Nest of lizards

I'm not quite sure if lizards "nest," but if they do, a family of them has chosen to do so right beside my kitchen door. I notice them regularly as they scamper about, sometimes on the brick path to the backyard, sometimes along the short retaining wall at the foot of my bank.
Right now, as the morning sun begins to break through the fog in its first torch-like efforts toward what promises to be a blistering day, one glances this way as if it knows I am writing about it. It -- I don't know how to determine the gender of lizards, and I'm not much interesting in finding out -- has started doing push-ups, as they often do. This amuses me at the same time that it prompts a whisper of guilt, for it is I who should be doing a fitness regimen.
On a recent day, I noticed a mother and baby -- at least that is how I want to think of the pair, one larger and one smaller -- doing their push-ups in tandem. They provided one of my moments of joy for the day as I observed them. Was it a generational lesson in lizard behavior? Was the baby just doing what comes naturally? Was mother showing a "See what my child can do!" attitude? Were they dancing together to some internal lizard rhythm?
I have begun to regard them as my writing muses. In my imagination, I have thought that a muse would sit on my shoulder and whisper encouragement, wisdom and a stellar command of vocabulary in my ear. For now, however, my inspiration apparently has come in the form of a family of four-legged reptiles.
So be it.

What I Learned at Starbuck's

This morning, in using up the last of my Starbuck's gift card stash (the only way I usually visit this mecca of coffee delight), I stood in line behind a heavyset man waiting as the clerk stuffed a blueberry muffin into a bag to accompany his coffee order.
"They're taxing us to death," he said. "We can barely exist as it is."
He continued on an Obama rant as he informed the clerk about an upcoming speech by our President and disparaged his economic and health care policies.
As he stepped aside, I thought about the irony of his comments. Does "bare existence" include your morning Starbuck's and pastry? Is your visit just this once for a treat to distract you from your "bare existence," or are you a Starbuck's junkie? Maybe you should visit Operation Hope, our local homeless shelter for families, to learn something about "bare existence". And, oh yeah, aren't you wearing a badge that identifies you as an employee at this grocery store? That must mean you have a job.
Before I wallowed too long in this self-righteous mental huff, I realized that he made me abundantly aware of something I am trying to do of late. I am making a conscious effort to pay attention to a line I read in a book: "I have everything I need for joy." I'm focusing on finding and acknowledging that which brings me joy, like my beautiful, sweet cat curled up here by my laptop. She is luxuriating in the machine's warmth and the morning sun coming through the kitchen door.
This precious moment brings me out of my judgment. It makes me aware of having everything I need for right now. I can thank the "barely existing" Starbuck's customer for assisting me in my spiritual quest. I can dismiss my worries about my own financial insecurity and do the footwork I need to do, leaving the outcomes to faith.

Collette: the short version

Collette and my 96-year-old mother have developed a friendship that sustains both of them.

As a beautiful yellow-eyed sable Burmese who knows her job description well, Collette attached herself to Mom in the summer of 2002 after a six-hour drive from California to Arizona in which she vocalized her fear and protest in clear cat language. I had taken her as a gift to Mom, who still mourned the loss of her second husband to cancer and the loss of her Yorkshire terrier, which she had given reluctantly to another owner. Despite the travel trauma, Collette quickly made herself comfortable in her new surroundings, making sure that Mom understood the distinctive Burmese qualities of playfulness, intelligence and undeniable loyalty.

Fast-forwarding seven years, Mom has some decisions to make. As a victim of emphysema and the subsequent susceptibility to pneumonia and bronchitis, she has experienced health complications in recent months. She has refused the option of moving into assisted living because she cannot take Collette, her best friend, with her. Instead, we have arranged for nurses and aides to come into her retirement center home to assist with health care, hygiene and other needs.
She and Collette will continue their daily routines, both depending on one another.

(Note: Collette is the product of Bon Marche' Burmese Cattery in Escondido, CA.)

What? It's mid-May?

I could (and do) beat myself up about lack of commitment and energy. How have five months passed without a visit to this project, which I intended to be a daily (or at least weekly) acknowledgment, reflection, observation, metaphor?

On the other hand, I can (and do) celebrate today and how I can spend it.

I have trouble saying this sentence: "I used to be a teacher."

When I mentioned this to a friend, she said, "You are a teacher; you're just not working at a school right now."

Yes, she speaks a truth. I am a teacher. I often find myself thinking about how I would work a current event into a lesson, how I might compare today's world to the classic literature of yesteryear, how I might reach today's students. I miss that part of my teaching, yet find tremendous relief from the day-to-day tedium and stress I had experienced in the most recent job. Still recovering from the sudden and unjust dismissal curtly handed to me on April 10 (Good Friday), I drift from doldrums to relief to righteous indignation.

Then I receive the gift of vindication. I spend an evening with former students I groomed in the Interact Club and treasure their hugs and appreciation. I read a Facebook message from a young woman who says that she has wanted for 20 years to find a way to thank me for my kindness and my inspiring the love of reading in her. I see a photograph online that I had sent to a young woman I taught in peer counseling, and I smile at her gratitude. I remember that I have saved "thank yous" over the years for a time like this, a time when I wonder what I will do next, a time when I wonder just what I have accomplished.

I know I have made a difference. That gift can fill me with gratitude and acceptance if I allow it.

New Year's Day 2009

I wondered, after I spoke to my mother on the telephone last night and wished her "Happy New Year," how many more annual turns of the calendar she will experience. I felt a twinge of guilt that I and my youngest son, who has been visiting from Houston for two weeks, could not easily make the time to visit her during the holiday season. She understood, she said, just as I understand that he has cut his visit home short by a few days for several logical reasons. I will cry, as I always do but try not to do, at his departure this afternoon, and I wonder if my mother has shed a tear or two of loneliness during the holiday hoopla.
Tricky, these emotions, as they conduct battle inside one's heart and mind, thus holding a certain power. They struggle for expression, and they will find it, one way or another, perhaps healthfully, perhaps not.
Instead of diving into this pool of vulnerability, my mother and I both chuckled when she said her friends and neighbors at Grandview Terrace in Sun City West, Arizona, had planned to ring in the New Year at 8:30 p.m., but "half of the crowd had already left."
Such is the life at a retirement home where I, at the age of . . . let's just say past 50, am often the baby in the crowd. Nonetheless, these residents keep busy with daily exercise, games and interest groups and as many trips and excursions as one cares to take. Even she, at 95 and finally having to carry a supply of oxygen to counteract her emphysema, plays bridge twice a week, takes the bus to the grocery store, walks to the dining room for her meals, and knits afghans for everyone she knows while her Burmese cat, Collette, snoozes in her lap. Safe subjects for discussion, all.
As I wonder about the rest, the subcutaneous whisperings, I keep coming back to the realization that today -- this first day of 2009, this moment -- as I write this blog, this is all I have.

Christmas Eve

The children are nestled all snug in their beds -- the children who are now adults, some of whom have children of their own. I have read one grandson and my only granddaughter "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," as my father did for me as a child, and as I have done for my children for every Christmas since their birth. I have served a meal of chili and hot chocolate to warm the body and the spirit. I have raised up my candle in church as we sang "Silent Night." I have wrapped the last gift and baked the last cookie. I have included the lonely, the grieving and the estranged in my celebration.
With consistent attention to my attitude and with reliance on my spiritual source, I have warded off any tendency toward Christmas blues. For the most part, I did not cave in to any anxiety I may have experienced as I wondered with whom and just how I would spend this Christmas Eve. By doing that, by living in the moment and by refusing to over-plan with high expectations of my own or of others, I enjoyed a loving, uplifting and pleasant evening.
This holy night of bringing light into the world has brought light into mine.

Happy e-holidays

I can justify my holiday greeting decision by saying that economic angst has all of us on edge, so we scrimp and save wherever we can, including the cost of postage.
I can justify it by saying I'm "going green," doing my part to protect the environment by saving trees.
I can justify it by saying that the age of technology has grabbed us by the throats, shaking us into sensibility.
No matter how I justify sending an e-greeting this year, even if personally written, I still don't feel quite right about it. Having grown up in a time when pen, paper, and postage stamps provided the only options for written communication, I learned the pleasure of sending and receiving letters in the mail. My mother carefully taught me the etiquette of the handwritten note, and as I grew up, she would not allow me to type a personal letter. Nothing personal about that at all, she would say. She probably was right (again!), for I still have letters I wrote to my grandmother as a child, sentimental keepsakes my mother saved for me. I can see how they might have made my grandmother smile and feel close to me, even though I lived far from her.
Speaking of my mother, even she, at the age of 95, will read my holiday letter on her computer. Kicking and screaming, she bought one a few years ago. All resistance aside, she enjoys e-mail jokes from her friends, and she chats with me online almost every evening.
Happy e-holidays.