wearing my uncle's sweater

You've heard of last man standing. Karen and I are going visit the last aunt standing in Connecticut this Sunday. She will be 89 and lives on a mountain in New Milford that is modestly called Second Hill(First Hill must really be some mountain) The house is large and sits on 10 acres. My late Uncle Harold would not like the fact that he has neighbors now. He loved the wilderness, camping, fishing,hunting, firing ranges. For a year and a half while my mother finished up Chiropractic college in Iowa my brother and I lived with them. They had no children and all the other aunts and uncles did, so they were the logical choice and they would have been the logical choice of my brother and I. We learned to swim, roam the woods, work on houses he would build in the summertime. We also learned that people ate three meals a day actually sitting at a table together. They were a couple of opposites my aunt and uncle. She read movie mags and the National Enquirer-he read the Great Books and listened to opera and classical music. She was a Catholic who did and still does go to church every Sunday. He never went to church until late in life when he had a near death experience on the operating table. Then he began reading the Bible and posting signs in his workshop basement reminding him not to swear.He was what is called a man's man and I looked up to him because he was the closest I would get to having a real father. He taught us how to play chess and encouraged riding on toboggans down huge hills at a hundred miles an hour. He would buy me cheeseburgers for breakfast when we went to work and he stopped for coffee. I probably was a disappointment in that I almost strangled myself learning how to fish, I wouldn't fire a gun. I did go hunting with him and fishing on Long Island Sound and generally liked being with him. He died of cancer some years ago at home on the big mountain taken care of by my aunt. Shocking to see this larger than life figure reduced to skin and bones physically and mentally. I inherited the sweater my aunt made him. Heavy soft wool with pictures of wildlife. I was way to big to ever wear it. Now I'm small enough physically and mentally to put it on and keep it on.

The origin of stories

I should be working on making my story, "The Imperfect Pilgrim" a lot better but I've been procrastinating. I dearly wish that procrastination was an attribute of God--that somewhere an obscure Tablet of Baha'u'llah ends with "God the Procrastinator". I know, not going to happen-get to work Ronnie. I promise myself I will work hard this day after I finish this blog.
I woke up thinking about the origin of my love of stories that has now been passed on to my daughter. My mother was not a writer, but she was a captivating story teller. She had a million stories-she conversed in stories. I confess that when she talked about her trip to the Soviet Union in the 1970's with a group of chiropractors I would groan and ask for mercy. "Mom! not that story again! She loved stories in the form of old black and white movies made when she was young. I came to understand that she was young again sitting in her easy chair glued to the TV remembering where she was in her own life. I watched the original "Dracula" movie with her and she recalled sitting in the theater when people left their seats and ran terror--stricken from the bloodthirsty Count.She stayed, drinking it all in(pun intended).She had a child's belief in the big screen-it was all real--she felt the emotions booed the villains--cheered the heroes while celebrating with a bowl of ice cream. One night, After watching the "Wizard of OZ" she was feeling bad about the passing of the troubled life and death of Judy Garland and wondered where she was buried. I didn't help her grief at all when I told her that a diner in Philadelphia had purchased her bankrupt body and was displaying her Lenin style in glass covered coffin in their foyer. She was horrified at the crass commercialism of this awful diner and said that she, for one, would never eat there. Of course, she was shocked at my bad taste humor which only made it more hysterically funny to me. So I sit here about ready to shift gears and get back to my own story writing. Thanks Mom, have another bowl of ice cream. As you told me when I was a child,"Ice cream is free in heaven".

Edith Rose

I recently received some wonderful news that a publisher is going to put out in May an anthology of my stories. They are very enthusiastic and want more and more so I have been going through and trying to give them everything I have. The story they love the most is "Edith Rose". All of these stories are at least 15 years old and ER is no exception. ER entered the world of visible creation(forgive this transcendental verbiage)as a result of my friendship with the real ER. She was a foster child bouncing from one home to another growing up. She would tell me little scarring vignettes from time to time. One day I impulsively promised that I would write a fictional story based on her childhood. I remember saying that there were no Baha'i stories about what it was like growing up as a foster child. Later I thought, "Oh my God, now I actually have to do the writing!". The writer's brain that call my fingers home came to the rescue. I imagine a contentious conversation about the brain between my ears and the brain between my pinkie and thumb about making promises that someone else had to follow through on. The Baha'i Publishing Trust at one time was very high on the story, but wanted it to be longer. By the time I finished the editor I was working on left and there were budget issues and they lost interest. So now after all these years my promise will see the light of day which will then penetrate the dark night of Edith Rose. The real person this story went on to become my own personal heroine. Heroes and heroines, like all human beings, have flaws and sometimes the flaws make a timid mortal like myself believe that maybe I can overcome my fears. Maybe I can do more than write about heroes.The last time my brother made the trip from my old hometown in New York to Maine (which was a minor miracle) he was in terrible shape. He used the toilet and when I went in later I was shocked to see blood spatters all over the place.I cleaned up so the kids wouldn't see this. He sat later on the sofa and the real ER who had been a nurse when she was younger was rubbing his swollen oozing legs. My loner brother, whose closest friend was a chess computer, looked at her on her knees and told her, "You are my friend". Simple words, common everyday words, but in over fifty years I had never heard him call anyone a friend. I couldn't look at his legs, much less touch them. When he went back to N.Y. he continued to deteriorate. She and another Baha'i friend would help him bathe he was so weak. I don't know all the things she did for him. God the Writer knows. God the Kind and God the Merciful, and God the Blind who one day presents us with a tablet of our own moments when we were able to rise above the muck and mire of fear knows. He will strain to pick up the tablet designated for the real Edith Rose. Sweat will pour down His Face. Tears will pour down His Face that will fall down as rain on my brother's grave and heal his legs, his heart, his soul. And as he heals, I heal.I look forward to giving the first copy to my friend.

Tis the Season-2011

Tis the Season-2011

If a door can open
Then one day it will open
If a door can close
Then one day it will close
All that matters
All that will ever matter
Is on what side of the door will you stand
If a tear stained body
Can not rise to its feet
Then will you stand for them?
Its all that matters
Its all that will ever matter

Valley of the Blue Moon

I had such a nice day with my expanding family. How ironic that I should be shrinking when my family is growing with son-in-laws and babies. My Buddhist friend, who was one of six friends in our Green Acre class last weekend who knew very little about the Baha'i Faith, described his personal meditation of seeing his breathing. This poem could be from that conversation or perhaps my favorite movie from the James Hilton novel, "Lost Horizon". In the movie, the main character, played by Ronald Coleman, is brought to a garden paradise at the top of the world. Himalayan peaks sheltered the Valley of the Blue Moon from the harsh elements. Every now and then when nobody is around I pop in the dvd and imagine I have stumbled through a narrow opening where time is dramatically slowed-where a person can live several days in that moment between inhale and exhale.

The Valley of the Blue Moon

A tidal wave moment of neither breathing in or breathing out.

I enter a valley of stillness that weary travelers stumble upon.

To rest, to heal, to become whole.

To dream of words and colors.

Warming my hands by the fire of timelessness

I stand high on a narrow path

Drawn by the sight and sound of chanting candles lit with grief

Weaving their way through the darkness of the Valley of the Blue Moon below

A familiar voice, my voice,

Tells me

I cannot stay here.

I exhale.

The tide rushes in.

The ball I have thrown high in the air

Has fallen to the earth

And so must I.

new poem

Brief Visit

My heart aches sitting in this green wicker chair.

Watching the beauty of the world pass by.

Beauty that visits, but doesn't stay.

"I made an agreement at the moment of creation:

One life, one lifetime.

Do you remember?" He reminds me.

One day another will sit in this chair.

Feel the warmth of the morning sun on cold memories.

See you spring to life again.

If only for a moment.

old photos

Karen tore up the house looking for her passport in preparation for her trip to Ethiopia in a few weeks. Thank God she found her passbook because a major clean up took place unearthing and returning to earth various strange discoveries. One of the treasures were photos of my grandmother and Laurel when she was one year old. Ma must have been close to a hundred years. I'm still amazed that a women who gave birth to eight children and ate awful food. I mean awful food! Donuts and half cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast. Beer with her supper. A shot of whiskey if she had company. And here I am eating like Ghandi with an upset stomach. So much for justice.

That's not what I started out to write. I looked at the photos and saw such love in her face for my one year old daughter. Laurel, of course, doesn't remember, but I had forgotten that look also--mores the pity. I remember the quirky, funny stories like how, if she had something on her mind, she would walk to our house next door, pass through Dr. Mary's waiting room and walk right in to ask her daughter a question. Some poor soul would be lying on the table half naked and Ma would ask every time, "Mary, you got customer?" Kind of obvious I would think. My mother would turn bright red. "Ma!, how many times do I have to tell you? They're patients! Not customers! Just what do you think I'm doing in here? Imagine the poor unfortunate lying there knowing my mother is going to take all her anger out on their naked butt when Ma finally leaves. Ma's burning question might be that she wants some milk from the store or where are we going for Xmas two months from now. Stories like this come back to me, but its that look when Laurel visited her at the nursing home that I hope Ill always remember.