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Love is …
Remember that 1970s back-of-the-newspaper, black and white simple line-drawn “cartoon”?
That’s what I’m thinking about while I’m thinking about the trauma of the last week and the national politics of the forthcoming.
What is love? And how can love sustain us during dark and unpredictable times?
The Future on this cloudless sky Monday along Central California’s coast is stingy, crusty-eyed, headache-swollen, sucky, but we know how the Hallmark slogan goes, “It will get better.” Of course—it might. Out of ashes, you know the cliché. But today, while there’s certainly hope and all the fairy dust quotes-of-the-day, The Future seems uncertain. Our hearts are heavy, bruised, bloody, and if it weren’t for Dry January, we might very well be sitting at a bar drowning our sorrows. … At least those of us who live in heavy-heart Southern California. … At least those of us who care about the environment and how we’ve ignored the naysayer warnings. … At least those of us who don’t eat animals, pick up trash around the campground, try to avoid non-essential buying, drive only when necessary, eat mostly the entirety of the food we buy, heeding our mother’s warning—-waste not, want not.
But today, less than a week after the fires were most likely set by some looney toon, politically-inspired arsonist here in Southern California, life doesn’t feel like Annie the Musical.
Especially today.
A few hours ago, my dog died.
She outlived her vet’s predictions by about 16 months. She stood up, peed, ate breakfast, nuzzled with her dad, stumbled on her way back to her cozy bed and fell asleep forever.
I’ve been crying for a while now. Grief and gratitude are the opposite of numbing. You feel everything and long to talk it out with someone who understands, then flip to leave me alone, I need to work this out by myself.
That’s where I’m at.
Yet, I need to tell you about my lost girl, Monet.
Born into a litter of pups destined to be Temecula meth guard dogs, she was rescued by Cary Grant’s former daughter-in-law, and adopted by us 16 years ago following the early death of our white lab, Bailey. To look at this poorly photographed misfit on the website, honestly, she looked like trouble. Freckled with Dalmatian black spots and A-frame ears the color of soot, her given name was Cookie, and she looked like a dog who sifted through trash heaps. But my youngest daughter was insistent that we didn’t allow first impressions to negate a possible match.
I was skeptical when she came to our beachside home and fully rehearsed ways to say, “No way,” but when the rescue concierge placed her in my arms, I instantly knew we meant to be together. The next day, when she jumped into our lily pond and her tail dipped into the water bowl, she was christened an esteemed name, Monet. She had an artist’s soul.
Monet was fiercely loyal, to a point that not everyone understood her and her growling protective teeth and snarling bark. She was a Blue Heeler, a cattle dog, whose DNA made her smart, tenacious, keenly sensitive of her surroundings and those who wished to do us harm, supremely coachable and a whole bunch of fun. Her herding instincts were natural and we were so proud of her athleticism at the beach, dog park, wherever we’d unleash her, “Go Monet, Go!”
She was healthy her entire life up until the moment the vet, here in Cambria, discovered tumors in her internal organs. Her prognosis wasn’t good and the vet gave her just a few months to live or a few more if she had surgery which, she said, was risky. I didn’t want to put her through the ordeal and elected not to have surgery, especially since she was nervous around strangers. Monet trusted few people. On top of her most-trusted list were my ex-husband, Bruce, myself, and our grandson, Bronson, who understood and loved her quirky, sometimes scary, mannerisms.
I dread calling him this afternoon and telling him the news.
So here I sit, with the grief, with the love, with my art materials, in the sun, overlooking the ocean, far away from the embers, far away from the apartment where she was given the injection that sent her to heaven, with my heart heavy, with my life, filled with the wisdom of Monet.
Our beloved dog taught us to live in the moment. Be there for each other. Push through it, no matter how grueling and painful it may be. Have a purpose. That last one, I’m convinced that’s why Monet lived long past her vet’s predictions. Every day she woke up with pain, but she set that aside to serve her person, Bruce.
In August 2023, when it was clear Monet was no longer well enough to accompany me on my vanlife travels, Bruce, whose left leg was amputated, welcomed our girl into his pet-friendly apartment. She hadn’t lived with him or seen him for a year as his housing situation was uncertain, but the two of them picked up where they left off—best, best buddies. Long before I sold my house and Bruce and I went our separate ways, Monet favored him. He stayed at home while I worked, and they were the best of friends. Then, as he recovered and she coped with her physical limitations, they became each other’s reason for getting up in the morning, taking a walk, socializing, planning out the day with each other’s needs in mind.
The only reason I had the heart to leave her and travel is that I knew she’d be safe and loved.
Without any agenda, Monet nudged Bruce toward mental and physical health, got him out of his depression, his wheelchair, and literally back on his right foot and left prosthetic. As recently as yesterday, the two of them went on a short walk down the hallway to greet fellow dog-loving neighbors. Bruce and Monet had a purpose.
Yesterday, while she rested and was in a coma-like trance, we Face Timed for the last time: I told her how much I loved her and all the tearful things you say to a parting loved one. But it was Bruce who gave her her last cuddle and told her, “It’s OK, Monet, you can go. I’ll be fine.”
As the home vet injected morphine into Monet, placing her into a calm and peaceful state of being, I walked along her favorite beach, we dubbed “Monet’s Beach”, thanking God, asking Him to cuddle her and reassure her that we’ll all be together again one day, and expressed gratitude for 16 years of love.
Being at our favorite place, watching the waves, hearing the seagulls, feeling the warmth of the sun on a chilly morning, I knew I’d get a sign that she passed. As I gazed at the azure sea, imagining Monet leap into the foam, a fawn-colored dog walked up to me, nuzzled my right hand, looked up, then nudged me to pet her around the ears like I used to do to Monet.
“I am here,” whispered Monet, “I will always be here.”
Today, as the angels lifted our girl into the cloudless sky, our dear Monet shed her new red collar, her matching leash and the pain that once inhabited her ailing, restrictive body, then just like the seagulls she was fond of chasing, our sweet girl spread her wings and returned to where it all began.
Simplicity vs. Elaboration
I’m leaving. Again. I’m melancholy. Again. I don’t want to leave. Again. But I do. Again and again.
Everywhere I leave I love. Same goes for the people I leave. Like my visit with Julie and Ken two days ago or my Littles in New York or The Big Kids in Southern California or my amigas, three nieces in Oregon, even my newly acquired campground neighbors, a couple from Canada, the other, a solo female from Northern California. I long to stay and stay and stay and saturate myself in all, and whom, I love until I’m done. But I never am.
Most little kids don’t leave. They stay. They hang out with their families, surround themselves with toys and friends and favorite everything’s. At about 18 when they leave the nest and go to college, the dissolution begins. Home is no longer the same. Change, evolution, moving on and moving forward propels the crumble. Eventually, we get used to it. We take a tube of glue, pick up the pieces and puzzle -together the most puzzling stories, incidents, highs and lows, ins and outs, backwards and forwards of life. Some of us, if we’re lucky, get to examine the pieces—-some of which are salvageable, others smashed into dust—-then place our Self-Healing Projects on a shelf, take them down, re-examine, then rethink the odd contortions and like Disney Imagineers, reinvent ourselves. That’s what I’m in the process of doing: Act III: What to keep? What to toss? The Gail Sheehy “Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life” Stage. The last and only time I read Sheehy’s book was something like 40 years ago when the notion of one day being 68 years old was incomprehensible. But when it comes down to it, we’re all pretty predictable.
For instance, when we get older, like I am, we begin to take stock and strip down our lives into Need vs. Want columns. My priorities are clear:
Need: Health, food, shelter, clothes, family and friends, being in Nature, quietude, writing and art materials, music
Want: Family and friends’ health and happiness, limitless funds, a kinder society that values Mother Earth and all her inhabitants, a world that celebrates innovation and creativity and supports those who struggle, the opportunity for everyone to discover their passion and have the ability to pursue it, an acceptance and appreciation of others’ differences, access to exceptional and diverse educational paths, hope that tomorrow will be better than today, especially for our children and theirs
Simplicity vs. Elaboration. Ideals that consume my thoughts vs. basics I take for granted.
But shouldn’t.
Every day, especially when I’m away from the fray, I’m reminded of my abundant blessings. The woman I’m camped next to at my current campground, Pismo State Beach, recently completed chemotherapy treatments following an aggressive breast cancer discovery. She was living her life as all of us, working hard as a school psychologist in the Sacramento area, when she felt a lump on her right breast and in her armpit; in that moment, her entire life changed. The doctors told her the triple negative form of cancer was likely caused by something environmental or stress.
“I’m pretty sure it was stress,” she said, then shared with me the trauma of growing up in Ukraine before immigrating to America, learning a new language, going back to college, divorcing an abusive husband, raising two children, one of whom has bipolar.
” She refuses to take medicine. She says she’s going to kill me.”
“I can’t imagine,” I say, choking up.
“It’s OK,” she says. “Today I’m her enemy, tomorrow, who knows?”Numerous times, she continued, she’s woken up with her daughter’s face glaring at her. “Once, she had her hands around my neck.”
“What advice would you give yourself if you were a patient?” I asked my new friend.
“I can’t do that,” she said. “I’m too close to it.”
Last year, she continued, her daughter went to prison for burglarizing a neighbor’s apartment. “I don’t believe it happened. The guy was pissed off. He set her up.”
Frankie refuses to take medicine. She gets paranoid and screams all night. “That’s why the guy called the police,” she said, “to get her kicked out.”
One of the conditions of Frankie’s release from prison was that lived in a monitored facility. “She’s my daughter, I can’t throw her away. I had to bring her back home.”
“You’ve been through so much,” I said, holding her hand. “How do you take care of yourself?”
“I’m doing it right now,” she said. “This van is my escape, my freedom. Being in Nature is my therapy.”
“Me too,” I said, as we changed subjects marveling over the glorious weather and bounty of clams she gathered the night before.
Like Natasha, whom I have so much compassion and empathy for, I, too, am on a quest for peace as I pull back, pull away, get cozy with myself and love the person God made me to be as I examine my mistakes and missteps and celebrate 68 years of life.
I want to go back. Not just to the places I love, but to the wee girl I once was, the tanned, pigtailed child who danced under the stars and sang to the drum beat of a song she made up about gratitude and love. Not just in Nature. Not only when I’m camping. But in her own backyard. If she still had one.
And that is the beauty of life on the road: everywhere you set out the camp chair is yours for the time you’ve claimed. Travelers, we all are. We just don’t know it.
I hope to see Natasha again one day, give her a hug, and go for a stroll along Pismo’s forever beach. In the meantime, we remain in touch via text, encouraging one another, “Thinking of you this day. Hope you’re doing something positive for yourself. You are in my thoughts and prayers.”
Postscript: I wrote this essay in mid December and finally had a moment to post 24 hours after the January 7, 2025 Southern California inferno. I have read and responded to some truly demented souls’ comments that “weirdo” California and “Hollyweird” in particular “deserves” God’s wrath of fire and destruction. The cruelty, pure evil expressed by these troubled individuals is unbelievable, yet again, I suppose, it’s not surprising given our present-day politics of hate. We have to do more than shake our collective heads in disgust: We have to shut it down. Immediately. Hate has no place in an America we love. As my fellow Christians are fond of saying, “What would Jesus do?” I suspect He’d have zero tolerance for the haters; He’d be a vessel of compassion and love; instead of pushing people down in their time of need, He’d lift them up. As we all should, every day, whether we’re in the midst of a crisis or not.
Trust The Women
For all the years I’ve been visiting my daughter, I rarely explore The City solo. That’s the best way to learn, when you have to figure it out by yourself. Like learning a language, when all roads lead back to you, you eventually get hip. Or not.
I’m sitting on a metal, sage green chair outside Le Pain ex in Columbus Circle, Manhattan, waiting for my daughter to get off work. Her school’s about a 20-minute walk from here, but for me, the forever tourist and lame Google Maps reader, I’ve been strolling for about three hours, not on purpose, but because even with technology I’m NYC directionally-challenged. Fortunately, blessedly, I’m not on-the-clock so getting lost doesn’t matter, but one day it would actually be nice to walk less and get-to-my destination more efficiently.
I read on my Apple news feed today that we have about 40% control over developing Alzheimer’s and dementia. Healthy diet, exercise, limit alcohol to four drinks a week, and learning new things every day, like negotiating The Big Apple on foot. The glass half full part of my afternoon of walking is that I logged-in 10 miles and I DID get to the place I wanted to get to and now I’m treating myself to a superb aux pan raisin and small latte. Magnificent! “The best I’ve ever had,” the New York Explorer declared.
Today’s adventure is courtesy of my desire to push my boundaries and also have a quick lunch with my daughter. I took the E train from Forest Hills to 53rd Street, changed the train I was told to board by my knowledgeable daughter, but because I didn’t know which side of the tracks I was supposed to go on because they were both Manhattan-bound. I asked two people for help: a kind woman said to go on the opposite side of the track and the guy who was cleaning the train told me the E train, the one he was cleaning. “It’s faster. Get off on 53rd Street,” he said.
I followed the guy’s suggestion because, after all, he worked for Metro, but the mix-up completely threw me off the directions and sights I was used to. The good news is it all worked out in the end, but my lesson is to give myself more travel time because stuff like getting lost happens more times than I care to admit. And——trust The Women.
* * *
I don’t tire of NYC, this hyper stimulation, hustle bustle city. I mean, how could you, especially during the holidays when everything is festive and over the top? Sitting here is the best place to people-watch and eavesdrop conversations, like I’m doing right now. Next to me, a couple of early 20-somethings are chatting about holiday plans, spicing up their discussion with plentiful F-bombs. Most pedestrians are wearing black overcoats, sneakers and have that New York don’t-mess-with-me scowl across their face. Those in colorful attire, particularly cheerful, hold yellow bags from the M&M store are obviously tourists, like me.
I like black, always a sophisticated choice, but it’s just not Aloha me.
*. *. *
Back at the homestead—a shrunken three-bedroom apartment filled with five adults, three children under four, a big dog and persnickety long-hair cat—it’s transformed into a medical ward with kids throwing up, yelling, screaming, crying, running, teasing Grandma, painting, reading, cooking, laundering, waking up from naps, fighting sleep, getting fevers, coughing, runny-nosing, Play-doughing, truck-driving, Moana-ing, Pink Pony Club-dancing, in other words, a pina colada frothy high speed blender concoction called Life With the Kwoks. It is that time, their time, when little kids NEED everything everywhere all at once and until some clever person invents slip-on octopus hands so parents like my daughter and her husband can solve all the little kid crisis’ at the same time, well, thank God for live-in and traveling grandparents who can pitch-in and take some of the pressure off.
Yep, there’s a lot going on inside the rockn’ sockn’ brick apartment on Fleet Street, more than this solitude-seeking grandma has the stamina for at the end of a long and boisterous day when I crave sleep but just can’t seem to settle down. What’s up with that?
When it’s over, when I’m gone or even mulling over the thought of my last day in New York, I become ridiculously sentimental, longing for the chaos of my Littles and their Big Apple world. So, I adjust. Sink in. Plant my slippered feet. Snap photos. Dance to the crazy tunes, and sway to the sweetness of their tiny, changing voices because this view, this magical, imaginative time, this day sitting outside on a Fall afternoon, sipping a latte, eating a pastry, watching the Christmas lights Disneyfy Columbus Circle, is fleeting.
Take it all in, I remind myself. The discomfort. The predictability. The disorder. The drama and fun. For this is the pure, genuine, manifestation of love. It all is, really. Sitting at a coffee shop sipping on a latte. The rain. The cold. The sun and wind. The arguments and misunderstandings that bring you to a closer reckoning—forgiveness—of others’ flaws, and your own. The magic of getting lost and not worrying, knowing that you’ll eventually figure it out and if you don’t, there’s someone out there who will help you, who will understand.
And yet we do
It’s 5:50 a.m. and I’ve had another rough “sleep”. One of the babies woke up, then fell back to slumber and I figured it was as good a time as ever to rise and shine and make a cup of tea and align myself for the day with a bit of writing which I haven’t done for far too long.
I just feel better when I write. It’s like stepping into a hot tub out in Nature, all by myself, cloaked by the rising sun, the chirping birds, the dewy trees and the brisk chill of hope.
I’m back in New York with my daughter and her family: a lab-ish black dog, Charlie, Cat Bus the hairy, snarly feline, almost one Boden, almost three Hudson, securely four Millie, her parents and in-laws who moved from Hong Kong to care for the brood. I got here to watch the kiddos trick-or-treat, my daughter run the NYC Marathon, then flew back to L.A. to help out and attend my eldest grandson’s Bar Mitzvah, jumped on a plane back to The Big Apple to go to a concert with my daughter, and will remain here to celebrate my two Littles’ birthdays, one of which falls on Thanksgiving. I’ll stay a few days beyond (when the fares drop significantly) then stop by to see hello to my L.A. peeps before taking off on a two-week, pre Christmas camping trip to the beach.
I’m living the life I dreamed of having a perfect combination of flexibility and adventures, re-connections and peace.
Like this moment.
It’s worth “just getting up” even when you’re tired to embrace moments like this. I remember going-with-the-exhaustion-flow when I was a new parent and tried to sneak-in a few moments to myself before the rest of the crew woke up. And here I am again, in a busy, exhausting, household of constant triumphs and defeats, chronic runny noses and give-and-take negotiations. I sleep on a fold-out bed in the living room better suited for a college student than a creaky bones grandma. I’ve taken to the couch the last few nights because of the cushion, the give, that better adapts to the aches of an arthritic lower back and neck.
It’s a fact when I visit the East Coast and my daughter’s zany, loving, family: I don’t sleep. I don’t have privacy. I don’t have many minutes to myself. But I do have this rock star status called L-O-V-E by these baby children who adore their grandma, and vice versa, which mostly zeroes-out the physical discomfort. Every morning, as in a few minutes from now, the babies bounce out of bed, one of them grumpy, crying, craving more sleep, and runs down the hall, jumps on top of me and gives me the biggest tears-producing hug and smile. For them, for me, I suck it up buttercup and sideline the aches and pains so I can be in-the-moment totally in love. And I am. It’s like a box of new, vibrant watercolors, like the briskness of a teeming spring stream, like the view from the top of a mountain after a long, strenuous hike. This pure love thing is intoxicating.
As Tim Waltz, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee often said, “I can sleep when I’m dead.” So instead of napping, reading, drifting, squirreling away daylight capsules of solitude, I drop everything when I see them, open my arms and hug them for as long as they’ll endure my snuggles.
Yes, there are plenty of other people, world and national calamities that are concerning and consuming. But hanging out with little kids is a reality check, a reminder of what really matters in life.
So as I sip the last drops of honey-sweetened Yorkshire Gold tea, treasuring the lingering warmth as it coats my dry, sore throat, I am reminded of the fleeting nature of every precious second, how we don’t know what’s around the corner, and yet we do.
Hurts Like Hell
The flight home from New York this morning post-election is grey and quiet. I swear, it’s not my imagination, but no woman I’ve encountered is smiling. Our faces are flat, expressionless, guarded—-traumatized.
When we cautiously acknowledge one another, seeking those who understand, our eyes become glassy, then revert to caged, protective glances.
I can’t help myself and speak out loud to a 30-something African American woman, “I hope coffee wakes me up after a tormented, sleepless night.” “Same,” she says, as we look around to make sure we’re “safe” waiting in line at JFK’s Terminal 5 Starbucks, before launching a conversation about last night’s travesty.
“I’m so proud of Kamala,” I say. Her face studies mine. “Yes, we’re going to look back and say, ‘We should have done this or that,’ but look what she did in such a short time. She was—is—amazing!”
She agreed. “Maybe there’s something bigger going on, something beyond our control.”
“Maybe,” I consider.
“Maybe the bad thing has to happen,” she continues.
Since I’d just spent a week with little tots, I said, “You mean like the little kid you warn not to climb on the shelves, but does so anyway, then falls and gets hurt, does it again, gets really hurt, then learns for himself that climbing an unstable structure is unsafe?”
“Yes,” she said, before leaning over and giving me a long and sincere hug, “kind of like that.”
“God is with us,” she assured.
“I sure hope so.”
I suspect that half of the country needs a hug today. Not because we lost. But because half of our brothers and sisters failed to listen to the warnings. Our friends, neighbors, family members closed their ears and hearts to the hatred, fear mongering and allowed themselves to be deceived.
Today feels like a betrayal, like a slap in the face, like an episode from “A Handmaid’s Tale.” Here we are, women, being disrespected again, being told how to live, how being a feminist is the ruination of America, how powerful women are a threat, how strong Black women have no business at the top.
That sprayed-on orange tan man told American women that WE were stupid, shitty, fake, hookers, in need of protection, unworthy and incapable of making our own decisions about our health, our lives, our future.
That’s what hurts the most. More than half of the people we sit next to on the train, shop alongside with at the grocery store, order take-out from, raise our children and grandchildren with, agreed with him.
Women got punched in the gut.
But we’re tough, unfortunately, we’re used to it. Just know, it’s not going to stop us. Tuesday’s election results will make us stronger.
But today, and probably tomorrow and the next day, it’s gonna hurt like hell.
We’ll wallow, feel like crap, have a second and maybe third drink with our tribe. We’ll cry, feel the feelings, the disappointment, get angry, and maybe repeat the cycle until we get up, brush off, and get back to The Work.
Clearly, something isn’t clicking.
The values, character, honesty, respect—integrity—-instilled in many of us have gone missing. Martin Luther King, Jr. Barack Obama. Michelle. Hillary. Oprah. The smart, strong, articulate, hard-working, intelligent examples of The Best in America couldn’t compete with the propaganda of MAGA.
We’re bruised, sad. But rest assured, we will NOT be silenced. We will rise. We WILL be better.
Just not today.
Seasons Change and So Do I
It doesn’t always end like this. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Sunny skies. Cool, light breeze. Crows cawing. Sparrows singing. The ocean tumbling, tumbling, tumbling despite the Nation’s troubling political cliffhanger. But today, as I leave to return to my Southern California peeps, it is perfect, which makes it doubly hard to leave.
Often times when I leave Cambria the weather has been gloomy or foggy which is my “sign” it’s time to say goodbye. But today’s perfect conditions are just cruel.
See, the thing I’ve discovered is there’s never enough time. I know that sounds crazy given I’ve been on the road for more than two months, but it’s true. When you like something, when you love someone, there’s never enough time to saturate, luxuriate, in their being, in their essence. I’ve written about this before, but I am sure this applies to one’s life span; there’s never enough time to enjoy, have fun, play and love freely, fully, with no regard to finger-wagging naysayers and critics.
This is my goal as I close the book on the Sisterhood of the Traveling Fall Wardrobe Sojourn of 2024:
Every day I dance.
Every day I sing.
Every day (for the last three) I play the ukelele.
Every day (mostly) I create art.
Every day I write.
Every day and night I drum my drum.
Every day I smile.
Every day I try to be kind to someone.
Every day I talk to animals.
Every day I sit outside.
Every day I go for a walk.
Every day I look at the sky or the stars and say, “Thank you.”
Every day I’m going to get a bit silly.
I can do these things anywhere, not just when I camp.
The deal is outside Nature’s chapel, my rituals can look and sound silly to others. Oh well. It’s the new, Behave as if… , me.
As I sit here in the sun, calm, grateful, taking my sweet, absorbing time as I prepare to pack up the bike, camp chair and outdoor rug, I accept the fact that my renewed spirit will be tested. Did anyone hear of L.A. traffic? But I’m going to tap into my tricks of the trade to re-align myself.
Remember, remember, who you are no matter where you are, the ocean whispers.
Isn’t it strange how sometimes it feels like you can be yourself when you aren’t with those who think they know you best? Here’s a thought: What if we let each other be our authentic selves no matter what? What about keeping your opinions, your advice, to yourself—unless specifically asked? What about trying to be positive and supportive even if you don’t agree with someone’s decisions or candidate of choice? How about we all try, really hard, to be kind? Especially now. What if we bite our tongue and channel our higher selves?
Just saying, I’m done being the changer. I’m the changee,.
I need only worry about the changes I need to make in myself. That’s a big enough job to keep me occupied for the rest of my life.
When you’re a toddler, in elementary and middle school, and throughout adolescence, we go through profound physical and mental growth spurts. Why didn’t anyone tell us that the same can be true in our senior years? It may not look like it from the outside, but man oh man, this getting old rocks.
Nothing is an Accident
I’ve been traveling since August 8, returning to the South Bay briefly to attend my friend’s funeral. I won’t be back to my home turf until October 18 where I’ll visit, errand, and reconnect with family and friends before leaving on my Fall Sojourn Part II to New York where I’ll reside with my daughter and her family for a month. I little here, a little there, a patchwork quilt of life in my senior years.
I like this chapter. A lot.
Currently, I’m settled in an epic Eastern Sierra campground for two weeks, observing Robinson Creek babble and burp as a traveling circus of woodland creatures seek sustenance and pleasure from her ancient and youthful freshwater artery. I’ve found a corner of the world I could nest in for a season. Alas, residency is limited to weeks, not months, of which I am blessed to have secured the best site at the Twin Lakes Forest Service Campground at the senior discounted price of $17 a night. Such a deal!
I had reserved other campgrounds, fearing this one would be closing today, but beautiful Fall weather extended this slice of heaven for a week longer. So, no brainer, I decided to stay until the camp host, Bill, locks the gate until Spring of 2025.
I love staying put for a while. It gives me a chance to understand a place in a deeper way than one night here and one night there stopovers. Being a tourist is fun, but it’s also draining. You can say, “I visited Southern Oregon and dig it,” but you never really get close enough to feel the pulse of a community if you remain in tourist mode.
Those of us who’ve had the privilege to reside in one setting for a fortnight get to experience that soulful relaxation we all need to restore ourselves. Especially now. Everyone knows it, ESPECIALLY pre-election NOW. Being in the mountains, in the forest, sitting alongside a creek, drinking coffee, journaling, singing, dancing, creating art, reading, visiting with camp neighbors, is soft and stimulating at the same time. Add in the mildest Sierra Nevada October I’ve ever experienced, and you’re talking—-transformational.
Just what the doctor ordered for this old gal.
And the people, the people I’ve met have been almost like angels.
Stephanie, a 44-year-old solo female traveler, quit her job as an 8th grade English Language Arts teacher, and separated from her husband of more than 20 years to re-connect with her roots, her origins. A former resident of South Pasadena, she’s on a year-long sojourn connecting with the seasons and her feminine energy. Stephanie is beautiful and cool, open-hearted and aligned with truths someone much her senior—like me, for instance—is in the process of figuring out. Listening to her wisdom and kindness, I felt like a student as she shared some challenging twists and turns of life that led her to her current scary (aka no income) and exciting new venture. She doesn’t know what’s next, yet she knows.
She and a fellow traveler she met, Shannon, became instant best friends after meeting at the nearby hot springs. “Nothing is an accident,” Stephanie assured me, including “meeting you.” Together, they laughed and danced, sang out loud, jumped in the cold lake and creek, as they became sisters, instant best friends, and then, a day ago, they departed, Shannon back to her job in the Bay Area and Stephanie to a gathering of fellow adventurers at Joshua Tree National Park.
On a star-filled night, Stephanie and I had a wine and cheese tasting party along Robinson Creek. She shared her story, and I shared a sliver of mine. We spoke about teaching, the complications of marriage, books and various writing projects we are both pursing. I was struck by Stephanie’s open heart and intrigued by rituals she has embraced to refocus and re-channel the next chapter of her life.
Sorry if I get the facts a bit wonky here, but during a shaman-guided meditation, Stephanie had a dream/vision in which she imagined herself riding alongside a luminous whale in a sea of silver stars. The experience, she said, smiling, was comforting, giving her a sense that life, despite its challenges, was going to work out and she was going to be nurtured and well taken care of.
Not long after her spiritual experience, she was “out of the blue” invited to go on a women-only excursion to Fiji to swim with humpback whales. “Seeing their eyes, being in their presence, was life-changing,” she said, explaining that she learned not to allow fear to navigate her decisions, to trust that life is unfolding exactly as it should, and not worry as much.
Which is why she encouraged me to visit the hot springs sans clothing.
“I had never done anything like this before,” she assured me, “but it is grounding, life affirming.”
And then she shared a phrase that she’s recently adopted: “Behave as if….”
“You get to fill in the blanks,” she explained. Behave as if you always skinny-dip in the hot springs, no big deal. Behave as if you are supposed to get exactly the right campsite. Behave as if your voice is beautiful.
You get the idea.
Behave as if….
If I behave as if I’m unworthy or shy, then that is what I am. If I behave as if I’m not entitled to love and happiness, that’s what I get.
I don’t know about you, but this advice was kind of revolutionary to me.
***
A few moments ago, a senior citizen, hand-holding couple stood next to my camp chair in awe of the beauty and we began talking about where we were from, they’re from Temecula, and various superficial topics, before the conversation changed.
Don, a former prison counselor, said, “What you see is what you attract” and other metaphysical statements I wish I’d had my journal to write down. He and his wife have a belief in helping others lift themselves up but not allowing them to pull you down.
“Whatever happens, say ‘Thank you’ because we’re being led in a direction. There’s something important we’re supposed to learn,” Don said.
“There are no accidents,” his wife, Janice, added. “We met you today for a reason.”
They may be gone tomorrow, like Stephanie and Shannon, and all the other souls I’ve met along this two-month journey, but our brief encounters have been meaningful, dare I say magical, wise, and there’s that word again reassuring. Like the changing weather and the florescent Fall landscape I’m surrounded by, I’ve accepted the half-dozen strangers I’ve met as passing angels, figmentations, fleeting moments, conversations, threads, helping me to piece together a calico quilt of meaning and purpose. What will become of all of it, of me, of you, of the world, as we wait to see if the America we love will turn in the direction we favor or not ?
My current experience suggests the following: We must be rooted, grounded, in truth and our own sensibilities about what makes sense to our heart and mind. We can’t allow ourselves to be deceived, for we know what is right. When a passerby shares a truth, challenges a prescription that no longer works or makes sense, we can consider, possibly shift, change courses and follow the direction we’re being led, where we’ve always been led, that probably has nothing to do with TV “news” or social media. We know what is right and just. We need to have the courage to step into the hot springs naked or not.
Postscript: I never did make it to the hot springs, but not for a lack of trying. Folks, I was going to get naked. So there. But my van, Boonie Doon, was just too low to the ground to risk the pot hole erratic, one lane dirt road leading to the springs. That’s OK because I bathed in the cool creek with my American dipper and Kingfisher bird friends and Mr. or Ms. Rainbow Trout who kindly refrained from commenting.
Postscript II: Call me crazy or not, but I saw a forest apparition. After almost two weeks staring, analyzing, reveling at the gold and crimson-sequined leaf transformation along the creek, I noticed a tree I’d never seen before shaped like an adobe statue of a Native woman. Her sienna arms were extended beyond the water as if reassuring the forest that she would protect them. The humans would be gone soon enough, October 13, when the campground closed for the season. Her presence, the gift of seeing her, made me emotional, grateful, and I was compelled to journal about my sighting.
When I was done, I closed my eyes and pounded a rhythm on my chair and sang a little song I made up, “I am grateful, I am loved.”
When I opened my eyes and looked to the East where Forest Protector stood, she was gone. There was nothing, I mean nothing that even came close to what I’d just seen. Her stately, sturdy stature had been replaced by two slender young lodgepole pines.
Aww, I knew—accepted—what had happened: Forest Protector was my humpback whale, a vision, a reminder of the seen and unseen both in the stillness of my heart and the boldness of Nature’s ever-changing cathedral.
Another gift.
Another reminder
. . . to trust, to believe, in the wonders, in the whispers, in the brushstrokes of the forest, the ocean, desert and the beauty of our own backyards and balconies.
Another reason to be thankful.
“I am grateful. I am loved,” I belted out to the setting sun.
Friendship
At a back to school-type assembly at his private school in Pacific Palisades, my nephew was asked to publicly proclaim to classmates and the well-heeled adults gathered in the auditorium his goal for third grade: I want to make good friends.
D is the most brilliant human I’ve ever known, with a heart as big as the moon (a gazing at, swapping photos of, fascination with, hobby we both share). We like to stare. We like to think. We like to document and better understand each phase of the moon. His favorite phase is skinny and new, mine is full and plump. All of D’s insights, including what will one day be his doctoral of all-things-moon-related, are fresh and original, while in comparison, mine seem recycled.
We share so many bonds, D and I, but mostly, we just like hanging out together. It makes us feel, somehow, safe. Mind you, he’s never actually articulated those exact words to me, but I know he knows how deeply I love him and vice versa.
I’m thinking about D and what he shared with his peers—who conversely offered lofty academic goals such as improving math and reading skills—and how brave it was of him to be so vulnerable. My nephew’s simple, yet profound words are a reminder of what really matters in life: family and those we welcome into our sacred tribe.
Like most of us, D longs for a best buddy, someone who “gets” him and his ever-evolving obsessions like world geography, aircraft and airports, marble runs, prime numbers, multiplication, hiking with his dad, his new puppy, Indy, and basketball. He has an amazing life and equally amazing, supportive parents, a loving little brother, but he’s missing that special out-of-network person who never gives up on him no matter what, who listens, challenges, and accepts and loves him as he is.
My mom used to say, “You’ll be lucky in life if you have as many friends as you have fingers on your hand.” Like much of the wisdom she tried to impart, as a high school cheerleader and at the top of my “popularity” game, I poo-pooed Mom’s notion only to realize after graduation how right she’d been.
At 23 as a single parent of two in children, working full-time and finishing my bachelor’s degree, most of my friends and I were on radically different trajectories. I was in survival mode and my babies, not my friends, became my priority.
Admittedly, I was a lousy friend. Fortunately, a few of my high school besties hung in there and refused to give up on me.
As Mom said, I’ve been blessed to have a handful of lifelong friends. Despite lost gaps of time, their friendship remains just as deep and pure, maybe even more so, because we’ve waded through the mud and got to the other side. The wrinkles are real, as is the pain and the joy and excitement of life yet to come. At this stage of the game, we have no reason to be fake and pretend. We are who we are. Isn’t that just grand?
This summer, I was blessed to hang out with six friends: My dear Julie in Atascadero, Esther in Redondo Beach, Gerel in Torrance, Eileen in Lakeport and David and Kristin in Arcata. You may or may not be able to relate to this, but for some reason when I worked I felt like I never had enough time to socialize beyond immediate family. I was preoccupied with teaching—grading, planning—and was legitimately busy. But I also suffered from thinking that my home wasn’t nice enough to invite friends over. What a knucklehead! My life would have been so much richer and more balanced had I made an effort. The death of my friend, Diane, is a sobering reminder to live with no regrets, including regrets.
As I travel and watch families and friends enjoying camp life together, I feel such joy for them, but I also wish my amigas could join me on this grand journey exploring Nature.
“You would love it so much here. You could relax. Let go. Breathe. Re-charge. Feel hope,” I text them.
I have yet to camp with friends, but one day I hope to do so. But for now, I’m cherishing my alone time as it gives me time to be still, not have to worry if my camp chums are happy. I mean, I don’t know how they couldn’t be, but their comfort would be ever-present on my mind. That’s another habit I’m trying to break—overthinking and needless overconcern.
“You are such an amazing person. Is it OK if I can be your aunt and friend too?” I’ll ask D before he and his dad’s big hike to Mount Whitney. In the Mammoth bookstore, I gathered some treasures to commemorate D’s spirit of adventure: One of my favorite books by Jean Craighead George, “My Side of the Mountain”, a stack of Sierra Nevada playing cards, a special Mt, Whitney illustration, a Eastern Sierra sticker, and a friendship bracelet.
“True friendship is rare, my mom, your great Auntie Hilda used to say. When you find it, hold onto it as if it were a precious jewel, because it is more valuable than gold.”
One day, some lucky boy(s) or girl(s) will be blessed to be D’s best friend(s). Guaranteed he will love that person(s) to the moon and back and beyond.
If a hand is extended, take it; if I offer mine, please accept it. This very thing happened to me a few days ago when I made a new friend, more than two decades my junior. I followed Mary Oliver’s advice when she wrote, “Don’t Hesitate”:
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Sitting in a poem
Sitting in a poem. I’m shaded beneath a moss-covered maple tree amidst a forest of ancient redwoods. The pebble-strewn creek hiccups chilled, rippling water which vibrates my spine, my left hip, my knee, foot then circles back to my neck which were regrettably injured a few days ago in a rousing basketball game with my nephews and crazy, elderly amigas. Yes, I’m that grandma, the one who thinks she can shoot hoops competitively in Disney Crocs only to save herself from certain bone-snapping doom by clumsily tweaking the left side of her bread-dough body.
Not a pretty sight. But the headline I elect to focus on is: She didn’t fall!
Was it worth it? If I was a true basketball player I’d say, “You betcha.” But given the next day’s re-launch of my Great Fall Sojourn, I’d have to emphatically gesture, arms waving, “No! What were you thinking?” Alas, the old competitive, let’s play ball, be damned, “DANGER! DANGER!” red flag warnings, talk-to-the-hand, desire to have fun with the guys, got the best of me and now I’m paying the price. Now I must rest, can’t ride my bike and be patient while I wait for my body to heal.
But what a place to heal!
I’m at campsite No. 50 next to the creek at Elk Prairie Creek National and State Park, not far from the Oregon border. It’s the fourth time I’ve visited the park which is about a 12-hour-plus drive from the South Bay and like all the other times I’ve been here, I’m fairy-dusted by this enchanted cathedral’s grace, love and acceptance. This West Coast treasure asks nothing of her guests. She doesn’t need to be loved, admired, photographed or engaged with. She simply is—-a living, breathing reminder of the continuity, beauty, challenges, fortitude, strength and adaptation needed to strive and thrive on Planet Earth.
In this Magnificent Forest, I am the taker, the absorber, the grateful human woman privileged enough to be able to rest in Her womb and grow.
Determined to fall
A weather exposed skeleton
Basho
I’m re-dubbing Part Two of my annual van life adventure the Re-set, Re-set, Re-set Great Fall Sojourn because it’s abundantly clear I still have a lot of work to do until I get myself “just right”, as porridge connoisseur Goldilocks would say. Not so long ago, I had students to teach and an old house to restore. These days, devoid of noble distractions, my No. 1 Project is me. I’m on a quest to carve out my decomposing tree trunk to see what’s tucked inside so that I can make better decisions about how I react to the upsets of life.
Frankly, I’m sick of dwelling on conversations and people who think ill of me.
I can trace “that feeling”, understand from a third person perspective, why it is I do what I do and why, when someone misunderstands my sincerity or intention it stings so badly. My history explains why I’m drawn to underdogs and wounded creatures and why it’s so difficult to shake off mean things people say. It also explains why this historically social person craves solitude in her 60s, why I need to get off the train and re-set, re-boot, re-align so I can Teflon-away cruel comments, see my truth mirrored in the creek, the shadowed ferns and grasses, the beginning of existence, the place where it all began:
When I was in the third grade, I felt a longing to go to church; my British parents found a Church of England-ish spiritual home, Christ Episcopal Church in Redondo Beach where I attended Sunday School and studied the ritual of Holy Communion which I mimicked at home using a TV tray altar and Barbie doll and Co. parishioners.
As long as I can remember, I’ve had a desire to be close to God and Nature; when I was in the fifth grade, I asked Mom if I could plan a rare family vacation to Sequoia National Park and she agreed: The experience was life changing. No. 1, my mother’s faith in me made me feel empowered; she trusted me to find lodging, plan sightseeing excursions, create a list of food and clothing necessities, estimate distance and gas prices. At 10, I became a travel agent and event planner, the seeds of which would later show up in various leadership roles I’d assume as a teenager and adult. No. 2, our family excursion was the first time I had ever been to a forest and surrounded by Nature. The smells, textures, vivid colors, the air, and towering, reassuring trees and fern-carpeted pathways, cast a spell on me: I never wanted to leave.
Just like now.
In the forest or by the sea, I can be still, silent, observe, reflect, take-in, release—breathe. No politics. No criticism. Absolute, utter acceptance. The beauty of acceptance.
To be cherished, respected, loved for who you are is the ultimate gift; that’s how I feel, right now as I witness…
A golden leaf
floats
down
from the green sky
transforming,
reshaping,
from parachute
to Communion cup,
adeptly—gymnastically—landing atop a giddy creek
not worrying,
not thinking,
about what used to be,
or what’s to come.
Whenever—whenever—I put my ear to the forest, to the sea, toward the sky, and sit in the poem, I am transformed, renewed be it from mental or physical anguish or as Walt Whitman described Nature’s tonic:
“My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart,
The passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves …”
I am
at one with,
The joy. The pain. The Song of Myself.
The great Mary Oliver, described our relationship with forest best when she wrote “When I Am Among the Trees”:”:
When I am among the trees,
especially the willow and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
Would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
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