Movie Pose

"As if I wanted to go anyway. You can't lie down at the movies and still see the screen." - Harold in Bunnicula

You Sometimes Get What You Want

My grandmother subscribed to National Geographic Magazine. As a girl from South Jersey whose greatest geographical adventure was a day trip to the shore each year, I poured over the magazine's photos and imagined myself in far off places. We had earthworms in NJ, but nothing as exotic as the banana slug from California. It was big...and yellow. We had willow and mimosa and spruce and pine, oak, cedar, and even a "Tree of Heaven" in NJ, but nothing to compare to the giant Redwoods of California. They were big enough to drive a car through. Yes, you heard me right - big enough to drive a car through. My uncle lived in California and worked as a mechanic for an airline. As such he was able to procure free tickets for his mother, my grandmother, to fly out of Philadelphia to visit him in that far off state. She went, and brought back crystal sugar candy and tales of rides on streetcars. We put string in sugar solution in a jar on the windowsill and hoped to make our own crystal sugar candy, but were only able to muster the fragilest of crystals compared to the California variety. One thing led to another and a good many years later, I found myself on a road trip with my husband and dog, moving from Seattle to Atlanta. We had to pick a route: overland by way of Old Faithful or down the coast, through the Redwoods. National Geographic had also featured geysers, but I had heard the call of the giant trees. So down the coast we went. We walked a vast stretch of beach in one town in Oregon, where families enjoyed spring break on the sand under a grey sky, in hats, jackets and an occasional umbrella. We spent the night in a little motel on a rocky seaside which posted warnings of "sneaker waves" which would just rise up and snatch you when you weren't looking if you weren't careful. We stopped so many times along highway 5 so I could run into the surf and touch a large rock formation that was beautiful, that we had to stop stopping if we were ever to get to California. We paused at an overlook, to peer down at the sea lions, and listen to them barking. My dog said, "What?! What was that?! We stopped for gas and a drive to the national park sand dunes. While my dog romped about on the beach with a beagle, I watched the beagle's family sandboarding. Finally, the Dad asked me if I'd like to try, and I did. We picnicked on a beach with rounded rocks by a jetty. I took a rock home with me. It still tastes salty. And that was Oregon. Our first night in California we stayed in a dog friendly hotel with flamboyantly colored decor and a broken mini-fridge. They replaced the fridge that evening. We definitely needed a place for our leftovers and road snacks. The next day we drove on through Sunny California. We drove past signs confirming we were going through the Redwood Forest. There were evergreens on the right of us and evergreens on the left of us, but no signs of the giants. We stopped for dinner at a lonely diner, at a lonely spot, on a lonely road. The proprietor showed no cognizance of being in The Land of the Giant Redwoods. Greeter, waiter, cook, baker, and scrubber-upper, he dutifully served us a supper. But was he even happy that he lived in California? We drove on to a little seaside town perched on the side of a cliff. My son had been there on his motorcycle and said we had to see it. It was worth it. The sun was now setting and we had to find a place to sleep with a dog. There was no room at the inn at the picturesque town. We consulted our phones - no need for maps or paper for us modern travelers - and decided to try a place with camping and little cabins under the canopy of the Redwood Forest, located not far down a little side road. We drove up to the A-frame office where the vacancy light glowed. Yes, they had a room, allowed dogs of a certain size, but it cost twice the amount we were accustomed to spend. Well, it was a two bedroom cabin with a kitchenette. Let's splurge and let's sleep. We found our cabin through the darkly lit campground road and parked in the designated rutted and muddy spot. We walked the dog in the shadows, in case anyone might challenge the weight limit. We carried our luggage inside and set about settling in. Mini-fridge was working. There was a back door in the kitchen. I went to investigate. I began to laugh and laugh and my husband followed me outside wondering, What on earth? and there I was attempting to wrap my arms around a giant redwood tree growing right through the middle of the deck. I was in California. That night we studied the tourist guides and made a plan to visit the Redwood National Forest. And the next day, after sleeping under a majestic creation, we did.

The Lost and Found Box

In the small drawer in the middle of the top row of my mother’s cherrywood dresser, there was a small pink box. When I opened the lid, the box lifted up a tray and revealed a compartment underneath. In both of these spaces lay shiny and sparkly wonders. My mother knew of my visits to her jewelry box and allowed them. Perhaps she even enjoyed my magpie behavior. There was the glittering brown heart necklace from Texas, the elegant crystal necklace, and the the delicate diamond ring, with a bit of dainty filigree on each side, a former possession of some deceased relative. One day in the eighth grade, the ring fit my finger. It was so pretty. I thought I would wear it to school and return it to its pink box at the end of the day. I had gym that day and in the locker room among the cacophony of the girls getting dressed in their gym clothes, I very carefully removed the ring, put it in my makeup bag and locked it in my locker. After class, we all got dressed and there was NO ring. How could that happen? “I’ve lost my ring,” I cried to those in hearing. The gym teachers’ office was just across from my bay of lockers. “I’ve lost a diamond ring, has anyone seen a diamond ring, has anyone turned in a diamond ring?” “Ha,ha,” they chuckled, “if only we had a diamond ring.” This was the end of my life. At lunch I sat at the table with my girlfriends, glum. They knew of my loss. At the end of the day, I went home to face my mother. I told her, and she said, “Have you asked at the office? Maybe it’s in the lost and found box.” That was all. No, I hadn’t. Mrs. Ashby haunted the office, gliding to and fro behind the shoulder-high counter like the Queen of the Nazguls - that is, when she wasn’t stalking the halls seeking those walking without a hall pass. I had three minutes to get from one class to the other without getting into TROUBLE. Who would give me a hall pass for a stop into the office? Or would I just take a chance that I wouldn’t get caught by the tall thin woman with short black hair and thin lips that remained a straight line except when commanding “Stop!” or “Show me your pass!” That’s all my mother wanted me to do. Walk into the very gates of hell. I made it to lunch the next day, without visiting the office. But here came two girls with shining faces and bouncing steps carrying my makeup bag to our lunch table. They had stopped by the office for me! I unzipped the bag. NO ring! Why was I still unhappy, they wanted to know. They had restored my makeup bag to me. I looked at the faces around my table. The cool girls. I lifted my eyes to a table across the cafeteria. I saw some nice girls, smart girls, not necessarily cool girls. I carried my tray in that direction. “Can I sit with you?” “Yes.”

Safe Places

Freedom is a spaniel that grows weak and flabby if it be not exercised, so exercise your dog, sir, that's the trick. - Salman Rushdie in East,West

Toes Up, Funeral Socks

You have walked in my shoes for four years. Since the event that divided my life into before and after, you have carried the burden of my body.  It grew heavier, eating a pint of ice cream at a time, chased by a bag of potato chips, in hopes of a peaceful sugar coma, rest, feet up. Still, you took steps to shop, drive, work, clean and even play. You have outlasted the shoes that protected you, but finally you have a loss,  a hole that I will not repair. I have never written to my socks before, but it seems necessary to end our relationship in this way. It is time for you to go. The dirge is done.

Life Cycles By

The heavens declare His glory with the sunshine on this October day as we walk along the path by the slough, passing golden leaves and red berries against a sky of robin egg blue; people passing on roller blades and bicycles. Ah look! a wooly bear waddling in his fur coat across the path, heading to the grass, getting ready to change from caterpillar glory to moth glory; death and resurrection; metamorphosis. Like my mother liked to sing, "I'll fly away someday."

 Look there’s another one and another and another.  It’s a caterpillar crossing, a mighty migration. I kneel to pet one’s black and brown bristles; to praise his cuteness. Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling. Passing on the right! Oh. That one didn’t make it. That one either. Nor that one. I take a long look down the dotted asphalt river. My metaphors of comfort crushed.

A Time to Believe and a Time to Doubt

First, they told me that God created the heavens and the earth. And I believed. Then they told me the Bible was God's word. And I believed. And the Bible said that God was Good. And I believed. Then I learned about the stars as old as the hills, and the hills as old as the stars. I learned about stars so old and so far away, that though they shine on us every night, they're dark where they began. They're so far away, they're already dead, and they sure are taking their time to get to us. I learned about the rocks of ages through carbon dating. I examined the chart of the pleistocene and mezocene and all the cenes and era after era after era - a gadjillion eras a gadjillion years ago.

Then someone told me that the Bible says the heavens and the earth were made 6,000 years ago - not so long ago. Well, it seemed plain to anyone who could count that a gadjillion years was a bit more than 6,000. Where did the Bible say that? Well, Bishop Usher, in the time before TV, calculated the time by working backwards from the geneologies of the people listed in the Bible. I didn't know what to believe.

Then someone told me that the Bible did not say that the heavens and the earth were made 6,000 years ago. Bishop Usher may not have understood everything there was to understand about genealogies in the 1600's BTV. For example, sometimes entire generations were not listed because the authors of the genealogies, had their purpose, and their purpose was to highlight the important family members, the achievers, the one's we'd recognize as helping to move the story forward. All right then, I could live and breath again if it was Usher vs. Science. Let them battle it out and may the best mind win. No need to pit God against Science. God who was Good and had all knowledge, and Science who was Smart. They could be friends again.

And then someone asked me if Adam had a belly button. I imagine God forming Adam from the dust of the ground, breathing life into him. An umbilical cord? A placenta? Lots of goop like in Terminator?  I'm just not seeing it. They suggested that God could make the heavens and the earth with clues for scientists to find to make them think that the earth was a gadjillion years old. Is that Good? Did God do that? Did he embellish Adam with a belly button?

And then, just last night, I read more about Bishop Usher's work in When God Spoke English THE MAKING OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE  by Adam Nicolson - Now a Major BBC Television Programme.  Bishop Usher "calculated that God created the earth on Sunday 23 October 4004 BC, at nine o'clock in the morning, London time, or midnight in the Garden of Eden." Midnight in the Garden of Eden. Now why don't we celebrate the birth of earth every October 23rd at midnight? How could this extraordinary bit of information have escaped me for the fifty years that I have believed that God created the heavens and the earth. Another thing I believe is that no one knows the day or the hour when time's up. I doubt that anyone knows the day or the hour when time began....and ever will.  And since I have one, I can put that in my bellybutton and contemplate it.