The Bridge

I was reminded today of this essay that I got published last year in the online journal Persimmon Tree. And I thought I'd include it here, for posterity.

The Bridge

February 1965

I am ten, flying with my parents from Singapore to Hong Kong. We land in Saigon to refuel, are instructed to deplane. A fellow passenger mutters about a firefight at this very airport the week before. I know about the war from watching the CBS Evening News with my parents, Walter Cronkite intoning about student protests, flag-draped coffins, highland skirmishes. Saigon? War zone? Firefight? Uh uh. No thanks.

But then everyone, including—alarmingly—my parents, rises and starts shuffling down the blue-carpeted aisle. I press my face to the small round window and see picnic tables ranged beneath brown netting, a corrugated Quonset hut out of which a woman emerges carrying a tray laden with curvy soft-drink bottles. Out beyond—empty runways, neglected grass medians, a small prop plane taking off. No sign of a firefight, of burned aircraft, of any kind of conflict. It looks tropical, sultry. Palm trees shift lazily in the breeze.

With all the seats around me empty, I finally get up and follow the last of the passengers down the ramp stairs. If I am going to die, I don’t want to die alone in this metal cylinder.

We spend an hour underneath the camouflage netting, the adults chatting lightly. No food, just Coca-Cola, the real thing—even if the words are in a foreign script. I hold the chilled bottle to my cheeks, my forehead. I watch the beads of sweat course slowly down the glass. I gaze up at the blue sky through the checkerboard of hemp, searching for enemy aircraft. And wait, jittery, until we are allowed to reboard and take flight.

March 2018

I am back, this time flying into Hanoi. On a birding trip.

I am not, in fact, a birder. And my tour contact tried hard to convince me I wasn’t a good fit for this trip. I’d be spending much of my time, he warned, standing stock-still, peering through binoculars into dark jungle, waiting for the faintest flit of movement.

He was not wrong. Turns out, Vietnam is one of the more challenging countries to bird in. It seems that centuries of local people roasting birds on skewers or sticking them in cages to enjoy their melodious song has made the local avian population a tad skittish.

The first evening in Hanoi when we all meet over dinner, I, too, am skittish. A dozen strangers, split between the U.S. and the U.K., with one Romanian and Susan, our Aussie trip leader, thrown in. Retirees mostly: a physician and his wife-assistant, an Episcopalian priest, a bridge-building civil engineer. Sally from Tucson has been on over sixty birding trips, while Dixie, from New Hampshire and Florida, is, I later learn, reckoned to be among the top ten women life-listers. (Of the top fifty life-listers ever, only three have been women.) I don’t even have a life list. But I sure am glad my binoculars are Zeiss, and not merely Nikon.

On our three-week trip we visit various national parks—Cuc Phuong, Phong Nha-Ke Bang, Bach Ma; the hill towns of Tam Dao and Da Lat; cultural stops in Hue and Saigon (as the locals still call it). We eat delicious food, dress up as emperor and empress in imperial Hue, even sing karaoke, something I swore I’d never, ever do. But I have a good time, joined by my fellow warblers in a shaky rendition of “It’s a Wonderful World.”

And we do see birds. If I’d had a life list, it would no doubt have doubled, maybe even tripled. I love their names—ratchet-tailed treepie and paddyfield pipit; white-crested laughingthrush and scarlet-backed flowerpecker. Hemixos, Megalaima, Cutia. Two hundred twenty-two species we saw in all, most of which I will not remember, except for their fabulous names: fulvetta! yuhina! prinia! pitta!

In the end, standing on the side of a road gazing through glass into dark jungle, hoping for a flicker of movement, of color, of song, is a bit of heaven. Before I headed off on this trip, I joked to friends that it would be three weeks of walking meditation. In fact, that turns out to be true.

Doug, the priest, is from Richmond, Virginia. Tall, white-bearded, handsome, soft-spoken. We meet on the second full day, waiting on our next search for the next elusive rare bird hiding in the jungle. To make small talk, I ask if he’s been to Vietnam before. He slides his penetrating blue glance my way. “Yes. Fifty years ago.”

We bond on the bus. He doesn’t mind talking about those days. He was a captain in the infantry, arriving straight into Pleiku in the central highlands. He describes the bombing of Hanoi and the Ho Chi Minh Trail—actually a road, mostly through Laos, on which guerrillas, mostly women, shielded themselves from air surveillance by bearing large bundles of foliage. The U.S. dropped tons of Agent Orange to denude the jungles, and yet the Viet Cong continued to slip by them. He talks about being essentially ordered to send soldiers to their deaths, a mere cog in the vast U.S. propaganda machine declaring that everything was going fine, that we were fighting our mightiest.

On the road, we see the occasional nod to the war: a Soviet-style statue celebrating a November 1972 North Vietnamese victory, an open-front temple packed with veterans holding a service, banners commemorating the forty-third anniversary of the liberation of Hue. But mostly, evidence of the conflict is scarce. Vietnam today is a young, vibrant nation. We feel no animosity from our hosts. As Susan puts it, they never hated the American people; just the American government.

Our transition from the northern part of the country to the south involves the airport at Pleiku. The highway takes a turn in the town of Kon Tum, heading south. Out the bus window is the usual jumble of shops: a scrap metal place next to a shop full of big bags of something—fertilizer? concrete? rice? A barber shop, a motorcycle repair shop, and a dress shop. A public swimming pool, a post office, a temple, a school. A paint store.

Our coach pulls over by the river. We all get out, happy to stretch our legs.

Fifty years ago, for fourteen days, Doug was sandbagged in with his company across the river from where we stand, sending rockets into what was then a hamlet of thatch-roofed wooden buildings. The dirt streets then would have been deserted, the people hunkered down in their homes, praying or hating or both.

I watch as Doug strides onto the bridge over the Dak Bla River. He pauses a moment, gazing down at the flowing water. Then he draws out of his shirt pocket a short stack of pastel index cards. He reads one and flicks it into the air, tracking it as it twirls and floats and spins down, soon to land in the water and be carried away. Then the next, and the next—a dozen, dozen and a half cards in all. Prayers for his comrades, for all the dead. Fluttering birds of redemption.

Author's Comment

Some moments stick with you. My brief experience of Vietnam as a child has remained so vivid all these years. And when I met Doug, with his own fifty-year-old memories of that place—yet so very different—I finally had something to balance it against. The birds, hidden, requiring patience to discern, brought us together and seemed, somehow, an apt metaphor for all those memories.

Three books: The Last Taxi Driver, The Last Thing He Told Me, True Grit

I have fallen off my book report wagon. So here's a mention, at least, of the last three books I've finished, over the last three or so weeks (nos. 14–16 in my annual accounting).

Lee Durkee's The Last Taxi Driver (2020)—which George Saunders, on the cover, calls "a wild, funny, poetic fever dream that will change the way you think about America." Well, I don't know about the last part, but the first: yes. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, often poetic, and toward the end bordering on hallucinogenic, as our brave taxi driver, Lou, ferries all sorts of misfits around Mississippi and beyond. We hear his own story of failed dreams along the way. Though maybe, at the end, his luck is turning? One can only hope. I really enjoyed this book. 

Laura Dave's The Last Thing He Told Me (2021) is about a man who suddenly disappears and his wife and daughter's search for him, ranging from a houseboat in Sausalito to Austin, Texas. Turns out, he got involved in bad goings-on back in the before time—before the wife, that is, whom he really does love—and he hoped he'd managed to leave all that behind him. Tsk. I worried through the whole read that this would turn into another unreliable narrator novel, but thankfully, that didn't happen. It was good enough. It certainly kept me turning the pages. 

Charles Portis's True Grit  (1968)—great book! Narrated by a now older (maybe even elderly) Mattie Ross, it tells the story of her effort, in the 1870s or 80s, when she was just fourteen, to bring to justice the killer of her father, with the help of US Marshal Rooster Cogburn and a Texas ranger, LaBoeuf. We all know the story: it was told in a 1969 film version starring Kim Darby as Mattie, John Wayne as Rooster, and Glen Campbell as LaBoeuf, and more recently in 2010 in the Coen Brothers' version, with Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, and Matt Damon. But the book! Its plain no-nonsense telling of the events creates a real character, strong, principled, unforgiving, and utterly determined. The penultimate scene is breathtaking. (And now that I've scanned the back covers of these books, I see that Durkee's is described as "equal parts Bukowski and Portis"—which I do believe is why I picked up True Grit in the first place: if Durkee can be compared to Portis, then Portis must be good... and oh look! he wrote True Grit!)

Gratitudes 9: turtles, music, etc.

I missed a few days, but today I was paying attention. 

1. For the first time in the 30-plus years we've lived here and walked, not daily, but at least several times a week, around our local Frog Pond—today, for the very first time, we saw a little turtle swimming in the pond! I think it was a red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). It's a popular pet, so we wondered if it was released by someone tired of their pet... It's also on the list of the 100 worst invasive alien species. But if this one was released alone (and isn't a female with fertilized eggs, which—what are the chances?), we're probably safe from being overrun by turtles. I dunno: I was rather charmed and thrilled to see this little guy periscoping through the water. Maybe I shouldn't be? Or maybe it's a different kind of turtle entirely, and they've been here all these years? Alas, I will never know. But you can bet I'll be looking for him/her/it (but hopefully not them) the next time we take our regular stroll around the Frog Pond.

2. Another Carmel Bach Festival concert tonight, this one a collaboration of a couple of favorites, violinist Edwin Huizinga and guitarist William Coulter, with the beautiful participation of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, a baritone, and a small chamber ensemble. The music ranged from the first piece of notated music from 1400 BC to Procul Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale," Paul Simon's "American Tune," and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," via Bach, Gounod, and Josquin des Prez, among others. It was thoroughly delightful, the eclecticism and performances both. 

Here's a lyre rendition of the Hurrian Hymn, as the ancient piece is called (tonight's was all voices):

And here's Paul himself a few years ago singing "American Tune"—which every time I hear it, it feels ever more on point, sadly.

I am really grateful that Paul Simon has been part of my whole life. What a musician.

And I'm always grateful for Edwin and William, aka Fire and Grace. Here they are with a little duet they performed this evening.

No #3 today per se, though I'd throw into a general glad-to-be-alive stewpot having finished True Grit (book report of sorts t/k), and running into Laura and Russell at the concert, and sitting next to June, a soprano in David's chorus whom I hadn't yet met, and having a nice conversation with her, and at intermission running into Doug, the drummer in David's defunct band Sidelobe, who made me laugh, and being treated to all sorts of delectable Persian aromas throughout the afternoon as David started cooking an elaborate meal, to be served up tomorrow. Plenty to be grateful for. For sure.

Gratitudes 8: Sunday, reading, and coffee with a friend

1. Even though I've (almost) never marched to the Monday-to-Friday drumbeat, I still enjoy Sundays, when much of the rest of the world is off work and doing whatever people do in their leisure time. The roads tend to be emptier too.

I enjoyed both movie versions
(1969 and 2010), but I'd say
the book is the best.

2. I spent much of the morning reading: True Grit by Charles Portis. I will write a book report maybe—though I'm already backlogged by two books. I just haven't felt like writing reports. Maybe I'm done? But this book is a real delight, so it might get me back into the practice. Merely to have a record. 

3. At around 1 I got a text from my friend Nina: Want to meet for coffee today? We haven't been seeing much of each other lately, for various reasons, so of course I jumped at the chance. We had a nice hour (in the I wish I could say sun) over an iced mocha (N) and a hot chai (me), catching up. Milo accepted much love from many passersby, both human and canine. The three of us felt grateful for the time together.

Gratitudes 7: a gift in the mail, wind in the trees, and short lines at Safeway

I might just take this little project to ten and call it done. While remembering to look around and appreciate things every day. For today:

1. An actual piece of personal mail in the mailbox: a small surprise package from Anahola, HI—my Howler friend Kim. I know I've written about my tiny writing group, the Howlers, before:* three of us who meet every day, virtually, for at least 90 minutes, usually for multiple 90-minute sessions. Kim and Sherilyn are good and actually write (I believe!), but I tend to use the time to get work done. Though soon, that will end, when I kick my final job out the door and hang up my spurs. (As I've threatened to do many, many times, so go ahead and laugh, I can take it.) But then? Yes, I intend to be much more conscious about using the time for creative pursuits.
     In any case, the package: it's a little hand-made journal, covered in luscious velvety paper decorated with butterflies. It arrives at a perfect time, really. I can devote it to making notes and catching thoughts about this new phase of my existence, or use it for my morning list, inserting a little much-needed structure into the day. Thank you, Kim!

2. Watching and listening to the wind rustle the oak leaves and the ivy that has crawled up and taken over some dead pines, on our afternoon walk. Grateful for the cool, fresh air here, as so much of the country (and Europe) roasts in extreme heat.

3. David is out for the evening, so I'm on my own for dinner. And I felt like pad thai. So I went to Safeway (because I also felt like some wine) and got some P. F. Chang frozen chicken pad thai. Perhaps not the healthiest approach—ordering takeout from our favorite Thai restaurant would have been better—but quick and easy. The best part, though, was: short lines at the checkstands! The other day, there were so few checkers—and the quickcheck line was closed—that the lines were snaking in two directions down the broad approach aisle. I just dropped what I'd intended to buy on an empty conveyor belt and skedaddled. I do not suffer lines gladly.... So today: I'm grateful even for Lery, a checker who usually annoys me because, if I'm buying wine, he puts on a jocular tone and says, "It says here check ID. Are you over 21, young lady?" Wink wink. I do not find it amusing. But today, okay, I gave him a smile. What the heck.

*Yes, I knew I had: here, for one, and not so long ago.

Gratitudes 6: M*A*S*H, sockeye, and ice plant

1. We watched the final episode of M*A*S*H tonight. It's been our go-to last show of the evening for something like a year now. (Usually, David falls asleep.) I've enjoyed the humor, the characters, some good moral lessons, and the setting in the Santa Monica Mountains (i.e., somewhere in Korea). It aired for eleven years, from 1972 to 1983—back in the days when you were tied to the broadcast schedule. I imagine it was an emotional experience to say goodbye then, after eleven years. For us, it's just been something like eleven months—and still my eyes were leaking a bit at the farewells. It was a good show, and the finale had good surprises. So... what'll we watch now?

2. Fresh sockeye salmon for dinner. I still remember the first time I ever had sockeye, years ago in Seattle after a weeklong writing retreat on Whidbey Island. That was really fresh salmon. I may have said somewhere in this blog before that if I ever get thrown onto death row for some heinous crime and am offered one last meal, I'd choose sockeye. But I trust it won't come to that. Tonight, we partnered the fish with Lundberg wild rice medley and asparagus.

3. We went for a long-ish walk today around a local lake, and on the way Milo rolled in the ice plant—twice. It always makes me laugh, the pleasure he gets, legs flailing in the air, tongue lolling. So here's to ice plant, although it's an undesirable invasive, because it scratches his back and gives him joy. (This picture is from ten years ago. Some things never change!)

Oh and, I ran across this little talk by Ethan Hawk (I am a fan, I do not deny it), about giving yourself permission to be creative, so I'll include it here as an addendum. I am almost 70, and I'm still learning this.

Gratitudes 5: good news, Mexican, and poetry

1. Good news from my sister and friend whom I wrote about a few days ago, with the heart valve issue (though I may not have mentioned that detail): She met with the PA today, and "it seems to go without saying that I would repair this." Well, yeah! Obviously! She won't know for sure until she meets with surgeons, but my fingers are so very crossed that this is a viable option.

2. Dinner at our local Mexican place, Jose's—and as much as I ever want to try something different, I had my usual: a chile relleno and chile verde tamale, no beans, no rice. It's my comfort food.

3. My regular Thursday meeting with one of my two poetry groups. This one is generative: we read (or otherwise interact with) a prompt; usually it's a few selected poems, on some theme—today's was insects. Then we spend half an hour writing. Finally, we share. I am not a poet, not really, but I can't say how much I appreciate being in the embrace of actual poets. I may feel awkward reading my usually rather clichéd attempts, but I learn, and the challenge is good for me. Here's mine from today—and remember, I scratched it out in 30 minutes, it is far from finished; and I'm not a poet—do not judge me. But for a bonus, I also include a few of the paintings by the Dutch painter this attempt is dedicated to. And I will end with a real poem by a real poet, one of today's prompts. So keep scrolling.

Still Life

                    For Jan van Kessel, 1626–1679

When did you notice that first butterfly—
a gaudy swallowtail was it,
or pale chequered skipper?
and decide you had to capture it,
not skewered by a pin,
but in rich oils.

In your garden, in the woods,
among meadows of springtime flowers,
you waited and watched,
sketching the tiny jagged feet,
the furred antennae,
exquisite patterns of crimson
burnt orange
royal blue.

Then, carefully, you arranged
currants, a thistle,
sprigs of rosemary,
on a plain white ground...
and these creatures,
so jewel-like, so briefly
in this world. 

Holding them in your gaze,
you caressed them into being
with the tip of your brush,
as if to keep them
from launching into flight, 

for a moment you, like them,
unaware of death.

Design

                    by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth—
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.

Gratitudes 4: live music and the Carmel mission

Just one today—or rather, a double one—and a day late: 

First: Live music! Last night, the Carmel Bach Festival's Chorale offered a program of "American Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs." Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives, Vincent Persichetti, Aaron Copland, and others. I'm afraid the Ives went over my nonmusical head—one of his two pieces, Psalm 67, involved mixing C major (the women's voices) and G minor (the men's). Did I discern that? No. All I heard was a chromatic richness. I wish I could have appreciated it more. But I did appreciate Copland's "In the Beginning," and of course the spirituals, especially "Elijah Rock," oh yeah. Here's a version I found that is reminiscent of what we heard last night.

And here's the Copland, because I wouldn't mind hearing it again:

Besides the beautiful music, the concert was held in the old Carmel Mission, decorated with a huge candelabra of actual candles in front of the massive altar. When the lights went down the scene was quite magical. Yay for live music!

So second: the mission itself, formally known as Mission San Carlos de Borromeo de Carmelo, established in 1770 by Franciscan father Junípero Serra (who is buried there). I did not know until just now that the mission fell into ruin in the late 1800s, and was only restored—and beautifully—in the 1910s and 20s.

Here's a colorized lithograph (1839) of a painting by Williim Smyth (1827). Today, the small buildings are gone and the mission is surrounded by houses, a school, roads, etc. 

Here it is in 1880, looking from the altar back:

And here it is today, outside and in. The altar was restored in 1910–30.

And yes, yes, I know all about the awful history of the Spaniards coming here and subjugating the Native peoples. That's a whole other story. For now, for today, I'd just like to note how fortunate we are to have this beautiful venue for hearing beautiful music, especially of the vocal variety: it's the perfect resonating chamber.

Gratitudes 3: my dog, pizza, and Tom Cruise

1. Milo, who always fills my heart: when I see him from the top of the stairs, lying on the fleecy blanket, looking up at me with those expectant brown eyes; when he dashes across the park, or after a bunny, his long legs so eager; when he dances in excitement in the afternoon, as I finally put on some clothes (the dance being for the impending walk, not the jeans). When he smiles at me, and holds my hand (I am not making that up), and we share a moment of the foreverness of our life together. Beginning to end. (Well, ten weeks to, sadly, and hopefully not too soon, end.) I may well gratitudinize Milo in the future, if I keep this list up. There may be repetition. But the gratitude will never not be there. I adore that dog.

2. David's Boboli pizzas. Loaded: tomato sauce and cheese, mozzarella and parmesan, of course; red onion, zucchini, red bell pepper, and spicy chicken sausage. Tonight he had a short performance at the Carmel Bach Festival, so he made the pizza before he left. I heated the oven before he returned, and put it in. Teamwork!

3. A NYT essay I read today about searching for Tom Cruise, because it was funny, and because I've been watching the Mission Impossible movies—just tonight, #4: Ghost Protocol—which themselves have gotten funnier, but also tighter. There really is something disconcertingly fascinating about Cruise. As if he exists only on film, a sort of weird pre-AI AI creation....

And although three is my limit, here's a little essay on gratitude, by the poet David Whyte, via my Howler friend Kim.

Gratitudes 2: sourdough starter, email, and dinner out/branzini

Today a sister and friend wrote with some distressing news: 2–5 years. I truly hope that the doctors will be able to circumvent that prognosis, but what if not? Two to five years? No. I can't believe that. I can't believe ever being without her. We already lost her husband, for god's sake.

Death has been on my mind already lately—because of the flashing red lights outside our house last night (all's well, thankfully), because my Norwegian brother-in-law has Parkinson's, because Milo, our beloved dog, is almost 13. This news just gives me more to worry over.

Another friend asked this morning on our daily WhatsApp chat, three of us, if we do daily gratitudes. She was just at a memorial service, and the fellow being memorialized had gotten in the habit of exchanging gratitudes with a friend of his. The friend shared some of those. She said it was moving, hearing his moments of gratefulness, of noticing. Concrete. "The details!" she said. "The voice!" He had been navigating sobriety. An extra layer. 

So I'm here today with another three. Maybe I'll make it a daily project. Or maybe I'll never get sucked into the "daily" nonsense again. Time will tell.

1. The beautiful bubbling aliveness of the sourdough starter I launched a couple of weeks ago. Soon, I will have enough head space to bake a loaf of bread with it. But even if I never did that, feeding it each day, then seeing the bubbles rise some hours later—it's oddly satisfying.

2. Email. I was spelling out the entire story here, which had to do with a finished editing job and locking files, and different operating systems on different computers, but no, the details aren't important here. Email, however, is: it allowed me to finish my end of the job, and then send the files to the author for her review. (Though email is also how I heard the 2–5 year news...)

3. Dinner out: branzini on a carroty quinoa bed, with asparagus, coconut, Pernod-infused raisins (I kid you not). It's nothing I'd ever even dream of cooking at home. And it was super delicious. Thank you, fish, for the sacrifice of your life.

Gratitudes

I've been looking through old posts—1,464 so far, since April 12, 2009, but really getting going in 2015. It's fun to see my life (recent and going back some) laid out in words. I've done some cool stuff! Been some cool places! Discovered some really interesting things. Spent time with wonderful people.

Lately, though, I've been in a bit of funk, and I've been trying to figure out how to break out of it. 

Pharmaceuticals, maybe? Psilocybin? Coffee doesn't seem to work.

Just kidding, ha ha.

But also not. I feel like I need a shift in perspective. A shift in sensibility. And I don't know how to achieve that. (Psilocybin, my brain whispers... if only it weren't illegal...)

An acquaintance of mine had a health issue recently, and as it was being resolved, she found solace in Icelandic horses. I love the specificity of that: you hurt? go to Iceland, find a horse with your name on it. A grounded place, and someone (preferably with a mane) to hug.

I have always used travel as my something to hug, but that's not working so well anymore. It's not especially huggable, arriving in a foreign place and having to reconnoiter, in a strange language, in a traffic jam, wondering just what I am risking waiving the insurance on the rented Peugeot, why my credit card is being refused at the train station kiosk.

Last year, I traveled to Portugal and France, the Galápagos, Ontario, and Madagscar. This year, so far, to Denmark, Norway, and France. It's been eye-opening and rewarding; I do benefit from the stimulation, the difference, for sure. But centering? grounding? Not so much.

So I find myself growing ever more focused on my leaf-patterned chair upstairs, or the comfy brown couch in front of the TV. 

And that is not good.

It is strange to feel the world shrinking around you. I think some of it comes from Covid (scary virus!) and some—moreso—from the political insanity in this country, and elsewhere as well. I honestly feel that the world I grew up learning about, fitting into, has vanished. Or at least it's contracting, growing ever more conservative, restrictive, rights-bashing, dare I say fascist. Even bastions of open-armed liberalness like Denmark and the Netherlands have closed in on themselves. But this country? Half of it has gone insane. And that scares me. 

Not that I, personally, will be affected by the rightward shift. But this country isn't just about me. It's about an ideal, an idea, yes. But it's also about real, struggling people. Whom the GOP don't seem to give a damn about. If I may generalize. But I think it's a fair generalization.

In any case, I didn't come here to whine about the state of my country. Whining does no good. The other day I posted some tips for dealing with depression, and I think I'll start mining them more.  

One thing that is missing from that list is meditation. I've said before that I'd like to start meditating—as in, regularly. As in, every day. Maybe now's the time to start. (How many times can I say that without acting on it? An infinite number, apparently!) Also, writing some short gratitudes every day. 

Like, today: I am grateful for Lindt caramel milk chocolate truffle bars, which presently are on sale at Safeway (and I'm grateful for that, because it gave me permission to buy four of them, for five bucks). I am grateful to be finished with chapter 4 of the guidebook on swimming in California that I'm editing; only two chapters to go, and then I'll be done with work for a while—like, until (if) I decide to take on a new project. Which at the moment, I strongly do not want to do. But I know how restless I get, how undirected. Work gives me focus. And yet . . . I really do think I'd like to quit. Forever. And put my attention somewhere else more centering, more grounding.

So, gratitude #3: I am grateful for having so many interests and, dare I say, a few skills. I brought home from Europe a couple of books each in Norwegian and French. When I finish improving other people's prose in English, maybe it'll be time to tread some foreign-language waters. I may not be a confident swimmer, but at least I know I can stay afloat. And maybe I can get back to making artist books. And curating photos. And taking new photos, with my new camera. There's always the garage to clean out, books to cull. And I'd like to do more reading—um, in Norwegian or French. Or English! There's so much good literature out there. I don't have all the time in the world, after all. And I have many, many more books than I can read in whatever time I have left. Finally, there's the sourdough starter I've concocted, and that's doing really well. Maybe it's finally time to try making a loaf of bread? So yeah: I should get to it. Honestly, there is no shortage of (personally) worthwhile things I could be doing.

Okay. That was a good pep talk, which I'm putting out here for all the world (or at any rate, my six followers) to see.

But I'm still interested in psylocibin . . . Or what the heck, maybe Icelandic horses.

Or both!

But not at once.

Paul Klee's cats

I first saw Paul Klee's (1879–1940) paintings in person at the art museum in Cleveland. Oh, they were entrancing! I don't recall seeing cat paintings per se there, but today I ran into one on FB (I should just call this blog "My Facebook Encounters," shouldn't I?), and that got me looking for more of his work. And what I happened upon was his cats, and so yes, I just kept going down that rabbit (not cat!) hole. And here is some of what I found.

Cat Staring at the Moon, c. 1920

A Kind of Cat, 1937

Brocard Katze sich leckend, 1905

Tom Cat's Turf, 1919

Cat and Bird, 1928

Where this post started:
The Mountain of the Sacred Cat, 1923

Paul Klee, his wife Lily, and their cat Bimbo

Depression tips

I get down sometimes. I imagine we all do. A friend posted these tips on FB, and I think they make for a lot of good pointers. So I thought I'd keep 'em here.

• Shower. Not a bath, a shower. Use water as hot or cold as you like. You don’t even need to wash. Just get in under the water and let it run over you for a while. Sit on the floor if you gotta.
• Moisturize everything. Use whatever lotion you like. Unscented? Poundland lotion? Fancy 48-hour lotion that makes you smell like a field of wildflowers? Use whatever you want, and use it all over your entire dermis. 
• Put on clean, comfortable clothes. 
• Put on your favorite underwear. Those boxers that are so comfortable and worn out? Cute black lacy panties? Those ridiculous briefs you bought last Christmas with pink love hearts on the butt? Put them on.
• Drink cold water. Use ice. If you want, add some mint or lemon for an extra boost. 
• Clean something. Doesn’t have to be anything big. Organize one drawer of a desk. Wash five dirty dishes. Do a load of laundry. Scrub the bathroom sink. 
• Blast music. Listen to something upbeat and dancey and loud, something that’s got lots of energy. Sing to it, dance to it, even if you suck at both.
• Make food. Don’t just grab a Kit Kat bar to munch. Take the time and make food. Even if it’s beans on toast. Add something special to it, like a soft boiled egg or some veggies. Prepare food, it tastes way better, and you’ll feel like you accomplished something.
• Make something. Write a short story or a poem, draw a picture, color a picture, fold origami, crochet or knit, sculpt something out of clay, anything artistic. Even if you don’t think you’re good at it. Create. 
• Go outside. Take a walk. Sit in the grass. Look at the clouds. Smell flowers. Put your hands in the dirt and feel the soil against your skin.
• Call someone. Call a loved one, a friend, a family member, call a chat service if you have no one else to call. Talk to a stranger on the street. Have a conversation and listen to someone’s voice. If you can’t bring yourself to call, text or email or whatever, just have some social interaction with another person. Even if you don’t say much, listen to them. It helps. 
• Cuddle your pets if you have them/can cuddle them. Take pictures of them. Talk to them. Tell them how you feel, about your favorite movie, a new game coming out, anything. 

May seem small or silly to some, but this list keeps people alive. 

 

*** At your absolute best you won’t be good enough for the wrong people. But at your worst, you’ll still be worth it to the right ones. Remember that. Keep holding on. 

 

*** In case nobody has told you today I love you and you are worth your weight and then some in gold, so be kind to yourself, and most of all, keep pushing on.

 

There is always something to be grateful for. Find it and hold it in your thoughts.