Lost and Found

In my last blog entry I wrote, among other things, this: 

Weird mind quirk: Not long after moving into my current house 12 years ago, someone who was driving past stopped and asked me where an obscure little street in my neighborhood was. I didn't know. I found out a couple months later and I've been wanting him to stop back and ask again ever since.

And just now I got back from a walk in my neighborhood, during which a young man ran up to me and breathlessly asked me if I knew where that very street was. And I told him! He thanked me and ran off in that direction. It was utterly weird yet very gratifying, despite the fact that it was clearly not the same person who had asked me 12 years ago. One would hope the first fellow has found it by now. Still. What are the chances?

I'll bet 3 out of 4 readers would like to tell me that this was not pure coincidence. That "putting it out to the universe" has caused, or at least contributed, to this happening. And I'd kinda like to believe that too; that I let loose this little wish and the universe responded to it, albeit imperfectly.

Trouble is, if you believe your wishes, prayers, and positive thoughts can cause good things to happen, what are you to believe causes the bad stuff? I'm not going to delve any further into this right now, but it is something I think about often. Causation, consequences, coincidences. What do you think?

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

Yes! I recently joined a writers group composed of nine wonderful women, all of whom are truly talented writers. Last night we met at my house. The ladies brought lovely snacks, chocolate, and FIVE bottles of wine. Jealous yet? Our prompt had been Keeping it clean. The writings were brilliant, illuminating, hilarious, heartbreaking, and more. The conversations they spawned were likewise. I wrote a piece that was the proverbial "thing that you don't want to write about," the hard, gut-level stuff. I went last, cried throughout the reading of it, felt the calm empathy and warmth of this circle of women. Cathartic. Just a lovely evening. Next month's prompt: Off the shelf. Should be interesting.

 
Good Eats

This morning I went down to the Coit Road Farmer's Market to buy eggs and whatnot. Kevin, market manager and owner of Spicehound, had made venison sausages yesterday, and today had cooked up a big ole pot of them with a mess of cabbage and boy howdy, was it ever good.

My Adorable Child

...called me from the zoo today, where his dad had taken him. He wanted to know if his pet mice were okay, and if it was okay to eat some french fries. Yes and yes. I love to hear his voice on the phone. He somehow sounds even younger and cuter. 

This is not a Facebook post

So I thought I'd do something different today and I left this "compose blog post" window open all day and wrote down random thoughts as they occurred. And I just reread them now and they look to me like a series of Facebook posts. Do I really think in Facebookese now? This cannot possibly be good.

I feel that I have become addicted to the internet in general and Facebook in particular. I'd like to temporarily shut down my Facebook account, but this is complicated by the fact one of my few paying jobs these days is making a daily post on the Funny Times Facebook page. I don't think I can continue as an admin there if I don't have an active primary account. And I'm an admin on five other Facebook groups, four of which I created and two of which have had an influx of new members and a flurry of activity lately. So I can't very well abandon all of them now, can I?

Is internet addiction a real thing? I'm suppressing the urge to Google it because, come on. What am I going to do, join an online forum for internet addicts? If anyone has any wisdom in this regard, lay it on me. Meanwhile, here are my random trinkets of thought, for what it's worth...

***

Weird mind quirk: Not long after moving into my current house 12 years ago, someone who was driving past stopped and asked me where an obscure little street in my neighborhood was. I didn't know. I found out a couple months later and I've been wanting him to stop back and ask again ever since.

***

I fear the possum lying in the middle of the road isn't playing.

***

Eating fresh raspberries in winter feels incredibly extravagant and decadent to me. I try not to do it too often so I can maintain that feeling.

***

Just a plain roasted chicken on Mulberry Street. This was my thought about my dinner as I watched some fancy meals go by on my wall. Yeah, that would be Facebook I'm referring to.

***

Word of the day: sapiosexual. Yes, I saw it on Facebook. FML.

***

Outlandish! I like this word. I'll not mention where I heard it today. I tend to like old fashioned words that have fallen out of favor. My son says he has two favorite words: chicken and dunebuggy.

***

Damn. These could have been some hella fine Facebook posts and garnered all manner of likes and comments but instead Ive got them languishing away on a blog that I know perfectly well not more than five people will read. Because nobody clicks over on links to blog posts from Facebook and where else does anyone even find out about blog posts?

Yes indeed, I do have myself a problem here. Help?

Once more unto the breach

Not doing so good at keeping up here. Gonna try to dash out a post while the boy is amused by a playdate.

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

I made my Funny Times Facebook page readers give me a writing assignment. They gave me 20 words; I wrote a story. Of course they had to go and give me words like triskaidekaphobia and sesquipedalian. Charming bunch, those Funny Times fans. So that was kinda fun. I also had to write an essay in order to get a mystery shopping job, but I won't bore you with that.

As for reading, I wasn't really in the mood for The Lacuna, but will likely pick it up again eventually. Instead, I've started up with the 2013 Pushcart Prize book. Much better suited to my short attention span. About five stories in now and nothing I've adored yet, but Pushcart always has an interesting mix so I remain hopeful.

Good Eats

Lunch: egg salad wrapped in lettuce leaves. Dinner: something involving chicken, avocados, and hijiki. Coffee today: yes, indeed.

My Adorable Child

...wrote this for me yesterday:



Instructions on how to go to sleep. I had given him an assignment to write three sentences, thus that second line says "the sentences." But he said he combined all the sentences into one.

The boy is currently in the backyard with his buddy, making a snow dragon, whilst his friend makes a snow cow. They have fallen in and out of love with each other a dozen times in the past hour and a half, periodically declaring that they hate one another and will never play together again, then working it out and having a blast. Laughter, tears, and fart noises. The stuff little boys are made of.

Off topic: Now if anyone can tell me how to fix the font size on blogger, I'd be much obliged. I want something between "normal" and "large" and I don't want to spend the time going into the HTML and changing every instance of "font size" to a number. Thanks!

More of the same

I have FIVE followers now? Geez, it's like Grand Central Freakin' Station around here. I only hope I don't crack under the pressure.

So this thing happened the other day where everyone agreed that there would be a New Year starting, and people had assorted feelings and varied perspectives, and held parties to commemorate this event. It all seems rather contrived to me. The sun rose; the sun set. Likewise, the moon. Same old same old. Revolutions and resolutions happen daily. I'm going to start my own New Year in the spring when the weather is nicer. Be it so resolved.

Anyhow, moving right along...

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

Uh, not so as you'd notice. Just a few random paragraphs of each. Unless Facebook counts. Does Facebook count? I read and write there daily. I can Facebook like nobody's business. Yeah, I know. It actually doesn't count. Drag. But! I'll be doing some real reading and writing before you know it, I can feel it in my bones. And my liver. And a little inkling in my gall bladder. And this: I've joined a new writers' group and we'll be meeting again in a couple weeks. Prompt this month: Keep it Clean. I like the potential for a variety of interpretations on this one.

Good Eats

Breakfast, as usual these days, was two eggs (pasture raised, purchased from Frances at the Coit Road Farmers Market) along with a pile of vegetables. In this case, a cabbage and carrot salad with EVOO and red wine vinegar. So I've been doing the Paleo* eating thing for about a year now, and it's been very healthy for me. I lost about 40 pounds, stopped getting migraines, stopped getting hypoglycemic, and in general feel healthier and more energetic. And look what happened to my cholesterol:


Compare Pre-Paleo from 2009 to current levels.

Not bad for a diet that's a lot higher in eggs, bacon, nuts, coconut, avocados, and saturated fats (butter, lard, coconut oil) than my previous diet. And yes, I've become annoying evangelistic about this diet. Don't like it? Go read some cupcake blog instead.

This is all old news to those of you who read my Facebook page. But I'm repeating it in the event that someone who is not already a friend of mine should stumble across this blog. Hey, it could happen!

*I like this particular Paleo link because it's illustrated with Lego pictures.

My Adorable Child

I've been keeping a file on my computer of adorable things my child has said since he first learned to talk. Going back and picking the ones closest to today's date for each year:

1/07/08 (age 2)
Today, just before nap, E was down in the basement and yelled up to me, "Found something sticking out of snow!" (In his voice: "Ound umteen it-een out ub no.")
"Really? Come show it to me." He climbs up the stairs, little face beaming with joy, and holds up a half of a styrofoam peanut.
"Ate it up in my tummy," he says, "I happy now!"

2/16/09 (age 3)
E laughed himself awake around 4am and said, "Thing-a-doodle! THING-a-doodle!" And then promptly fell back to sleep.

Then this morning, watching his dad walk down the stairs he called to him:
"Don't fall down the stairs Dad! That's a metal rule. Metal rules are hard. You can't break them."

1/13/10 (age 4)
First thing this morning, in a serious yet thoughtful tone: "Mommy? Todaaaaaay.....we have to figure out.....the mystery.....of Daddy."

1/13/11 (age 5)
So the boy says, "Do you want to see me make some effort in the basement?"

Turns out he wants to hang a rope from a pipe and swing from it.

11/14/11 (age 6)
E was working on a math worksheet, writing down every number from 1 to 100. He stops and asks, “Do numbers EVER STOP?” I tell him no. He says, “You're kidding, right?”

“Nope,” I say, “Just imagine. What if you got to the highest number in the world, and you added one to it? Would it get higher?”

“No...Wait, yeees! Oh man.” He falls over, sort of laughing and groaning at the same time.

12/31/2012 (age 7)
E and I have a long running joke wherein we call each other "sandwich" and crack up. This came about a year or so ago when I asked him if he wanted a lunch sandwich. He heard it as, "Do you want lunch, Sandwich?" And he gave me a funny look and said, "Did you just call me sandwich?" I realized how he heard it and I explained it to him and ever since then it's been hilarious to both of us. Misplaced commas = comedy gold.

Nothing Fancy

Hellooooooooo!
echo
echo
echo

Yeah, so about this ghost town here. My bad. My intention was to write here often. I figured it would be a good way to practice, given that I fancy myself a writer. I guess that's a bit of a stretch since a writer, according to traditional convention, typically...writes. But hey, I'm writing now, am I not? And this is because I complained about my own lack of blog posts to a friend who blogs and asked for an assignment. She obliged, as follows:

Your assignment is this: find three general categories of activity or thought in which you engage fairly regularly (you like food, could be food, or parenting, or existentialism, or candy, or movies, or presidential history. It doesn't really matter. Whatever floats your boat) - make headings out of them - now write no more than one paragraph about the latest instance of each. Repeat on a set schedule (every other day). Rules and structure can be very useful in a creative endeavour.

So this is what I will do now, at least until I come up with some other sort of inspiration on my own, assuming that such a thing may happen someday.

Okay, so category number one. Humm. Let's call it:

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

I just finished The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, which, as might be expected of a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a damn fine novel. Just started reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna. Also reading a book by Joseph Sestito, called Write for Your Lives: Inspire Your Creative Writing with Buddhist Wisdom, which I happened upon in the local authors section at my local library. I'm hoping to win bonus locavore points for this. As for writing, you're looking at it. Not much of a paragraph, this, but I'm going for quick and dirty today.

Next topic. Yes, I suppose food floats my boat, or at the very least, keeps it from sinking. Thus:

Good Eats

Today I had lunch at Lemon Grass with my friend Sandee, the managing editor for The Funny Times, where I have worked off and on in various roles for over 25 years. I had Chicken with Thai Basil. Quite good. Good lord, this is ridiculously boring. It needs some spice, I think. Try this: I was daintily nibbling on a jalapeno pepper when all at once, a flying zombie vampire hobbit dressed as Abraham Lincoln...aw, screw it. That one's been done to death. I'm having chicken soup for dinner. Might make some Paleo biscuits to go with it.

Two down. I suppose the obvious choice for category three would be:

My Adorable Child

My adorable child hates to read. This really irks me. And apparently, yelling at him and telling him that he's going to LOVE reading someday, dammit, is not going to help him like it any better. Go figure. For now I'm looking for books with only one sentence per page, as this seems to keep him from getting overwhelmed. I can tell he really does want to read, he just finds it difficult and doesn't want to do all the practice it takes to get good at it. Just where in the hell he picked up that attitude, I can't begin to imagine.

There. Done. Not pretty; nothing fancy. But it's a start. Or a restart, anyhow. More to come...

I think.

Forest, thirty years later

Thirty years ago today, my first son, Forest, was born. He was brain damaged at birth and died two and a half months later. I'm not saying this to elicit your sympathy. I don't need or want a new stream of condolences. Been there, done that...a long time ago. 

  

 Not that I no longer grieve, but it is a timeworn, world-weary grief, smoothed and muted. Filtered, like sunlight though a thick canopy of trees. 

 

The sorrow at the loss of an infant was, for me, not so much the grief of loss anyway, more the grief of never knowing and forever wondering. What if he had lived all these years in that severely brain-damaged body? What if I, or the others involved, had made different choices in my pregnancy or labor? What if he hadn't been brain-damaged at all? Who would he be now? 

 

What would my life be like with a 30 year old son? I can only imagine. I doubt I would have become a midwife. I doubt I would have had the wonderful six year old son I now have. And I'm happy in my life now. Would I be as happy if Forest were still here? Happier? 

 

 Once the past is past, it becomes the only possible thing that could have happened. I can tell myself it was fate; it was meant to be; see the silver lining. I can say it was a disaster; proof of a nonexistent or uncaring God; lay blame. I've done all these and more. It's all stories. Here's what I tell myself 30 years later: nothing. I don't need conjecture or meaning. It doesn't matter why. Thirty years is a long time. Dust to dust.

Some might find this odd, but I don't wonder where he is now. I don't wonder if he is in heaven, or he's been reincarnated, or his death was simply the end. Because about the only thing I do know is that I don't know, can't know, will probably never know. I don't envy the certainty of those who “know” what happens after death. There is a certain peace in reconciling to the unknown and unknowable too.

And isn't this the grief of life as we grow older as well: never knowing what might have been? The big “What If?” What if ... I had picked a different path, a different partner? ...had been or not been there any given night? ...had said yes one thing, no to another? The road not taken which has made all the difference.

 So was Forest the road I didn't take, or the one I did? I traveled so briefly with him but it's clear to me that I ended up on a very different path because of him. I don't know why he came into my life or why he left so soon or if he had a purpose in life or if I do. I don't think these are even the right questions to ask. It's just...well...here I am. A little sad, but at ease. Rooted and wrapped in my life. Standing in the light of this day and feeling grateful for everything.

 

April 27 - July 9, 1982 

 

 

 

I drew this from the top photo because I wanted a picture of him without the medical stuff
 

 

I wrote this five years later, 4/27/2017

My first son, Forest, was a surprise. Unplanned. Born 35 years ago today. I was 21 years old. His complicated birth and his death 73 days later, that was also a surprise. I didn't plan for this grief, this unlived life, these unanswerable questions that I mostly try not to ask.

No one knew Forest, truth be told, not even me. His brief life was played out in hospital rooms, not dandled on the knees of family and friends. His father is long gone, his sights set on Jesus so hard there's no room left in his vision for mere mortals.

A surprise, a bright golden bubble set aloft and soon burst, leaving only reflections. Even his cemetery stone has disappeared.

My new boy was as planned as can be, but he is a surprise too. He surprises me daily with his continued existence. Every morning I pause and listen until I hear him...little brother, waking to life.

 

 Someone asked me for a favorite memory:

Tough question. He was brain damaged at birth, and spent his whole life in the hospital. He always had the feeding tube in, so he never smiled or cried. He had a rough go of it, poor child.

I do fondly remember the day this picture was taken. He was at UH, and I lived on E 115th, a five minute walk to the hospital. We were allowed to take him for walks down to the courtyard. (At that time they had a lovely outdoor courtyard where the atrium is now. It was SO much nicer then.) Anyhow, we went down to the courtyard, and then snuck out of the hospital and went home. We spent about an hour there. The photo was taken in the backyard. It was really nice to get him away from the hospital for that brief time.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A  friend, poet Bob Drake, put together a book of poems for me and Forest's dad, Rocky. Some were his own, some he gathered for us. I read and appreciated these quite a bit in the early years, and I still take it out now and again. Here are the ones Bob wrote. He also built Forest's casket for us, which is referenced in the third poem. :

 

The only photo I have of the coffin.

And here is a poem I wrote several years later...

There Was Death

There was death

in his whiteness

in his quiet breathing

that afternoon when he stopped fighting

There was death

and I watched it

settle into him

and I wished I could go there with him

but instead I rocked him and sang him a song

and I told him

It's okay to go now

because I could see that death

could not be wiped away

like tears

And later

when he was gone

I cradled an empty body

just to be certain

stroked cold skin

just to be sure

he was safe

Not fighting for another breath

Safe now

from the weary miracle

of life

O Rumi, Rumi, where art thou Rumi?

I posted a little Rumi poem to my Facebook page yesterday, because it felt right for how I'm feeling these days:

“Forget safety.

Live where you fear to live.

Destroy your reputation.

Be notorious.”

― Rumi

Afterward, I started thinking how much I've always loved Rumi and how I really ought to own at least one book of his poetry. Who would have thought such a simple idea could lead me so far afield?

Before I go any further with this story, let me make a confession: I know very little about poetry. I am not educated in poetry. But I've been immersed in it since I was a child. My dad read to us: from AA Milne to ee cummings, Robert Frost to Robert Service, we got an earful of the stuff. All four of us kids can probably recite The Cremation of Sam McGee from memory to this day.

I loved the stuff. By high school I was writing it too. Later, I embarked on an English major at CSU, but had to drop out within a year due to other life commitments and I never got to take any poetry classes. Which is all just to say that I'm approaching my subject today with no more than a beginner's mind and an abiding love of words, not any particular expertise.

So, back to Rumi, aka Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, aka Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, aka Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, aka Mevlānā , aka Mawlānā. Rumi was a mystic Sufi poet who lived in Persia (now Tajikistan) from 1207 to 1273. He wrote in the Persian language, which is the heart of the issue I am facing as I begin to wonder which book of his work I might like to buy.

What I have just discovered, neophyte that I am, is that quite a bit of what we English speakers think of as Rumi's work, is best referred to, not as translations of his original words, but as “poetic interpretations.” Inspired by his words, but not at all true to them. Coleman Barks seems to be the most prolific of these interpreters. Most of what I have read and enjoyed of Rumi's work has been though Barks. This news is disheartening to me. I love what I have read. But it is not true to Rumi? How am I to feel about this?

I go to the library. I take out books translated by Ibrahim Gamard and Nevit O. Ergin. I reserve from other libraries Rumi translations done by Kabir Edmund Helminski and Arthur John Arberry. I may add to this list as I learn more.

So this is the task I have set out for myself. Read, compare, decide. Or maybe don't decide. As yet, I don't know how I can. I have so many questions and I would be ever so pleased if anyone who has an interest in this topic would respond in the comment section. The very idea of poetry in translation from other languages has got me all hot and bothered now. Can it be done? This is poetry we're talking about, not an instruction manual for a toaster oven. Can it really be done? If it's a literal word for word translation, it loses its poetry. If it's a poetic interpretation, it loses its roots. Is the resulting poem, in either case, still attributable to the original author?

Rumi, in some cases, was translated from Persian to other languages and then to English. And this being about 700 years ago and all the lost context that entails, it just seems very nearly impossible that the resulting works can come close to the original intent, or carry traces of the original “soul,” if you will. On the other hand, I am unlikely to learn Persian. If I want to make  contact with my beloved Rumi, what else am I to do?

Feel free to also talk about poetic translations in general. Same principles would apply, I think.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to hearing from you all. I'm off to dive into these books now....