Gentle purple explosion

As a child, summer began the day I rode a bus home on the last day of a school year. At the end of this day’s ride, I would step off and walk into summer vacation.

Every other day of the school year consisted of routine. Walk from school a few blocks to the bus stop. Wait on the corner, always a bit nervous because creepy hood Whitney Miles stood in front of his house on the opposite corner, smirking at me as he did every day, hair slicked back in a greasy ducktail (D.A., as we called it, a far less polite term than “tail”), a pack of cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of his white t-shirt. Looking back, Whitney probably was harmless and more than likely lonely. We didn’t have many greasers at Smith Elementary School in Oakwood, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. He simply did not fit in. Neither did I, but that’s another whole story.

When summer began, I knew I would spend more time outdoors, away from the cement and noise of downtown. I would trade the lonely hotel room where I lived because of my father’s occupation for a country club swimming pool or, even better, a week at my grandparents’ house in Toledo, where I eagerly mowed the lawn, ran through the sprinklers on days that water rationing would allow, and sat on the porch swing chatting quietly with my sweet grandmother.

Summer meant I would spend hours playing Clue with my friend Craig Campbell, always accusing him of cheating (because he did). He won every time. I never could prove that the true perpetrator of murder was Professor Plum, who committed the deadly deed with the candlestick in the conservatory. After we tired of Clue, which we enjoyed while our parents played bridge and drank martinis, we ventured into Craig’s backyard and experienced the magic of lightning bugs. We laughed with delight as they flicked their way through the dusky night sky, and we captured as many as we could. Not realizing at our young age that we were being inhumane, we put them in a glass jar with holes in the cap, even adding grass so they would have food. They never lived until morning.

Even earlier in my childhood, summer meant paddling a canoe on Lake Winola, near Scranton, Pennsylvania. It meant riding a bit recklessly in Nancy Smith’s motorboat, frolicking over the wakes of other boats, laughing with glee as we rode high on a crest and then smacked back down on the other side. Summer meant digging up earthworms to save for bait when we fished off the boat dock later in the day. It meant stuffing my mouth with freshly picked blueberries while hiking in the Poconos, and it meant running around with sparklers on the Fourth of July.

Now, many years later, peeking into my twilight years, the first brilliant lavender blossoms of jacaranda trees signal the beginning of summer. They create a symphony of purple beginning in late May and lasting well into July. During my 20-year tenure at a local high school, one I loved and one that made my life feel tethered and tedious at the same time, huge jacarandas in the school quad began to blossom just before graduation. Tedium transformed into delight. The jacarandas changed day by day, eventually laying a soft violet carpet to cover the remnants of each day’s lunch and wads of gum. They made me realize my students and I had survived another year. They meant we would celebrate the culmination of hard work, laughter, tears and sneers. They meant I could take a much-needed break from grading papers, and students could take a break from writing them. They gave hope of a new beginning for everyone. They signaled a bright tomorrow. 

As a gift from God, I live in an area of Southern California where I see jacarandas at every turn. The median on a street I travel every day has blocks of them, each in various stages of bloom. The one in my backyard is teasing me with just a few blossoms. The one in my neighbor’s yard is a delightful palette of greens and lavenders. The ones at the local high school, right on cue, have bloomed completely. Of course they have. Graduation time is here.

I love this annual gentle purple explosion. I love the sense of ongoing creation. I love nature’s artistry. I love the coming of summer. I love jacarandas.

RIP Miss Lindey

 “You should meet Martha Lindey,” someone suggested at church one Sunday nearly 30 years ago. “She’s about to retire as the journalism teacher at Vista High School. Maybe you could do your student teaching with her.” Thus began my career with an unforgettable mentor.

 Thanks to circumstance, opportunity, and, although not recognizing it at the time, God’s intervention and direction, I had left 15 years as a reporter and editor to pursue a teaching credential. Under the loving guidance of Miss Lindey, I learned how to manage a classroom of teen-agers ready to test the mettle of a student teacher, how to raise the standards of the Panther Print, our school newspaper, to earn an award as one of the top 10 in San Diego County, how to survive school politics, how to thicken my skin against occasional barbs of maliciousness, and most of all, how to love and appreciate literature as never before.

 While I pored over our anthology of American literature looking for stories that would educate and appeal to young minds, Martha enlightened me about various selections as she recalled the details of each one in the library of her mind. She described harsh landscapes and closed minds of the early 20^th-century Midwest as seen by the perspective of Willa Cather. She delighted in the creative revenge of the downtrodden as evidenced by Edgar Allen Poe. She swooned over the magical poetry of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. She laughed with delight at the subtle humorous understatement of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, while at the same time demonstrating in her own life the inherent value of all humankind that this American classic embraces.

 At that time, our curriculum included an entire semester of grammar instruction. (I apologize now to my former students who had to suffer through it; district requirements tied our hands.) Martha helped me remember the difference between a participle and a gerund. She found ways to make a vocabulary lesson seem like a rollicking good time. She knew how to demonstrate the functions of each part of speech. She, as I, demanded that students make their writing sparkle by using active instead of passive voice, or at least learn to distinguish the few occasions when passive voice might better serve the purpose.

 On Martha’s 60^th birthday, her students and I made her “Queen for a Day.” As a humble person who did not enjoy attention directed at herself, Martha nonetheless sat in front of the classroom with a red velvet cape and a rhinestone tiara while all of us blessed our beloved Miss Lindey with well wishes and tales of special memories. She blew out the candles on her cake, and graciously accepted the love showered upon her.

 When Martha, as she relayed it to me, marched into the principal’s office and said, “She’s a natural; you have to hire her,” apparently he believed her. I see it as a grand example of hyperbole, but I deeply appreciate her support in launching my teaching career.

 Throughout the years, I kept in touch with Martha as part of the same church family, the family that introduced us in the first place. With her engaging grin and her dignified manner, she never failed to offer encouragement or to ask about my children and grandchildren. For a woman of letters, Martha focused on only a few words in her lifetime. Give. Love. Laugh. Share. Appreciate. Forgive. And, to all who knew her, White Rabbit! White Rabbit! White Rabbit!

 I am among the many who will miss this extraordinary woman, but also am the many blessed by her remarkable spirit. One of the works she particularly cherished, a poem by William Cullen Bryant, comes to mind now that her life in this realm has come to an end. “Thanatopsis,” a meditation on death, provided Bryant a way of coping with the passing of many of his young classmates who succumbed to the ravages of 19^th-century tuberculosis and plague. Nature soothed him; nature explained to him the endless mysterious cycle of life; nature comforted and caressed him.

 I look now through the trees into the setting sun and watch the full glorious moon appear on the opposite horizon. Rest in peace, Martha. 

Golden bliss

No matter what season, when the sun begins to settle into dusk, my surroundings beg for my attention. It's that golden time of day, when everything in the path of early evening light glows in sweet splendor. Something about it feels magical and serene.
God seems to create this time of day as a special blessing.  Every object in the filtered sunlight softens. The last rays of sunshine glitter through the trees like multi-faceted jewels. It's reassurance that the day has been a gilt-edged gift. If I've bumped against some sharp corners throughout the day, at dusk I see gentleness. If I've had the joy of day already rich in the pleasures of love and connection, at dusk I rest in the comfort of this treasure.
As twilight gives way to night shadows, a crescent moon forms in the sky on this particular evening. My friend says she wants to climb into it and rock herself to sleep amidst the stars. I, on the other hand, hear the voice of The Glass Menagerie's Amanda, who lures her eccentric daughter Laura onto the fire escape of their St. Louis tenement and tells her to make a wish on the "little silver slipper of a moon."
I have yet to make my wish for tonight. Anything I may want already has been granted in dusk's idyllic moments, and dusk will come again.

Prayers in the wind

  As he rode the narrow, steep escalator down from the area at Los Angeles International Airport where travelers from other countries proceed through customs, I first noticed his engaging grin, one of his most admirable features. In less than a heartbeat later, I noticed how thin he looked. I, who had stood in the baggage claim area for anxious minutes that seemed like hours, wanted Gumby arms that could stretch out to hug him the moment I saw him.  My youngest son had arrived safely from Tibet, where he had survived three months in the wilderness eating little more than yak meat and rice. He had lived in a tent with a translator and another researcher from University of California at Los Angeles while they made geological observations about the Tibetan Plateau and conducted experiments as part of their doctoral studies.
  Once the welcoming tears of relief and joy had subsided, we gathered his belongings, all of which he had crammed into a duffel bag of immense proportions, and headed home to Vista. During the two-hour ride, he entertained and amazed me with tales of his adventures. Once home, he began to share gifts he had brought, including artwork by Tibetan monks, silk scarves worn by Tibetan women and yards upon yards of Tibetan prayer flags.
  One can see the flags, he said, throughout Tibet, even in the most remote areas. Strung throughout the mountains, they bless the land and its people. Prayers and sacred mantras written on the flags, the Tibetans believe, will be carried to other people through the wind, thus promoting peach and goodwill. Each of the colors has its own symbolism.
  For several years, I shared my flags with students in my classrooms, but I had one strand of 30 feet or more that had sat in my closet waiting to find a home. At last, they have found one.
 In my current abode, I have created a sacred space for myself. Quiet and serene, it is decorated with artwork and other gifts from special friends, as well as some of my own photographs. A bookcase brimming with novels I want to read beckons me every day.  French doors open onto a small, west-facing deck surrounded by trees. With the doors open, I can feel nearly constant ocean breezes make their way through the valley to refresh the room. And, all right, I admit it, I have a television, mostly for football season and a few shows that have managed to hook me.
 One day, while unpacking the last of some moving boxes, I came across the longest strand of prayer flags. On a whim, I laid them out on the deck floor, thinking they might reach all the way around the rail. As I began to tack them up, I realized they would stretch the perimeter twice, almost an exact fit.
 Now, even as they have begun to fade after a few months, just as they do in the Tibetan wilderness, I imagine prayers in the wind. I send my prayers out into the spirit world and welcome the prayers that pass through this place, now and throughout the day and night.

Who's the cutest of them all?

Entertainment news headlines today have announced the death of '50s television and sometimes film star David Nelson. He and his parents and his brother Ricky formed the iconic Nelson family, who modeled the ideals to which all American families were expected to aspire. As I recall, the byword in my family went something like this: "Ozzie and Harriet we aren't." That was one of my earliest experiences with understatement.
David Nelson was 74, the news articles say, and he passed after a bout with cancer. Despite the facts, I cannot picture him as an elderly man ravaged by illness. I, like many women who grew up in the '50s, remember his engaging grin, his spats with Ricky and his fading in the shadows of Ricky's fame as a recording artist. Even though I knew all the lyrics well enough to sing along with "Travelin' Man" and "Poor Little Fool", mourned over "Lonesome Town" and danced with my friends to "Hello, Mary Lou," I never thought Ricky Nelson was such a hot teen idol. His voice was nasal and wispy, and he tried too hard to imitate Elvis. The truth of the matter is that I was in love with David. Sweeter, shyer, often the fall guy, David captured my heart.
In the '50s, the type of guy you dreamed of marrying some day defined you in many ways.
Spin or Marty?
Pat Boone or Elvis?
James Dean or Tab Hunter?
Good kid or rebel? White bucks or blue suede shoes? Crew cut or greaser?
David Nelson was clean-cut, the kind of boy your father would let you date, except if you had a father like mine. He did not have the word "date" in his vocabulary, and he would have preferred that I remain his little girl in taffeta dresses, petticoats, lacy white anklets and black patent leather shoes forever. I always hoped, though, that he would allow David to come calling, should the occasion arise.
RIP.

Seeing blue

My blue plates have found their home once again.
They have moved from domicile to domicile, each relocation requiring me to find a suitable wall large enough to display them without looking garish or pretentious. They even accompanied me to Hawaii, where they remained in packing boxes because I had not researched the housing market well enough before I moved. Even though I did eventually find a minuscule apartment I could afford, the cement block walls did not lend themselves to hanging plates. With that exception, I have displayed them -- regardless of nuisance, regardless of the necessity for precise measuring, regardless of having to envision and re-envision a pattern that works -- no matter where I have gone. I have hung them so many times that I have memorized the dimensions. Each plate hanger must go 10 inches from another.
These are not just any blue plates. These are Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates. The Danish company has a remarkable history dating from the mid-1700s. It prides itself on superior craftsmanship in its trademark blue and white porcelain. The Christmas plates gain their value as collector's items based on a variety of factors, but their value to me is primarily sentimental.
My mother began gifting me with a plate each year, starting in 1962, for 25 years. I'm guessing the starting date must have had something to do with the first Christmas after I graduated from high school. Apparently she thought this rite of passage marked a new level a maturity, probably her wish more than a reality. Nonetheless, I have guarded them carefully through the decades. I have lived, at least with regard to the plates, up to her expectations.
This may account for her oft-repeated question during the process of my most recent move.
"Have you hung the plates yet?" she would ask each time I spoke to her on the phone.
"Not yet," I would reply, somewhat dreading the prospect while at the same time appreciating tradition.
I called her the moment I finished.  I've made her proud.

Ebb and flow

 As is my custom on a Sunday evening, I walked along a favorite stretch of beach in Carlsbad, California, breathing in the sea air, listening to the sound of the Ancient Mother and marveling at the sunset.

 I noticed lovers kissing, families gathering up their colorful towels,  huge umbrellas and traditional beach toys after a day in the sun and surf, athletes running, elders strolling and women chatting. People walked a variety of dogs -- here a stately white standard poodle, there a chestnut teacup chihuahua, then a regal golden retriever, a frisky Yorkie, a pair of adorable Maltese, a yapping terrier and an abundance of lovable mutts.
  I smiled to myself as I recalled a wonderfully giddy phone call earlier in the day from one of my dearest friends, who told me he finally had proposed to his lovely (and patient) girlfriend of several years. I celebrated their joy long distance as they described the event, which took place along the Makapu'u Lighthouse trail on Oahu, a hike we had all made together a few months ago.
 I watched as the nearly full moon climbed in the sky at the same time as the sun began its descent, becoming a molten glow on the horizon as it passed through clouds. It reminded me of the time I stood at Kilauea Crater on the Big Island a few years ago. Sweet moonrise and dazzling sunset, combined with the powerful flow of lava, enraptured me. My soul thrilled to God's displays in nature.
 Thus, on this evening, I savored what felt like perfect summer with signs of life and love surrounding me everywhere. And it was. At that moment and in that place, it was.
 Nonetheless, a dark stain of grief crept into the scene as I remembered the mourning of my friends the same afternoon as they lay to rest their youngest child. My mind replayed the father's words as he choked on his tears: "It doesn't get any worse than this. It isn't right. A father isn't supposed to bury his son." My arms still felt the mother's embrace as she clung to her friends, knowing that we, as mothers, too, had some small sense of her devastating heartache. I listened as she questioned God and herself.
 I thought about a former student who, while planning her wedding, waits anxiously for her fiance to come home from a war zone in Afghanistan. While children here romp in the sunlight, children there cringe at the sounds of gunfire. While men and women here roast marshmallows over a fire pit at dusk, men and women there forage for scraps of food.
 I was reminded again that the ebb and flow of the ocean is the ebb and flow of life. I was reminded of the limitations of our experience and our vision. I was reminded at how little we can control. I was reminded of a sense of the divine mystery in all of life. I was reminded to express gratitude for being part of it.