, I have laugh lines from all the smiles of days gone by.
I found a few stray gray hairs, although for months I believed they were strawberry blonde (I have two hair colors: summer and winter). Then again, my husband has more gray hairs than I do and I can color my hair whenever I feel like it.
My feet are no longer a petite size 6 but a 7. Then again, I have an excuse to buy more shoes.
Gravity is catching up to me in places.  Then again, I just went down a jeans size and I exercise for fun, not because I compare myself to others (like in my 20s).
Certain songs don't apply to me anymore.  Then again, Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crowe, Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles are alive and kicking, still making music and performing. And I can finally afford tickets to their shows.

More than anything though, I have someone I love to grow old with. I am married to a man who found me when I was twenty years old; he has seen me through almost all stages of my life, and when he looks at me sees everything, not my age.

In addition to hubby, I have three kids who don't care how old I am. I am their goofy Mom/"mean" Mom/"drop me off before my friends see me, MOM!"/uniform-washing/"kiss my boo-boo, please!" Mom. I don't even know how old my parents are - I am just happy they are still here.

Age - I don't want to fear it. It seems so silly, fighting makes you older than anything, which includes fighting the inevitable (time). I'm having fun, despite the ennui, regardless of the endless have-to's.

So I can't claim to be On the Edge of Seventeen anymore. But I can say with more meaning than ever...

"Time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too"

and I hope to be able to say very soon...

"I have no fear, I have only love"

'Cause that is one Stevie song that will always apply to me, no matter how old I am.

(Need help with the lyrics? That was Landslide and Gypsy. Come on, now.)
Posted by Sam at 10:07:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Big Wave Wednesday




"No way Bells is bigger than Waiamea, bro"
...Point Break

No way San Diego is big as Bells Beach, Austrailia (especially during the fictitious 50 year storm), but Wednesday and Thursday of this week, we did our Pacific best, with storm winds fueling 20-foot waves on some west-facing beaches and even rogue waves that littered our highways with seaweed. It was a sight to be seen, and lucky me!  I got to see it.  I saw quite a bit.

This storm that pounded the Pacific Northwest has created monumental waves in San Diego - a surf city for sure but as far as California beaches go, our waves are pretty placid. 

That changed dramatically and quickly. Most beaches saw 10-14 foot waves, some beaches saw waves as high as 20 feet.  I swear the swells I saw this morning were upwards of 30 feet but guesstimating is not my strongest suit...and I was admittedly so moved by the heighth and speed of the waves that I could be off a bit.

On Monday, a 20-foot Great White Shark was spotted off La Jolla Cove, but with all the surfers bobbing up and down in the water waiting for the perfect waves this week, you would never know it. At Swami's Beach in Encinitas, just to the north of San Diego, surfers were in the water before the sun came up. After watching Discovery Channel's Shark Week for as many years as I can remember, this is not a good idea, sort of a death wish, actually - but to a Southern California surfer used to ankle slappers, it's what he or she has wishes for. In fact, the first day of big waves caused by winter storms is referred to as "Opening Day" here. Why not? Surfing is a sport, too.

I just happened to be in La Jolla Wednesday morning, with two hours to kill between 8:00-10:00am. When I woke up that day I told my husband, "I don't know what I'm going to do for two hours while my father is at his appointment." Not one hour later the dj's on the radio were discussing Big Wednesday and I knew exactly where I was headed. I dropped off my father at the hospital, gave him a kiss and said Good Luck, then turned on my Jack Johnson cd and headed west.

The road I usually take to the Tidepools was closed by the Police. I asked myself if this closure was entirely necessary, but the Police know things I don't, so I took the alternate route. "Wanna see some big waves, baby?" I asked my two year old, Melia, packed into her car seat in my rearview. We were in Waiamea when someone told me Melia meant "calm ocean." I was anxious to show my daughter her antonym. 

As I drove down a steep hill that connects rock to cliff on seemingly safe infrastructure, I saw them. Swells looking exactly like the ones you see at the end of Point Break, right before Johnny ******* Utah gets his man at the end. A cape of water vapor came off the rapidly moving swell that curled on top of itself towards a cove, cliffs on both sides, and I couldn't help but think to myself "Cliffs on both sides, I'm not gonna paddle to New Zealand", so I called my husband and left this movie quote on his voice mail. It's my favorite movie involving surf - okay?

I meandered down streets of Porsches, VW buses, dented BMWs, shiny Lexus's and work trucks. The people who own the houses on this hill got their property tax worth today, I thought. A variety of people had made a pilgrimage to the beach this day, and how it happened I don't know, but I found a spot right away. I got out of the car and as I popped the liftgate to get out the stroller, I saw a guy watching the waves wearing a work shirt for a company I won't mention, and as he was the only person near, I looked at him and said, "Duuuude." This is California speak for "Wow." 

He nodded his head in agreement. I may be a suburban Mom of three, but I still know the language. 

Without my camera or camcorder with me, I began deleteing pictures of soccer games and birthday parties stored on my cell phone.  I waited for a wave to crash on a sea wall or cliff, and when it sprayed in the air, I would take a picture with my phone and send it to Mom who is in Florida, my Amy who grew up on these beaches with me but now lives in Iowa, and my girlfriend Krissy who, just, gets it. 

I also called a friend who just the day before had told me about the illusion of safety nets in our lives when she said, "God is reminding you that he is in control. Nature will always triumph, and we're simply specs." I stood before my familiar tidepools submerged in several feet of water and I said to her, acknowldeging the Native American transcendent philosophy she draws from, "Okay, I get it."  Nothing like watching a towering wave to remind you of your place in the Universe.  These waves and storms have been recurring for countless years.  I have been sharing a planet with them for only thirty-six.  I can do bicep curls with 25 lb. dumbells in each hand, but one of those waves could have crushed me like a leaf under a big-rig tire, and I know it.

I saw surfers carrying boards with no top and no bottom, just middle, and I'm thinking they know it, too. In fact, it's safe to say all San Diegans have more respect for the ocean than we did last week, and we're ocean worshippers to the core.

Timeliness of lessons is what I got out of that day by the sea. Recently I have been subconsciously arguing with the forces in this world that won't let me control every aspect of my life. Things break, kids get sick, life requires flexibility, and I'll bitch about it when given a sympathetic ear. So I got a gift and a pleasant reminder - a reminder that sprayed water on my face and sent eruptions of breakwater high into the air like a volcano - that the powers of the Creator, the Universe, and what I can't control need the same humility and respect as the waves gracefully displaying that benevolent energy.

I've got to go with the flow, even if that means just standing and watching it pass me by.

Leaving the ocean that day was as disappointing as packing up and flying home from my honeymoon.  Those two short hours were euphoric and beautiful, for me and my daughter who probably won't remember it.  I don't remember my father taking me to witness the big waves thirty plus years ago, but I know he did. When I picked him up from his procedure, more than a little drugged and giddy, he told me so, over, and over, and over, and over. ("Forget it, he's rolling").

I knew I would be blogging about it, and I tried to post a picture at the top of a wave from Swami's, but even on my best imagery day, I couldn't describe what it was like to see a rainbow shoot up from every wave that broke. All waves eventually break, and rainbow endings are not typical.  I can't give you the feeling of hearing two hundred people ditching work, skipping classes, or otherwise at the beach for one purpose, who cheered in unison when they saw a surfer catch an elusive 15-footer and ride it far as he could, the way the fans at Qualcomm scream when LT busts a tackle and runs it in for a touchdown. I can say there was a twinkle in the Lifeguard's eyes after I asked him "Will the waves be this high later? I've got to bring my kids!" because he understood the magic of what he was seeing and was probably a parent too, but I'm still only telling.

I'm afraid the ocean that day isn't giving me literary permission to "show" rather than "tell." As a writer, that kind of frustrates me, I want to harness the power of my solitary experience with those big waves but it's just kind of impossible.

And I have to respect that.
Posted by Sam at 16:09:39 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |