Interview With Author and Artist Natalie Goldberg

    
Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg, images provided by Simon & Schuster, photo of Goldberg © 2008 by Mary Feidt. All rights reserved.

On Thursday, April 10, QuoinMonkey and ybonesy interviewed Natalie Goldberg, author of the recently released Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. The interview was especially meaningful in that red Ravine originated from a friendship, and vision, developed while QM and ybonesy were in a year-long writing Intensive with Goldberg, in Taos, New Mexico.

Goldberg had just completed a book tour across several Western states when QM and ybonesy spoke with her from her Santa Fe home. They talked about the new book and about Goldberg’s life as a writer and painter, friendships that sustain her, the loneliness of writing, and the most important thing she’s learned from her students.



Interview with Natalie Goldberg, April 10, 2008, red Ravine

red Ravine: There’s a moving passage in Old Friend From Far Away on page 69, which I’m going to read: 

In 1977 on Morada Lane in a small adobe behind a coyote fence I taught the first writing practice group to eight Taos Women. For the last twenty years I have taught these same workshops at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House a few hundred yards farther up on Morada Lane. I joke: I have not gone a very far distance in my life.
     Students come and go. Eventually we all will die. I fear I will have forgotten to die. I’ll be standing in front of the class after everyone I know has long passed.
     “Class, get out your pens.”
     Please help me. If all of you write right now, maybe I can let go and die too. My job will be complete.

Talk about what that passage means, Natalie.

Natalie: Basically, I had this feeling one day that everybody was going to die and I was still going to have to keep teaching Writing Practice; that it was so important and so essential and people weren’t going to let me die. They were just going to keep coming and studying with me and that my books wouldn’t have given enough.

What I didn’t say actually in that chapter is that I hoped to make a book that would be like studying with me. I wanted to make this book – the structure and the rhythm — so that it was the closest to what it’s like to be in the classroom with me. So that someday I, too, can die. I think when we die, finally, we really completely let go. I don’t think I’d be able to completely let go unless I felt there was some record students could follow to learn this wonderful Practice.

red Ravine: Years ago, at the beginning of your adult life when you were in the midst of studying with Katagiri Roshi, you were on a path toward assuming that lineage. What caused you to move away from that path and go with writing instead?

Natalie: That’s a good question. We complain about our lives, but the truth is we usually get what we want. A lot of people say, “I wanted to write and I wanted to do this.” If they really wanted it and it really burned in them, they would do it and they would figure it out. And not everybody has that.

Some people are happy taking classes, milling around with writing, and the truth is they like their lives and they like their jobs. I found that I put in time with writing. When it came down to the wire, my ass was on the line for writing. Even though I showed up all the time for Zen, when you asked me, my drive was for writing.

So it actually happened very naturally. We worry so much, What should we do, what should we do? but life also unfolds. For you (addressing QuoinMonkey), for example, you keep talking about wanting to teach Writing Practice, but we don’t know. And you’ve had some offers, but, finally, you’ll see if it unfolds and if it feels right for you.

You know that’s true with everybody. What we want unfolds. So I think I saw that writing was where I really put my life, my whole life. And even though I deeply, deeply loved Zen, it wasn’t in the same way, deep in the musculature of my body. I didn’t put my life on the line in the same way.

Now that I’m older I realize that I didn’t have to pick. That the two actually came together. But when you’re young you think you have to pick. When you’re young you can drive yourself crazy and think you have to pick. But look, Zen and writing, I can’t separate them. I didn’t choose one over the other. I chose both.

red Ravine: You also chose to be a writer and an artist. How do you balance those passions, and do you ever feel that you are more one than the other?

Natalie: I’m a writer. I know that. And when I’m painting a lot, I’m so in love with it. I think, Oh, I should have been a painter. But I wouldn’t be willing to do (for painting) what I’m willing to do for writing. I’ll go anywhere, face anything for writing.

Painting is my darling pleasure. And because it’s a pleasure, I don’t push myself a lot with it. Like what I said about writing and Zen, if I really look at it (painting), it’s important to me and it feeds my life and I relax with it. I relax and don’t worry about when I do it, if I do it.

For instance, I was in Point Reyes, California for a month in May, and I painted a lot then. Since I came home, I haven’t painted in over 6 months. So part of me thinks, Oh, painting is done. Then about three weeks ago, I realized, No painting’s not done. You’re writing these essays, and these essays use the same energy that painting does.

In a way, an essay is like a square canvas where I try to fit in as much detail as I can. That’s what I do with painting. I realized that I hadn’t been painting because I was painting with my writing. As soon as I realized that, of course, I’ve just done three paintings (laughs). I just went back into the studio.

People want a clear delineation: I write for four hours a day, then I paint for two hours. Life isn’t like that. It unfolds.

For instance, I was burning to learn abstract painting, which I talked about in Living Color. So, 15 years ago, I started to do it; I’d go out on a picnic table in Taos, in Kit Carson Park, and I’d just do abstracts, or what I thought were abstracts. I didn’t think they were that good. Literally, last night, I pulled out those notebooks and they’re some of the best abstracts I’ve ever done. They’re wonderful.

Do you see what I mean? We have the idea that, No, they should be better now because I’ve been doing it for 15 years. But maybe when I was really burning for them was when they really came to me. There’s no linear thing. Basically, you have to have a soft heart and a willingness just to make that first step and step in. And you get wet.

Just like you (addressing ybonesy). You have an important straight job, and then you go to half time for a while so you can do more art. Then you go back to full time. Our life is a spiral. And you also realize, I like this work I do. And I like painting. It doesn’t have to be either/or.

red Ravine: One of the things we want to talk about is loneliness — because writing is lonely. There’s a chapter in Writing Down the Bones called “Engendering Compassion” where you talk about the Black Dog, Loneliness. You say, “When I don’t feel loneliness, I know I’m not in connection with the edge of my life. I look around for that Black Dog, Loneliness, and make sure it’s near me.” After 35 years of writing and teaching, has your relationship with the Black Dog changed? And when you feel lonely or empty, where do you go to refill the well?

Natalie: That’s a really good question. I want to say, “Oh yes, I have a much better relationship with it,” but right now, I’m dealing with (the fact that) my mother died three months ago. So the loneliness is so deep. Whatever engendered it when I was a child is just burning in me now.

Everything I think I know about loneliness has been swept under and I just feel this gnawing emptiness. And it’s painful. The only thing I know is to try to have a little bit of softness toward it and allow it to be, and at the same time not allow it to take over my entire life.

It’s a very tricky thing. But I do want to say that, yes, a writer’s life can be very lonely. That’s why it’s so important to have writing friends. Don’t expect the agent or the editor or the publishing world to be your friend and to be your support. You need writing friends who understand what you’re doing and support you and that you can share this hard and wonderful process with.

red Ravine: Natalie, speaking of friends, do you have a writing friend who has stuck with you through everything?

Natalie: Yeah, Rob Wilder and Eddie Lewis, I’ve been friends with for over 20 years. I’d say also, John Thorndike, though he lives in Ohio now. He used to live in New Mexico and he was a deep writing friend and still is.

But the people who live near are Rob and Eddie and Henry Shukman, too, but he’s English so often he’s in England for long periods. But Eddie and Rob have been consistently there, people I can always rely on. That’s been very important to me.

I know when I have something, I can share with them, I can talk about it. Knowing that I have them, I don’t even call that much. But I know that they’re there. Sometimes just knowing that person’s there is very important.

red Ravine: Can you talk a little bit about what happens to the friendship when you are working on a book?

Natalie: Yeah, sometimes there are periods when I’m working a lot, that Eddie is home a lot, he’s sort of like a housewife, so I’ll call him. Mostly we joke, or I’ll complain about writing. When I’m working on something I don’t talk a lot about it. I’ll just call and complain or ask how to spell something. Or, “Eddie what was that word? I need that word,” or we just joke. But I know he knows I’m writing. And he knows what that is.

And there’s Rob. I asked him and his wife (Lala Carroll) to help me when I read at Collected Works. I said, “Could you be my date?” Rob had a party for me afterwards. Eddie hung out with me and stayed with me at the bookstore. It’s almost mechanical sometimes — “Can you come to the reading with me?” or “Would you read what I wrote and tell me it’s wonderful?” (laughs)

red Ravine: At this moment who are your favorite painters and writers, and what books are you reading right now?

Natalie: I am reading a killer book. I’m almost done with it. I’m going to assign it to my students in the August retreat. It’s called Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. I have 20 pages left, and it’s a magnificent book.

I’m reading that and right before that, Patricia Hampl, who wrote Romantic Education. She has a new memoir called The Florist’s Daughter that just knocked me out. It was a sensational book. No one writes memoir like Patricia Hampl.

I’m teaching at IAIA one night a week with Rob Wilder this Spring semester. (Institute of American Indian Arts is a federally-funded college for Native Americans, who attend from all over the country.) I have to say, my students in that class are some of my most favorite writers who I admire.

These kids have not been incorporated, in some ways, with all the politeness and all the neuroses of white American comfortable society. A lot of these kids come from very broken lives and they don’t have a lot of protection between them and wild mind. So when they write, it brings me back to the original way I learned how to understand Writing Practice. Because I really developed it with Chippewa kids and African American kids in Minneapolis and in Detroit.

They’re some of my favorite writers, these kids that I’m working with now. They’re not kids, they’re adults…They’re college kids, but their writing — they have no explanation. They just put things as they are. And they’re not aware that they’re not supposed to write about these things so they just lay it down on the page. I’m being incredibly inspired by them, remembering the origins of writing. That’s been very, very exciting for me.

In painting, well, I just love painting. Painting is my darling pleasure. When I went on the book tour, people would think I’d go to bookstores a lot. No, that’s my job! When I went into town, I’d go to the art museums and to galleries. That would relax me and give me a whole other outlet.

I love Wolf Kahn, Joan Mitchell. I love to look at local paintings. There’s a painter in Albuquerque who shows in Santa Fe, Tim Craighead. I’m just crazy about him. He shows at the Gerald Peters Gallery.

For the O’Keeffe Museum next week, I’m taking a group (on something) called Walks in the West, and I’m taking them to all the spots where Marsden Hartley painted. He spent a year in Taos. So we’re going to drive up and I’m going to take them for that slow walk to the cross. We’re going to have lunch at Mabel Dodge. It’ll be wonderful.

One more painter I just thought of I want to mention: David Park. I just wrote an essay about him. Helen Bigelow is a friend of mine and an old student who came to study with me at Mabel Dodge. Her father was David Park, and he was a contemporary of Richard Diebenkorn. He’s part of the California Figurative School. I saw an incredible painting of his hanging at the Whitney last year. He made it really big. He died when he was young, at 46.

red Ravine: In Old Friend From Far Away, and also from studying with you, we’ve heard you say that memoir isn’t necessarily about a person’s entire life; it can be about a portion of one’s life. You’ve written Long Quiet Highway about the portion of your life where you studied with Katagiri Roshi, and The Great Failure clarifying the truth you knew about that time in your life. What part of your life, Natalie, do you still want to write about?

Natalie: I’d kind of like to write about my mother. But it’s so complicated for me right now that I don’t see my way clear. Maybe at some point, I’d like to write about my mother.

Except for Banana Rose, I really haven’t written very much about my love life. And I’d kind of like to write about that, but I’m afraid that people who were my lovers will kill me (laughs). So I haven’t done that.

And I think I’d like to write something about what I know about Zen. Though I might have written that already in Old Friend From Far Away. Even though I didn’t mention Zen.

red Ravine: You’ve seen students drop everything in their lives and attempt to become writers. Why doesn’t it always work to get rid of the obstacles and just become a writer?

Natalie: Yeah, it doesn’t work, because suddenly you have all the time in the world and you freeze. It puts too much pressure on writing. Also, we’re social animals and writing is a lonely thing.

In a way, my mistake was to do writing full time. I missed having a job where I could just show up and have to work and have to forget about me and my writing and my life. I don’t think it’s a good idea.

In Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique — which came out, I think, in the 70’s — there was a study where housewives who had all day to clean the house by the end of the day didn’t get any of it cleaned. Those same women, when they got a full-time job, managed in the half hour before they went to work to get all their housework done.

It’s almost that you have more time to feel guilty that you’re not writing. I think that having a bit of a structure and knowing at 1 o’clock I have to go do my other job, it sort of kicks ass. You don’t have so much time to wander around. You have to write — sit down and actually do it.

red Ravine: Describe a typical day in your life. When you’re not promoting a book, what are you doing?

Natalie: I’m running a lot of errands, which I don’t seem to have done in Taos. But in Santa Fe I don’t know why I have so many errands to run (laughs).

I go to yoga classes 3 days a week, from 9:30 to 11. And the yoga class is right near my studio. So if I’m a good girl, I go to yoga and then immediately go to my studio. But then I have my computer at my studio, so I end up doing a lot of business first. And then settling down, either sometimes to write or paint.

But if you really look at my life — at this point, I’ve been writing for 35 years — every book takes a different need, requires different things. For instance, I wrote a lot of Old Friend going on hikes, and at the same time I had broken up an 11-year relationship. My heart was broken. I would go to my studio and I just didn’t want to stay there. I’d go on these long hikes, and I’d bring my backpack, and luckily I brought a little notebook, not planning to write. But as I walked the world would open up for me. I’d sit down on the side of the trail and write whole chapters.

I can’t give you any prescription of my life. If you ask me, my life is kind of chaotic. Like today, after we’re done, I’ll go to this wonderful café near IAIA, which is way south of town, like 25 minutes. But I’ll go there and I’ll do some work for a few hours and then I’m going to go to a lecture at IAIA. I use things in the outside world to structure my inner life of writing.

I’m not a bulldog like I used to be where I pushed everything aside for writing. Writing fits in now and weaves in with the rest of my life. The human life just goes forward. But this is after 35 years where I have enough confidence. Also, I’m tired of making writing the first thing. I don’t need to anymore because I have enough confidence.

red Ravine: How are your creative processes around writing and painting different?

Natalie: When I’m writing it takes all of me. I mean every single cell. When I’m really writing it takes every cell in my body, total concentration, and my whole life is in it. My whole life is on the line.

When I’m painting, I’m whistling, I’m playing music, I’m just happy. The predominant emotion is happiness. With writing there isn’t any predominant emotion. My whole life is distilled into that task. And I give my life over into the tip of that task. I want to say my whole life is distilled into god — if god is everything.

red Ravine: In many respects, because of what you teach and how you teach it, you’ve become a symbol of the notion that anyone can write. Is it true — can anyone write?

Natalie: Absolutely. Yes. They might not become Faulkner. A lot of people don’t want to become Faulkner. But anyone can pick up that pen and express their human life. And if they want to they can get better and better at it. Everyone can write. Everyone should have access to writing. It’s a very human activity. Human beings want to have a place where they can express themselves in language.

red Ravine: What is the most important thing you’ve learned from your students.

Natalie: That I love them. I know this sounds odd but when I’m actually teaching, I have to keep a lot of boundaries. You took an Intensive with me, and I had to hold you when you kind of all hated me or didn’t want to come back. I had to hold your resistance and be a still point. That’s hard.

I have a tremendous amount of equilibrium when I teach and not a lot of opinion. But when I went on this book tour where I wasn’t the teacher, and my students showed up, I cannot tell you the overwhelming love I felt for all of you. I just couldn’t believe it.

Because, really, why am I willing to hold that all for you? It’s because I love you. I didn’t ever quite know that before. I would say things like, “because it’s practice, because this, because of that”…but I realize now, it’s because the love –- ‘cause I love you — that I’m willing to do it for all of you.

ybonesy: Wow, that’s really moving. (pause)

red Ravine: Do you ever get tired of teaching?

Natalie: Right now, I’m quite in love with it. There was a period, remember after The Great Failure came out, I took a year off. When I came back I hated teaching. I had never hated teaching. My teaching was really good, I could see everyone loved it, I knew it was good, the students were great — and I hated it. And I didn’t know what to do.

Every time I taught for several months, it was like that. It was actually taking everybody that week, when I took you all to Ghost Ranch, that something happened and it broke. After that I kind of loved it again. Not only kind of loved it; I loved it more than ever. Ever since then I just enjoy every time I teach. I’m so excited to share Writing Practice with everyone. And to share this wonderful thing that I know. I’ll be teaching for the rest of my life.

red Ravine: Natalie, what do you consider your greatest accomplishment in life so far.

Natalie: I guess, developing and recognizing Writing Practice, staying with it, continually giving it to the world.

red Ravine: In your next life, what would you like to be?

Natalie: An opera singer (laughs). Did you ever read The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather about a poor young girl in a small town in Colorado who becomes a great opera singer? I want to be an opera singer.

red Ravine: If it were your last day on earth, how would you spend it?

Natalie: Oh. I think I would be really sad. Because I would be grieving not seeing it anymore. Not seeing the trees, I’m looking out my window..the piñon tree, not seeing the sky, not having hands and feet. I think I would really be very deeply sad. And very still. Full of gratitude and grief.

red Ravine: Natalie, why do you write?

Natalie: Ummmm…because I’m a dope? (everyone laughs). Because…Of everything I do in my life, it feels the most real, the most to the point, and the most honest.

red Ravine: What are you working on next?

Natalie: I’m working on these essays. Some of them I’ve published in Shambhala Sun. I’m hoping to put together a collection of essays. I’m also working on something else which is a secret. None of my writing has ever been a secret before. But this is so different than anything I’ve written, I haven’t told anybody. And I don’t know when — maybe in 8 months or so — I’ll be able to say something.

red Ravine: As a writer and an artist, how do you define success?

Natalie: On one level it’s that I feel good about it and I enjoy it. That’s the real success. But because I’m a human being in the world, I like that I’m able to make a living at it, that I have it as my job, that I have a career with it. I don’t know if that’s success though. It’s pleasurable and I’m proud of it. But I think the real success is that I continue. And that I continually take pleasure in it. And that it’s alive for me.

red Ravine: Natalie, it’s really been a privilege to spend this time with you. We want to thank you. We thought we’d end by having you read us a passage from Old Friend from Far Away.

Natalie: I might read one I know I like. Okay, you ready? It’s called “Vast”:

Vast

We write memoir not to remember, not to cling, but to honor and let go. Wave after wave splashes on the shore and is gone. Your mother once wore an embroidered Mexican peasant shirt, had gleaming teeth and a full head of black hair. She pushed the hammock you lay in, a million oak leaves above your head. You didn’t know yet your first word. You were slow to learn to talk and your first step was as enormous as an elephant’s. Her waist was below her blouse and you could hide in a voluminous maroon skirt. Sharp was the blue sky, the white porch steps.
     Here’s your mother now, frail at one hundred pounds, hearing aids plopped above her lobes, eyes a pale glaze seeing only form and shadow, in her own crooked way heading for another country.
     Let her be as she is. You can’t save her. You can only remember as she dissolves. With one arm you reach all the way back and with your other arm you steady the walker that she grasps before her.
     But don’t fool yourself. However old your mother is, you are always walking into vast rooms full of beginnings and endings, abundant with possibility. Try the empty cubicle of your page. What can you scratch in it before your turn comes to step up to the vast ocean all by yourself? Go. Ten minutes.

Natalie: It was wonderful to do an interview with the two of you. I love you both and take good care. And I feel honored and thank you for doing this for red Ravine.

QuoinMonkey: I feel so much gratitude for studying with you. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.

red Ravine posts about Natalie Goldberg:

• To Everyone With Love
• Natalie Goldberg — Old Friend From Far Away (Two Good Reasons To Buy Independent)
• Natalie Goldberg — Old Friend From Far Away
• Natalie Goldberg — 2000 Years Of Watching The Mind
• More About The Monkey — Natalie Goldberg On Monkey Mind

day after mother’s day haiku

Waiting for Dad, self-portrait of Jim with Em at school, photo © 2008 by Jim. All rights reserved.

my best mother’s day:
my mother, my daughter, and
a father who shares

-related to post, haiku (one-a-day)

spinner haiku

Spinner, 1966, sculpture by Alexander Calder, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden near the Walker Art Center, May 2008, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

blue Midwestern spring
Calder’s spinner bobs and weaves
dancing with the wind

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, May 11th, 2008

-related to post, haiku (one-a-day)

 

Growing Older

By Bob Chrisman


Last fall, determined to catch the color changes in the leaves, I watched them turn from green to yellow, orange, and red. I would sit on the window seat in the front room and write about the colors.

One day…suddenly it seemed…the leaves had all turned. When did it happen? I had been watching everyday.

I sat in the window seat even more determined to watch the leaves fall. Occasionally a leaf would let go of the branch and float to the ground to join other leaves. I didn’t remember all of those leaves on the ground yesterday. Did they fall during the night so no one would realize that winter waited around the corner?

One morning I looked out and found that almost all of the leaves lay in yards and in the street. Again I had missed the time it happened.

Growing older has worked just like that. One day I noticed a gray hair. The next day a whole head of gray hair greeted me as I looked in the bathroom mirror. A single wrinkle on my forehead disappeared among the many lines that developed overnight. My varicose vein on my right thigh became a veritable road map of veins. My waistline doubled in size.

I felt old, but only in my body. Then older crept into my mind.

A few months before I retired, an employee appeared in my office. “Great music. Who is it?”

“Petula Clark.”

“Soooooooo? Is she from your generation?” My generation? I recoiled at the idea that I had joined a generation.

“Don’t you remember ‘Downtown’? ‘The Other Man’s Grass is Always Greener’?” I searched my mind for other titles.

She put her hands on her hips. “No, I don’t know her. And don’t you dare ask me where I was when John Kennedy was assassinated. I wasn’t even born yet.”

Thus I came to the knowledge that many of my cultural references meant nothing to a lot of the people who worked with me. I had grown old.

I never thought I would live past 40, but that birthday came and went. Turning 50 changed the way I viewed myself. No longer young, middle age had overtaken me. I celebrated the 56th anniversary of my birth last Saturday. I may live to see 60.

I am older.

But, you know what? I like it. Despite the aches in my joints when the weather turns damp and cool like today, not feeling like a part of the current culture frees me to do what I want to do without worrying about what other people will think of me. Maybe this “getting older” thing will free me from most of my inhibitions.

The rules have changed. I am old and can do what I want with my life. I don’t have family to account to. My friends won’t be surprised by what I do (well, most of them won’t).

Because I am older, I know now that I have a very short time to live. I must get on with my life’s purpose (whatever that may be), not because I’m desperate, but because I want to do the things I came to do. I want to live each moment regardless of how many I may have left.

Older has become the sand rushing downward through the neck of the hour glass. Older has restored the preciousness of this life. Older is what I am right now.

Older.



Bob Chrisman is a Kansas City, Missouri writer whose piece Hands, about his mother’s hands, appeared last month on red Ravine. Growing Older is based on a writing practice that Bob did on WRITING TOPIC - GROWING OLDER.

gateway haiku

Gateways, Lakewood Cemetery near Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 2008. Spring blooms in Babyland, near the Chinese Community Memorial. Photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

white-belled bleeding hearts
spring sweeps through silent gateways
cemetery pause

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, May 9th, 2008

-related to post, haiku (one-a-day)

 

PRACTICE: Birth Order - 15min

I’m trying to remember how it was. I see myself skinny on the concrete driveway, dirty knock knees, a striped t-shirt, tiny bumps for boobs. Not only the youngest, but a young youngest.

I didn’t develop until I was 17, didn’t know about Kotex or tampons, although my older sisters told me about starting periods and not to worry when it happened.

I sat on Janet’s bed and watched her being a teenager, brush her thick black hair and curl her eyelashes. When she was out with friends I tried the eyelash curler on myself, clamped down steel on rubber, my eyelashes held hostage as if in a guillotine, waiting for the blade to fall. I was startled by how tightly the contraption held on to my lashes, so startled that instead of opening it back up, I pulled it away from my eye and ripped out a bunch of hairs. Afterwards, I felt like I was peering out of one of those old clown wigs that’s missing sections of bangs.

Being the youngest makes me think of creeping around places I shouldn’t be, opening drawers, looking for scandal. Nudie pictures, drugs, notes from boyfriends. I fell in love with Janet’s boyfriend, Paul, and every time he called I listened in on the conversation. I perfected how to lift the receiver without them knowing. I would unplug the cord from the wall jack, pick up the receiver, plug back in the cord.

Once Paul yelled at me to get off the phone. I got so hurt that I crawled under the impossibly small space under Mom and Dad’s bed and cried myself to sleep. I woke up hours later to my parents and Janet, frantically searching the house, about to call in a missing person’s report.

I loved sneaking around Larry’s room, too. I stole his clothes, wore too-big flannel shirts that sometimes smelled like sweat, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be like him, listen to New Riders of the Purple Sage, Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull.

No music, it seems, was ever my own. Everything I got they gave to me, from 50s bop (Patty), Carole King and R&B (Bobbi), Cat Stevens and The Carpenters (Janet), and Frank Zappa (Larry).

They taught me how to drive, I still remember going around the corner of Glenarbor Court for the first time in Janet’s VW. She said to shift into second, but second was right next to reverse. I hit the wrong gear and it sounded like the engine was going to drop out. We came to a halt and she said, “I’d better drive.”

Larry once rescued me when Jay Baca was going to take me off to one of the bedrooms. We threw a party when Mom and Dad went to the lake and Janet had already moved out. I got drunk and Jay had me in his arms. “Where do you think you’re going with her,” Larry asked, blocking Jay at the hallway. They threw Jay out, and me and Larry got in trouble, much as Janet tried to erase the traces of the party the next day.

Being the youngest, I think how much I adored my older siblings, how much they left their imprints on me. I sometimes wish we could go back to those days, those natural roles. My oldest sister says I’m bossy now. I think she’s probably right.


-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC - BIRTH ORDER

PRACTICE - Birth Order - 15min

Yes, I’m a firstborn. With all the flaws, rights, privileges, and responsibilities that go with being a firstborn. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Hmmm. JFK? No, it was Peter Benjamin Parker. Spider-Man.

Maybe it should read, “With great responsibility comes great power.” Either way, there is an ethical piece, a balance between burden and privilege.

Firstborns can be overly responsible. And bossy. We’re also always looking out for others, and imagining the worst possible scenario. There are two reasons for this: 1) so that we’ve thought about how to handle the worst case when it comes along (and won’t be standing there humiliated); 2) we genuinely care about the fate of those around us (and we’ve been trained, from toddler age on, to take care of others).

A few months ago, I was at a poetry reading at my friend, Teri’s. A whole group of us were gathered in her living room, chatting and drinking tea. Two of us, decades apart in age, were firstborns. Late into the evening, someone leaned back in a rocking chair that was bumping against a standing brass lamp. It started to wobble and tip.

My eyes darted to the light. I noticed it right away. I had the thought, “I should go over and upright that lamp. It’s going to fall.”

I didn’t even get the chance. Within seconds, the other firstborn calmly walked over, grabbed the light, settled it into place, slid back to her seat, and didn’t miss a beat in the ensuing conversation. I simply beamed. Slick. I felt a solid kinship with the Lamp-Saver. Silent Superhero.

Later, I joked about it with the group, mentioning how both firstborns had spotted the lamp’s potential plunge to the floor, and rushed to save the day. Everyone else said, “What? What are you talking about? A lamp almost fell over?” No one else even noticed.

Firstborns operate behind the scenes, making sure things run smoothly. Unlike only borns, we sometimes don’t take the credit we are due. Flaw? Or humility.

Firstborns have a reputation for being valuable. Many 50’s families wanted their firstborn to be male. If they ended up with a female, well, you got names like Earline or Fredericka or Andrewzilla (just ask oliverowl). Isn’t there a story in the Bible where a faithful believer was asked to sacrifice his firstborn son? Maybe it was Isaac and Abraham. Or was it Ishmael? It depends on which religion. And I’m not good at names.

I do remember being a young kid and reading a thick tan Bible Story book, handed down to my by my Aunt Cassie. I recently ran into it in a box of memorabilia. It rekindled a fading image of me as a child, rocking in my bedroom, reading Bible Stories out loud to myself.

I don’t remember the names. But the concepts made an impression. Turn the other cheek. Give unto others. And you don’t really have to sacrifice your firstborn — setting an intention is enough to show your faith. The Bible is about stories and parables. We don’t have to cling to every literal word to live a spiritual life. Still, that story of sacrifice scared me.

My mother is a middle-born child. But her oldest brother died when she was a teenager, a few months before I was born. He drowned over the July 4th weekend, while swimming at Clark’s Hill Dam. He had been sick with something like pneumonia, too weak to make the shore. He was only 18. No one expected it. After that, my mother became an oldest child.

Last June, when Mom and I visited my Aunt Annette for the first time in 50 years, we talked about the drowning. She remembered it. And when Mom and I visited her brother’s grave, I asked if everyone was still sad a few weeks later when I was born. Were they still grieving?

She looked at me gently, surprised at the question. Then, without hesitation, she said, “No, Honey, everyone was so happy when you were born. You were a bundle of joy.” Firstborns worry about these things. (Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!)

What I have noticed over the last week, as I’ve been thinking about this Writing Topic, is that in my relationships, I have been attracted to responsible middle-borns. What is a responsible middle-born? One who is independent like a firstborn, but has a middle-born carefree Tiggerness. They like to have fun.

This has been a consistent theme in my relationships. I have not been with an oldest child. Or a youngest child. Only responsible, free-spirited middle children. And usually with women younger than I am, anywhere from a few years, up to a decade.

And when I ask them about their relationships, they tell me they’ve always been attracted to those who are older then they are. I didn’t ask them about the firstborn part. All I know is middle-borns keep me feeling young.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, May 8th, 2008

-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC - BIRTH ORDER

refraction haiku

Refraction, downtown Minnesota Central Library, March 2008, during Talk of the Stacks. Ali Selim and Will Weaver discussed the making of Sweet Land. The moment this photograph was taken, they were sitting to the left, signing books. The curved blue lines are the Fifth Street Towers. Photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

blue light refraction
bending waves around windows
bookish writers grin

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

-related to posts: haiku (one-a-day) and Night Owl

Of Elvis Sightings, Queens & Death By Bee Sting

Elvis in a Bee Swarm, bees annoint a new queen in the Rio
Grande Valley, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.



I know. It’s a stretch.

No way the bee swarm in the above photo is formed in the image of Elvis Presley’s head. The chin is all wrong. Jay Leno with dark sunglasses, maybe, but definitely not Elvis.

Last week a few thousand bees in one of our hives revolted. As I understand it — from expert beekeeper Dr. Moses (pictured below) — the existing hive created a new queen. Of the thousands and thousands of eggs that the old queen laid before winter hibernation, a few were destined to become new queens. From the time they were larva, these special bee princess-pupas were fed a special diet. (It’s not known exactly how the adult bees decide which larva to make into queen bees, but I imagine it’s similar to how each new Dalai Lama is discovered, except for bees.)

Because the hive already had its old queen, the new queen and her followers had to split. So off they flew to one of our apple trees, where Jim noticed them and started jumping up and down wildly. Not really, although he did immediately call me on the cell phone and say, “Get out here, hurry, and bring the camera!”


  

  


Jim also called Dr. Moses, a local homeopath who keeps the bee hives on our property. Dr. Moses and his family have one of the oldest natural foods stores in Albuquerque. They sell local honey (great for allergies) and other natural products and pretty much keep a lot of Albuquerqueans feeling healthy.

A good friend of mine goes to Dr. Moses for bee stings to alleviate the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. She is a nurse who for years pooh-poohed the suggestion that she try bee sting therapy. Then one day she was riding her mountain bike along a ditch bank in Albuquerque’s north valley and got stung by a bee. By the time she got home from her ride, she felt different. Better. The constant achiness was gone. She’s been a bee venom advocate ever since.

For some people, however, bee stings can be deadly. There are many different kinds of reactions to bee stings, depending on the person and the type of bee (or wasp). Interesting fact: the honey bee can not pull out it’s stinger once it enters the flesh; it must remove the barb by ripping away part of its abdomen and venom sac. The stinging honey bee gives up its life, and so do four out of every thousand people with life-threatening bee allergies — they are so allergic to bee venom that they will die within 15 minutes of being stung.


   


It took him most of the afternoon, but Dr. Moses managed to get the new queen bee and her male drones and female workers into a new hive. The bees were somewhat accommodating, although in the interest of time he brought out smoke to get them into the box more quickly than they might have gone on their own. Unfortunately, we weren’t on hand to watch this part of the process, although next time plan to be there.

The new queen and her hive were relocated to a property two or so miles from our place. There’s always the risk that the bees will migrate back, which is why they were moved so far away. There’s also the possibility that more queens will emerge from our existing hives.

The bees in our hives are thriving, which isn’t the case with bees everywhere. Dr. Moses is so encouraged that he’s decided to bring several more hives to keep at our property. We’re thrilled, as the bees are essential to the health of our orchards. It’s a good relationship.

We’ll keep our eyes peeled for Elvis, Marilyn, or anyone else who might mysteriously appear in the pulsing, humming blobs that are bee swarms. In the mean time, let me know who or what you see in our first bee swarm of the season.

Growing Old

By Bo


Growing old? I can handle my getting older. I barely notice the days sneaking past. But then I barely noticed the days creeping past my mother, either — she lives 300 miles away and has always maintained her independence. Then there was a death in the family – a dear aunt who was the same age as my mom – and I made plans to return home for the funeral.

And as I spoke with my mother and made plans, I faced a fact I tried long to ignore. My mother is not growing old. She is old.

This last weekend she admitted as much to me. It’s the first time we’ve ever tiptoed around the BIG question. “What are we going to do, Mom, when you can’t take care of yourself?”

Ouch. My heart started clanging in a rush to get the question out in the open so I could put out the expected fire. Instead, there was no fire.

She looked at me –- hard — then looked at the carpet, then looked out the window, then finally she looked at me again. This time she looked at me without any emotion at all.

I prefer a hard look to an empty look.

She carefully picked her words. “I looked after your grandmother for 13-and-a-half years when she got sick.” That’s a simple statement, too simple, and I wanted a clear understanding of her message. I asked her to finish her thoughts, but she shook her head and refused. Instead she walked over to the sink and washed her hands. And I tried to align my words into a response, and failed.

My mom did look after her own mother. She cared for her 13 long years. She was the only caregiver. My mother allowed no one else to assist her after her sister refused an initial request to help. She tied herself to my grandmother and to their home with a short tether, and fumed and fussed, but she refused to untie the cord.

She missed the births of her three grandchildren. She missed their birthdays. We weren’t able to celebrate many Christmases or Easters or share summer vacations together. Those times together were always denied with tears and pain and her statement, “I can’t leave your grandmother and she’s too ill to travel. And the disturbance would be too much for her, so please don’t bring the children.”

My mom grew weary with the responsibility of caring for her mother 24/7. She knows I know this, but she was afraid of reminding me of it. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted from me. She didn’t want me to take care of her; she didn’t want me not to take care of her.

Stalemate.

Well, not quite. I have a chronic illness. We don’t discuss this issue as she prefers “not to know about stuff I don’t understand,” but she does know enough. She knows I do not have the physical ability to care for her. That scares her. And that scares me.

Last weekend we finally began the discussion we should have had ten, maybe twenty years ago. We waited too long and her age has started making its mark in scary ways. And now we have to make decisions quickly. Too quickly.

The attorney has been called and we are awaiting his return call. We’ve taken a trip to my mother’s bank and a trip to her safety deposit box. I’m returning next week and we’re going to the funeral home for information on pre-planning her funeral. She insisted on this part. (”I don’t trust you to do it the way I want it done.”) Once my mother, always my mother, I think in exasperation.

And so I write, searching for answers in my journal. Putting my scattered thoughts into written words settles things in my mind, and I see where the two of us have to go. And I see the need to make difficult choices soon.

But I also see this. Getting old, even though we all know its progression, seems to catch people by surprise. Maybe it’s the ostrich game in a different guise, but I’ve made one decision that I will see through to fruition.

My husband and I don’t feel old at 50 - I certainly hope not - and we probably won’t feel old at 60 or 70 unless we are faced with circumstances of severe disability or illness. But it is likely we will need assistance with living at some time in our lives – those are simply the percentages speaking. I’m thinking (and hoping) maybe 30 or 40 years from now, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not waiting until the last moment. And I’m not putting my children in the position I face now.

I made an appointment with our attorney to do some estate planning. And my husband and I have set aside some time this weekend to talk about all those “what if” questions. Neither of us wants to spend our precious free hours dealing with these issues. But we will.

Then my daughters and son won’t spend silent years of their lives wondering what the answers will be to those “what ifs.” Those questions that always need an answer — someday.




Tree Trunk, photo © 2008 by Bo. All rights reserved.


Bo is a poet and writer, and a self-described “wannabe photographer who can make enough money selling photos to buy better photo equipment.” She lives in Wisconsin and loves to travel the state in search of photo ops and inspiration.

About writing and her writing process, Bo says: I have a very tiny trailer that I park in a campground several times a year — it becomes an instant writer’s retreat, solo and cheap. Often I’ll search ’til I find a tree trunk in the middle of the forest and sit and write there.

I’ve also adapted a home writing routine that works for me. First tea and meditation — the easy kind where I just shut up and try to feel quiet. Then an hour of reading and research to bring in new ideas, and 2 to 4 hours of writing, editing, and attending to the business parts of writing. Plus there are the spontaneous strikes. The writing time adds up quickly.

I also work with a life/creativity coach and mentor, and I find this immensely helpful. She provides just the right amount of nudging to keep me engaged with my work. But it also helps that there is really nothing I would rather do than write and take photos.

Bo keeps a blog called Seeded Earth.


-This piece is based on a writing practice for red Ravine’s WRITING TOPIC - GROWING OLDER.

Virgin Mary Sightings

Mother Mary as in a Dream, Raton, NM, photos © 2008 by
ybonesy. All rights reserved.



Last Wednesday afternoon I found myself in one of the best spots I could imagine, with my parents and oldest sister, and in the company of my beloved grandparents and best-ever uncle. We were in the cemetery in Raton, New Mexico, where Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Pat are buried.

I get my love of cemeteries from Mom. I didn’t know how much she loved them until this visit. I usually go to cemeteries with my dad; each Memorial Day we make the trek to Costilla, the place where his parents are buried. But on this particular trip Mom asked if we could stop in Raton to see her parents and brother. “I love cemeteries,” she told me as we left our relatives’ headstones and began exploring the grounds.

We walked all over the cemetery. The dry grass crackled under our feet. Most of the headstones were small and unassuming.

“Oh, there’s Joe Gourley,” Mom said. Joe was the son of a rich man in Raton, who Mom still calls “Mr. Gourley.” Joe Gourley, the son, went to war. When he came back he shot himself. Mom did the math in her head to make sure this was the right Joe Gourley, the one she knew who killed himself. “Yep, that would be about right.”

The June day my grandmother was buried here, we attended a funeral mass. According to my imperfect memory, it was a High Mass with incense and big drops of Holy water splashed in our faces. The priest, dressed in white robes and a white cap, bellowed a sermon of doom. I don’t know why this particular service seemed so gloomy to me — it was held in 1985, when I was 24 and gloomy myself — but I remember it plucked the chords of the guilt side of our Catholic faith. I felt resentful and confused. Was he talking about my grandmother or were his messages intended for us?

My relationship with Catholicism is complex, influenced, I think, by Mom’s own complex relationship with the Church. She rebelled against Dad’s absolute piety, and she strained against the rigidity — the intolerance — with which some Catholic priests ruled their parishes in those days.

If pressed, she might be apt to say something like, “I don’t believe in God.” Yet she was a believer. She was just unwilling to concede the fact.

At the rosary held for Grandma the night before her burial, Mom sat in the front right-hand side of the church. A benevolent Virgin Mary dressed in blue and white robes stood silently in the nicho of a wall facing Mom and her youngest sister, Connie. My grandmother’s death was a blow for my mother. Mom called my grandmother ”Mama” up until the day she died — she still does. They were close, talking for hours each week. Mom cried and cried through the Our Fathers and Hail Marys. At one point, she peered through her veil of tears and saw that the Virgin Mary was crying, too.

“Tears came down her cheeks, we saw them!” Mom pleaded afterwards. Both she and Connie saw the tears. Later on, before the funeral mass the next day, we went to see if the Virgin Mary statue had raised porcelain tears on her cheeks. There were none. Still, I believed.


      



Beverly Donofrio in her book Looking for Mary says that when the spirit of the Virgin Mary is nearby, so too is the smell of roses. I remember Mom used to like everything — lotion, perfume, candles — that smelled of roses. Old lady smell, I always thought, even though for years of birthdays and Mother’s Days, I gave her rose-fragranced-anything-I-could-find.

I can’t recall now the last time I thought to give Mom anything having to do with roses. It’s only today that I remember how much she loved that unmistakable fragrance.


One of the photos I took on Wednesday caught my eye as I pored through the shots from that day in the cemetery. It is a small statue of Mary. She sits on the ground, a short distance from the marble headstone of the person she graces. All around the Mary statue are needles and small branches from a nearby pine. I have picked her only because of who she is, not because I know the person buried there. I have to almost lie on the grave myself to get down low enough to photograph the statue.

In the photo of her I notice a shaft of light, thin and almost imperceptible, coming down over her right eye. She is completely white, but there on that right eye is a speck of dirt exactly where her iris would be.

It is not earth-shattering. It is not the stuff that draws throngs of believers. It’s dirt and a small ray of light. It could be nothing. It’s easy to miss.

I call Mom and tell her about the photo. “Oh, really?” she says. She sounds intrigued. A lot has happened in the 23 years since her mother died. Over the years and through various family crises, my mother has turned to her imperfect faith and made it something all of us can hold on to. She prays a rosary every day. Her rebellious self has changed. You can still see remnants of it but she no longer rebels just for the sake of rebelling.

“What do you think,” she asks, “is it a little miracle?” I tell her I’m not sure but that I’ll bring by my computer so that she can see for herself. “I believe in miracles, you know,” she tells me.

I do know. I’ve never doubted that about my mom. That’s one of the gifts she gave to me and all my siblings.



Shaft of Light, Raton, NM, photos © 2008 by ybonesy.
All rights reserved.

pray for gas haiku

Pray for Gas, religious statues inside the stone pillar for the gas price sign at a gas station in northern NM, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.




stop the wind, please stop
war, drought, hunger, judgment
drop the price of gas









nuestra señora
santo niño atocha
break us free from oil









exxon, conoco
profit from the rest of us
prisoners of war









4-plus a gallon
GM lays off 3 thousand
this isn’t funny





   

-related to post haiku (one-a-day).

Beginnings — April Mandalas

       

 

April draws to a close in a few hours. Though it snowed last Saturday, the light of April’s last day is clear and blue. The front yard is bursting with new life:  erratic shoots of thick, green grass, day lilies skyrocketing out of tender wet ground, red-stemmed dogwood buds, one purple bloom in the rock garden on the hill.

We began Coloring Mandalas as a practice in January, following the twelve passages of The Great Round. The initial circulation of The Great Round coincides with early childhood, and physical development. Thereafter, the passages focus on spiritual exploration and maturation, awareness of one’s center, and seeking balance and harmony through working with the archetypal circle.

  

Beginnings, the fourth cycle of The Great Round, opens prior to the age of two, when a mutual bond is formed between baby and mother. The child develops trust; the mother takes pleasure in nurturing. Later, as adults, we learn to trust and nurture our own creative energy through avenues such as writing, music, and art.

In Stage Four we explore ways to quell the self-doubt and insecurity (Monkey Mind) that bubble to the surface when we create. On a spiritual level, we learn to nurture ourselves, to feel compassion (for ourselves and others); we learn the importance of giving service from the heart.

The April mandalas are drawn with Crayola markers, colored pencils, and Uniball gel pens. Liz’s mandalas are all hand-drawn. But April was the first time in The Great Round that I drew one of my own (from a blank circle with a dot at the center). The simple design is found on the walls of a birthing chamber in an ancient palace on the island of Crete (archeologists suggest it may represent the cervix). The dot becomes the beginning point of our own design, reflecting something we may be ready to birth.

According to the book Coloring Mandalas by Susanne F. Fincher, the healing benefits of The Great Round: Stage 4 — Beginnings are:

• learning to contain and focus energy
• deepening and nurturing the relationship with the inner self
• understanding the value of service to others
• developing patience and a belief in the process
• knowing something new will be created and produced even though its form can not yet be seen

ONE: The first mandala (top of the page) was drawn by hand, unplanned and fluid, beginning with a circle and a dot. It is based on an illustration by Marija Gimbutas in The Language of the Goddess, where she illustrates a circle and dot found in a birthing chamber on the island of Crete.

TWO: The second mandala represents a flower or the sun. The center of the template started as empty white space. Everything within the blue center was added in the process of drawing and coloring. Beginnings are a time to contain and focus, to hold our projects and creations close to center, so they can develop. Talking, explaining, discussing, can dissipate valuable energy. Silence holds the space.

THREE: The third mandala draws from the heart chakra. Holding focused energy deepens the relationship to the self, intensifying and expanding the heart. Sustained effort toward nurturing our insides, allows more room outside to see the way clear for unconditional love — a generous love dedicated to serving others.

FOUR: In Beginnings, we learn to cherish the new, to care for what is young and tender. After Winter’s heavy runoff, we wait a few weeks before we rake and scrape the earth, protecting tender shoots of Spring grass. Be gentle with the self. Make room for and nurture your creative ideas, so they have room to come to fruition.

 

   

Trimotto, Signs Of Spring, Sliver, Find The Mandala, hand-drawn labyrinths created by Liz, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

The four mandalas above are hand-drawn by Liz, created for The Great Round - Stage 4. She agreed to let me photograph them from her sketchbook and post them with the April mandalas.

Mandalas have been used in Christian churches, in Eastern and Western traditions, by mystics and ancient peoples all over the world. Like labyrinths, mandalas cross all cultures, and represent Spirit coming into matter.

Spring teaches us about new beginnings. About trusting the process of movement — through Winter’s deadening hibernation, to the rebirth and new growth of Spring. We learn to trust ourselves. To know that what appear to be chaos and death, will be followed by renewal and prosperity.

    

Centering, dome mandala of the Lake Harriet Community sanctuary, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

-related to posts:  The Void - January Mandalas, Bliss — February Mandalas, Labyrinth — March Mandalas, and WRITING TOPIC - CIRCLES