A Poem For You

..from Rumi and Natalia.

(I have been rereading it this week because it was one of her favorites, and it gives me great comfort)

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome them and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

If Money Were No Object...

I would be a girl with a guitar on my back. I would write stories and tell them, and I would make people care about the world. But most of all, wherever I went, I would carry a small, perfect guitar on my back, ready to sing anywhere, about anything, sad, happy, joyful, silly.

Last Wednesday we went to see the NEW Summer Sounds at the Hollywood Bowl. I loved the old one so much that when I heard the handsome professor, the corny Captain, and the sexy, wonderful drum-tapping Harpoona were gone for good, and the Global Harmony had set sail for good I could barely bring myself to go. I was in mourning.

But I went. And the new model is GREAT. A hip-hopper and a break dancer ride (imaginary) public buses all over Los Angeles to different ethnic neighborhoods to learn about the cultures right here in our amazing--and sprawling, nearly unknowable-- city. Indian (Azusa?) Mexican (East L.A.) Brazilian (down by Venice) and more.

Last week was a troupe, Fandango Sin Fronteras, from East L.A.. They all carried guitars on their backs--about the size of a ukelele, but with a guitar sound. You could take them shopping or fit them in a luxury handbag. The leader of the troupe made them by hand from a single block of wood. The leader -- a dancer AND a singer--was a girl with a guitar on her back. I wanted to be her.

Tomorrow, Career Day

Tomorrow we head to Santa Barbara, and on the dappled path of the Cold Springs Trail I try to coax my skittish soul out of the shadows. Wish me luck.

An Argentine Feast

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of my friend, and I knew I would be sad.

In anticipation of God knows what kind of outburst from me, my dear husband said he would cook dinner.

Between the heat and my internal emotional tides I was a mess: irritable, angry and short-tempered--while also ready to burst into tears at anything. My poor boys.

We went and swam with a friend, and after two hours saoking in the pool with Benji doggie-paddling to me (without air) I felt my anger mellowing. Water always heals me.

I came home, opened the gate, and smelled something fantastic emanating from MY kitchen. I practically ran up all 43 stairs. In the hot kitchen was my beloved husband cooking his Milanesa--the feast of the poor in Argentina. He had set up the kitchen in stations--eggs to dip, flour to dip, and pancho bread crumbs before a quick buttery fry for the thin steaks in the pan. The Argentinean wine (delightfully cheap, deliciously bad) was already in his glass, and waiting for me in mine. I put on some Carlos Gardel (Jonathan lived in Buenos Aires for a year so is sophisticated in the ways of the Argentines and speaks Spanish with that musical Italian/Spanish accent).

I know almost nothing about Argentina except what Jonathan has told me, and that it seems to be a country full of wistfulness, sadness and poignant aching beauty. The tango, the sadness, the slow deterioration of a once glorious country, the endurance of horrible dictators and the desaparacedos, and the endless hope for success that never seems to materialize for them as a nation -- something about all of it resonates with something deep inside me.

We sat in our dining room at dusk, the hot wind blowing over us, the lemony buttery milanesa melting in our mouths, and a sharp, simple, vinegary green salad to accompany it all. Gardel sang his sad songs.

My mother cooked for me for 21 years. She was tired, and sick of it, and now I understand how wearying cooking day in and day out can be, even if you love food and spices and herbs and experimentation and ethnic adventures. I probably never said Thank You, though I always licked her pans clean. But now, to have a perfect meal cooked for me, for me alone, is one of the most sublime pleasures there is. To sit in the kitchen sipping wine while Jonathan scurried and sweated and cooked--divine! To just wander tipsy into the dining room to be served -- marvelous! And to be able to just float on my emotions and think of my friend, unencumbered by household tasks for one evening, truly the greatest gift of all!

No one cares much about it anymore, but to have one perfect meal cooked for you by someone who really loves you para me is one of life's sweetest, most sensual pleasures.

Gracias, mi amor, mi ciel, mi vida!

Race in the 21st Century

Last year a friend of mine said, I think the next generation is blind to race. They just don't care. Not us. But our kids. It makes no difference to them. I thought about it. I didn't know.

Theo lives in a multi-cultural society and doesn't think much about race or skin color. Half his friends are half something. He himself is a faux Latino. But still, with the start of school he has started making observations. He says things like, "Koreans can't go to birthday parties on Sunday, because they all go to church." It is not racist, per se, and, in fact, in his experience, many of his dearest friends, who happen to be Korean, do all go to church on Sunday. He knows because he cares.

He never talks about race. But he talks about skin color. When he is trying to explain to me who a new friend is so I can understand he will say, "She is light-skinned," or "He is dark-skinned."

But here is the funny part. For him there is no association with race or culture. It is simply a characteristic, like eye color. And he does not even see it as a family thing. I was trying to figure out what he defined as light-skinned, and what as dark-skinned, especially in this huge, crazy mixed up melting pot of a city where we have every shade of everything.

So I started asking about our family. He is light skinned, and so is Benji. Ditto for me, Jonathan, his cousins. But my brother, he said, is "a dark-skinned" person. Not my mother, who looks just like my brother (though now her hair is gray) and not my sister, who looks just like my brother. He has dark hair and dark eyes, and he does tan better than the rest of us, but still, I was left confused.

But I like that for him your skin color is just something you are born with. It can come from anywhere and every family has everything. It is a beautiful vision of color, of race, of family, and of the world.

So maybe my friend is right. I hope so.

My Urban Child

When we drive by any green space that doesn't have a playground Benji shouts out, "Hold your breath! It's a graveyard."

The boy has never seen grass! O dear!

yahrzeit

This is an important day. This is the day I set out for Larkspur last year to see Natalie. I was supposed to go up to San Francisco for the Blogher conference, and to see Natalie, but I didn't sign up for the conference in time, but had already gotten Jonathan to agree to some childcare, so I went to see Natalie anyway. It ended up being Natalie's last weekend on earth--and I was there out of a quirk of fate--and it also propelled me to start a blog, since I wasn't going to actually go to the Blogher conference.

So this is, really, the anniversary of my blog, and of Natalie's death.

Very important.

So I wonder, is my subconscious going to rear its head? Am I going to be tossed and turned by emotions deep inside me at the cellular level?

I don't know.

But I am seeking ways to commemorate Monday, the day of her death. And Jonathan suggested Yahrzeit, the Jewish tradition. So I will do that. I will light that candle for 24 hours, and think of her and all she was.

I have decided I will also do a few other things.

Today I bought some Tibetan prayer flags on impulse. They are more Marin County than Whitley Heights, but who cares? I will string them up in the garden. I will plant some nasturtiums and marigolds--because she loved them both. And I will try to get her memorial mix from her sister to play on Monday all day.

Finally, I will do a little yoga, dance a little, and do a little meditation. Perhaps I will make a vow to compost in her honor. I don't know. She would like it. But am I up to it?

If any of you have any ideas, let me know. I am grasping for rituals...