Shoveling up a cumbia in the rain.

I’ve been relocating my garden. Most of the fuzzy, silvery (read unappealing to deer) lambs’ ears from the back yard notgarden are being transplanted, shovelful by shovelful, into an instant garden in the front of the house. This is a time-consuming process as I must step back frequently to evaluate, ruminate, and procrastinate over the direction and flow of the plants, the angle and quantity of rocks and geegaws subsumed into the making of the new garden, and to clumsily punch the minuscule button on  my MP3 player with my muddy garden glove to bypass, or circle back to, a particular song. As always, I was accompanied by that electronic companion, comforter, personal trainer, and virtual Lucifer himself ever ready to distract me, magically squeezed into a purple 1.5″ x 2″ case; my MP3 player. On this typical Sunday morning consisting of neighborhood silence and solitude so thick and clinging as to seem post-apocalyptic, my garden slogging was backed by Ingrid Michaelson singing cheerily against my brain about broken hearts and broken parts and Sheryl Crow reminding me that “all I wanna do is have some fun” and Pitbull rasping that I’m” groovy, baby” and he wants us to” make a movie, baby” and Haley Bonar voicing my exact wish that “I could be my former self, she’d be a fun girlfriend — she got a bad reputation.” Suitable music for gardening, or the end of the world, in case this day actually was and I didn’t recognize it.

The morning’s mucking about was slow going and it was evident the game would soon be called by yet more rain. My $1.25/bag  soil was going to be  nickel-a-pound mud if I didn’t lay the traveling lambs’ ears lickety-split into the dirt to be held in place temporarily by the oval marble cutouts scavenged from somebody’s bathroom sink installation. I continued digging and pulling and wheeling back yard to front.

And humming. And singing.

Raindrops began falling around me. I saw their impressions on the pollen-glazed driveway more than felt them. There would be no stopping the transplant slog just yet, though. I’d been carting this garden around for weeks between rainstorms and traveling. At this pace, autumn would be here before I got this project done. After autumn, the world does end, nearly, for me.

Digging and wheeling, digging and wheeling. Singing. Punching the replay button on the MP3 player with ever dirtier gloves. More singing.

The rain continued upping the ante.

The Blazers queued up on my electronic Lucifer, playing their jaunty “Cumbia Del Sol.” I’d steadfastly cast tempters Ingrid and Sheryl and Pitbull and Haley behind me, but the Blazers held out the ultimate apple. “Cumbia” — a dance form; “del Sol” — the sun.

I looked at the substantial expanse of waiting dirt. Just another wheelbarrow or two would allay my procrastination guilt. At least two more days of rain were forecast. The trees stood near me aloof and dripping and mute amongst their brown leaf carpeting, the sole witnesses to my labors aside from an occasional road biker blazing past.

So, what really mattered here?

I bit the Blazer’s apple.

I poked the volume button. I dropped the shovel.  Stepping over the wine bottle garden edging, I proceeded to trample the nearby clover with my own cumbia, dancing alone and upright and madly in the front yard, dissing the dreary sky, seeing a cartoon-bright sun in my mind. I danced opposite the grubby me reflected in the house windows. I danced among the imaginary crowd on the backs of my eyelids. I danced with my back to every self-imposed Puritanical “should,” hoofing gleefully with the Lucifer of right here and right now. I danced because I could, and because I couldn’t not dance.

And there it is. Don’t wait. Drop your shovel or your phone or your loneliness or your disease and dance, with your eyes closed and your back to your Puritans if necessary.  Whatever’s in your garden, weeds or prize roses or just dirt, nothing’s going anywhere. Right now is all that really matters. Don’t let the chance to be happy, to have fun for just this moment, slip away. Never let that chance get away from you. There’s no replay button for it.

 

Listen to my temptations:

Ingrid Michaelson, “Be OK” 

Sheryl Crow, “All I Wanna Do” 

Pitbull, “Back in Time” 

Haley Bonar, “Bad Reputation” 

The Blazers, “Cumbia Del Sol” 

Weekly photo challenge: UP

My family visited over a recent Easter. We gathered a balloon bouquet, added our greetings, and sent them off the top of a mountain to our dear, though no longer near, loved ones.

My brother prepares to climb Humpback Rocks to release our balloon bouquet.

The last steps to the mountain top.

Not a wholly accurate depiction, but Dad would have approved it.

That’s definitely her smile.

Up and away. Hello, and love, to you all.

Rising.

Today I sloughed the layers of winter’s death-shroud clothing, worn like a prison uniform, for spring’s sheer yet strong cloth of warmth and sun. No matter that as I drive from the city the trees remain nearly bare; I have but to look up, past and between their stubbornly conservative branches, to see the sky — to be able to see the sky at all!– from blue to pale, brushed with white clouds. Sunlight jewels off passing cars. The unfamiliar warmth feels so intimate on my exposed skin that it’s almost obscene. I’m afraid if I close my eyes too long all of this will disappear and I’ll be back in the monotonous nightmare of the 100 year winter,  surrounded by ugly days of useless rain and sticking mud; day after day after hopeless day.

Today my heart is spread wide and open through my chest, and this day feels like a healing salve spread over its winter wounds. The terror of losing this blessed gift of sun and heat and light starts to make my head ache. But I’m pushing back against that dull pounding. No matter, I won’t let it matter. The sun is with me, my shadow too. I have this moment now, with the wind flying across the open truck window and the humming sound of traffic, the precious everydayness of people going somewhere, in this right-now time of winter gone. I am as a hostage released, and as I wrap spring’s fabric around me, I can smell every happy moment I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Entrepreneurs, or snowpportunists?

Today’s edition of The New York Times contained a story about the just-completed snowpocalypse that buried a couple small states, turned off countless lights and furnaces, and stranded travelers in airports, workplaces and in their vehicles. I’m  wondering why people would venture onto the roadways with the abominable snowstorm lurching steadily toward them. The advance warning was as thorough as that for any hurricane (let’s say, maybe, Hurricane Sandy).

What really generated some discussion between Mike and I, though, was the paragraph about stranded motorist Joseph Calle, who paid a total of $100 to two strangers with shovels to help dig his car out of the snow. This wasn’t a matter of Mr. Calle offering the money; the going rate for the first shovel-bearer was $40 and $60 for the second. My knee-jerk reaction was disgust that there were people profiting from the misfortune of others during essentially life-threatening circumstances. This was not like knocking on the doors of warm houses with driveways that need to be shoveled to earn some extra cash. It seems more like a guerilla emerging from the jungle offering to free only those hostages being held who could pay upfront for the privilege.

Or does it? Maybe this is more like selling cold bottled water during a hot summer festival. The patron should have brought his own water but for whatever reason didn’t, thereby creating a need fulfilled by that much-admired American entity, the spur-of-the-moment entrepreneur. A thirst is quenched, a little cash is made, and both parties are happy. Are the shovel-bearing strangers simply entrepreneurs? They seem much more like opportunists to me. I know that many people endure financial hardship daily but does that entitle anyone to benefit from another’s misfortune?

I also thought that if Mr. Calle had offered the money for the assistance, rather than having it extracted (or extorted) from him, the transaction would be more acceptable. Any number of us have done a stranger a favor, or had a stranger help us in some way, where a grateful offer of cash was made at its conclusion. Perhaps the cash was taken, perhaps not — either way, there was a choice of its exchange, not a demand.

I don’t know why Mr. Calle, or many others stuck on the Long Island Expressway, chose to drive into harm’s way. I don’t need to know why. I do know, though, that there are far more helpful and generous people than there are heartless and mean-spirited, which is what the shovel-toting guerillas seem to me to be.

An unexpected gift.

I had my hair cut again.

I decided beforehand that I would try to better hold up my end of the conversational give and take during this salon visit and  present more of my true self conversationally rather than just acknowledging the usual facts of yes married, no kids, and yes the weather’s been pretty nice. I brought the photo from the New York Times of my current haircut, the same photo as last time, to refresh my stylist’s memory.

She looked at the picture and said, “Oh, that’s Jamie Lee Curtis’ cut.” When she showed me her magazine photo of Curtis, I agreed that the actress’ cut was indeed similar though significantly shorter. I sat in the chair and she began cutting. And talking. Given the time of year, her first question was, “Are you ready for Christmas?” Fixing my expression into the open and honest position and looking to meet her eyes in the mirror, I replied that I didn’t really do Christmas anymore, that I didn’t shop or decorate. I recommended the same to her, saying that it was actually quite freeing.

Without so much as a pause or an acknowledgement that I had spoken, she told me she was a Christmas fanatic and went on to describe coaxing her husband to bring their five Chrismas trees out of the basement, then about her thwarted quest for a particular make-up kit for the salon’s gift exchange. She continued with the usual and customary holiday report until I experienced a brief, thrilling surge of hope when she said she had bought her grandson some books so he could know the true story of Christmas — I thought she was referring to the church’s choice of December 25 to coincide with the date of pagan celebrations to confuse the whole picture and gain more converts — but that wasn’t the story she meant. She was talking about a manger, three kings, and one god. I released my tenuous hold on the edge of the conversational cliff from which I dangled and landed in a heap like virtual  Christmas cookie dough at its bottom, where I sat listening as she waxed on about holiday preparations and shopping and gifting while scissoring through my hair. When she was finished, I didn’t have the haircut from the photo I’d brought. Jamie Lee Curtis sat atop my head, placed there by the stylist absentmindedly between statements of retail outrage and faithful fervor; her very own Christmas gift to me.

I’m good with it, though. Really. People give you gifts, and people give you gifts. Some are delicious and welcome, like that 2 pound box of chocolate creams or a mixed 6-pack of craft beer. Some are quirky and fun, like racing nun dolls or a toy catapult that can be mounted on a helmet. Some are simply useful — a gift card or a calendar.

And then, some gifts are liberating. Quietly, unexpectedly, surprisingly liberating. My experience with the stylist was just that. My hair was far too short, but it will grow back. I lost something besides my hair, though; I lost anger, frustration, and sadness.

When my stylist launched into her Christmas spiel, I wanted to counter with my own experience of the last dozen years, a saga of lost faith and Christmas traditions once held bold and confident and dear but now pulverized into rubble. I wanted her to understand and acknowledge the hijacking of seasonal celebrations by both religious and secular raiders. I wanted to relieve her of the pressure of Christmas spending and shopping so special to the Scrooge-ish hearts of every retailer while prying through her nose with hooks, ancient Egyptian-like, her adherence to the story of a god’s birth published, “hark ye, unholy multitudes,” in the world’s best selling book. I wanted her to put just one toe into the murky doldrums of Christmas once loved and  now lost and feel the crushing emptiness of being trapped there.

Instead, she quite suddenly cut all my hair very short in just a few motions while she babbled about Christmas. I saw the shearing begin to happen, and might have been able to stop her, but I didn’t try. I let go the vision I had for my haircut even as my hair hit the floor around me. I decided it didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter. The hair would grow in again. And she would have her Christmas with its five decorated trees and her mission to keep a very suspect story alive in her grandson, no matter how I might try to convince her otherwise. Why should she not have that? Why shouldn’t each of us have, or not have, our version of Christmas? She had unknowingly given me the gift of letting go of the frustration and futility of trying to justify my lost Christmas Past, and my angry desire to push back against the hype and secular vs. religious dueling of Christmas Present. She gave me the gift of being able to observe the holiday frenzy and  moral proselytizing without leaping into the fray to argue my case, and she gave me the experience of contentment being with Mike while opening little offerings from each other without thinking about the existence of a god or the holiday profit margins of a corporation. I can’t prove either of those, so who am I to try to convince someone else? I am the recipient of a very great gift this year, the gift of personal liberation and wider acceptance, and I am quite humbly grateful for it.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

This gallery contains 21 photos.

“Weekly Photo Challenge: Green.” (Brought to you by your friendly blog host, WordPress) By my Royal Decree (and unofficial sanction of my loyal subjects) I bestow upon you: MAD QUEEN GREEN:

Fuck the Lilliputians.

I’ve had this quote from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs taped to the Magic Bus’ dashboard for almost a year:

 “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

 I gave my boss notice of my intent to depart my notjob by the end of this year, which is more than two months’ warning. I claim squatters’ rights on the moral high ground for allowing the company this much prep time. However, it took me nearly a week to actually quit after making my decision to do so. I’ve always had an ingrained and misplaced sense of responsibility to my employers. Never once have I inconvenienced any of them by walking off a job; I can’t say the same for them.

I reasoned I couldn’t quit on a Monday, that would be too cruel to start a week that way.  This is also an awkward situation with only two of us in this office, and it could become considerably more strained and awkward with my declaration of independence.  Tuesday I had Zumba in the evening which allowed little opportunity to announce my news to Mike. My list of excuses grew like Pinocchio’s nose. My chest tightened and I became inert for several days. I was disappointed and frustrated with myself at each day’s end. I began solidifying into inaction.

I happened upon this TED video about “power positions”.  I chose my day and shot the rattlesnake in my brain. I rehearsed my short speech, eliminating all pauses, excuses, and extraneous words, and arranged my body into a position that backed up my message – standing, no hands in pockets, no crossed arms. I remembered my Zumba instructor’s words – “keep your chest up.” I walked into my boss’s office and told him I was leaving, in the same tone I would have told him I had a doctor’s appointment. I did not ask for approval, I did not leave the door open to a counter offer. I gave no reason, and when, after recovering from his initial shock, my boss told me that I had to be honest with him about the reason for my departure, I looked at him levelly, laughed, and said no, I didn’t have to be honest with him and that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. No bridges were burned and no words were wasted justifying my decision. 

 I am now as a prison inmate whose release date is in sight. I should be happy, very happy that I am claiming my decision.

 Guess what.

 My stint here in solitary has given me, if nothing else, unlimited thinking time. As someone whose mind enters screensaver mode when deprived of a wide variety of stimulation and information, I’ve still managed to do quite a bit of deep thinking. I’ve watched TED talks, read blogs and blogs and books , and I’ve talked to friends, family, coworkers in other locations, former coworkers, and acquaintances. I probably talked to myself.

 I’m nowhere near happy, and I’m quite far from very happy. Right now, I am borderline furious. During my time at this notjob I have thrashed embarrasingly through the muck of frustration, anger, depression, resistance, resignation. There are long periods of time about which I can remember almost nothing. The fax machines and Outlook 2000 of this place have put me years behind technologically. The people skills and compassion and humility and sense of helping others in some very tiny, but very meaningful and soul-affirming way earned while working at M.D. Anderson have been locked into an excruciatingly dear and painful memory that rests on the road kill skunk reality of embroidered Yves St. Laurent towels, private jets, and Cartier Christmas cards bearing a modestly clothed baby Jesus that this job has been.

 I am angry because I am smart, funny, imaginative, strong, independent, and resourceful. Despite being all of those things, I have allowed myself to be tied down by Lilliputians, and I have been as much Lilliputian as Gulliver. I helped knot the ropes that have held me in various mindless jobs. I have been wailing and gnashing my teeth ad nauseum about the inanity of going day after day, year after year, to jobs that Winnie the Pooh, that bear of very little brain, could have dispatched with his little eyes closed. I have bitched and moaned and complained to anyone and everyone from friends to family to acquaintances to coworkers.  And I’ve done nothing to help myself. Nothing.

I thought if I’d gone to college I could have learned to think critically; three years stuck to an office chair in virtual solitary confinement with nothing to do have given me plenty of time to think clearly and strip off my oh-woe-is-me-cloak. The only work challenge I’ve ever accepted was having my own quirky little wind chime business where I was responsible for everything from gathering raw materials (frequently by climbing into trash bins) to making the chimes to building my displays to selling my products. I loved the process but burned out on the selling and prostituted myself back into office jobs that paid far more than they should have. I’ve told more than one employer that they paid me too much money but that didn’t stop me from taking the cash. I heeded well-meaning advice from near and far, from intelligent people who have actual careers and letters after their names, to take the money and just be glad I had a job. I bought into the line of bullshit the local employment agency fed me on my arrival here about the dismal prospects for employment in a town dominated by a single educational behemoth. I took on Mike’s fear that we will run out of money before our golden years. I have squandered years of my life that I can never recover doing mainstream paper-pushing that has virtually destroyed my self-respect and pretty much eliminated any reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Fuck the Lilliputians. I’m done.

I’m at the middle of my life, I hope. My mother, my very best friend ever, dropped dead at age 68, so I might already be closing in on old age.  I have a stupidphone and a hand-me-down computer. My clothes are second hand. I’ve never had or wanted a manicure or a massage. I have no kids or pets. If I’ve climbed into trash bins, obviously pride is not an issue. In other words, I am a very cheap date. What I’m going to do is to shed my inherited, unfounded fears of the future and my current boundaries of suffocating conformity. I am going to act on a primal need to become independent, responsible to and for myself. It’s way past time to set the bar at the level I choose. I am going to be at the right intersection with my thumb out when the party bus goes by, not watching from behind the safety of a steady paycheck. What I need, and what I will find,  is “the courage to follow my heart and intuition.” I’ll let you know how that goes.

Weekly photo challenge: Big

Self explanatory.

 See related story here: http://magicbusstop.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/a-day-at-notwork/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Mine

mine: (pronoun) that or those belonging to me

What is mine?

Nothing. No thing. No person, no advantage, no possession, no dream, no thought, no situation, no words, no relationship, no place, no purpose, no time, no life. Everything, every thing, can be gone in an instant. Nothing is mine.

When nothing is mine, everything is mine. Frightening, yet liberating.

Nothing is mine and everything is mine. They are the same.

Sometimes, you just have to find your own shoes.

This gallery contains 30 photos.

Now that all the happy hubbub of being Fresh Pressed for my first Grand Canyon post has subsided (blush, blush, Mad Queen straightens tippy crown), I’ve got a few stories about the place, the trip itself, hiking overall, with maybe a … Continue reading →