Dearest Austin

I was hoping that for my 100th post I would have something amazing to write about. Well, I do. Chantel just called to tell me that your surgery this morning was a success. I knew it would be, but I couldn't stop myself from bursting into tears. She is probably giving you a kiss right now. You are such an integral part of our family. How I love you. How I prayed for you, and will continue to until you are running and jumping with your little boys again, pain free. May your recovery be swift and sure! In the meantime, know that you are surrounded by love from every side. xo Mom

I love black, gospel music,

just in case you didn't know. Last night I went to Oakland with Clayton and Michele and we listened to and watched Gladys Knight with her gospel choir at the interstake center. There was clapping and hallelujiahs, amens from the audience, and I felt like a child wrapped in a soft old quilt. There's something so Memphis about that kind of music for me. I remember Sunday School and Bible School in the summers..."Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, for the Bible Tells Me So..." And when Gladys sang those same words with such power and sincerity, I couldn't stop the tears from flowing.

As children, we didn't grow up going to black churches, but the music FEELS so warm and familiar. Is it genetic memory? I have memories of gospel music flowing through open car windows as we passed church after church going grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly, the shoe repair, then stopping at the Wonder Bread factory for a free sample loaf of hot bread. And it didn't seem to matter what day of the week it was. Gospel music seemed to permeate the streets. I have memories of walking from the car to our church on Sundays and hearing music from another big church across the street so full of joy and enthusiasm for life, as though the music was part of the fabric of Memphis. Indeed, given the slave heritage, it must be. I have visions of domestic help singing while they worked, loud and raucous, or sweet and tender. Everywhere, that music wove itself into the fabric of my childhood. No wonder I loved it so much last night.

Black congregation churches in downtown Memphis are are large, stone, and full of beautiful stained glass. The churches out in the country are more simple, white clapboard usually, with green lawns and frequently an attached cemetery. No matter the building, the sounds are the same. Last night, what a gift. I made a trip home and oh, my Southern roots. How grateful I am for them, for their strength and for how deep and wide they extend, surpassing boundaries of color and race and wrapping us all together in a dialect of song.

The Way They Look

It's always in the eyes of strangers but sometimes includes their mouths, too, the way they look at me when I pass them in the grocery store, at Kaiser, or on the street. Occasionally it's in their words, or lack of them, as well. Women tend to smile more than men do. Most children are especially forthright and curious. And most teenagers look away, except for a whole group of them I met once at the motel in Santa Nella.

I was swimming in the pool when they came down and began throwing a football, shrieking and laughing. Several of them initiated conversation with me, both young men and young women, and I discovered they were a Christian youth group from Washington heading to Mexico to build houses for the poor. What positive energy! Obviously, they didn't care that I was bald and I wondered if some of them even noticed at all.

I get the most direct eye contact at Kaiser from people I pass in the hallways with looks that say, "I know what you're going through," or "Hang in there, I've been there, too." Sometimes there's so much compassion in a face that I want to cry. Sometimes there are so many sick people though that I want to cry for that reason too! The Kaiser nurses have been phenomenal the way they treat me. I'm truly nurtured when I go in for treatment.

Throughout this treatment, not all communications have been positive though. Ask anyone who knows me well and they'll tell you that I'm not defensive or judgmental. In fact, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes I'm even naive to the point of frustrating other family members. But recently in a grocery, a mother and her son were talking about me, and I know it was about me because they were rude enough to stare and point several times while they did it. I was in line, paying for groceries, and they were across the aisle waiting for customer service. The boy looked about 11 or 12. I had the impression he was asking his mother innocent questions. But, since we live in California and some women choose to shave their heads, I felt strongly that this mother was giving her son false information. Her face held a combination of derision and sarcasm. They continued to stare at me and I stared back. It's the only time I've wanted to confront someone directly for their rudeness, but I didn't. I let it pass.

This other experience was so painful it made me cry, for a long time. Granted, I had just been recently diagnosed with cancer, but the insensitivity of the other person hurt me to the core, and I'm sure she didn't have a clue. I'm only writing about this as catharthis.

I was in Idaho with Larry. We had gone to see Mother before my surgery. One night we were sittting outside bar-be-cu-ing with family when a woman drove up to drop off one of the girls who had been babysitting for her. She and another family member stepped over to the side of the car and began talking, out of earshot. It was another one of those instances where I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, realizing that I felt ultra sensitive and ultra vulnerable, but the women were not only glancing back and forth at me whilethey talked, one of them even had her mouth covered with her hand--as if Icould hear her. Eventually they stopped talked and wandered over. The woman who had driven up made it a point to tell Larry, "Well, I remember you from last year but (looking at me) I don't remember you." Insensitivity #1 since I wasn't with Larry on that trip. After a bit of chit chat she told Larry how good it was to see him, blah, blah blah, and then Insensitivity #2, her eyes literally flickered past me so briefly that I still feel like crying when I think about it. I think she said, "Nice meeting you," or some usual comment, but she was looking at the sky, or the garage behind me, anywhere but at me. I, however, was looking her in the face. Shortly after she drove away, I excused myself from the table, crying and went to the trailer. Larry came after me and as we talked about it I realized that the way she didn't see me, she might as well have said, "I don't have to acknowledge you're presence because you'll be dead soon." Now granted, I have no way of knowing what she was really thinking. But the way she interacted with me hurt more than I can say. My diagnosis was new. I was still in shock and felt bewildered, sad, why me? what if? not to mention a whole lot of fear. That night I felt like a soon-to-be non-person. If anything, I'm learning to be even more sensitive to others through this experience. Ok. So I put it out there and I'm not going to give it any more energy.

Last week a man came up to me in a hardware store with a smile on his face and said, "I like your hair-cut." I told him that it wasn't mine by choice. He explained that he and his wife had just gone through breast cancer with her; we stood and talked together for awhile. Their message was basically to hang tough because the end was in sight, that life would get better soon. Kevin and Christine. They both hugged me. Rachel and I were both crying when we walked away, so touched by the kindness of strangers.

More about Jacob

Ok, so I realized that I should have prefaced the previous post about Jacob by telling you that what I wrote, I wrote last year. Since then, after a period of about six months, Jacob called me again out of the blue. I was shocked to hear from him but he always makes me laugh, even when I'm mad at him. He is a very deep thinker and he had decided that "we can be friends without the sex." Well, finally. He's been in this country for almost five years now. I met him soon after his arrival when he was taking ESL classes at DVC (hence the reference to his English teacher) and I was happy to hear that he's coming around to my way of thinking--at least in that aspect. Since then, we've enjoyed a respectful but still passionately intellectual friendship. Jacob's father is a retired literature professor from the University of Tehran so Jacob grew up on Rumi (Lucky!) and our conversations never fail to include some reference to poetry. Once in awhile he'll call me out of the blue just to ask a grammar question. The most recent was, "Why do Americans say that they ride "on" an airplane but "in" a taxi? Recently he left for Paris and then home to Iran to visit his family. He was going to be gone for awhile. I don't know if he's back yet or if he was even allowed back in. I hope so. I'll keep you posted.

Missing my complex friend

Jacob presses his fingertips together and leans forward with his elbows on his knees, his white shirt open at the neck concentrating on my story and my face. I lean forward. He is watching me so intently, I see the story I’m telling reflected in the depths of the brown and gold flecks in his eyes. I’m aware of the shape of his lips, the way his short dark hair curls back from his forehead, springs into place after he runs his fingers through it, trying to find the right English word to express himself. I think about kissing him but push the thought to the back of my mind. He is an intent listener and my pulse quickens when I realize my words have the power to take him with me to a far away country. He goes willingly, and suddenly, I want to stay connected to him in this way that transcends physical intimacy and leads to it as well. ‘Don’t play games with me’ he said once, and I’m jolted to know the power I wield in one kiss, one conversation, the vulnerability that he protects successfully—most of the time.

His habit has been to reveal the stereotypical, Middle-Eastern, macho, bullshit male, which is only a small part of him. Small but so strong! He laughed when I called him that once. “Tell me again so I can remember!” He knows I am right and he was both surprised and amazed that I read him well. ‘Tell me about my other self’ he said. Because his ego loves to hear more. The other part is moved by poetry, loves his country, would die for it, misses his family, honors his parents, thirsts for knowledge and truth—that’s the Jacob I love, and that’s the man who struggles within himself, his place in the world, his fears. Does he think he’s so different from everyone else? Life is like an orchestra, he said, with everyone playing one note. We are all looking for the person who plays the same note we do. When we play our own note, we don’t have to worry, we don’t have to look because we attract others to us, those whose notes are in harmony with our own. But if that’s the case, why does he give up first chair so easily?

I will not see him again for some time. I will not call him, and I doubt if he’ll call me again. Last night the idea of a man and woman being friends was unthinkable. ‘No,’ he’d said, ‘Unless I were gay and you were a lesbian, then we could be friends.’ Maybe it is impossible, not because of gender, but because what we want individually and separately is more different than I thought. I believed our emotional and intellectual energy was stronger than our mutual impasse over sex because those are the spiritual manifestations of ourselves, which are much stronger than the body. Casual sex is impossible unless those elements are missing completely or existing at a very minimal level. Not so with us. But I made it easy for him to walk away by confronting his motive: getting beautiful and intelligent women to sleep with him. ‘Is that your game?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘That’s my game.’ But his eyes flickered down and away from me when he said it, caught in a lie, his ego riding herd, once again.

This is not about our cultures, our religions, or the push-me-pull-you nature of sexual energy. He is a coward. Every time we’ve become close, he seems surprised. ‘How do you know these things about me in such a short time?’ he asked once. “No other woman knows me like you do.” But the closer we get, the strong his desire for sex is. He uses masculine virility like a shield when it is nothing more than the grand illusion that he is impervious and in control. I am not asking him to be someone else. I’ve never asked him to stop bringing girls home, just to stop treating me like one of them. I don’t expect him to change his beliefs to fit mine either. He is a fool because a friendship, one which seems easy for him to walk away from, is worth much more than being able to say he had an orgasm with his English teacher. I’m afraid too, but at least I know that I’m alive.

Love Birds

I love these two. They love each other. And everyone is delighted about their new little boy, due Sept 24. Clayton and Michele bring me joy. They are so good to each other and looking forward to being parents. Tonight I looked up from the dining room table and saw them walking up the walk. They spent the evening here and had dinner with us. Still no decision on the baby's name, but I think, unless they feel really inspired, that it's better to do what they're going to, and that is wait until he's born and then decide on his name. Can't wait to hold him.

My garden is flourishing

What a great son. Michele and I sat in the shade and watched Clayton till the soil.Bare dirt...Clayton made a second trip and brought soil ammendment.

After Clayton dug out my garden path, (his third trip) Larry and Clayton brought material for the pathway. A week later, Larry brought a vibratory sander over to compact it.

The early days. Notice how small the tomato plant is.Marilyn came up from Monterey and worked in my garden.

A night view of four of my eight tomato plants.

A night view of the birdbath.Progress!