Chance = Change

Peter and I both seem to remember the baby grand fitting into the freight elevator at 890 West End, and that it was not much larger than the elevator at 1320 Lombard...but we could be wrong. If we are, then it's a mere two flights of windy stairs the poor moving men will have to climb with piano on aching shoulders to get it to our new home.  I pray we are not wrong about the elevator.  And in that prayer, I will make a deal with God:  please let our grand piano fit into the elevator, then through our doorways, then into the new living room, and I will.....um...let's see...i will meditate for 20 minutes every day , no matter what! And in that meditation, I will consider You in every breath, and be grateful.  I will also write for an hour every day, and in that writing, consider the mysteries of life as You present them. All in all, a good deal, so please grease the way for our grand piano. Thank you. (or I should say "Thank You") , love, Evalyn


Today will be an enormous and long day, but filled with joy by the end of it, if all goes well.

Today, at its end, will signify that we have indeed moved to San Francisco, because, if all goes well, i am NEVER moving that piano or packing boxes again, so whoever gets the apartment next, gets the piano with it!  If we decide to move to another house, or an apartment in the same building with a view of Golden Gate Bridge, we will buy another piano and leave his one nestled where it will land: in our lovely , light-filled new living room.

The truck is set to arrive between 8 and 9 am.

I have not slept a single wink all night long, and am running on sheer adrenaline fueled fumes of energy. I am so excited, that I have no doubt these fumes will get me through.

I will go to Real Food, around the block from Paul and Stephen's , where we are currently sleeping, and drink two cups of their organic and strong brewed coffee, eat a healthy bagel, order one for Peter, and wait for him to pick me up so we can begin our trek back to 1320 Lombard.  Our Ford Escape is parked in our garage there, and we walked back to Paul and Stephen's yesterday, taking the route up to Polk Street (one block up the hill from us) , then turning right all the way to Union Street, where we took another right onto Union and walked it all the way back to Pierce. It was one of the best walks of my life, and here's why:

Union Street - busy, creative, bustling, diverse and exciting Union Street -  reminded me that we are back in an urban environment I did not even know I was missing. Union Street, as we walked it those many blocks, presented us with interesting food and wine shops, specialty clothing boutiques, more doggie gift stores and grooming establishments than you can count, shoe stores with the latest styles, stationery and paper shops , each one like catnip to me, a MAC Cosmetics Shop, for cryin' out loud...i mean when was the last time I saw one of those??? Small delicatessens with prosaic as well as exotic goods, nail spas, hair salons, massage and wellness centers, workout workshops, with chic spandex outfits in their windows, Pilates centers galore, nutrition and heath food shops, more facial and hair shops  than I could count, adorable children's clothing and gift stores (lots of young families with kids in this Pacific Heights/Russian Hill neighborhood - lots of families and LOTS of dogs!...SF is a DOGGIE town, if there ever was one!)  Union Street, just beginning to be decked out for the Holidays, will be tremendous fun to shop, and I will buy a wreathe for our new front door, from a shop on Union Street! As well as small gifts for the parties we are already invited to!  I mean: Union Street is without question, my kind of street, Coffee roaster places, with the best coffees in the world right there for us at any time, and there is even a swell store that sells nothing but whimsical, ingenious, made-of-all-sorts-of-materials FAIRIES!  Flying from the ceiling, stuffed on glass shelves, coming at  you from the walls..fairies and elves and goblins, other mythical,mystical creatures....perfect, right?

Because this is, after all, SAN FRANCISCO: the most magical of cities...and I have a feeling these sorts of astonishing creatures lurk around us, at every turn. I am ready - truly ready - to discover them!

Labels: San Francisco life

The last two days of our trip across country - through the Steinbeck-ian rolling hills and fertile valleys of Central California, have been two of the most visually amazing of my life.  It thrills me to realize that I can still be thrilled, simply by opening my eyes and seeing what's all around me...by just looking at what the world has to offer, I can find the balance I've been missing.

Lots of farmers are angry at the US Congress, and the many signs we saw along the way say why: they feel that Madams Pelosi, Boxer and others have created a 21st Century Dustbowl, by denying certain subsidies, I guess, and maybe by dabbling mischievously in water issues here in this naturally arid part of the country. And we did see a fair amount of fields lying dry and unused...but since I've no agricultural knowledge, perhaps that's how they run here in these Winter months...but lots of very dramatic dry and untilled fields, with acres of dead growth on them...then further down the road would be a green , lush and clearly healthy piece of land filled with oranges, apricots, lemons, mandarins, grapefruits,grapes, grapes and more grapes, bursting to go eventually go to market: flat canvases of vast mountain-encircled land, covered in ecru,beige,brown curves, then dotted with shocking spots of fruity color...i'm telling you, it almost inspired me want to become a painter, just to capture the life of it all.  But, then there were those acres of deadness too.  Equally picturesque, but telling an angry story.

It all seems like a movie that Peter and I were shooting and acting in, this entire drive, day after day.
We've been on the road 11 days or so...and finally, when we did cross the Bay Bridge and enter into San Francisco yesterday, it seemed more like a dream  than anything else, because it hardly felt real, it was so gloriously in front of us: this new city that was (is ) now our home city.   It had rained hard, about an hour outside Oakland, giving the obviously thirsty fields a chance to drink their fill, if the soil could take it in. And then, as we approached urban areas, the rain stopped, but hung around to see how the sun would dance with all that insistent grayness. And of course, powerful and diamond bright, the sun sliced through the clouds like butter and we were on our dappled way into a gleaming, moist, shining and alive City by the inescapable Bay!  I tell you, i could hardly stay in the car, i was so excited to enter this by-now-familiar city. We drove along the Embarcadero - busy with holiday strollers as usual, but this time, they were holding open and dripping umbrellas, that's how fresh the rain fall was: it's like Nature decided to rinse off the City for our home-coming!  Get it all shiny and clean just for us.

Which is exactly what our two darlings Paul and Stephen did with our new home at 1320 Lombard Street: before going to Nashville to spend Thanksgiving with Stephen's Momma, they spent two weeks in our totally empty apartment, as if it was their own, and gave it a thorough cleaning (even the windows!), and what i call the "Daniels/Cole Treatment": they filled it with groceries and other goodies from Trader Joe's, made sure we had a good complement of cleaning supplies hidden away in our front hall closet, and ...well...let me put it this way: we won't need to buy toilet paper or paper towels for a long time!  They even bought us a new sleekly small vacuum cleaner (our VIrginia home had central vacuuming systems) and measured for and ordered an above the stove micro-wave oven for us! THese men are our family, and they prepared our way like we were their very own. Thank you , dearest men...but you know how much we love you.  So hurry home and WE will pick YOU up at the airport for a change!

The first thing we saw when we entered #204: two of the decorated fans from our wedding criss-crossed affectionately, and hung where we could see them as a prophetic greeting to our new home. (Paul and Stephen were our Best Men...at least mine, since Stephen did my hair! And, well, Paul practically walked me down the aisle, but i guess we decided ex-husbands probably shouldn't do that sort of thing).

 Then, coming into the utterly sun-filled living room, we saw the bright blue "HAPPY CHANUKAH" garland strung across one set of windows and  other Chanukah decor strung across the other !!  In the dining room was a 12-day chocolate Christmas Advent Calendar awaiting us - Paul and Stephen are equal-holiday celebrators, as are we - along with an enticing kitchen filled with so much food, we won't need groceries for a while: cupboards stuffed with Trader Joe's soups, potato and lentil crispy treats, multi-grain chips, chocolate mint cookies, hot cocoa mixes, fresh coffee beans, boxes of nutritious crackers, rices, spices, curries, turbinado sugar, candies, breads and olive oils. salt and pepper, salad dressings, and almost everything else off TJ's shelves! Inside the fridge were frozen healthy entrees,  soy sausages, more soups frozen, apples, cheeses and more cheeses, diet Cokes chilling for our pleasure, cheese enchiladas (Ole! Welcome to almost-Mexico!) , bean things, frozen vegetable things, and more lovely edibles!  A new coffee press was sitting there waiting for me to break it in (I shall, later today, without question), and a large bag of hearty coffee beans (we need to unpack that coffee grinder when it gets here).  In the bathroom , they'd left bags of Trader Joe's toiletries: herbal shampoos and conditioners, facial soaps, green tea breath mints, skin creams of every variety you can imagine ( floral and herbal), air sprays for a fresh bathroom (oh yes, they also hung a delightful shower curtain and put a nice white rug on the floor), and on and on....these dear men! What a lovely thing to come home to, despite the fact that I have very few ideas about where we 're going to put all the stuff we brought with us! Maybe I won't even open the food and toiletries boxes I packed, but take them right over to the local Salvation Army!  So much abundance...others should share it.

Today, we rest, in preparation for the arrival of the moving truck tomorrow, and all its attendant headaches: will the grand piano even fit in the elevator or go up the stairs? Where will we put all those boxes? (Even having gotten rid of half our stuff, we still have one quarter too much!) . And how will we survive this last leg of the seemingly impossible journey we've been on?

But , if low and high deserts taught me one thing, it's that no matter the weather, life survives, and so, I face tomorrow - and the 75 -foot moving van - like a lizard in the sun: wary, poised, expectant, and ready to lick whatever flies by!

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

Three  days ago, Peter's grandmother and I were in a store looking at goods made by the members of the many craft classes here in Sun City West, when Grandpa Joe came rushing into the store to get us: Peter had fainted, lost consciousness, sitting in the car with the pup on his lap, and he did not look or feel so well. This terrified Joe into running into the store to get us: we needed to get Peter to the Emergency Room quick.

At first, I thought this was a ploy of Peter's to get us out of the store faster, and i was imagining how I was going to  get back at him for scaring us so....but, turns out that he really had fainted, looked pale as a sheet of clean paper, and was indeed needing some medical attention. So off we rushed to the nearest hospital, a large , clean modern thing that looked entirely capable of taking care of not only the thousands of elderly residents of this community, but my darling husband as well.

We were greeted at the door by one of their many marvelous volunteers who promptly informed us that this was the Main Entrance, not the Emergency one as we had hoped, and after getting Peter out of the car and into a wheel chair, he told us we'd do better to put Peter back in the car and drive around to the other side of the hospital. Looking at frail Joe and terrified Buscia, i told the guy, forget about it, i would push Peter myself, and let the folks drive around and meet us.  Turns out, there was a strong volunteer at the Main desk who took the chair from me, pushed for me (her name was Hope, if you can believe it), and we were across the Hospital and in the Emergency Room Entrance Area quickly, since the hospital was not as large as it seemed. Hope knew where to go and who to ask to help get us there fast.

When I rushed right up to the desk, told the nurses that Peter was experiencing numbness and pain in his arms, that he had fainted, etc. they were all over him right away, taking vital signs, filling in his initial paperwork ( I got Peter's wallet with al essential info from his pocket) and truly fast, we were with another capable aide who took Peter to get an EKG first thing...these people were extremely helpful, fast, and terrific! I barely had time to be scared...though I was scared...and i had switched into my "okay!-there's - a problem - so-let's-handle-it-and-get-the-solutions-as fast-and-efficiently-as-humanly-possible-mode, and did not let my fear show, even to myself. Actually, I was totally and almost debilitatingly terrified.  Visions of my Daddy having a heart attack at age 51 and Momma being the only person with him on their vacation at Sea Island, Georgia came to mind, I was ready for the absolute worst...already composing the very worst scenarios in my head...but I plowed on, asking the right questions, writing it all down, getting nurses and aides names,etc.I was my most efficient and calmest self.....on the surface.

(I noticed, as I played the role of calm ,self-sufficient and thorough wife, next to my ailing husband, that i had a fascination - and always had - with hospitals: how they worked, what the various machines were for, how things were analyzed and recorded, who the people were working on the patient,etc. Utter fascination and interest. This made it easier not to be scared, as well.)

After the EKG, the thin, efficient,  Asian American aide rolled Peter down to Red Zone C-3 to wait for the doc to read his film and take more tests.

 (Though it sounded sort of dire, Red Zone had no meaning other than the fact that it was not the Purple Zone, or the Green Zone: in this Emergency ward, they divided areas into colors, for clarity and safety....so the folks wouldn't go into the wrong patient's waiting roomette...that's all.)

So there were were in Red Zone C-3, and they put Peter on a bed, took his thoroughly sweated-through shirt and undershirt off, put a flimsy robe thing on him, and hooked him up to many things so they could monitor his heart, respiration, oxygen absorption rate ,blood pressure,etc. His pressure was very very low, and he seemed to show signs of dehydration, so they soon hooked him up to his first (of two) full bags of saline solution, and he began intravenous drip to get his electrolytes up and his pressure up too....Peter continued to be whiter than the sheet he was lying on...this did not comfort me, but the people helping him did seem to know what they were up to, so I kept watching and asking questions.  They took a thorough medical history from Peter, who was groggy but conscious and aware. We explained that we had been on the road driving cross country for 6 solid days, and this seemed to send them in yet another direction for tests, so blood was taken,etc a chest x-ray ordered, and a CT scan as well: turns out they wanted to check for possible blood clots, since sitting that consistently for such a long period of time was ripe territory for possible roaming clots...they wanted to check for everything, since at this hospital ( I was informed) fainting was taken seriously.

Doctor Chad Lewis soon came in and was very good with Peter , who had by then regained some color and strength, looking over the initial in-take notes, and told us we'd be there at least two hours waiting for results of tests, and for the taking of a CT scan, so i went out to the waiting room and told Joe to take Buscia and the pups home and that I would call them when we were ready for the next steps whatever they might be.  They drove back to their house, and I went back to Red Zone C3.

All was calm, and Peter rested easily, until Josh came in to wheel him into the CT room for his scan...i went then to get a diet soda from the Nourishment Room they have in Emergency for both staff and waiting spouses and family, and by the time I got back, Peter was back in C3, looking none the worse for wear, and we sat some more and I held his hand, while he kept apologizing for causing so much trouble. I was just glad he was conscious and looking pinker and better by the minute! My fear had subsided a bit, as I knew he was in good hands and being monitored and cared for by good medical staff.
We both stayed there, listening to the family drama in the cubicle next door, where an elderly man, clearly no stranger to this hospital, was waiting for the results of his tests, while his son, wife and others hovered solicitously around him.  Peter and I were very quiet. This other family was very talkative, with all that inane reassuring talk families produce when they know an elder is deathly ill, and on his last legs...odd, how stupidly light-hearted we attempt to be in such circumstances.

ANYWAY: long story short: we were indeed out of there as Dr. Chad predicted, in two hours or so, and Peter's tests showed nothing truly dire...no heart complications, no clotting anywhere in the chest region, nothing cardiac infiltrating anywhere ti should not be...it did show some small "infiltration" in one corner of one lung, meaning Peter may have contracted a touch of pneumonia somewhere along the line, and he was indeed dehydrated, though that was improving with each drip of the saline solution, as was his blood pressure. By then it had come back up to totally normal.  But there was this possible pneumonia thing, so a short course of antibiotics was prescribed, and Peter took his first pill right there.  By then he was back to his normal gorgeous pink self again, though exhausted from the entire thing. Naturally.

So, he was unhooked, (oh, i forgot to tell you about the new words i learned : "orthostatic vitals"...which meant that an aide came in and tested Peter's vital signs in varying positions, like standing, lying down, sitting,etc...his pressure, oxygen absorption rate, heart rate,etc...orthostatic vital signs...love learning new words, even at the expense of my darling husband's state of health...but I can afford to joke about it now...life is so fragile.)

We easily checked out of the hospital, and Joe and Buscia were right there to pick us up, of course. I went to the grocery store and stocked up on all flavors of Gatorade, since it was suggested that Peter drink a lot of it...lots of water too...to continue to tend to his dehydration. He drank two bottles of it on the way home!

We postponed our departure from Arizona , and moved the San Francisco move-in date to MOnday, from the originally slated Saturday...cost a bit of money, but that is nothing compared to the need to make sure Peter's pneumonia is handled well, and to see that he gets the right amount of rest...he slept most of Wednesday..i mean a deep, sweaty sleep...and by yesterday, was feeling more his old self.
We are dividing the drive to SF into two days now, so as to be easier on him, and hope to get to SF by late afternoon on Saturday, leaving us Sunday to rest and prepare for the onslaught of newness that comes our way on Monday!

There are other tales to tell of "No Parking" signage conversations with the SFPD ,who are all very helpful and cordial, and have been throughout, despite my "please put them up on this date...no now THIS date...oops, sorry...now this date again...now..back to that other date" rigor I've been putting them through.. of arranging this and that, in an effort to get our move date changed...but these stories can wait. For now, it is all about Peter, and getting him well enough to enjoy what's ahead...and i think he's on his way to being able to do that.....good gracious!  Life! Right?  It was not fun seeing Peter all pale and faint like that...but even through it all , he was so gorgeous and still trying to take care of me...honestly, what did I do to deserve such a dear man?

More soon...of course....of course....more soon.

Whew!

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

Peter and I drove here, into the vast desert development called Sun City West, Arizona, last night, arriving to a nice home-cooked meal at table with Peter's dear grandparents: Buscia and Joe ("Buscia" means "grandmother" in Polish, I'm told). After that lovely meal, all 4 of us (Peter, me, the doggies Sally and Cyrano) fell into a grateful , relaxed sleep on the guestroom's soft and perfect bed....the best sleep we've had all trip!  I awoke to see the Arizona sun shining down on the vast and pisturesque golf course that is the back yard of Buscia and Joe's lovely home, took the doggies for a pleasant and pristine walk (picked up their "business" to keep that golf course spotless) and came back home to a lovely pumpkin pancake breakfast cooked by Joe (who is really Peter's step-Grandad...), and now I am at their phone dial-up computer (the livin' here really is nice  n' easy n' SLOW), and it feels good to get my daily discipline of blogging done...i cannot seem to stop writing!

Before we made it to Sun CIty West, we stopped off at a convenient All American Truck Stop to meet and spend brief time with an old and dear pal of mine, from QUILTERS days gone by: Mary Guaraldi...she came over the truck stop from her home in Flagstaff to be with us, since our original plans to stay with her and hubby Tom Broderick's  one night in that city had to be changed...more on that later....but for now, suffice it to say: i wept with happiness to see that dear old friend of mine.  She opened and is still Producing Artistic Director of the Canyon Moon Theatre Company in Sedona, and when it not laying her low with its typical running-a-theatre problems, she seems to thrive, because she looked wonderful and ...well..she looked like Mary! We've not seen each other in over a decade...and it was like we'd just seen each other last week, it felt so familiar and fun and warm and funny.  She has memories I had long forgotten about our QUILTERS days in Pittsburgh, and NYC adventures as well...it was wonderful to spend half an hour with her and i do wish it could have been longer...BUT...

We got word that our moving truck was set to arrive with all our worldly goods at our new San Francisco apartment the very day after Thanksgiving, and as we had been planning for it all to arrive a week later or so, we had to hustle to change our travel plans, demand that the truck NOT come til Saturday (not Friday), and re-route our days from now til then...that meant cutting out a night in Flagstaff, sadly.  And it also meant starting to deal with all the niggling, troublesome details of real life, as this  ultimate, end part of our transition begins.  I do hope I survive the tensions and fears that keep rising up in me...I've done fine so far, but underneath it all: I TREMBLE!  It will all go well...i know it will...so why do I worry?  Well...i am, understatedly, a worrier.....oh my yes.  Meanwhile...

WE have today and tomorrow to regroup, retrench, clean our laundry, and our car, get things in order, for the last leg of this adventurous journey we've been on, and I can think of no finer place to do it than here on this serene golf course, surrounded by sunshine, plam trees, and two dear people who would anything they can possibly do to make us both as happy as can be!

So - to all who read here: I am going back to bed to have a nice snooze with my exhausted husband, and cuddly dogs, and i'd like to make only one or two requests:

1. If you are a regular reader of this blog, please leave a comment at the end of an entry you read, so I can know who you are.....and if you wish, eave contact info as well.

2. If you are a blogger on this spot, or know how to otherwise do this next thing I request, please do it:  become an official "Follower" of this blog, by pressing whatever button you need to press to do it? 

My plan is to pursure a serious writing career in San Francisco, and though I will nto entirely leave theatre behind, I do want to concentrate on writing a particular book I have in mind, then maybe a 2nd one...plus, i want to begin to send my writing out for publuishers to read...and if I know ther are those of you who take me seriously as a writed, it will build my confidence, give me pointers in which direction to go (because I'd appreicate your comments very much), and all in all, make me feel like someone cares. So, communicate with me on this blog spot?  Many thanks!

All for now...more soon...
Your traveling Evalyn

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

Look what those crazy kids are up to ....AGAIN!!

Y'see, we had this BARN!  And it was filled with hay, old plows and, well...don't even mention how it smelled!  But other than that, it stood tall and firm, and if anyone ever had the energy to CLEAN IT OUT...spruce it up a bit...spray some room deodorizer up in all the corners....well...y'know? It could be good for SOMETHING!    That's all I said to 'em...and ...bang! The next thing you know, those darned kids were out there, PUTTIN' ON A SHOW!!!! The dangdest thing! And the whole community showed up...and...man! It was terrific! What those kids did with my old barn....And hey!   Did ya' hear about Yasgur...?....he  had this big old field out on his farm  he wasn't usin', and these long-haired hippies came to him one day back in the '60's....and...well..the darndest thing..."

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Thank goodness for old barns, open fields and enterprising theatre folk with the energies to make it happen, just like they have been making it happen since the first cave guy just had to get up and tell the others about the hunt that day...using campfire as his only lighting instrument.

Last night ,we had dinner with Amelia A. and Frank G., who left Barter Theatre a few years ago to follow a dream Amelia had to start a brand new legitimate  theatre here in Albuquerque, her hometown. Since they started, some three years ago, various artists of their acquaintance, including several from Barter, have come to their side, and this year they managed to squeak out their very first season of plays, in a small renovated space that used to be a filling station!  Hence , its name: The Filling Station...a new space for performing artists to gather....do their work, within walls provided for just that purpose.

(I tell ya: if it ain't one thing, it's another...if it's not a barn, those slippery theatre kids'll find an old gas station!)

Why? Because once you realize you're a "theatre kid", that's it...no matter what , come hell or high taxes, you gotta find a way to do it...and so, you call your best friends together, the ones you trust with your theater life, and you do it...you put on that show...no matter what.  And if enough people come to that first one, maybe a second one is possible, and then another...and then: you've had your first season....and then, before you know it....

Actually, history matters little to theatre people on a mission like that...all they care about (as well they should ) is getting that first show up, then miraculously managing to get to the next show, then the next....all the way into planning full seasons of shows to produce...the legends are born from the sheer persistence of producing season after season after season...but that legend thing is not truly the point at all.

The point is: "There is a space for a stage , right over there in that old barn or filling station....I see myself standing right in the middle of it, lit by some light we found somewhere to point in the right direction, and there in that spot, I can tell people about their lives using words that have so thrilled me, I have to share them with as many people as possible...and I will speak those words to those people! And somehow, all our lives will be better for it. Somehow ,  from somewhere deep within me,  I know I have done something good and right, getting these people to listen to and watch this tale I am telling them...I have served them..(.and myself...let's not forget the importance of pure creative ego here because that pure ego energy is the driving force for it all: not selfishness or greedy neurotic need for building one's own importance, but the sheer belief in one's own power to create something fine for others, and to make it known...that takes an ego strength that is good and healthy and necessary! And is never without the Other: the audience, to complete it. )  Theater is a communal art...we all know that...so these energetic theatre-builders are truly building "community"...and that , my friends, is the point of it all.

So, BRAVO, BRAVO , BRAVO to all who start new theaters...to the magnificent Evelyn Cook and the other Mt.City ,Tennessee folks who took their Heritage Hall (with the help, again, of Barter Theatre) and made it a place for people to gather and see wonderful shows...to the group of community theater artists (like Judy Walsh and Mike Eggers) there who make it happen, another BRAVO...BRAVO to Amelia Ampuero and Frank Green and all who have helped them get The Duke City Rep off the ground here in Albuquerque...to Mary Guaraldi and her hard workers at Canyon Moon Theatre in Sedona, Arizona...BRAVO... whether "pro" or "amateur", whether your actors are Union or not, whether you "salary" your folks or not...BRAVO to you all for planting the seeds for the future...because (as all who read this blog already know): man WILL have his campfire, for the light it gives to better tell the tribe's stories...so you may as well put a barn or a gas station around them, to better keep them from the cold...and to provide a place where the "others" can come with their farm animals and produce and pies and cookies, credit cards, and cash...to gain entrance to the wonder of it all.

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

America is beautiful.

Geography is probably destiny, therefore every person who lives in any particular  country should be required by law to travel it, up close and personally:  in the USA, there should be a Cross - Country  Driving Law passed by the US Congress, whereby by every family is required and provided with the government funding to drive from their home to another city far, far away.  Information about their travel route would also be provided by our government, so the kids (as well as the poorly educated adults) could learn fun and interesting facts about the things they're seeing along the way.  They would be required to stop at certain key places, where they would receive official tags of some sort, proving they had made that part of the trip!  Photographs would be taken, as further proof , and to supply an official scrapbook at the end of the trip, for the entire family to enjoy, in memory and conversation around the dinner table.

 Then, maybe we would begin to understand people better, and come to more deeply appreciate our particular piece of the world .     For example:

The Cherokee and Iroquois Nations, in Oklahoma and Texas, have regained some footing on their historical lands by opening mega-church - like gambling casinos on them. Yesterday, we passed several enormous structures dedicated to greed, avarice, surface thrills, and good old fashioned worship of Lady Luck, and it got me thinking:  why is this so oddly thrilling? Almost like vengeance!

At the same time, why does it dismay me to see these noble peoples create temples to the very worst in mankind?  What is possibly explicable and right about that? How did it happen that the "noble savage"  stooped low enough to finally get us at our own game?  When did they learn to be cynical enough to  adapt the guise of being so successfully "white"?  These guys are fulfilling the good old American dream: they are raking it in!  To the envy of many of their white counterparts in places like Reno, Vegas and Atlantic City, these original American natives are beating the Mafia at their own games! And breaking no knees or  noses, in the process.

Sure , we white folks did ruin them, rape, pillage, decimate and destroy their native cultures...Filled their bellies with "fire-water" and their blankets full of small pox....put them on "reservations" and took their power away so completely, most kids now grow up not even knowing what place the Native AMerican tribes have in our country's history.  But...gambling casinos??? What's that about?

Like fortresses, these gargantuan cathedrals of gambling rise out of the flat lands, and i had a thought :

Native Americans have always been connected to The Land in primally deep, spiritual ways...always believed in the animus of every deer or antelope they killed for food, and in the primitive and mystical life force in trees, in all of Nature. And what could be more primal....more primitive, if you will...than man's  belief /dependence on Luck?  Since the first frightened human built an altar to the god he hoped would protect him when lightening struck, Mankind has believed in the good Fortune of some and the very bad Fortune of  others, and has worked hard to be the one to whom only Good happened!  Man gambles every single day of his life...to breathe is to take a gamble on the next breath!

SO , it's somehow fitting that the modern Indian nations are connecting to the deeply rooted "Nature" of man to re-gain his place: it is appealing to such a basic quality - Fear -  a fear allayed only by deep belief in the power of prayer for Good Luck, in hopes of  gaining MORE and more and more..that it's almost as natural as man can be...and the Indians have always trusted Nature, haven't they? So, once an idea like a gambling casino came to be - as a way to appeal to our deep belief that the next stroke of Good Fortune is only waiting at the next table to happen to us -  it grew like the solid idea it was, and has become concretized in these huge glamorous buildings (more Western fixations: largeness and glamour)....and we flock to these palaces of Chance, as surely as thirsty herds of antelope gravitate to the nearest pond of fresh water!  The Indians?  Well, I'd say they consider these particular antelopes  fair game..... wouldn't you?

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

At last, we've hit an annoying snag in our blissful journey: noisy motel neighbors!

I was beginning to wonder what happened to all those many reasons to complain on a trip!  This one has been so smooth (oh God, please don't take this as an oversight on your part...let it continue thus?!!) and so easy to enjoy, i forgot that there are reasons to worry about one's next stop.

Turns out, there are parts of Oklahoma under serious construction and the various crews are housed in motels near the sites. The Days Inn here on I-35 , right outside Oklahoma City, is such a housing. And last night was , after all, Friday night : the arrival of a much welcomed weekend of partying and rest, I would think, for these hardworking guys.   But, why is it that hardworking guys just have to drink beer - lots of beer , it would appear, from the empty beer cartons that litter the parking lot outside - and get loud.

One phone conversation i overheard, as i timidly peeked out my curtained window of room #136 last night: "hey...hey...HEY!!...you wan' me to come home and punch you in the face??"..i closed the curtain fast and worried for our car.

After a while, though, (and my two Valerian tabs that have become habit), a gentler quiet soothed the night, and the guys had either passed out or gone out to make their noise in local strip joints. Peter and I were grateful and, after checking the Ford Escape, relieved.

This morning - another early one ...(i simply cannot wait for each day to begin, so I rise early to greet it)...i discovered that right next our room here at the end of the corridor is an Indian Restaurant, probably run by the same folks who keep this motel, and from the looks of it, the food is both home-cooked and authentic. Next to it, as part of the same space, in fact, is one of those truck stop shops with huge signs in the window that tell you beer can indeed be purchased: $14.99 for 12 of this and $12.99 for 4 six-packs of that, only $8.99 for 24 of some local brand...i mean, every beer known to long-distance drivers, and drunk, no doubt , by our last night's TGIF neighbors!

This very convenient store also has the typical shelves of beef jerky packaged in brightly colored cellophane, countless brands of chewing tobacco, cab deodorizers in cute shapes and fragrances, every Hostess baked treat made, bags of crunchy and salty chips, (a guy has to balance the sweet with the savory for a good meal, right?), packaged suspicious meats, processed cheeses, white (and only white) bread  - (no whole grains here! whole grains are for sissies, and taste funny, anyway) - small jars of yellow mustard, mayonnaise (make that Miracle Whip), large containers of ketchup (I guess they DO put it on everything: America's sauce of choice) , Cracker Jack, all candy bars made by Mars, chewing gum, Life Savers, toothpaste, Coke products,  milk, chocolate and strawberry Yahoo, pre-packaged sandwiches, trinkets to hang around one's rear-view mirror, seat covers, cigarettes, hair pomade and combs to go with it, tweezers (why do truck drivers need those?), energy drinks, aspirin, Listerine, individual horoscopes in little rolls tied with string ("You will go on a long journey, Scorpio."), cough drops, nail files, soap, chamois cloths, bottled water, peanuts, cashews, little containers of Kellogg's cereals, from Fruit Loops to Corn Flakes, spicy almonds, chocolate covered cherries, Christmas cards, little dashboard Santa's (lonely Christmas, out there on the superhighway),  stain remover, salt and pepper, Tobasco sauce, instant soups and noodles, tea bags, eye drops, cold medicines, Noxema, Calamine Lotion, Clearasil, honey buns, packaged pickles, peanut butter crackers, dental floss, facial tissue, toilet paper, paper towels, canned beans, apples ( one fresh thing!), old bananas, barbecue sunflower seeds, sunglasses , and of course: all that beer.

One more thing this store has, though?  Incense!  A large, pretty display of colorfully wrapped and foiled
Indian incense, in many many fragrances.  This made me want to stay in this store longer, and so I did.  I pretended to be looking for stuff i possibly may want to buy there, (their coffee did smell good), while i observed the young man behind the counter: a slender, pretty, dark-skinned and soft-spoken Indian , courteous and  nice, who later informed me we could call the guys who cook in their cafe...call them about 20 minutes before we depart from the area, and they will cook, made to order, fresh samosa, poorhi, whatever we wanted to take with us! Incense AND Indian food! Beer AND biryani!

Oh,  if I was worried about the food smelling up our long-travelling car? Well, they did sell that incense , right there!

I bought a coffee, and left the store, marveling at the immigrant's way of making a place for himself in the large world, no matter where they land.  Adaptation. Life is adaptation.

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

A friend told me that the country music star Conway Twitty chose his first name from this town Peter and I are currently sleeping in here in Arkansas...and his last name from a cartoon character....and you can't get near Memphis without being deluged by post cards and bill boards in homage to the King of Rock n' Roll: Elvis Presley!  So...this leads me to ask:

Is there something in the soil of this part of the world that grows music men?  Music men of that certain sensibility called rock-a billy?  Something in the way the world moves around here seems to result in that slurring, sexy slide into the peculiarly American music form that seems to have come from the American South and only the American South....one of this nation's unique contributions to the rest of the world.

This music is so much a part of the fabric of American sound....so threaded through the lives and times of this region...it's taken for granted. But the thing that gets me is this: such a major part of American music has come from around here (some would say all the truly unique and important contributions), so much from this part of the American heart...why do people still make fun of the South? Why are "mountain people" still comically referred to as hill billies? Red necks? Looked down on and made less of? Why does there seem to be a lingering, odd combination of pride and feelings of inferiority even in the fine citizens of the region i speak of?  A stubborn pride in the things that make it wonderful and special...yet a pride born of stubborn hurt, as if fun has been made of it one too many times? A defensive pride....a pride that takes the very things people make fun of and uses them, instead as badges of wonder, beauty and uniqueness.   "To HELL with you! I'm proud to be a red-neck!" sort of thing....A sheer and beautiful pride , like fine washed linen on a farmhouse clothesline, flapping fresh in the morning breeze and saying, "Here I am, clean, pure, simple and ready to serve you"...a pride that takes pride in its very nature.

Of course, Northerners are the targets of many jokes, and people stereotype "the Northern intellectual", "the hard-boiled city slicker", etc....Westerners, mainly Californians, are made such fun of, that the blonde, dumb, bimbo beach bunny seems to hail from Santa Monica and no where else!  As if there weren't plenty of all types of dumb people everywhere!  And the New Englander? Forget it! That poor Vermont farmer, with his daughter, his tight-lipped speech and his frugality, are about as low as stereotyping can slink!

But none of those American regions produce the sort of music that defines it.

The American South does ...and for that alone, there should be such a strong, glorious and stout-hearted
sense of regional Self, that others should sit up and take notice of, and love...as much as I have come to.
For the music alone - given to us, created by and recorded in the memories and hearts of these Southern folks - for the music alone, this region has it above all others, and like its mountains, the people soar on glorious , strong wings.  Nothing to be ashamed of...nothing at all.

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

Salagadooola -  Mishagaboola - Bibbity- Bobbity - Boo!!!!

And...just like that, our house at 216 Stonewall is empty, shiny broom-clean (central vacuuming system clean, that is), and here we are...as if someone simply turned a page ...putting the characters of this particular story in:  Jackson, Tennessee!  Home of the Casey Jones Museum, Gift Shop and Restaurant!
(where I intend to go this morning, for our first post-card purchase of the trip...), and the lovely,dog-friendly Econo-Lodge, where collapsing, sleep, and re-packing of suitcases and the back of our car  are afoot.  We were so intent on completing the house-cleaning, car-packing, getting out of Dodge frenzy of yesterday morning , the hours generated their own momentum, and before we knew it, the Ford Escape was indeed packed, but in such a Byzantine way, that Peter is insisting on re-organizing, re-stowing and re-starting our journey, as far as car packing is concerned...after the sleep we were able to get last night,  and true relaxation (cut off from our former life, in the middle of Jackson, Tennessee, on a highway, relaxation seems easier)...we should be able to make more sense of our little laden caravan!

Sally and Cyrano - our two doggie kids - are a bit freaked out by all the change and are sleeping a lot, on our laps in the car, and crashed on the beds here at Econo-Lodge...also, they are not eating. Their canine terror, soothed by sleep, leaves them, strangely, un-hungry, and these are dogs who are always hungry...usually.   It's this lack of appetite that tells us how truly nervous they are in the middle of all this change.  Right now, Cyrano is snuggled warmly on Peter's lap and is, again, sound asleep...Sally, curled in a little snail-shell form, on a suspicious looking motel blanket. Staying at dog-friendly places that cost less than luxury, one takes what one can get...but we slept well last night, nonetheless. And there was bounteous - though unhealthy - feast at breakfast. So why complain?

I'd like to write about the bewildering physics of change....about the magic that takes place in the passing of time (thus, the nod to the spell cast by Disney's Fairy Godmother over Cinderella, in the above title)....about the power of "how-in-the-hell-are-we-ever-going-to-get-this-done turning into "oh-my-god-we-DID-it"....about the odd mix of sadness/joy/fear/ecstasy/curiosity/satisfaction that fills my thinking, as I realize we truly did do it: we made this choice, and we have made our move.....about the extraordinary deluge of gratitude that washes over me like fresh warm salt water every time I realize that at my age, I have more courage, more clarity, and more power in my thinking that I ever had when I was younger...thus, I am able to truly appreciate this immense decision, and the journey of golden moments it has started me on: when I was younger, I wrote in another Journal Volume of how I've decided to dub as "Golden Moments", those times that are so wonderful, so delectable and desired, so perfect, that it feels like a golden light is shining on them and spotlighting them for me to remember...i used it to underline career successes, mostly...as professional things went my way, certain performances, certain moments of recognition, when things went exactly as I wanted them to go...Golden Moments: this time in my life seems to be one long one...and I am deeply glad I can recognize and enjoy that fact.

I'd like to write about all that....and maybe later I will.

But right now? I gotta go to the Casey Jones Gift Shop and buy lots of truly memorable post cards. Be on the look-out for yours, as Day #1/2 turns into our true Day #1 of full journeying to our SF home. Next stop along the way: Conway, Arkansas!

Labels: Cross-Country Journey

As if the skies over Abingdon, Virginia are sad for our departure, this early morning is drenched in grey rain, chill air and suitably Fall-like demeanor.....and our moving truck should pull up to our door in another 3 hours or so.  It's slightly inconceivable to me that we've managed to pack this 3000 sq. ft house into the piles of brown boxes I see surrounding me, but, with Peter's remarkable organizational skills and hearty energies, so it is!  We are (mostly) ready to go!

Labels: San Francisco move

I just re-connected to an old friend on FaceBook, that miracle community that conjures up the past and posts it for all to see, and for you to remember.

Michael A. - a man I shared all manner of Northwestern University adventures with - a man who i've known since our teenage days as "Cherubs"  there....Michael and I were close...even on into the days in NYC, when our apartments were mere blocks away from each other on the Upper West Side...oh, those days...when he began his career as Editor for various magazines, first convention and travel mags, on into  various subjects...now home decorating, he told me...i used to go to his tree shaded apartment on 107th Street and we'd light a little fire (am I imagining that fireplace there? I know he has one in the Village place he moved to after 107th street)...we'd read...watch tv...complain about love and disappointment, discuss our next life moves...he even wrote theatre criticism, now and again, as he established his life in the City.

During college, Michael and I used to invade the back stage dressing rooms of actresses we admired, and once on a 1967 college-days trip to NYC, after seeing her in a show, we lied our way backstage to meet Geraldine Page, telling the Ethel Barrymore Theatre Stage Door man we were reporters from the Northwestern University newspaper, and needed to interview Miss Page...we were invited into her dressing room...and for a series of nights, after each different show we saw, and as she cleaned of her makeup from each performance of Black Comedy/White Lies that she was in at the time, we sat with her for what seemed like hours talking about her career, theater in general, and our dreams of being part of it. She spent her nights after her performances waiting for her husband Rip Torn to finish his show down in the Village somewhere (why does the name The Deer Park come to mind...was that the name of the play he was in?), so while she waited for him to pick her up, we had the privilege of sitting in her dressing room and "interviewing" her.  We were such little con artists!

All we did was bathe in the reflected glory of this marvelous actress...her dressing room smelled of greasepaint, Albolene, "the Method", and perfume, and she always had her dresser fix us tea! We felt blessed by every sight and sound, as her fellow actors in the show would stop by to say goodnight to their leading lady...... Michael Crawford  , a young Lynn Redgrave, Donald Madden ...John Dexter was the director of this  production, Peter Shaffer the playwright  .....   we were ecstatic to be near these people we were only familiar with from reading about them in the New York TImes....and Geraldine Page could not have been more gracious.

I wore a truly tacky but warm (and I thought glamorous) cat-fur coat at that time...made of calico cat patchy fur but soft and ...well...distinctive...and Michael and me and the cat coat , as I called it, were ubiquitous at Broadway stage doors during that Spring Break of 1967: we pushed our way into everywhere! Well...maybe I did the pushing...i thought if I could just soak myself in their atmosphere, meet those celebrities, drain their psychic blood by asking them questions...maybe I would be one of them one day....and my need, my passion to do that...talk our way into back stages so we could breathe it all in...fueled so many of our shared adventures.  Michael was my more-than-willing accomplice...we both loved live theater so very much.

And we adored Geraldine Page for letting us into that world. She got my number right away, and as we finally departed from her with autographed photos in hand, after several shared nights of dressing room chat, she looked me squarely in the eyes and said "You will get what you want, Evalyn...oh yes, you will!" ...making me feel that she was both approving and archly criticizing my clearly aggressive energies...she saw the "Eve" on the make...oh my yes, she surely did.

And that was the sort of adventure that Michael A. and shared a deal of in college!  I had a very close and dear friend in Michael - he went through my dramas with Paul and the split of our marriage with me...he held my hand at times when I felt my sadness and pain would force me to float off the face of the earth...Michael was often my anchor and my rock of salvation.  And then, one day, I woke up and realized  - not having a clue why - that Michael and i had drifted away from each other, and days would go by when we spoke not at all to each other...then weeks...then months..and the years passed.

How an intimate friendship like that disappears bewilders me...i truly can't remember why we lost touch...but we did...and this morning - at about 5:30 , with me in Virginia and Michael in  NYC, his current golden retriever ( I imagine) Pym by is side, I saw his name on my chat list on Facebook, and i typed him a message.  We "talked" for 30 minutes....and then, when we "parted", I cried. My heart ached, and i cried as I began to write this blog entry. I told him that I love and miss him.

And this is true.  And as my tears warmly stream down my unwashed face, as I write about this lost friendship, I'm praying that Michael and I can be together again one day soon, as friends and aging mischief-makers.... that this Facebook "re-connect" truly re-connects us..

Labels: Facebook re-connections

When one hears sad news, where does it go in the body?

The ears receive it - or the eyes - then the mind comprehends it, and thinks thoughts, creates images inspired by the news - and then the body becomes a  kingdom of feelings, physical sensations and reactive energies. .....the entire body contains the news and revolution occurs.

 Angel Kitty passed away over the weekend.  Laura K. , who was kind enough to take Angel Kitty as a pet, since we knew he was too decrepit to make the SF trek in one piece, came home from her Saturday night show at Barter Main Stage, and found Angel Kitty cuddled up in the box she had made for him, and he was resting peacefully, dead and gone.  Laura was so upset and sad , so guilt-ridden and wretched, that she could not break the news to me and Peter. She feared that  she did not take good enough care of Angel, so she thought maybe he died from neglect and loneliness.
Of course this is not true - Angel Kitty was older than we knew for sure, as sick as the doc suspected, and on his last kitty legs anyway. Dr.Mask, at Virginia Highlands Animal Hospital kept warning us that he may not make it through a week, and to be vigilant of his fragile state when we took him home with us, after his having been shaved and cared for at the hospital.  She warned us. And we took him anyway, loving him all the way home and beyond.  We wept when we realized we could not take him with us to California.  We cried as the loving and caring Laura drove him away to live with her at the Barter Inn.

And so, given a good life these last few months, well fed and petted and cuddled all the time we could give him, and surrounded by annoyed yet affectionate doggie siblings, and by a new caring mistress, Angel Kitty decided it was is time to go away from this earth and go to Kitty Heaven. And he did it snuggled in the warmth of the historic Barter Inn. Poor Laura just happened to be the one who discovered his final decision's outcome. And she finally gathered the courage to call and tell me about it last night.  I somehow knew something was wrong. I'd written to ask her how Angel was doing, and when I didn't immediately hear from her,  i had a funny feeling all was not well.  And so it was.

Even though I expected Angel's demise at any time, even though I was with him for many days and discovered his increasingly decrepit state to be a sign of his old age, and that made me sad, I was still taken by surprise being told he was gone. And that brings me to the "anatomy" of sadness:  my body went into an outrage of reactions that i had no control over:

A curious leaden weight invaded the area under my eyes, as if a storm of tears were gathering there ...my stomach got incredibly nauseous and nervous.....my jaw ached with a mild agony....my heart literally palpitated with apprehension..and my entire face felt like breaking in two.  I knew he was old...i knew he was not long for this earth...yet i immediately felt a paralyzing grief over the death of this cat....an animal that had not been in my life for very long at all...i felt like my heart was going to burst with sadness...and so I cried and cried. Peter was upset of course - he had a true feeling for that cat - but I felt thoroughly inconsolable and in pain.  That feeling in my face...it was bad...it was heavy and hurt. It hurts again, as I write this, and warm tears are spilling from my eyes, as again that odd heaviness, that leaden weight pushes agains my throat and heart.  Sadness is as anatomical as indigestion: a disturbance of how we process life....or at least life as we usually let ourselves experience it. Grief surprises us awake and forces us to be tender again.

Once again, i realized I feel deeper pain at the loss of an animal than I ever seem to have about the loss of a human friend - and the sight of a stray dog , clearly set loose from a family or owner, drives me to a distraction of sadness.  I'm filled with the frustrated futility of powerlessness as I realize there is nothing I can do to help that lost soul wandering the streets - and i NEVER feel that about the human homeless!  Animals and their comparative inability to care for themselves , their utter need for human connection and affection, make me feel deeper concern for their well-being than I ever feel for the human lost.  Maybe because i think that humans can get up out of the gutter and ask for what they want, whereas dogs and lost cats are at our mercy.  Which brings me to how Angel Kitty really chose us: he picked Peter and me to take care of him in his distraught old age, to pick him up , clean him off and care for his poor old skinny body that had been tossed out by his other crueler owners...he chose us, he came to us like an Angel - thus the name - to teach us the depth of our ability to feel compassion, no matter the pay-off....he taught us we could care more deeply than either of us thought we could care for something as ...well...disposable...as a stray cat. Turns out he was not so disposable after all.

Angel Kitty entered our lives, changed us, and now is gone.  And as i recall his softness, his graceful agility, his sweet deaf ears and searching eyes, i feel a mournfulness that reminds me of life's fragility. Even in his brief time with us, he taught me to look at life in a different way, to see it from the point of view of the rescued, the needy and the gentle...to come up close to life, look it straight in the eyes, and examine its face.  I loved Angel Kitty while he was ours, and I will remember him always.  Rest well, Angel....and know:  you were loved. And are missed... by hearts made to ache by the loss of you.

Labels: Angel Kitty, Emotions