Chance = Change

How to even begin to describe the sound of a pack of coyotes howling in the cool Arizona desert night?

Words fail me, but, as ever, I'll try...it's necessary that I do try, because it's been a while since a pure sound took me to such an "other" place inside myself, and emotionally, hearing those roaming animals speaking to each other last night, clarified , for me , the reason to write anything at all,  such a powerful experience needing to  be shared, no matter how feeble the attempt.

I was sound asleep at 3:00 A.M. when Peter shook me awake.  Ever since the fog horns of San Francisco came into my life, I've been eager for the sounds of the world around me. Peter knew i was longing to hear for myself the voices of the coyotes I've been told about, one of which I did see on a recent afternoon, laying under a tree on the golf course a hundred feet from our sunny patio.  I haven't heard a coyote howl for a long time, and the one and only time i did hear one was in the Hollywood hills: a single, low mournful sound, in the chill of a night I was spending at an LA' friend's house in those hills.  I loved it, and it seemed emblematic to me of where I was at the time, both geographically and  psychically: a romanticized, movie version of solitude and glamour. One coyote howling in the dark: that was me!  So i was sort of longing to hear that sound again, and yet, despite everyone else in this house hearing them, I kept sleeping through their nightly visits.

So I was glad that Peter shook me awake to hear what he was hearing. And at first, I thought he was wrong, that what I was hearing could not be coyotes, so strange were the sounds to my ear.  But then I realized it was different from my expectations because it was not one lone doggie, but rather a pack of them, on the hunt, and they were not talking to the moon...they were talking to each other! What an amazingly feeling, specific, urgent communication it seemed to be!  It was a private conversation, filled with tribal subtleties, game planning, strategy and purpose, and it felt like eavesdropping.  It was impossible not to, their whines and howls and whimperings filled the spacious air.
Suddenly there seemed to be nothing else in the world but coyotes, and all that kept us from being in their pack were the walls of the house we slept in.

The thing was, it all was much much higher pitched than I expected, and that pitch of their singing howls sounded practically human, it was so nuanced and tender. And it was continuous. Not just one long howl, but one long conversation, with more than one coyote singing at once, as if they all had something they needed to say, and they kept interrupting each other, talking over each other, trying to be heard, just like people do at conference table when emergencies are being discussed!  AND they were on the move, going forward, then circling back to re-sniff, re-inverstigate, search again for any scene that might take them to that tender rabbit they just crossed paths with, or that little squirrel that  had managed to elude them.  They were on a mission, and it was like listening to the garbled sound of soldiers on walkie-talkies, with the static of more yips, yelps, growls, included. I was utterly fixed, and could not stop listening even if I had wanted to. and then, suddenly, it all stopped at once, and there was utter silence.

Then, a solitary yelp, as if to say " Hey, guys, over here...come this way!". then more shared chatting, reactions perhaps to their scout's urging. And the coyote music began to be heard from another part of the golf course.  More high-pitched, atonal, chorus-ing, as their voices (were there four of them or twenty...i couldn't tell) blended in focused searching.  The richness of the audio experience is difficult to convey, because ,finally, it was not human: it was pure unadulterated animal  in every way.

I was glad that little Sally and Cyrano were snuggled warmly next to us in bed, under many covers, and protected by our arms, because I couldn't help but feel that the coyotes outside were smelling our little dogs inside, and that the odor of our dachshunds' pee-ing was one of the things that was contributing to the frenzy outside.  Little Sally would be short work for the pack I heard a few feet outside our walls, and i felt suddenly sad at the necessary savagery of survival.  Cyrano would put up quite a fight, but he too would soon have to succumb to the coyotes. So...as i said...i am deeply glad they were by our sides and safe.  I wish I could keep them - and all of us - that way forever and ever.

Alas.  Beauty and death. The plaintiveness of existence. And the impossible joy.

Labels: Arizona things

Darling Marcia Lewis - one of my first friends in the profession, a truly gentle heart connected to a deeply gifted soul - passed away yesterday at the age if 72.  She'd had cancer about 20 years ago, was nursed back to health by her Mom, and she went on to have her best Broadway triumphs, and a loving marriage...  but the damned thing finally came back for a final visit, spread, as it will, and finally laid this wonderful woman low.....i am sad about Marcia's passing. She was good to me.

Way back before I had my Equity card, i was cast as "Maude Dunlop" in THE MUSIC MAN - starring some quiz show host ...Peter Marshall, that was it!- with "Marion" being played by a former Miss America,etc..one of those great big summer stock tours, before air conditioning, so that our false eyelashes fell off from the perspiration...but that was part of the fun - and Marcia played "Eulalie McKecknie Shinn"...i was one of her "One Grecian urn" ladies...the Pick-a-Little gang, y'know.  That summer earned me my card, and a good new friend in Marcia.

We did that small summer stock tour, shared a house somewhere up in Massachusetts - Cohassett, I think - and boiled lots of lobsters for dinner (they were sold across the street from our guest house)...now that I think of it, she taught me how to boil my first lobster, and it may be that I have never boiled another since then...but Marcia was a good old Massachusetts girl and lobsters didn't scare her the way they did me...she was my lobster coach!  Then , we'd go do performances in- the- round at the local theatre and share a bottle of cold summer wine after the show, back at our house. She was married at the time to agent Dick Woody.

So, of course, she introduced me to my first NYC agent: her husband.

We stayed friends forever after that. And my then husband Paul loved her as much as I did. We went to see her cabaret shows, followed her work, had many city dinners with her...she was warm, loving, kind...even when going through hard times, like her divorce from Dick, her later first cancer scare,etc. tough times in LA....somehow, we always kept in touch and found each other.

THEN: our next show together - we've really only done two, I think - was RAGS on Broadway (though mostly in Boston at the Shubert there), and i understudied Marcia...the only Broadway understudy gig I ever accepted, since I had a small part in the show anyway...but it was an honor to understudy Marcia. Only then did I learn how easy she made it all look: the one time I had to stand in for her at a rehearsal, I felt 1/3 as talented as she, even though I was twice her height...she was the one with the astonishing trumpet voice, and I could only dream of singing as well....and there was that ineluctable, indefinable sweetness she projected at the same time that she was being terrifically acerbic and funny...Marcia was a swell combination of so many gentle/strong qualities at the same time....she was a small surprise package with talent of a giant. And the gentleness of one too.

When she finally settled into her one and only long Broadway run in CHICAGO, i expressed admiration of the way she decorated her dressing room, and she told me she was so grateful to be in a long run, she was going to milk it to the hilt: her dressing room became her 2nd home, and she made it lacy and pretty and deeply Victorian-comfortable...a real old fashioned leading lady dressing room, in which she could graciously entertain pals after the show, pour wine,etc..it was fun to go visit her there...she was so happy. AND THEN: she met this man, who became of fan of hers, and saw her in that show 15 times! or more! and Marcia began showing up at commercial auditions all dressed up and fashionable and extremely womanly and all made-up,etc...i think this mature and lasting love had begun to transform her, and when she married, she expressed such relief and a desire to sleep for a year!  Marcia worked hard all her life, and if anyone deserved a long winter's nap, it was that dear woman. In the arms of man who adored her.

And now she's gone, and I cannot tell her how much i have missed her.

But, as I don't believe a spirit like Marcia Lewis' ever truly dies, i know she's watching us all from somewhere up there, sitting next to Alice White and sharing a bottle or two, as they talk about the next auditions for some heavenly show or other...well, whoever is directing? Lucky them: because two extraordinary character women are "at liberty" and are no doubt ready to audition!  Cast them both, and they will blow your heavenly roof off!

Marcia - love to you, and my sincere applause of appreciation, wherever you may be!

Labels: Adventures with Friends

Above title sounds like a Christmas song lyric...i've got such on my brain, it being so near the Day and all.

Actually, above title describes two of the more delightful San Francisco things that have happened to us in the past couple of days, making our life here - already so wonderful that we walk around with smiles on our faces all the time -richer and even more fun.


Stephen,Paul and I took the pups over to Baker Beach earlier this week on a gorgeous grey, wet and dramatically cloudy day, (while Peter worked away at getting his cunning little office set up so we can record Christmas gifts for family) , and I was overwhelmed by how easy and free-wheeling our two spoiled mini-dachshunds were on this vast stretch of wet sand, the moment we took them off their leashes!  It was like Cyrano became god of the Bay, his extravagantly wild ears flying in the winds, as he took off down the beach in pursuit of a wet beach stick thrown as far as Stephen's arm could throw it! And, once she got her delicate little princess tootsies used to it, Sally walked and walked like I've never seen her walk before!

There was a large Irish wolfhound sort of creature named Moxie there with his owner Tom, and all three dogs became friends - another revelation, since our dogs have always been barky and squeamish around other canines....one of the fears I had moving back to a city was about how our pups would behave with other dogs, back on concrete streets,etc. Well, little did I know how quickly the magic of San Francisco would work on Sally and Cyrano: they have been perfectly well behaved and friendly and open and sharing sniffs with other dogs, since we arrived three weeks ago: no problems!  There are flowers in the air here, and every creature knows it: peace reigns, in this most delightful city! Dogs included.

It helps that we are renting in an extremely dog-friendly building, where a special doggie-bathroom area has been set up out back by the garages, complete with wall-mounted dispensers of poo-poo bags for whatever needs picking up, and that 3/4 of the people in these 3 connected buildings are dog-owners, or at least it seems so. And yet, there is never the over-crowded feeling or threat of meeting all the dogs at once in the elevator, like there is in NYC, since altogether, there is less crowding in this city: it's a relaxed experience, rather than a "fraught" one. So all four of us seem happy with the dog situation. And then, there are these beaches for the dogs to run on!

So, Baker Beach one afternoon, then the famed Chrissy Field Beach the next: dozens of fabulous pooches running and chasing balls and sticks, ...one enormous dog run...edged by the magnificent Bay again, with the Golden Gate Bridge on one end of an extensive walk, and the entire Marina area on the other end...i mean, with it's marsh wildlife restoration projects and charming dogs and their owners all happy in the sun, mild breezes blowing: the perfect picture of Doggie Heaven, if ever there was one.
And once again, both free of restraints, Sally and Cyrano were perfectly in their element: chasing balls (well, Cyrano more than Sally, but she was walking like a regular pup athlete!) and hobnobbing with other dogs like they'd been friends forever....i never expected it to be so easy. And CYRANO?  HE WENT ALL THE WAY UP TO HIS CHIN INTO THE WATER IN PURSUIT OF WHATEVER STICK OR BALL HE WAS CHASING!  Never blinked a doggie eye! Just ran after whatever was being thrown and splashed around til he found what he was chasing and swam back to us standing on the beach...his little paws flapping away, til he got out of the water.  At one point the waves were so big, his eyes widened as he seemed to think: wow, what's all this? What do I do now? But whatever he needed to do he did, and HE INEVITABLY FOUND THE STICK, no matter how lost it got in the waves...he found it! My boy! I was so proud....and , frankly, AMAZED!

We walked 'til I was exhausted, so I can only imagine how tired the dogs must have been , but their energies never flagged, they were so filled with joie de vivre  and bounce! All the way back to the car, where i have learned my lesson: bring towels to wipe them off with, and get as much sand off their wet bodies as possible before we get back in the car!  This much is true, however: once they did get home, they COLLAPSED onto the bed and slept like the dead !  Cyrano was so exhausted, he didn't even wake up when I moved him so I could have room on the bed! He just lay there like the tired lump of love he was and let me move him where i needed him to be!

This doggies-on-the-each thing? Wonderful. And we will do a lot if it, especially since it's great exercise for us as well!

THEN: as if things aren't already so great i can hardly stand it: we received the perfect holiday gift yesterday:  membership - actually multiple memberships -in some of SF's greatest museums: the Asian Art Museum (Peters favorite of all), and the extraordinary DeYoung Museum of Art, both in Golden Gate Park and it's Legion of Honor Museum as well!  I mean: there is no more perfect gift for us, as much as we adore good museums, and have missed going to them for several years now.  And since Stephen and Paul also have family memberships to these, we can all go and enjoy them together!

In fact, on December 31st - 9:00 AM for Members, and 11:00 for non-Members - there is a ringing of ancient Japanese Bells (16h Century ancient), and we all hope to go to that unique celebration: each guest can actually put hands on one of the ancient bells and ring it for good luck!  Well...i mean, come on! Such a SF way to ring out the old year and ring in the new! The very thought of it gives me goosebumps. AS does our plan to spend New Year's Eve  up at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and celebrate in the special ways they have planned!  We 'd even discussed doing the Eve at the San
Francisco Symphony Gala Celebration...but decided we needed something less formal, so SPirit Rock was our choice...we will spend it with Paul and Stephen , of course.  All four of us feel very grateful that our dear little family can spend this turn of 2010/11 together, with our major move having been accomplished...so we can all be together for days to come!  This is a blessed time for all of us, and we all feel the special-ness of it.  New Year's eve at Spirit Rock will be a time of celebration and thanks-giving.

What a wonderful time this is.

Labels: San Francisco life

We're Giving Ourselves The GIft of San Francisco, This Christmas!  is the title of the song Peter and I wrote on Saturday, and sang that evening at the Christmas party thrown by dear friends at their home in Noe Valley!   All guests were asked to perform something, and this is what our contribution was, as rough as it was...a little gift for all....and it goes like this:
                                            

Labels: San Francisco life

I've never been much of an Ikea fan, UNTIL NOW!

Peter, Stephen and I spent 5 hours inside the Emeryville Ikea Store two days ago, and many dollars (and my sore feet) later, we emerged into the rainy evening with enough boxes of furniture parts to make us all fear we would not be able to fit them in our Ford Escape.  But fit them all we did, and with Stephen navigating, and Peter driving (and me crouching comfortably in a small corner in the back seat, we slowly but safely navigated our way back to Lombard Street. There was a massive column of  boxes cutting through the middle of the car, so Peter could not see either Stephen or me, and I could see only the back of Stephen's head, but with expert communication and trust, we made it home.  Peter put together one chest of drawers yesterday, and already the clutter is clearing. We have hopes for enough storage space to help us be neat and contained.  It's not stylish, but it's surely useful, and I have hopes that I can make the spare Scandinavian style our own, with a few touches here and there.  Mainly, it's inexpensive, and given our recent shedding of major furniture pieces for the move West, "inexpensive" translates to me as "disposable".  This is appealing and very very practical and, as I said, useful.

We hit the huge store in Emeryville on the day the Ikea company was throwing its annual Employee Christmas Party right in the store, so there was an air of anticipation, and a yummy smell of freshly baked cinnamon buns floating through the first floor checkout area.  We shopped 'til the very last moment, and the store was literally shutting down lights as we passed through aisles, creating a rather ghostly feeling 'round the entire venture, and I could imagine the tired-looking clerks checking their watches for the witching hour of 6, when they would rush to the large bathrooms, change into party duds, and emerge, hoping to look transformed and festive, as they joined long lines of fellow workers for the free Swedish meatballs, Norse champagne (is there such a thing?) and powdery sweets provided by the Store management for their delight and refreshment.

Would drunken employees dance on top of the Spartanly-designed bedside table inventory that night? Would Carlina from Office Cabinets sing her yearly "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" atop a stack of Billy shelves, and bring a tear to the eye of the female  Floor Manager who had a secret (but well-known) crush on her all year long?  Would Ikea romances sprout like so many Malm drawer inserts and fade by the light of the florescence the following morning ?  Just how wild would this Ikea Employee Christmas Party get?

My mind had time to wander over such topics, as I sat guarding our many goods , while Peter and Stephen surveyed the car for solutions on how to get it all home. I also sat there, tortured by that lovely cinnamon bun aroma, because i knew that even if I did leave the scene of the purchases to get myself a freshly baked bun, no one would want - and I mean who would ask for such trouble?? - no one would want what I was guarding: there was too much of it, and at Ikea, nothing makes sense unless you have it all together...so whoever would steal from those three (!!) wagons of furniture parts would be asking for a long night of trouble at home!  I was safe from theft, so I had to discipline myself for other reasons not to rush over and buy a tray of cinnamon buns and consume them for comfort and joy.

Finally - miraculously, if you ask me - they guys got the car packed (which is why we must keep guys in our lives...they pack cars so damned well) - and we were off on our somewhat suicidal journey home. I think the word my husband used was "precarious"...and yes, it was that.

But here we are now, with one chest built (and sweaters magically stored in it), two more chests of drawers to build, and one large Billy/Peter/Stephen-designed construction for our internal hallway, which will hold a multitude of necessary items and clean us right up! At least that is the plan.

My end of the deal? To continue to get rid of as much clothing as possible, as many household goods we still have too many duplicates of and to - like my Norse forebears (not!) - bite the chilly bullet and reduce our life to the clever minimum! Already I have taken stuff to Good Will on Bay Street, all the while wondering why the hell we bothered to bring it with us cross-coutnry, and I've no greater desire right now than to live a spare, clean, tasteful, quality life, with less stuff in it...(as long as it's "good" stuff, of course)...so maybe the Swedes are attempting to teach us another lesson with their Ikea invasion: not only how to bake killer cinnamon buns, but to look at life as something to carefully carve out of the precious cold of reality, warm it up with one or two brightly colored throw pillows, and be grateful for the few good things we know have value .  My dear friend Ann might not agree - she tends to value the old and the "handed-down-through-the-years" of it all - but this move West into new dawns is showing me a new way that I want to live, and i promise you: pack up your house for a cross-country move  and see if you don't agree that less turns out to be just right, if only we have the courage  to let go of the rest.

Labels: San Francisco Thoughts

We started our day on Polk Street, with a colossally delicious breakfast bagel at the Bagelry, and yet two more cups of utterly perfect coffee.  They put sprouts and fresh veggies on everything out here in the West, and this fabulous breakfast sandwich was no exception: the crisp crunch of the cucumbers with the salty taste of the ham and the warm egg was sublime, all inside a toasted, perfect freshly baked sesame bagel?  Yum. We sat outside, read our NY Times and SF Chronicle, and enjoyed the parade of people leisurely walking by. Perfect.

We'd been told that a few steps up our Lombard Street hill, right at Polk Street (our place is between Polk and Van Ness), all we had to do was walk two blocks to the right (to the left is merely that fabulous Bay!!!)  where we would come up "our" neighborhood stores, conveniences, eateries, coffee places,etc. and that we would be glad for what we find there, between, say Green and Broadway on Polk.

Well, yet again, local advice proved right, and we spent our morning exploring our "nabe": it couldn't be more perfect for us!  Cole's Hardware, flagship store of the neighborhood, filled with useful things, packed to its walls with them in fact, has fragrant evergreens, wreaths, trees, holiday plants out front, and anything we might possibly need piled high inside. Run by the most efficient, fascinating group of clearly capable women, who pridefully wear t-shirts that say "crew" on them, and , again useful, aprons with lots of pockets. I've never been in a hardware store run by women, and maybe that's why i felt so quickly at home! But, to be fair, the men we met there, one of whom had the proprietary nature of an owner,  help run it so well, and were welcoming, warm and cheerful.  Cole's Hardware: great store to have nearby.

There's an essential Real Food grocery anchoring another block - a smaller version of the store I've shopped near Paul and Stephen's - and I could spend hours in there, the foods they carry are so interesting, healthy, organic and delicious-looking. The meat counter looks wonderful, as do the rare cheeses laid out in a refrigerated area -and each shelf has stuff with labels I've never seen before, colorful, detailed, naming goods I so want to try: so many flavors, so many new local brands to discover...we received our Preferred Customer cards, so I anticipate spending time and money in our local Real Foods. Not your ordinary Safeway (though there's one of those near us as well, but that's another stroll.) So glad for Real Foods: I may finally begin to know what real vegetables and fruits are actually supposed to taste like, since they're grown nearby!

La Boulangerie - we ate lunch there the day before - is perched like a bountiful French matron, on the corner of yet another block, and from what I could tell of the baked goods in their front display counters, I could easily do some serious damage there! Flaky, sweet, chocolate-ty, fresh, crunchy, creamy, delicate, melt-in-your-mouth, are just a few of the adjectives that come to mind, as I stand there, ordering my fresh salad (so many healthful lettuces), while my mouth waters to taste each baked item....if I order another salad, maybe, one day soon, i can also have one of their confections for dessert: I can only imagine what their coffees must taste like, especially accompanied by that little piece of heaven over there in the corner of the display shelf!  Complex breads, fresh greens, a great place: La Boulangerie.

Russian Hill Book Store:  i mean come ON....imagine your favorite ideas about a bookstore, all contained within the walls of a couple of storefronts with a wall knocked down between them, so the place seems to go on and on, filled , packed to the walls, with used books of every description -ones you've either always wanted to read, or have recently gotten rid of and want others to read - but also salted throughout with new items for sale, like odd notecards, calendars, games - they have a vintage board game section that is a walk down the History of Games - ornate datebooks for 2011 (you must know how hard that was for me to pass by, but I've got mine already, and how many can a 2011 datebooks can a girl have?), clever book bags, toys, water bottles for those readers who must stop along the way to quench several thirsts - more note papers, stationary, pens, enticing blank journals, and all those stunningly interesting books brought in by others for your delight.  This store looks old,well-worn and genteel-y shabby, yet clean and totally engaging.  No Barnes and Nobel this...oh no...and absolutely no danger of ever being put out of business by one - this Russian Hill Book Store?  Well....they even have Shakespeare Quotation Chewing Gum!!!! Need I say one word more?

AN ever-useful Walgreen's, at Broadway and Polk - marking the end point of the several blocks we will probably walk many times on errands - where we registered with the pharmacy. When you walk in the door, there's a rack of pamphlets filled with the week's bargains, and we've already saved money there, thanks to them. It also helps that the friendly and helpful staff remind you of the bargains, in case you are at the checkout counter with a certain item, and you failed to notice you could have gotten one more of the same for free, with that special coupon in the booklet (that happened to us yesterday: a lovely woman at the checkout area leaned over and whispered to tell us that if we go back to where we got those Foster-Grant reading glasses , three-to-a-pack, we could take one more pack of them for free, since that was one of their specials this week!  So, thanks to this helpful employee, we got 6 pairs of reading glasses for under $15.00! You know I"ll return to that drugstore!) The pharmacy folks also text message you when your prescription is ready! Nice.

This is just the tip of the Polk Street ice berg, as there are also many lovely nail/hair/facial salons, an outstanding cigar and new stand with papers from all over the place, and countless magazines of interest,
antique stores and gift shops, one particularly interesting clothing store with unique stuff, sandwich shops, a rice pudding shop (!!!), bakeries and one brilliant place called BowWow/MeeOw: a doggie and feline heaven!  But I think I'll have to spend an entire blog entry on that place!  I've not even dared to enter it yet, because i think it will joyfully consume me for an hour at least! We're told "everyone" buys their pet food there, to support the nice local owners. And we probably will too!

This was just our first real pass through this delightful neighborhood, with many more to come, so there'll be more blogging about it as well, I'm sure.  For now: onward to more unpacking and settling.
Will the boxes never end?? Still, having this much of our familiar stuff with us (amazing, considering how much we sold or gave away before we left Virginia), makes us feel more comfortable and at home more quickly, so, though I complain, it's good to open these boxes and be reminded of what we have.
Here. In our new home.

Labels: San Francisco life

I knew there'd be nights like the one I've just had: filled with awake-ness, doubting, worry, wondering if the decision to break away from everything I knew to be "me" was a wise one.  I've even had the arrogance to boast that i would welcome such nights of doubt, as opportunities to examine, inquire more deeply into who I "truly" am, without all the crutches and ID tags of the familiar career and daily routines.

I never remember that pain ...well...pain hurts!  Doubt and fear....well....they're scary.  And then I am so surprised when they do come, and I hurt and feel scared!  Like most of yesterday afternoon, after we walked home in a truly enchanting rainfall (though a trifle chilly)  from seeing a matinee of OR - a new play to us both - at the Magic Theatre nearby.  As gorgeous as San Francisco looked to us in that light grey rain, I felt the beginnings of a gnawing upset, an upset that later bloomed into a fully grown, adult anxiety attack, and i spent the rest of the afternoon and evening under covers and cuddling dogs. Dear husband waited on me, served me dinner in bed, even found a truly bad movie for us to watch on his computer. He knows me so well. And I fell into a sporadic and restless sleep....thinking I'd never rest well....and then, I did.  I slept very well, oddly...and let myself sleep until this luxurious hour  of 6:30 am.

There are always demons in our minds to plague and terrify us...i've learned along the way that the Mind has to find ways to assure its survival, so it invents these nightmare scenarios to keep us aware of its presence and power.  Those terrors are not who we truly are - not at all - but they do feel , at times, like they are ALL we are: terrified and powerless.  I do know better...but (as a friend recently posted) my flesh is weak, and I succumb to the habit of worrying...and when I fall, I fall hard.

I was looking over my journals yesterday morning - I've 40 years' worth of them - and in a Facebook posting, I labelled so much of my young writing as "Self-Indulgent Agonizing"....well, even as the child goes, so go-eth the adult...some habits are rooted in being human and hard to get rid of, so...if I were a younger woman, with less experience behind me, I'd be plunging into pages and pages of purple agony, scrawling my pain across every page, using the journal pages as a friend I felt I had none of otherwise - not exactly wasting space , because after all, those pages are part of who I felt myself to be in those years - but certainly writing the drama of my life down on paper, almost as if I needed to do it to feel real....to feel like I existed at all.

As the pale grey light dawns on another beautiful San Francisco day, and as I look around at all the chaos we still have to unpack, straighten out, find places for, buy new furniture for, organize, make easy to find, i wonder where the ideas for a new creativity will find place and time to be born, but my experience tells me : I cannot remain un-creative for long....something will come forth, and the exciting thing is: I have no idea what it will be.   The terrifying thing is: I have no idea what it will be!

I just feel something within me this pearly morning, urging me to relax enough to trust: all is exactly as it should be.  My courage has not totally fled me yet. There are new parts of my life I know I am on the verge of discovering for the first time.  In the still of dark nights, I just must learn to dance with them, not run away like Cinderella at the ball when the clock strikes midnight....my magic is within. Bibbity-bobbity--boo, and onward!

 Breathe in the day and don't fear the night, for in the dark of it, a certain kind of light can shine on the things that are too timid to come out anytime else.

Labels: San Francisco Thoughts

Peter and I have decided to not get cable TV in our new home.  This is a radical departure from television habit,...a habit that grew into an almost medicinal addiction over the past several years, because we were so busy, so totally crunched by our daily commitments, the only way we seemed to be able to escape and unwind was to turn on the television and let it wash over us like audio/visual novocaine.  Not everyone handles stress this way, but, it turns out, that's how we handled it. So...we made this decision.

And so far, there has been a peacefulness, a quiet awareness pervading our new home. It's like going on a diet and staying away from junk food: it just feels better! There's more time to think, to actually talk to each other. And to enjoy the sheer passing of moment to moment time. A new world: time to listen and feel, observe and observe some more, all that is in each moment. Without the dizzying distraction of crime shows, car chases, people behaving heinously to each other in the most craven ways ( i loved those types of shows the most: where right almost always won out), there's heady new oxygen in our home: the pure breath of quiet.

Loving it.

AS we unpack books, with the quiet filling our home, i dive back into many of them, reminding myself of why we brought a particular one with us, discovering a new one i want to get into, savoring the feel of the paper on my fingers....each book's individual smell...the opening sentences that set the tone.  When I tore open the paper covering my four boxes of personal journals that I sent ahead to live here, I felt the energy come off those pages, and was stuck for a long while in memory.

Life is so filled with the silence of discovery, where all I hear are my thoughts.  A nice change from the Law and Order  opening theme.

Labels: San Francisco Thoughts

This morning, how clear it is: this move to San Francisco is saving my sanity.

The very fact that Peter and I can sit in a room - like this morning - with our closest and dearest family of friends and talk about the things in life that matter, that make the truest sense, that delve deeply into what's underneath all we do, examining, inquiring: this alone is an element that has been missing from my daily existence for too long. And this morning's conversation was like breathing fresh air. So grateful. My ex-husband, Paul, who has remained such a dear and valued friend, has such a subtle mind, capable of grasping so many of the detailed intricate ways we humans behave, and his years' - long study of Buddhist teachings has prepared him to inquire deeply, marvelously. One of the reasons I've missed being near him so much is that i have missed conversations with him on subjects wide-ranging. And now we are here...and now we can have those conversations daily. This is, as I said, like breathing again.

**********************************************************************************

I wrote the above a couple of days ago, and then we decided to sleep at our new apartment, instead of staying another night at Paul and Stephen's and i was lost to the Internet for a day or two. But this morning, Zack from Comcast came and easily re-connected us, and now I can write from the comfortable perch Peter and I have established here in our new bedroom, overlooking Lombard Street:
we took the old, charming table he used to use as his desk and have made it our joint worktable, with ample room for him at one end and me at the other, and daylight pours in to bathe our efforts in energy from the street below! It's perfect.

Referring back to the title of this entry, I want to say this: important conversations with respected friends, having a safe and secure place from which to contemplate and work, light pouring in from outside: these are elements of a sane life, a life that has time in it to contemplate, space in it to sort out, love in it to soothe fear and doubt...by taking the brave action to move here to this strange, new and wondrous city, Peter and I took ACTION, but it was hardly an action we could NOT have taken. Why? Because the particular voice of this action was insistent and loud for both of us for several years now, and to ignore it became impossible.  Why does that happen?  How is that some decisions are so clear and easy to make, because the voice of the action needing to be taken is so clear and audible? And why is it that others vaguely hear the call of their desire, and do nothing about it?

It has something to do with the recognition of the need for the sanity entitled above.

There is a teaching in Buddhism that most people live in a deluded state of insanity...that what we think we see and know are not at all the truth, but rather our representations of what we think are truths: the table we see is our concept of a table , not the truth of the table itself (infinite numbers of atoms whizzing around to form what we name "table"),etc...and that if we do that with physical objects, we do it even more with emotional, psychological, and spiritual "objects" too...that we live our daily lives in a total state of self-convincing creation and delusion.  This, the wise Buddhist teachers call living in constant "insanity"....lies we need , or think we need, to survive...but insane because they are lies. And we spend tremendous amounts of personal energy and strength keeping up the appearance of these lies
because it takes far more work to keep a flawed structure standing than it takes to recognize and allow a healthy one...and so , our lives exhaust us....we can be what we call happy, successful, doing what we believe we wish to be doing with our lives, and it can still exhaust us because we are so darned busy keeping up that appearance of all-right-ness and sanity, when really, the entire center of it all is...well..chaos and fear.   To choose to live one's life like that, once you know there is more to seek and find that is sane and consistent with your truth, is indeed an act of insanity.

And, as there are seasons to a person's life, where different things "bloom" at different times, the season finally, (gratefully), arrived in my life where going deeper down into what motivates  and "grows" me became more important than continuing to do what i have habitually been doing for most of it.  And so, the action to sanity: the drive across country to a place that resonates with where my soul is going anyway: a culture of introspection, caring and universality...inclusion, opening, enlarging the view.


And so: here we are.

The days flow magically, and, aside from missing certain people back in Virginia, it's like being on a true "retreat" in the spiritual sense: all that matters is our well being, our balance, our observation of the daily-ness of living, like the Japanese Tea Ceremony I've been reading about (but more on that delight later).
We've much to do, but resting, restoring, getting balanced and healthy again: that's what this time is for.
Only then can both Peter and I be ready and fully able to truly contribute to the lives of others again.
This rare good time is for us, in every best sense. Learning to accept and appreciate it is my most difficult job at present, but I am optimistic. I have always been a quick study.

Labels: San Francisco Thoughts

The young housewives of Pacific Heights and Russian Hill spend their days walking around SF in spandex work-out clothing, hair in shiny ponytails, and expensive sports shoes, and now I know why:  this city IS a health club, and without paying an extra penny, all who live here are active members, whether we intend to be or not!

Yes, I am a woman "of a certain age", and yes, i've spent the last three years driving everywhere, no matter how close the destination. And yes,  the only walking I've done, in an attempt to keep in some semblance of shape, has been on flat land. However, walk as I might around the mighty track of the Coomes Recreation Center, I was not prepared for how my body now feels after only 4 days of walking from Pierce Street to Lombard Street and back (if we could make it back...we've even taken our first Frisco cab, we've been so whupped by the end of a walking day here!). I mean: I AM SORE! If I sit too long in one position, my body freezes, and I feel like the rusted Tin Man from Wizard of Oz when I attempt to move. I ache in places I'd forgotten I had places! My toes and feet a speaking back to me in pinched tones, asking: "what the hell are you trying to do to us??" and I have been painfully reminded of the pure physics of this statement: "That which goes down, inevitably goes waaaaay back up again!". Great... I never did like physics. The first time I glimpsed the periodic table written on a black board, I walked right out of the class and never went back. Or is that chemistry? Well, whatever science governs the Law I am experiencing, (Pain equals gain, but meanwhile it HURTS!), the mean truth is: ouch!

So, letting this astonishingly delightful city discipline me back into working order ? Dues I am glad to pay, in exchange for the obvious other delights that way outweigh the pains:

* The pleasure of walking our dogs on sidewalks again, a ritual they are happily familiar with from their earlier days as New York City dogs.  The pleasures this sidewalk regimen affords Cyrano and Sally are many, but the best is : they get to use their doggie noses again, to appreciate, sniff, assess, judge, nasally revel in the world around them. SO much to smell, such a rich culture of odors from other dogs and interesting garbage, created by both the dogs and their many owners. (Did I mention that SF is a world-class DOG city, with doggie boutiques, doggie beauty salons, doggie health food stores, doggie bakeries and doggie massage parlors all over Chestnut and Union Streets? I swear to God: doggie bakeries!)

* The edgy thrill of seeing so many people like me, as I walk,  or who, at least, look like I perceive myself to be: intellectual, interestingly attired , thinking as they walk, scarves jauntily thrown over one shoulder or another (even the men), good haircuts, well-kept skin and teeth, many wearing reading glasses perched on the ends of their noses, even as they walk their dogs, nice but extremely comfortable clothing made of real fabrics like cotton and linen and soft wool, colorful, letting themselves go silvery-grey, or making expensive attempts at not...in short: people I would like to meet and know. Also they sound the way I have missed people sounding: in one day here, I've heard more varying accents than i've heard in the past three years: Haitian, British, French (our upstairs neighbor , the lovely Valerie), Moroccan, Korean, Chinese, Russian, and good old Middle-American!  It's an audio smorgasbord! My ears are so happy.

* Also - and this actually made me weep, the first night Paul took us to a local swell cafe  - there are Jews here! And this made me cry.  Couldn't help it: I was born and raised in a liberal, smart, cultural Jewish household in the South, and though I am now a practicing Buddhist (a "Jew-Bu", as has been coined), I still think of Jews as "my people", and always will...and why not?  Where there is true complex and varied arts and culture, there will be Jews, because Jews - my bias, I know - are people of the heart and the head combined: we read and cry at the same time!  And this - again my bias - is a good way to be, a good way to embrace the world: understand  it as best  you can, then feel for it, because it is so impossible to truly understand! San Francisco is many things, but one of the things it is is a Jewish city! My Momma would be so glad I live here.

* And speaking of food:  except for a tired and starving poor choice made one evening to order from a Chinese place called Ricky's, I've not had one mouthful of poorly prepared food in this city yet. (Note to self:  make sure, like in NYC, that the words "Empire" or "Pagoda" appear in the take-out menu).  A signal example of just how good this city's food is :  walking to our apartment on Lombard Street the first day we were here, we needed to stop for a quick something to fuel us, and , almost to 1320, we saw a sign for "Viking Subs", outside a hole-in-the-wall joint, but we decided to try it. Turns out, this Korean-owned sandwich shop does some voodoo magic that turns ordinary submarine sandwich concoctions into thoroughly addictive culinary encounters, and we've been back three times already! Some sort of yummy mayonnaise sauce - not just mayonnaise, but a sauce made with it - slathered all over these mounds of meats and cheeses, then TOASTED to a tender crisp on a well-used grill.  My first bite into their Tuna Garden sub was ecstatic, and as it dripped on my fingers, and crunched under my grateful teeth, my taste buds immediately knew they were in great company.  So, if this tiny oasis of edible delights is any indication, San Francisco knows how to cook.  Of course, there's the best vegetarian restaurant found anywhere : Green's, on the Bay.  And countless places we've yet to discover. Something tells me the exploration will usually be worth it. We are back in food country!

So, if the hills of San Francisco pain me, I am consoled by the above reasons to be here anyway, and am comforted by the knowledge that if I am laid up from shin splints, back aches and pure fatigue, I can cuddle in bed with content dogs, nibbling on great local food delivered by interesting and culturally diverse people, some of whom may be MY people!  Not a bad way to recover...not bad at all. I think I'll stay a while.

Labels: San Francisco life