I hear their door will be ready today. I hear a lot in my line of work and see a lot more when the quiet of darkness covers up the bright lights of day. Winter is a funny season, often so much darker than most springs or summers, there's always a lot going on underground. The beautiful little home our dear friends Sam and Sal are building tests their comfort with waiting. How long has it been? A few months. A good few months of letting the pieces of their newly forming life experience the seasons. This is a LIFE the Tall and Round one are creating and a life takes time and though our friends have not lived with the extreme visible evidence of winter for many years, each of them has weathered decades of the dark season. I have heard Sam has weathered many earth winters in his lifetimes on The Planet. For that, I am thankful. My girl Sal is a new soul to this globe with gifts that sometime scare her, and smelling her way through the daily routine of being human can wear her down. The sensitivities challenge her to speak up, come out from the shadows and ride that internal combustion engine that is her divine and sustaining soul. "How do I do this?" I have heard her pray after she has given voice to an expression of such passion she is unsure of its source. Does her voice offend, she questions herself. Will an anger spear penetrate her vulnerable self and leave her without resource? I have watched her squirm inside her skin unsure of the next moment.
Our dear Sal is experiencing her first season of winter darkness without the dual soul reality she has lived since she was a teen. Strange, you might be thinking. How does a being live with two souls at once. Well, that is the nature of this story. Humans have such an infancy of experience with their soul. The doings and goings on-ness of making a living tires most humans or amplifies their adrenals to the point of exhaustion leaving so little time to become friendly with their souls. Remember that 'fortune teller' Sal met this fall? She was really no fortune teller, rather a spirtual connecting rod trained and gifted to be of service to you human beings primed to begin or nurture an intimate relationship with your sustaining soul. What Sally Round learned through her Akashic Record Reading changes the way she hears, and maybe more importantly it is changing the way she makes use of time that surrounds her now. Like being able to function in parallel universes, Sal judges her past a little less and gets why she has 'trust issues' with those who would beguile her with promises of security. This first winter without two souls means our gal has a more direct connection to her very evolved soul who still needs practice being human. I hear their door is going to be ready this afternoon, and I heard the door splits in the middle allowing passage for the small and tall spirits. That will be convenient, you think?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Talking Turtle
Rain has come to wash the stacks of snow from Seattle's streets. From their cozy den Sal watched as the shape of her dumpling plump Snow Woman whittled into some thing close to a large DQ chocolate-dipped cone sans the chocolate. It's still winter in the Pacific Northwest, winter every where in the Northern Hemisphere. Snow. Rain. Winds. Cold. The Planet cycles through the seasons and all the creatures make their way through the reality of change in their way. "Wanna hear what I wrote?" Sal was on the phone with Turtle Woman. "Sure," Sal was recovering from an exposure to one of the poisonous apples and had waited a couple days before giving her friend a call. Sal adjusted her ear-piece and propped herself up the the pillow. She heard Turtle Woman ask Mr. Pellet for the journal she fills with story. "My glasses are over there." Sal lay back and listened to her friend's newest real tale. The words Turtle Woman writes are a language familiar to the ears of a friend who knows the language ... bits of common poetry, a reference to a favorite minstral hero whose lines have always pasted life together in comforting text.
And yet as Sal listened she felt the fit of a different proportion enter stage left, or was that up from the middle. Sally Round listened as Turtle Woman began using the language of a deliberately slowed version of her story. "I followed Turtle to a slippery ...."The two long-time friends have been young mothers together. The sons are grown now with long stories of their own. Christmas and Solstice have passed with mild versions of passed celebration. When Turtle Woman could not read a word she had written, she made one that fit, or not. When she got to the end of her story and could not decipher her latest 'punch line' she said, "Oh well, maybe I didn't finish it and when I do it will be a doozey." Sal loved the story and felt a warm, girly sensation come over her. "Turtle Woman," she told her friend, "I feel like I've been in a dressing room with you where we've come to get you fit with a brand new shell. You've outgrown the old one ... and wonders of wonders we have come to THE most skillful dress-maker in all Turtle Land, and she knows how to fit, tuck and gosset so you are perfection." Deliberately slowed down, Sal and her friend had learned to listen to The Turtle Talking. "Until next time," Sal said. "A hui hou," Turtle Woman said, "See yah."
And yet as Sal listened she felt the fit of a different proportion enter stage left, or was that up from the middle. Sally Round listened as Turtle Woman began using the language of a deliberately slowed version of her story. "I followed Turtle to a slippery ...."The two long-time friends have been young mothers together. The sons are grown now with long stories of their own. Christmas and Solstice have passed with mild versions of passed celebration. When Turtle Woman could not read a word she had written, she made one that fit, or not. When she got to the end of her story and could not decipher her latest 'punch line' she said, "Oh well, maybe I didn't finish it and when I do it will be a doozey." Sal loved the story and felt a warm, girly sensation come over her. "Turtle Woman," she told her friend, "I feel like I've been in a dressing room with you where we've come to get you fit with a brand new shell. You've outgrown the old one ... and wonders of wonders we have come to THE most skillful dress-maker in all Turtle Land, and she knows how to fit, tuck and gosset so you are perfection." Deliberately slowed down, Sal and her friend had learned to listen to The Turtle Talking. "Until next time," Sal said. "A hui hou," Turtle Woman said, "See yah."
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A Frosty Rose
"Did you know VARDO means Rose?" Sally queried Sam as the snow flakes seemed to grow bigger, fattened by some wintery yeast goblin. "Hmmm...cool," Sam's low-key reply didn't hide the glint behind his glasses. Rose is Sam's mother's name and when he thinks of her there are always sweet remembrances of the days Sam spent with her long after the clan of nearly a dozen Talls had left the Wisconsin home place. Sally let her mind wander the road of serendipity, thinking about the golden home Sam was building them. A frosty golden rose now, roof covered in a tarp to keep the weather from brutalizing her uncompleted cap, there tiny home on wheels rested as Winter encased the continent. There were so many things left to be done to make the golden rose home. Time ticked, and still a door and a roof were yet to close up the front wall and cover the dome curved roof. I suppose the lesson for our friends Sam and Sal is you can't rush the bloom of a rose.
A year ago the comfort of home was as distant and unlikely as sails on tall ships were to the first people of this continent. A glimpse backward was enough for Sal, just a glimpse, no lingering rewind was necessary. Stripped of the permanence of post and pier construction, their year of nightly moves scraped away all but is essential. The simplified life she and her man Sam create here builds on all the best seasons of being at home together. There was always something Sam was building or repairing and in the kitchen Sal was making some sort of soup. On this night when the shortest day beckoned more light to come Winter Solstice soups steamed and filled every corner of home. It was always a time to celebrate ... rituals of gathering and making meals with friends. Tonight the ritual soup making continued. Round baby turnips from the Kent Valley not far from the frosty Rose, thick bits of ginger all the way from Peru where instead of Winter, Summer allows vegetables to ripen and slivers of shitake mushrooms flavor a heady chicken broth. Unlike their years of cooking soups in a kitchen contained within walls of their cozy homes, this Winter Solstice soup bubbles outside where the temperature is barely above twenty degrees.
They have danced and tromped in snow a foot high, and even after Sam headed in to warm himself, Sal went to the snow gathered on the make-shift porch on their golden frosty Rose. With one finger she traced curvy shapes into the snow. "Just so you know we are loving the way you are growing," she bid her home in the making good night, and good solstice. Of course, she had etched a snowy Rose ... a talisman of good fortune.
A year ago the comfort of home was as distant and unlikely as sails on tall ships were to the first people of this continent. A glimpse backward was enough for Sal, just a glimpse, no lingering rewind was necessary. Stripped of the permanence of post and pier construction, their year of nightly moves scraped away all but is essential. The simplified life she and her man Sam create here builds on all the best seasons of being at home together. There was always something Sam was building or repairing and in the kitchen Sal was making some sort of soup. On this night when the shortest day beckoned more light to come Winter Solstice soups steamed and filled every corner of home. It was always a time to celebrate ... rituals of gathering and making meals with friends. Tonight the ritual soup making continued. Round baby turnips from the Kent Valley not far from the frosty Rose, thick bits of ginger all the way from Peru where instead of Winter, Summer allows vegetables to ripen and slivers of shitake mushrooms flavor a heady chicken broth. Unlike their years of cooking soups in a kitchen contained within walls of their cozy homes, this Winter Solstice soup bubbles outside where the temperature is barely above twenty degrees.
They have danced and tromped in snow a foot high, and even after Sam headed in to warm himself, Sal went to the snow gathered on the make-shift porch on their golden frosty Rose. With one finger she traced curvy shapes into the snow. "Just so you know we are loving the way you are growing," she bid her home in the making good night, and good solstice. Of course, she had etched a snowy Rose ... a talisman of good fortune.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Laughing with the gods
Time has passed. A winter has come to the Pacific Northwest and unlike other years our friends Sam and Sally were not among the snow birds heading west and south to tropical warmth. Instead I watch the dance of layering clothes that work for the Tall, and Round one. Sam's white hair which Sally had cropped close to the neck in early Summer now curls out from under his favorite brown wool cap warming that same neck in December. Soft cotton gloves that he can buy for cheap at the hardware store encase his large hands. The gloves are subtle, and keep up with the traffic of activity from staple gun to paint brush to drill bits and tarp coverings. The long johns Sally ordered in late summer are in constant use under the thrift store jeans that have been washed, washed and washed to clean it of heavy fragranced soaps.
I hear Sal's winter coat, secured early on in their journey, tumbling in the washer. It 'worked' for several weeks, but an innocent act -- tossing it into the drier to remove the damp chill in the sateen lining, stirred up buried scents. Sal is a committed learner, not easily led from a lesson she's determined to master. And yet the loss of the heavy coat closed her down. Her legs are the first to get cold and though every layer of clothes she owns covered her from shoulder to ankle the wet 45 degrees turned her weak. The warmth and safety of their tiny kitchen-home became safe refuge the solid ceramic heater radiated therapeutic rays. Sally soaked in the heat. Then Sam after a week of seeing Sal's walking stick untouched, finally said, "Aren't you gonna try washing that coat again?" And of course she did, knowing this was an option that was close at hand with potential to be a real solution. How many washings will it take to shake the old stink from the old coat? We'll see and if the gods laugh at the sound of the toggles as the coat goes for one more go round in a bath of baking soda, we'll join in. When I was very new at this I judged the laughter of the gods as cruel. History and patient teachers have taught me different. You see, when the gods laugh and you humans join in the combined effect is like one cosmic tickle that loosens the agony and turns it into exquisite ecstacy.
I hear Sal's winter coat, secured early on in their journey, tumbling in the washer. It 'worked' for several weeks, but an innocent act -- tossing it into the drier to remove the damp chill in the sateen lining, stirred up buried scents. Sal is a committed learner, not easily led from a lesson she's determined to master. And yet the loss of the heavy coat closed her down. Her legs are the first to get cold and though every layer of clothes she owns covered her from shoulder to ankle the wet 45 degrees turned her weak. The warmth and safety of their tiny kitchen-home became safe refuge the solid ceramic heater radiated therapeutic rays. Sally soaked in the heat. Then Sam after a week of seeing Sal's walking stick untouched, finally said, "Aren't you gonna try washing that coat again?" And of course she did, knowing this was an option that was close at hand with potential to be a real solution. How many washings will it take to shake the old stink from the old coat? We'll see and if the gods laugh at the sound of the toggles as the coat goes for one more go round in a bath of baking soda, we'll join in. When I was very new at this I judged the laughter of the gods as cruel. History and patient teachers have taught me different. You see, when the gods laugh and you humans join in the combined effect is like one cosmic tickle that loosens the agony and turns it into exquisite ecstacy.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Dreaming
He `elele ka moe na ke kanaka
A dream is a bearer of messages to man
On this particular night though it was the Dream that offered Sal the comfort she sought. Sometimes the physical body is too dense to lift from a criss-crossed tangle of stimulation. I listened to her prayers after all the tools of comfort failed to ease her from the pain. She is a strong one to most people who see her, and through and through that is true. But, the vulnerable child that has a memory of being scared of her shadow is part of our Sal. Prayers helped the wee child when there were no others, tools or folk. This night I listened as Sally invoked the aid of those angels who never forget her, and know just where to take her for comfort.
The deep folds of the comforter quieted, her body still and she was on the other side of that bridge. A beautiful broad-branched plumeria grew in a yard lit with gentle light. Big succulent yellow-pink blossoms filled the plumeria. Sal stretched herself easily beneath this tree, released a deep rich breath and that soft wide smile filled her face. The heavy weight of discomfort rose from her, a cloud of glittery dust refreshed in the air between plumeria bough and the broad forehead that was now relaxed. Dream moments are without boundaries of time, and even as I witnessed I could not tell how long we lingered. The roots of the plumeria rose from the scantly grassy lawn, like mini mountains the roots rolled from the trunk of the tree. Did I not notice when we first arrived, or did the tiny fairy flowers the size of diminuitive Jasmine pikake turn to a double row of fairy lights when I was not looking?
"Ahh...it's my brother's work. He is such a fantastic garderner, and a beautiful, beautiful boy." Sal had found a way to bring comfort to her soul through the asking. In the days when she and her brother were small kids, the world was a place of distress. There were things neither she nor her brother could change. Perhaps the experiences of an adult day spent in pain opens up that trap door to the old times. What I shared in this DreamTime with dear Sal was the tonic that humans sometimes take for granted as they climb onto the sheets and under the covers. Dream material waits to be called up at any moment, and with the asking any number of alternative realities are possible. Sal and her angels conjured up a sweet night of joy, a release from the day that just needed to be put to rest.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Float
City serves society in multiple ways, and reflects the value humankind has given to the production of “plenty” and the convenience of choice at any time of day or night. In the years that Sal has lived she has learned that the value of things is greater when you know what things are important. Serious and ever seeking the gal is rarely relaxed! That makes it tough on her, and she knows it. Whatever can she do about it? Well, with the Harvest Moon bright in the evening sky, there’s really nothing to do about it except to accept her nature and step aside from it when things just get too worrisome. “Float gal,” her astrologer suggested when Sally asked for advice. “I’m no expert on the illness you suffer but it sure sounds like a Neptune thing to me. Moving from place to place like the tide and being sensitive to the environment. Your friends don’t know how to relate, so they disconnect? Well, if you can’t do anything about it you might as well float.”
The cool weather and cold drizzles dilute the pleasure of floating, still the advice had found entrance into the armor of our gal's armor of worry. Living with an illness that thrives on worry tends to take the Willy out of your Wonka. There really isn't a lot that can be done about losing touch with friends and family when they don't get the STAND BACK IF YOU'RE SCENTED mandate. I watch dear Sal when she slips on an unexpected sniff of toxin, see her weaken and lose her grip. Floating is easier when there's a ready supply of floating toys so I was glad to see her collect new tapes that take her away for a moment or thirty, music and voices to get her away for a little while. The internet connects Sal to a gaggle of friends who don't need to pass the sniff test, and it's here that our gal finds creative and innovative ways to float. There's a small and cherished home-made doll sitting in Sally's 'fortune corner'. She wears a tie-dyed shirt and a pair of tie-dyed shorts. The doll is cuddly, made of very soft cotton and has been a comforting friend for years. When Sally was at her lowest, someone very special made and sent "Minnie" to her. She has been loved ever since. Storytellers are always on the look-out for something juicy, something that whets the appetite for a tale. Today I watched as Sal escaped into the pages of the internet and found The Comfort Doll Project (click on it for a float), I looked over at Sal's "Minnie" while Sal floated up and down reading and viewing the beautifully heart-made creations. Here's where a storyteller can cross her eyes, and see the parallel universes that leap over the bridge called Serendipity.
One way to step out of the way of your own dear suffer'n self, is to step for a moment into the slippers of someone else.
The cool weather and cold drizzles dilute the pleasure of floating, still the advice had found entrance into the armor of our gal's armor of worry. Living with an illness that thrives on worry tends to take the Willy out of your Wonka. There really isn't a lot that can be done about losing touch with friends and family when they don't get the STAND BACK IF YOU'RE SCENTED mandate. I watch dear Sal when she slips on an unexpected sniff of toxin, see her weaken and lose her grip. Floating is easier when there's a ready supply of floating toys so I was glad to see her collect new tapes that take her away for a moment or thirty, music and voices to get her away for a little while. The internet connects Sal to a gaggle of friends who don't need to pass the sniff test, and it's here that our gal finds creative and innovative ways to float. There's a small and cherished home-made doll sitting in Sally's 'fortune corner'. She wears a tie-dyed shirt and a pair of tie-dyed shorts. The doll is cuddly, made of very soft cotton and has been a comforting friend for years. When Sally was at her lowest, someone very special made and sent "Minnie" to her. She has been loved ever since. Storytellers are always on the look-out for something juicy, something that whets the appetite for a tale. Today I watched as Sal escaped into the pages of the internet and found The Comfort Doll Project (click on it for a float), I looked over at Sal's "Minnie" while Sal floated up and down reading and viewing the beautifully heart-made creations. Here's where a storyteller can cross her eyes, and see the parallel universes that leap over the bridge called Serendipity.
One way to step out of the way of your own dear suffer'n self, is to step for a moment into the slippers of someone else.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
More
From behind the wheel Sam said, “No matter what the economy is doing, you find it happening right here.” Sam and Sally were out on a morning run of errands. With the doggedness of a beagle Sam zig-zagged the barriers that kept traffic off Spokane Street. Through a slim hole in the barrier signed “LOCAL TRAFFIC ONLY” he maneuvered the Subaru through the opening to get mid-block up Spokane. Construction and destruction make transiting the industrial sections of Seattle twice as complicated on a Monday. When the weather turns soppy Sam has a ready list of things to collect and people to see.
The marvel of this process has been the collection of craftsmen Sam has ferreted from the side-streets and sheet-metal workshops in this Pacific Northwest city. Sam was on a route to see Nick the metal man and creator of the beautiful copper roof to be. Nearly a month earlier, Max made their beautiful swing-out windows and delivered them. He was curious to see what Sam was building having never heard of a gypsy wagon. Round as Claus and of affable spirit Max was pleasantly surprised to see the home on a trailer, and together the two wood workers walked the perimeter of the tiny home. Max was especially taken with the roundness and curves of the vardo. Our friends had thought Max would also make their Dutch door, but Max never returned from vacation. Life changes. There were many other things to keep the vardo moving toward completion.
The last of the morning’s three stops led to a small door at the bottom of a driveway behind Stella’s Coffee. Slim was now making the door. Finding a new door maker took time and pacing. Sam loves to hammer home the importance of pacing. For all his lightning energy the mid-western farm boy has a sense of cycles that serves him. Being near his tribe of Workers Sam drew on his history of knocking on doors for a job to inject himself with project flexibility. The tall one multi-tasks while keeping his focus on the position of those screw holes. Our gal Sally did not miss the eloquence of her Sam’s dance. She knows he can get himself pretzeled with a detail that won’t untangle, and witnesses his temper when someone backs him into a corner. Don’t play a crab for a sissy, they don’t like that and they have sharp claws that pinch.
Four ribbed walls-to-be inform the world of the vardo in the making. The iron trailer upon which the pearl-like hermitage is built is twelve feet long and eight feet wide. The inside walls will give our dears just shy of a ten foot length. The other two feet will be their porch, useful for a multiple of purposes. With great care and many investigations, samples and tests to determine whether wood, sealant, and electrical outlets would be safe for both Sal and Sam, Sam Tall framed and tinkered with the shape of the vardo. There are experts who now offer their services to those who live with the fall-out of an over synthesized world. With the world of knowledge accessible through the pages of the internet library Sally spends hours at the keyboard researching material/products that work for sensitives like her. Like the Akashic Records the internet opens the world of human knowledge to those who sit to find them. No longer a library with old wooden drawers with Dewey Decimal indexed cards we surf the sea of a cyber-ocean of things/ideas/theories that support or contradict our own.
Throughout the cities and towns on the planet Sensitives re-write their lives. This part of the tale involves a community who will welcome Sam and Sally with their extension cord life. Here’s what I mean. “Where will you park it when you’re done?” Sam Tall had just shown a small group of Seattle MCS friends the photos of the vardo in progress. “Ever heard of Tahuya? It’s near Hood’s Canal. Sal and I have friends who are willing to share a spot on their acreage with us. Sal’s been friends with these folks for thirty five years. We’re working on this being our shared living place.” Turtle Woman Sal’s long-time pal lives with Parkinson’s Disease. The disease has created a hall of mirrors for Turtle Woman. She says she’s never sure who will show up on any given day. What Sal sees in her friend is an amplified version of the young woman who has always been Turtle Woman. Creative and communicative, her artist friend has always spoken her mind, and continues to do so. Complications happen when one of those mirrors in the artist’s hallway is turned in on itself, echoing into itself. What her experiences have done for her only Turtle Woman knows, but to see how unconditionally willing to share with Sam and Sally is to see communion of saints in practice. “I build the house,” Sam told his friends, “Sal builds community.”
Indeed, as Sam worked the details of his craft, molding walls, running electrical conduits and shaping the curved arch into the roof, Sally’s job is to care for herself and create a shared housing life with welcoming friends. When the summer heat settles into the city, the exhaust fumes from the billows of industry, the cars, jets, trucks and buses choke the oxygen from Seattle’s ethers. For all who breathe and especially those with illnesses like Sal’s the smog defies breathing. On the worst of days Sal and Sam separate for a few days at a time. Once again the Subaru become home for Sal. All the essentials go with her: nebulizer and medication, the air mattress for sleeping, two paper bags with clothing and towels. Sal always travels with food to share and to eat. She is a good cook, and her friends love that she conjures meals. The oxygen-rich air from the family of fir, cedar, and hemlock and the cool fresh water lake below Turtle Woman’s home turns Sal’s trust button back on. She can exhale. A new and troubling habit of holding her breath loosens its grip, and Sally relaxes.
Fresh air and conversation over dinner give the old friends new information about who has come to dinner. The Tahuya home is clearer and safer for Sal thanks to Turtle Woman’s promise to clear out the poisons and use fragrance free products. Life with Parkinson’s is not easy, and yet life with the illness out here on the lake keeps Sal’s old friend going. Turtle Woman has a pharmacy of pills that keep the pain, anxiety and discomfort of Parkinson’s at bay, and timing is everything. Each of the tiny pills does the work her brain used to do on its own, and at regular intervals, the spikes and dips of a short-circuited inner network even out. Mr. P, the nick name Sal has for Turtle Woman’s husband, has learned the color, count and timing for Turtle Woman’s pills.
Sal watched her friends pack up for a day trip across the pond. Mr. P quietly counted the mini mounds of pills stored in the pill-minded, going through the lot like a bookie keeping track of his bets. “Looks like you need one more Synamax, just in case.” With the help of a beautiful walking stick Turtle Woman moves through her wooded retreat with care. On the bad days the cane isn’t enough so she must ride out the pain, sometimes rocking herself into a calm that is as ancient as the sway of the giant firs that surround her, like a mother calming a child. “We have become our mothers,” Sal told her friend one afternoon over the phone. There are times when the comfort we need comes from unseen sources or from the old gods who send the wind or rain. But more often than not a sister who knows that life is thornier than we’d have wished it to be, is the one the gods send.
The marvel of this process has been the collection of craftsmen Sam has ferreted from the side-streets and sheet-metal workshops in this Pacific Northwest city. Sam was on a route to see Nick the metal man and creator of the beautiful copper roof to be. Nearly a month earlier, Max made their beautiful swing-out windows and delivered them. He was curious to see what Sam was building having never heard of a gypsy wagon. Round as Claus and of affable spirit Max was pleasantly surprised to see the home on a trailer, and together the two wood workers walked the perimeter of the tiny home. Max was especially taken with the roundness and curves of the vardo. Our friends had thought Max would also make their Dutch door, but Max never returned from vacation. Life changes. There were many other things to keep the vardo moving toward completion.
The last of the morning’s three stops led to a small door at the bottom of a driveway behind Stella’s Coffee. Slim was now making the door. Finding a new door maker took time and pacing. Sam loves to hammer home the importance of pacing. For all his lightning energy the mid-western farm boy has a sense of cycles that serves him. Being near his tribe of Workers Sam drew on his history of knocking on doors for a job to inject himself with project flexibility. The tall one multi-tasks while keeping his focus on the position of those screw holes. Our gal Sally did not miss the eloquence of her Sam’s dance. She knows he can get himself pretzeled with a detail that won’t untangle, and witnesses his temper when someone backs him into a corner. Don’t play a crab for a sissy, they don’t like that and they have sharp claws that pinch.
Four ribbed walls-to-be inform the world of the vardo in the making. The iron trailer upon which the pearl-like hermitage is built is twelve feet long and eight feet wide. The inside walls will give our dears just shy of a ten foot length. The other two feet will be their porch, useful for a multiple of purposes. With great care and many investigations, samples and tests to determine whether wood, sealant, and electrical outlets would be safe for both Sal and Sam, Sam Tall framed and tinkered with the shape of the vardo. There are experts who now offer their services to those who live with the fall-out of an over synthesized world. With the world of knowledge accessible through the pages of the internet library Sally spends hours at the keyboard researching material/products that work for sensitives like her. Like the Akashic Records the internet opens the world of human knowledge to those who sit to find them. No longer a library with old wooden drawers with Dewey Decimal indexed cards we surf the sea of a cyber-ocean of things/ideas/theories that support or contradict our own.
Throughout the cities and towns on the planet Sensitives re-write their lives. This part of the tale involves a community who will welcome Sam and Sally with their extension cord life. Here’s what I mean. “Where will you park it when you’re done?” Sam Tall had just shown a small group of Seattle MCS friends the photos of the vardo in progress. “Ever heard of Tahuya? It’s near Hood’s Canal. Sal and I have friends who are willing to share a spot on their acreage with us. Sal’s been friends with these folks for thirty five years. We’re working on this being our shared living place.” Turtle Woman Sal’s long-time pal lives with Parkinson’s Disease. The disease has created a hall of mirrors for Turtle Woman. She says she’s never sure who will show up on any given day. What Sal sees in her friend is an amplified version of the young woman who has always been Turtle Woman. Creative and communicative, her artist friend has always spoken her mind, and continues to do so. Complications happen when one of those mirrors in the artist’s hallway is turned in on itself, echoing into itself. What her experiences have done for her only Turtle Woman knows, but to see how unconditionally willing to share with Sam and Sally is to see communion of saints in practice. “I build the house,” Sam told his friends, “Sal builds community.”
Indeed, as Sam worked the details of his craft, molding walls, running electrical conduits and shaping the curved arch into the roof, Sally’s job is to care for herself and create a shared housing life with welcoming friends. When the summer heat settles into the city, the exhaust fumes from the billows of industry, the cars, jets, trucks and buses choke the oxygen from Seattle’s ethers. For all who breathe and especially those with illnesses like Sal’s the smog defies breathing. On the worst of days Sal and Sam separate for a few days at a time. Once again the Subaru become home for Sal. All the essentials go with her: nebulizer and medication, the air mattress for sleeping, two paper bags with clothing and towels. Sal always travels with food to share and to eat. She is a good cook, and her friends love that she conjures meals. The oxygen-rich air from the family of fir, cedar, and hemlock and the cool fresh water lake below Turtle Woman’s home turns Sal’s trust button back on. She can exhale. A new and troubling habit of holding her breath loosens its grip, and Sally relaxes.
Fresh air and conversation over dinner give the old friends new information about who has come to dinner. The Tahuya home is clearer and safer for Sal thanks to Turtle Woman’s promise to clear out the poisons and use fragrance free products. Life with Parkinson’s is not easy, and yet life with the illness out here on the lake keeps Sal’s old friend going. Turtle Woman has a pharmacy of pills that keep the pain, anxiety and discomfort of Parkinson’s at bay, and timing is everything. Each of the tiny pills does the work her brain used to do on its own, and at regular intervals, the spikes and dips of a short-circuited inner network even out. Mr. P, the nick name Sal has for Turtle Woman’s husband, has learned the color, count and timing for Turtle Woman’s pills.
Sal watched her friends pack up for a day trip across the pond. Mr. P quietly counted the mini mounds of pills stored in the pill-minded, going through the lot like a bookie keeping track of his bets. “Looks like you need one more Synamax, just in case.” With the help of a beautiful walking stick Turtle Woman moves through her wooded retreat with care. On the bad days the cane isn’t enough so she must ride out the pain, sometimes rocking herself into a calm that is as ancient as the sway of the giant firs that surround her, like a mother calming a child. “We have become our mothers,” Sal told her friend one afternoon over the phone. There are times when the comfort we need comes from unseen sources or from the old gods who send the wind or rain. But more often than not a sister who knows that life is thornier than we’d have wished it to be, is the one the gods send.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Here
Day in and day out is marked by the simple progression of time. Sam has attracted the loyalty of the winged ones and the critters who make the steep slopes below their apartment home. Small plastic bags of raw, shelled sunflower seeds are part of the weekly bundle of food Sam buys when he makes the trek to the Co-op. One handful for Sam, one handful for the birds. Like many who spend time observing the nature of things, Sam and Sally made friends with the animals.
Split the Sparrow
Spring was tardy
The sun busy behind bundles of deep clouds
With the wind and the stars, no doubt.
We watched her
One brown spotted sparrow
Her tail feathers split in right angles
War injury, disabled by a wandering cat?
Injured perhaps, but no less able
She ate, she flew, she lived.
Tardy spring or not
Babies birth and want to eat
They chirp and yell and will not sleep.
With summer’s sun two birds
Did come and made our day
To watch.
A baby plump with mouth wide open
Called to his momma, “Me, me, me, me, me.”
And she with the tail half-there complied.
She ate, she fed, she lived.
JOTS (short for Johnny on the spot)
“Where do you live? Is this place you live, also the place you call home?” A scrawny black cat found her way to the cooking table outside our dear friends’ basement home. It was the smell of simmering chicken that led her there no doubt, like a jot across the length of the cement sidewalk she was on the spot. Within a blink Sally Round knew this was a wanderer, bred wild this feline must have had some time with human company for in spite of the near bones look of her the wee kitty meowed as sweet as it comes, wound her face and neck around Sal’s ankles and moved shamelessly toward the smell of food. Hundreds of the feline wanderers survive among the House Dwellers. When Sam Tall and Sally Round made camp in the Subaru along the salty black lava beaches of Oahu there were baby wanderers who found them, too. In the dark of night those who rest for the night in one spot don’t necessarily call it home. But to the feline ones I wonder whether any separation exists between the two questions. Where they find food and a place to sleep, that is home for the time. That’s what begins to happen to House Dwellers ushered out of the illusionary safety of walls and a roof. Safety is contingent, and the need to move on ever the possibility. For now, the young wild cat sleeps near by and once, or twice a day Sam fills a plastic bowl with food for her. Sam Tall walks around the side of the house, passes the ancient evergreen that shadows the drive and leaves the bowl on the porch step. Kitty follows underfoot. The sadness comes for Sal and Sam when they privately know they cannot attach themselves to another cat. But, they do for today.
Pewter Rabbit
Beatrix, did you know the bunny’d come?
Oh, how like you to send one in the knick of time.
Pewter yet shinier
Shameless
Loves dandelions
Top to bottom
Turns tail to the sunflower sprouts
Bunny on our front lawn
Makes us giggle
Makes us smile
Wild bunny on our front lawn
Makes us feel
Like friends
Squawk Box
Big mouthed busy body
Opened to the world
Knows our business
Speaks about it
Never minds
The time of day
Sam Tall has built many things. His earliest work was big; building forms for bridges that would span mighty rivers, swinging in a cement bucket in the dark frozen Wisconsin winter, laying floors in nuclear plants. A huge ocean-viewing home overlooking Kahoolawe on the island of Maui was a Sam Tall project. Our man Sam has used his body to do the work he loved, and in the years as laborer and builder he has touched, smelled and absorbed every chemical, solvent, additive and sealant typical of the American jobsite. The tiny basement Everything Room sits on the southwest-side of the city and to Sam’s delight the new place is within a few minutes drive of a builder’s choice of goods and services. Sam’s history and his life with a Sensitive conjured his biggest challenge. Sam and Sally wrestled for months the idea of building a safe Gypsy-style caravan-a mobile safe place, not really knowing the answers to “how” “when” or “where.” Life in the Everything Room drew our pair closer to some of the answers on some days. With newly experienced stability there was room to put texture to the imaginings that had filled their minds and sketchbooks. The basement apartment was an answer to the “where.” The city offered lumber yards, fabricators, window makers and shops where nuts, bolts and fasteners could be picked out of bins in numbers of Sam’s choosing rather than in packages of a dozen when he only needed one.
On alternating days questions and challenges grew like a yard-full of dandelions. Viewed this way you could say the new and unpredicted questions like that yard of dandelions are not all bad. Sam and Sally love the stout-hearted yellow flowering wild green. Yet, as I said in the very opening line it may be a bit premature to begin the tale because in fact the story has not yet been completely made up. It’s a brave decision to be sawing, sanding, nailing and build within steps of their kitchenette. Tools and the processes tools create can be problematic for a Sensitive, all that dust, the collection of smells that cling to Sam as he weaves his way into and through the aisles of Big Boxes and Seattle alley-ways. The truth is, as I began to weave this part of the tale, I am reminded that this very imperfect location offered space for building, and life with multiple chemical sensitivities means being vulnerable most anywhere. So again, I watched as our friends accepted what was on offer, and adjusted.
Summer came to the Pacific Northwest and brought with her the sun. Sam Tall is used to heat so when the cool weather lovers of Seattle withered from humidity and heat he was energized. By mid-August the beginnings of the Gypsy wagon was anchored stoutly to the steel frame. Although Sam and Sal had taken as many precautions in choosing building material, they discovered that the foam insulation would not be a safe material after-all. That’s the thing about constructing this vardo: the rules for building are different. The mantra to simply ‘be green’ is not enough. When given the ‘put the questionable material in the jar test’ the foam insulation sent dear Sal into a spin and into her bed to recover. On more than one night, I have watched Sam glaze over and melt into the creases of his face. How to make things work for his Sal is a question he can’t always know. Cancer in his Sun and Taurus in his Moon, the man makes homes. Perhaps the kernel that is his origin allows him to improvise--to make these homes without knowing everything at the beginning. Things change, a crab moves side to side to get where he wants to go. Sal knows that the choices she makes are her full time job. “Every decision made is a choice between resentment and miracle.” Her meditation reminds her that there is a choice. With slow yet steady progress the two dears practiced this simple and powerful lesson from The Course in Miracles. Some choices led backward, retracing and replacing a direction that was just not the right fit. Other times progress was divine and effortless.
Split the Sparrow
Spring was tardy
The sun busy behind bundles of deep clouds
With the wind and the stars, no doubt.
We watched her
One brown spotted sparrow
Her tail feathers split in right angles
War injury, disabled by a wandering cat?
Injured perhaps, but no less able
She ate, she flew, she lived.
Tardy spring or not
Babies birth and want to eat
They chirp and yell and will not sleep.
With summer’s sun two birds
Did come and made our day
To watch.
A baby plump with mouth wide open
Called to his momma, “Me, me, me, me, me.”
And she with the tail half-there complied.
She ate, she fed, she lived.
JOTS (short for Johnny on the spot)
“Where do you live? Is this place you live, also the place you call home?” A scrawny black cat found her way to the cooking table outside our dear friends’ basement home. It was the smell of simmering chicken that led her there no doubt, like a jot across the length of the cement sidewalk she was on the spot. Within a blink Sally Round knew this was a wanderer, bred wild this feline must have had some time with human company for in spite of the near bones look of her the wee kitty meowed as sweet as it comes, wound her face and neck around Sal’s ankles and moved shamelessly toward the smell of food. Hundreds of the feline wanderers survive among the House Dwellers. When Sam Tall and Sally Round made camp in the Subaru along the salty black lava beaches of Oahu there were baby wanderers who found them, too. In the dark of night those who rest for the night in one spot don’t necessarily call it home. But to the feline ones I wonder whether any separation exists between the two questions. Where they find food and a place to sleep, that is home for the time. That’s what begins to happen to House Dwellers ushered out of the illusionary safety of walls and a roof. Safety is contingent, and the need to move on ever the possibility. For now, the young wild cat sleeps near by and once, or twice a day Sam fills a plastic bowl with food for her. Sam Tall walks around the side of the house, passes the ancient evergreen that shadows the drive and leaves the bowl on the porch step. Kitty follows underfoot. The sadness comes for Sal and Sam when they privately know they cannot attach themselves to another cat. But, they do for today.
Pewter Rabbit
Beatrix, did you know the bunny’d come?
Oh, how like you to send one in the knick of time.
Pewter yet shinier
Shameless
Loves dandelions
Top to bottom
Turns tail to the sunflower sprouts
Bunny on our front lawn
Makes us giggle
Makes us smile
Wild bunny on our front lawn
Makes us feel
Like friends
Squawk Box
Big mouthed busy body
Opened to the world
Knows our business
Speaks about it
Never minds
The time of day
Sam Tall has built many things. His earliest work was big; building forms for bridges that would span mighty rivers, swinging in a cement bucket in the dark frozen Wisconsin winter, laying floors in nuclear plants. A huge ocean-viewing home overlooking Kahoolawe on the island of Maui was a Sam Tall project. Our man Sam has used his body to do the work he loved, and in the years as laborer and builder he has touched, smelled and absorbed every chemical, solvent, additive and sealant typical of the American jobsite. The tiny basement Everything Room sits on the southwest-side of the city and to Sam’s delight the new place is within a few minutes drive of a builder’s choice of goods and services. Sam’s history and his life with a Sensitive conjured his biggest challenge. Sam and Sally wrestled for months the idea of building a safe Gypsy-style caravan-a mobile safe place, not really knowing the answers to “how” “when” or “where.” Life in the Everything Room drew our pair closer to some of the answers on some days. With newly experienced stability there was room to put texture to the imaginings that had filled their minds and sketchbooks. The basement apartment was an answer to the “where.” The city offered lumber yards, fabricators, window makers and shops where nuts, bolts and fasteners could be picked out of bins in numbers of Sam’s choosing rather than in packages of a dozen when he only needed one.
On alternating days questions and challenges grew like a yard-full of dandelions. Viewed this way you could say the new and unpredicted questions like that yard of dandelions are not all bad. Sam and Sally love the stout-hearted yellow flowering wild green. Yet, as I said in the very opening line it may be a bit premature to begin the tale because in fact the story has not yet been completely made up. It’s a brave decision to be sawing, sanding, nailing and build within steps of their kitchenette. Tools and the processes tools create can be problematic for a Sensitive, all that dust, the collection of smells that cling to Sam as he weaves his way into and through the aisles of Big Boxes and Seattle alley-ways. The truth is, as I began to weave this part of the tale, I am reminded that this very imperfect location offered space for building, and life with multiple chemical sensitivities means being vulnerable most anywhere. So again, I watched as our friends accepted what was on offer, and adjusted.
Summer came to the Pacific Northwest and brought with her the sun. Sam Tall is used to heat so when the cool weather lovers of Seattle withered from humidity and heat he was energized. By mid-August the beginnings of the Gypsy wagon was anchored stoutly to the steel frame. Although Sam and Sal had taken as many precautions in choosing building material, they discovered that the foam insulation would not be a safe material after-all. That’s the thing about constructing this vardo: the rules for building are different. The mantra to simply ‘be green’ is not enough. When given the ‘put the questionable material in the jar test’ the foam insulation sent dear Sal into a spin and into her bed to recover. On more than one night, I have watched Sam glaze over and melt into the creases of his face. How to make things work for his Sal is a question he can’t always know. Cancer in his Sun and Taurus in his Moon, the man makes homes. Perhaps the kernel that is his origin allows him to improvise--to make these homes without knowing everything at the beginning. Things change, a crab moves side to side to get where he wants to go. Sal knows that the choices she makes are her full time job. “Every decision made is a choice between resentment and miracle.” Her meditation reminds her that there is a choice. With slow yet steady progress the two dears practiced this simple and powerful lesson from The Course in Miracles. Some choices led backward, retracing and replacing a direction that was just not the right fit. Other times progress was divine and effortless.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Keia ... Kela (Here ... There)
Journeys lead a body to places new and different, or familiar with degrees of variation. Like migratory creators our old dears returned to the Pacific Northwest when the final straw made living on the island, in a car impossible. Pele goddess of fire and maker-of-new-land has big plans for re-building Earth, and stopping her volcanic activity is not part of the picture. VOG has become a regular presence on the islands since the new vents on Hawai`i Island turn rock into corridors of liquid fire. Sulphuric acid is the main ingredient in the volcanic off-gassing, a tough love sort of off-gassing that defies escape especially for a multiple chemical human living in a car. Jay John Sam Tall’s old friend had a place in Seattle where they could land. It was an offer, a small yet real one and Sam and Sal have learned to recognize small miracles.
They live mostly in a tiny room other people might use as a place to set up a table surrounded with a few chairs where tasty meals could be cooked up on the stove a few steps around the partial wall. The opening between the dining room and living room is hung tightly with a mint-green flannel sheet tacked like an animal hide in a yurt. The flannel wall and plumber’s foil backing keep the smell of old, moldy, smoke-trapped carpeting out of their safe abode. A sturdy steel-constructed air purifier runs day and night to keep the room as clear as possible. The large sliding glass door brings the Outdoors in yet seals the smell of smoke, jet exhaust and the remnants of airborne residue from the industry that is the reality of the environment. That rice kernel of strength within, a promise to live is polished daily, and our friends make camp.
The small and efficient kitchen built thirty years ago serves Sam and Sally in a fashion understandable by those who live with chemical sensitivities. They use the sink, though don’t drink the water. Seattle’s water system is purposely tainted with fluoride. Our gal Sal is seriously sensitive to the chemical that some say is one of the best kept secrets for crowd control. Others shout fluoride’s ability to keep teeth cavity free. So much information, still we must make our decisions based on what rings true. Rather than drink the tap water Sam has rigged a water filtration system up outside their home space. The reverse osmosis systems filters the fluoride and most ever thing else out of the water. Glass jugs emptied of their favorite Northwest cider fills with the chemical-free water. None of the cabinets are safe. The old particle board construction is in the long and short run filled with hazardous fumes. Three decades later the smell of deteriorating wood and glue is a whiff of danger. Silvery plumber’s foil covers all the cupboards and cabinets in the kitchen. The refrigerator and stove remain unused; instead a long-used plastic cooler with water jugs frozen solid in the upstairs freezer keeps food chilled. Rather than risk filling their tiny safe place with smoke from the stove, a large covered walkway outside serves as kitchen with a hot plate for boiling a kettle for tea, cooking a soup and a slow-cooking crock pot for stews.
There are in-door luxuries our two dears do enjoy: a shower with hot water, a private toilet and an electric washer and dryer free of past smelly detergents or dryer sheets. To get at the luxuries Sam and Sally must go out to get in. The two large rooms between their dining room safe-place and the bathroom are carpeted and unlivable, so a snaking path out, in, and through three interior doors opens to the bathroom-laundry. “You’re only using one room,” J.J. their friend and the owner of the home was thrown for a loop when he saw how his friends had reconfigured the apartment. Sally corrected their friend, “Two rooms. Remember we’ve lived in a car, showered at the beach, washed our clothes in a cooler and shared a toilet with the throngs. Now we have a room to sleep in, electricity to heat us, a sink inside and a bathroom with a laundry. We’d like to rent this place and use it just as you see it.” Who’s to know for sure what J.J. thought? Sam’s longtime friend offered the migratory pair a place to re-write the rules about what’s normal. Over pancakes and biscuits at the local diner the three friends agreed to a rent and work-trade arrangement that satisfied the trio. Family and friends don’t get how differently Sam and Sally live with the world, until they see them live it a day at a time. Creative survival and the steep learning curve served up as multiple chemical sensitivities have taught Sam Tall and Sally Round that living in a house can be as safe as setting up camp in a mine field. So, for now the yurt-like life suits our man Sam and his dear wife Sally.
They live mostly in a tiny room other people might use as a place to set up a table surrounded with a few chairs where tasty meals could be cooked up on the stove a few steps around the partial wall. The opening between the dining room and living room is hung tightly with a mint-green flannel sheet tacked like an animal hide in a yurt. The flannel wall and plumber’s foil backing keep the smell of old, moldy, smoke-trapped carpeting out of their safe abode. A sturdy steel-constructed air purifier runs day and night to keep the room as clear as possible. The large sliding glass door brings the Outdoors in yet seals the smell of smoke, jet exhaust and the remnants of airborne residue from the industry that is the reality of the environment. That rice kernel of strength within, a promise to live is polished daily, and our friends make camp.
The small and efficient kitchen built thirty years ago serves Sam and Sally in a fashion understandable by those who live with chemical sensitivities. They use the sink, though don’t drink the water. Seattle’s water system is purposely tainted with fluoride. Our gal Sal is seriously sensitive to the chemical that some say is one of the best kept secrets for crowd control. Others shout fluoride’s ability to keep teeth cavity free. So much information, still we must make our decisions based on what rings true. Rather than drink the tap water Sam has rigged a water filtration system up outside their home space. The reverse osmosis systems filters the fluoride and most ever thing else out of the water. Glass jugs emptied of their favorite Northwest cider fills with the chemical-free water. None of the cabinets are safe. The old particle board construction is in the long and short run filled with hazardous fumes. Three decades later the smell of deteriorating wood and glue is a whiff of danger. Silvery plumber’s foil covers all the cupboards and cabinets in the kitchen. The refrigerator and stove remain unused; instead a long-used plastic cooler with water jugs frozen solid in the upstairs freezer keeps food chilled. Rather than risk filling their tiny safe place with smoke from the stove, a large covered walkway outside serves as kitchen with a hot plate for boiling a kettle for tea, cooking a soup and a slow-cooking crock pot for stews.
There are in-door luxuries our two dears do enjoy: a shower with hot water, a private toilet and an electric washer and dryer free of past smelly detergents or dryer sheets. To get at the luxuries Sam and Sally must go out to get in. The two large rooms between their dining room safe-place and the bathroom are carpeted and unlivable, so a snaking path out, in, and through three interior doors opens to the bathroom-laundry. “You’re only using one room,” J.J. their friend and the owner of the home was thrown for a loop when he saw how his friends had reconfigured the apartment. Sally corrected their friend, “Two rooms. Remember we’ve lived in a car, showered at the beach, washed our clothes in a cooler and shared a toilet with the throngs. Now we have a room to sleep in, electricity to heat us, a sink inside and a bathroom with a laundry. We’d like to rent this place and use it just as you see it.” Who’s to know for sure what J.J. thought? Sam’s longtime friend offered the migratory pair a place to re-write the rules about what’s normal. Over pancakes and biscuits at the local diner the three friends agreed to a rent and work-trade arrangement that satisfied the trio. Family and friends don’t get how differently Sam and Sally live with the world, until they see them live it a day at a time. Creative survival and the steep learning curve served up as multiple chemical sensitivities have taught Sam Tall and Sally Round that living in a house can be as safe as setting up camp in a mine field. So, for now the yurt-like life suits our man Sam and his dear wife Sally.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
It may be premature but this story insists on continuing
The water’s edge is where you can find her most mornings. Unlike the warm turquoise waters of Waimanalo the temperature of bath water allowed to cool slightly, the shores of Puget Sound circle a body of salt and fresh-water that is nearer to iced than hot tea. But the air is water filled and clear, and the wind likes to dance there. She comes to be with the agelessness of the wind. Her nose, lungs and soul seek refreshment and comfort. In a common day, the illness might wake before the earliest of morning’s light. Sadness, pain or disorientation from an overload of exposures to chemicals, fragrances and gasses clogs her river of energy and will not free her for a new day. If, on those mornings a small crack of hope finds its way to the unending well inside, our gal Sally knows being with water is part of her cure. Once out of the house it’s a short drive to the water. Flowing with the water within her, listening with that old memory of cosmic agreement here at the water’s edge Sally Round is reassured that the old gods have not deserted her. The answer to her prayers just might be, “Not yet.”
Her ancestors believe being reborn a human as likely as balancing a grain of rice on the tip of a needle. “She chose to return to Earth as human, and there was an agreement. Blow that memory into her, she forgets,” said the sea. The stars though most brilliant in a night sky are often still awake in the every morning when Sally moves toward the water, “Still her brother, while I call on the innocents to rid her of those rancid collections. Blow makani, blow.” And that is what the sea, his sister the wind and the cousins of the stars do for Sal every time she comes. It’s not so much that the confusion clears so much as a bigger picture makes room for things other than the chaos. Some stages of human life are unclear and no amount of bargaining speeds up the process. A soul’s journey is like that. Cosmic time hums at a rate different from a human’s time.
The fortune teller did not fit Sal’s sketch of a seer. She was younger than Sal by at least ten if not twenty years, dressed in ordinary tee shirt with her dark hair clipped just below her ears. Her name was Japanese. She was Japanese, and will be Japanese for as long as she lives this life. While on those morning walks at the shoreline Sal prayed for assistance and out of a deep sleep the dawn brought a hint: Akasha (It means “the sky” in Sanskrit.) Sally had learned of the Akashic Records years earlier, but the full meaning of that library of soul memories would need human time to reach our gal when and where she needed it. The time was now, the puzzles of her dear life were absent of pieces, she knew it in her bones. Which pieces was the question. At the time of their meeting, Kimiko was just starting her voyage into the world of professional record reader. Sal liked what she read on her website, enjoyed her writing style, recognized that American English was not her first voice and found that a plus. There would be a candor and freshness in her perception and descriptions.
Her ancestors believe being reborn a human as likely as balancing a grain of rice on the tip of a needle. “She chose to return to Earth as human, and there was an agreement. Blow that memory into her, she forgets,” said the sea. The stars though most brilliant in a night sky are often still awake in the every morning when Sally moves toward the water, “Still her brother, while I call on the innocents to rid her of those rancid collections. Blow makani, blow.” And that is what the sea, his sister the wind and the cousins of the stars do for Sal every time she comes. It’s not so much that the confusion clears so much as a bigger picture makes room for things other than the chaos. Some stages of human life are unclear and no amount of bargaining speeds up the process. A soul’s journey is like that. Cosmic time hums at a rate different from a human’s time.
The fortune teller did not fit Sal’s sketch of a seer. She was younger than Sal by at least ten if not twenty years, dressed in ordinary tee shirt with her dark hair clipped just below her ears. Her name was Japanese. She was Japanese, and will be Japanese for as long as she lives this life. While on those morning walks at the shoreline Sal prayed for assistance and out of a deep sleep the dawn brought a hint: Akasha (It means “the sky” in Sanskrit.) Sally had learned of the Akashic Records years earlier, but the full meaning of that library of soul memories would need human time to reach our gal when and where she needed it. The time was now, the puzzles of her dear life were absent of pieces, she knew it in her bones. Which pieces was the question. At the time of their meeting, Kimiko was just starting her voyage into the world of professional record reader. Sal liked what she read on her website, enjoyed her writing style, recognized that American English was not her first voice and found that a plus. There would be a candor and freshness in her perception and descriptions.
I must tell you our gal Sal has had many teachers in her life, and each of them have shared insight or clues that soothed Sal’s heart, or itched at the curiosity in her mercurial mind. Astrology and numerology have long been staples in her quest for the big and little movements or congestions in her life. This time though the information Sally sought was more specific. What that might mean she wasn’t sure. With anticipation Sal picked up the phone at the agreed upon 2:30 appointment. “Hello.” “Hello. Is this Sally?” the voice was bird-like and confident. “Yes, this is Sally.” “This is Kimiko.” There was a bit of small talk, but very little. The phone consultation lasted just short of an hour. Sally could stop and ask questions at any point. She had very few. Kimiko was new at her art, yet was finely tuned intuitively. There was a written summary as part of the reading, so Sally used her journalist’s note-taking skill to jot what seemed especially important to her. The reading was a broad and detailed assessment. As promised Kimiko’s Akashic Record Reading was like a thorough physical examination conducted by a doctor who included the mind, body and spirit in the process. The service was not limited to the one phone consultation and was not really fortune telling. She provided Sal with three written documents attached to an email communication. An energetic clearing intended to restore Sal’s crystal of a soul to its full beauty was the first focus. Like rays from a precious star glistening atop your Christmas tree, Kimiko said Sal’s star was missing a couple parts. The reading and the homework Sally received were like a million tiny pin holes that freed Sal from a breath held too long. “Poisonous apple indeed, the fabled fruit of jealousy and spite seemed to be the only way our gal Sal could explain her life. Surely there must have been a badly turned jot of fate that was causing such fright.” There are issues a soul can find challenging in the human form, so dense and ‘primitive’ is the body, yet after the session with Kimiko Sal felt an immediate relief that lifted our gal from the murky under-toe. There is a Hawaiian proverb from the collective wisdom of Mary Kawena Pukui: E ho`a`o I pau kuhihewa Try it and rid yourself of illusions. The stories we tell ourselves are fluid like water or as vulnerable as fertile earth poisoned by the conjurings of chemical companies. The fortune teller offered clues to the source of Sal’s poisoned apples and offered a return to a soul healed. Through the twenty-one days of homework Sal rid herself of illusions that wore her down and blocked her from joy and peace. This was a piece of Sal’s puzzle that hid from her until now.
To be continued.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Reading between the lines
Ah...although it is difficult and sometimes impossible to explain the realities of living with MCS, telling a story has a way of leading you to veins of gold or a switch that turns on an awareness, or turns off a preconception in need of a tune-up. I, the storyteller of this tale have added a vein or a switch to SamandSally.
Look to the right on this page and find LIFESAVERS AND SAFETY NETS.
Look to the right on this page and find LIFESAVERS AND SAFETY NETS.
- The issue of HOMELESSNESS for people with MCS is huge! Hundreds of thousands of women, children and men of all ages are as the poem BLANK describes, "kapu" or unseen and invisible, could be you with the blink of an eye or a whiff of one more toxic pesticides. Link to MCS AMERICA to read between the lines of SamandSally's tale.
- Artists across the globe (like Sally) find the challenge to maintain and show their art either debilitating and a dead-end; or, they find a way to transform and collect their energies. CreativeCanaries is a website that offers a collective of hope and HUMOR.
Real stories take time ... check back as the tale of SamandSally continues,
the storyteller
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Part II Tale of Two Dears
Sally found comfort in writing daily napkins of poetry. Once a published writer and journalist and a lover of books the illness turned print into one more poisonous apple. She could not handle print so could not read. A napkin and a pen worked for her, and in six months she filled a small box, a gift from Turtle Woman a loving and understanding friend, with poems of few words and powerful emotion.
Here are a few of those poems.
Living public
Urban life.
Parking lots paved paradise.
Still the palms sway in the afternoon breeze.
`Aole fruit. Cut to avoid killing a haole from land where snow drifts in the same global afternoon breeze.
Homeless—houseless nomads sleep legally in ALOHA STATE licensed vehicle.
Beware the witching hour.
BONG! 6:01 sleeping, you are citable by law.
Living public the maimed and injured catch the eye, draw heavy hands and big billed brother.
Peck. Peck.
Bang, bang.
Slam, Slam.
Cabang.
Security in the parking lots. Log times in. Log times out.
Not every one of the folk on foot, bicycle seat and 4-wheels lives under roof with walls and windows.
The WHY STORY not the same for the flock.
How many rove because the manicured neighborhoods get routine legal poisons and chemicals to “look good” yet keep on killing long after the bugs have mutated and learned to love the poison.
Living public the lacquer on the Ugly Betty lookalike’s morning do singes my nostrils on its way to my brain cells. Beauty and fashion first. My birthright to breath … unaccounted.
Coffee House Retreat
Out of the car into the Morning’s Brew
Co-car camper asleep behind his wheel where I saw him last. Night retreats same for the wanderers on this side of Paradise.
Yeh, clean-shaven haole man with your shirt tucked oh so neat…snap back…the cat’s asleep with his everything surrounding him. A problem? Or just shaken aware.
Ness-ism
Just enough.
Enough to.
To sustain.
Sustain the light.
Lightness.
Ness-ism.
Ism without.
Without attachment.
Attachment.
Blank
Her sweet old face held me—
One face stood out among the many.
My parking lot vigil watching momona young hapa couple squeeze out of their car.
Smooth globe faces, flesh stretch the 3X tee shirt, the stretchy flowered pareau.
Plastic bags bulge with stuff pulled from Foodland Shelves.
People-persons push alcohol hand-swiped carts to the beeped open doors of vehicles. Frontiers, FAV3, Astro Vans, TRD off Road.
Your sweet old face held me in the dark, tropical night.
I notice your quilted navy coat enveloping your small frame.
Your smile, your eyes engage two brown haired heads.
Oh, I start to think…family?
Your lips make words.
They pass you.
They blank you out.
You are Kapu…
You sweet one must have uttered the unspeakable.
You with the sweet face, asked.
Help.
In the months when their car, the parking lots and public spaces were home to our dear Sam and Sally one cure became the one that mattered. Night after night when sometimes no WHERE answered their need for a place to rest, Akua … God, the Universe, the Source of All carved out space again and again. Without a roof, or toilet that wasn’t public to The Many, life in the wild offered practical and reliable spiritual connections. The birds, the wind, the sun, the moon, the ocean and the sky anchored themselves to our dear ones so they would remember how loved they are. Fairies came to kiss them. Long-flying birds filled them with the courage to seek comfort in the journey as life.
Hamakua Fairy
They come with the gloaming
Soft like the light tired from a day of bright sun.
They come soft, gentle light.
Tiny fairy, still speaking in tongues.
“Hello”…she moved tenderly alongside.
As close as she could without climbing up.
We watched the beautiful Marsh slip into her night gown.
No words. Silent.
She moved closer—
Caressed my shorts—not touching my leg.
She leaned her curly blond head into me…kissed.
I thank her with a kiss planted first on my fingers, then onto her head.
“What are you doing?” the big dad said.
We knew—fairies come with the gloaming.
Kolea
Long distance flier
Bred to know earth
Feeding on worms—once my mother, once my father?
Spot them in the winter
Stick thin on single legs
Singular
Solitary
Focused
Kualoa, Kaneohe burial mounds, Kailua parking lots, Kapiolani Park, Ehukai Street
Banded, unbanded
Tribes of Golden Plover make their time in paradise count.
Fattened the once sleek stick-legged long fliers transform
Who is the broad black-chested stud outlined in white?
Kolea prepped for Tundra copulation, ground nests, young ones
Plumped for the non-stop journey back.
Tundra-bound Kolea.
Momona with worms.
Warm from the heat of tropic sun.
Kolea aku.
Kolea mai.
Our elderly dears like the long fliers the kolea continue their ocean crossings. The choices they make challenge them individually and as a pair, and the illness complicates things almost daily. The world Sam and Sally find themselves part of poisons not only our brave dears, but the whole human and sentient clan. Great changes will test the resiliency of all in the years to come. A storyteller like me can never remain untouched by the characters she makes up. They are part me and part fantasy. Explanations are reason-bound, a story… well that is something different. What do you think?
Here are a few of those poems.
Living public
Urban life.
Parking lots paved paradise.
Still the palms sway in the afternoon breeze.
`Aole fruit. Cut to avoid killing a haole from land where snow drifts in the same global afternoon breeze.
Homeless—houseless nomads sleep legally in ALOHA STATE licensed vehicle.
Beware the witching hour.
BONG! 6:01 sleeping, you are citable by law.
Living public the maimed and injured catch the eye, draw heavy hands and big billed brother.
Peck. Peck.
Bang, bang.
Slam, Slam.
Cabang.
Security in the parking lots. Log times in. Log times out.
Not every one of the folk on foot, bicycle seat and 4-wheels lives under roof with walls and windows.
The WHY STORY not the same for the flock.
How many rove because the manicured neighborhoods get routine legal poisons and chemicals to “look good” yet keep on killing long after the bugs have mutated and learned to love the poison.
Living public the lacquer on the Ugly Betty lookalike’s morning do singes my nostrils on its way to my brain cells. Beauty and fashion first. My birthright to breath … unaccounted.
Coffee House Retreat
Out of the car into the Morning’s Brew
Co-car camper asleep behind his wheel where I saw him last. Night retreats same for the wanderers on this side of Paradise.
Yeh, clean-shaven haole man with your shirt tucked oh so neat…snap back…the cat’s asleep with his everything surrounding him. A problem? Or just shaken aware.
Ness-ism
Just enough.
Enough to.
To sustain.
Sustain the light.
Lightness.
Ness-ism.
Ism without.
Without attachment.
Attachment.
Blank
Her sweet old face held me—
One face stood out among the many.
My parking lot vigil watching momona young hapa couple squeeze out of their car.
Smooth globe faces, flesh stretch the 3X tee shirt, the stretchy flowered pareau.
Plastic bags bulge with stuff pulled from Foodland Shelves.
People-persons push alcohol hand-swiped carts to the beeped open doors of vehicles. Frontiers, FAV3, Astro Vans, TRD off Road.
Your sweet old face held me in the dark, tropical night.
I notice your quilted navy coat enveloping your small frame.
Your smile, your eyes engage two brown haired heads.
Oh, I start to think…family?
Your lips make words.
They pass you.
They blank you out.
You are Kapu…
You sweet one must have uttered the unspeakable.
You with the sweet face, asked.
Help.
In the months when their car, the parking lots and public spaces were home to our dear Sam and Sally one cure became the one that mattered. Night after night when sometimes no WHERE answered their need for a place to rest, Akua … God, the Universe, the Source of All carved out space again and again. Without a roof, or toilet that wasn’t public to The Many, life in the wild offered practical and reliable spiritual connections. The birds, the wind, the sun, the moon, the ocean and the sky anchored themselves to our dear ones so they would remember how loved they are. Fairies came to kiss them. Long-flying birds filled them with the courage to seek comfort in the journey as life.
Hamakua Fairy
They come with the gloaming
Soft like the light tired from a day of bright sun.
They come soft, gentle light.
Tiny fairy, still speaking in tongues.
“Hello”…she moved tenderly alongside.
As close as she could without climbing up.
We watched the beautiful Marsh slip into her night gown.
No words. Silent.
She moved closer—
Caressed my shorts—not touching my leg.
She leaned her curly blond head into me…kissed.
I thank her with a kiss planted first on my fingers, then onto her head.
“What are you doing?” the big dad said.
We knew—fairies come with the gloaming.
Kolea
Long distance flier
Bred to know earth
Feeding on worms—once my mother, once my father?
Spot them in the winter
Stick thin on single legs
Singular
Solitary
Focused
Kualoa, Kaneohe burial mounds, Kailua parking lots, Kapiolani Park, Ehukai Street
Banded, unbanded
Tribes of Golden Plover make their time in paradise count.
Fattened the once sleek stick-legged long fliers transform
Who is the broad black-chested stud outlined in white?
Kolea prepped for Tundra copulation, ground nests, young ones
Plumped for the non-stop journey back.
Tundra-bound Kolea.
Momona with worms.
Warm from the heat of tropic sun.
Kolea aku.
Kolea mai.
Our elderly dears like the long fliers the kolea continue their ocean crossings. The choices they make challenge them individually and as a pair, and the illness complicates things almost daily. The world Sam and Sally find themselves part of poisons not only our brave dears, but the whole human and sentient clan. Great changes will test the resiliency of all in the years to come. A storyteller like me can never remain untouched by the characters she makes up. They are part me and part fantasy. Explanations are reason-bound, a story… well that is something different. What do you think?
“Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we now have acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is part of nature, and his ware is inevitably a war against himself.”-Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
A Tale of Two Dears ... the whole short story
(image credit: Chris Kawika Brown)
do the thing and rid yourself of all illusions
-`Olelo no`eau
I don’t know how to explain so I will tell you a story…
Once upon a time there were two elderly dears who boxed along and lived quite simply in their cottage. Their names were Sam Tall and Sally Round. As you have probably guessed their names aptly describe our two dears. Sam was a tall lean silver-haired man with legs that stretched for yards. Sally was as round as a kabocha squash with skin the color of perfectly cooked sausages. As a young woman her hair shone black as fountain pen ink and fell well below her then slender waist. Now, Sally Round wore her generous mostly salty colored hair in a style reminiscent of Prince Valiant with plump toasted dumpling cheeks. Sam was a portrait of deeply rolling creases across his forehead with squint lines carved at the corners of his hazel eyes a template of a craftsman long a-work in the sun. His was a handsome face that still heated the juices of his dear wife after more than twenty years together.
A body wears different when you have lived as long as our two friends have lived. Sam’s shoulders bent a bit forward and his right hip ached with stiffness after climbing up and down his favorite ladder one too many times fixin’ this or that on the long days of summer. Sam’s people bred in him the energy of lightning—quick-witted, and fast in pace. Aging tempered Sam, but then can you really temper lightning? Sally wore her years with a bit more complexity. The round one was gifted, or cursed, depending upon your view with the ability to smell things that weren’t quite right. Once when she was a much younger woman she woke from deep sleep to smell a small but disturbing wisp of a smell that ought not to be there. That was what she was good at—knowing when a thing ought not to be there. As was her habit she followed her nose … a small and similarly round as her name nose … to the sleep-disturbing smell. Downstairs a far distance from the bed in which she slept, Sally Round found the smell coming from behind the ancient wall in the den. The fireman who came to put out the smoldering wall said, “Someone here’s got a lucky nose. Your house mice had made a cozy den of their own in your wall nibbled through the old wiring – a favorite food of mice for some reason, and added it to the paper and foil insulation for a grand nest. It’s lucky you were to smell that wisp of smoke.” But here I go rambling on about the old times when in fact the story of today’s telling is about the adventures our brave friends faced shortly before Sally celebrated sixty years on The Planet.
Sensitivity is a gift in some corners of time, but when Sally Round celebrated her sixtieth birthday her sensitive nose was more poisonous apple than welcomed guest. Poisonous apple indeed, the fabled fruit of jealousy and spite seemed to be the only way our gal Sal could explain her life. Surely there must have been a badly turned jot of fate that was causing such fright. Every day offered up one offending smell after smell another. An occasional wisp of something that ought not to be was one thing, but in the years leading up to Sally Round’s sixtieth birthday the work of sensing and defending became a full-time job. Now Sal had always been aware of her keen senses and learned in her fashion to create cozy nests of safety and security wherever she was, protecting her internal trust meter required these nests of comfort. Adventures and travel had always been a favorite pass-time for her, so frequent moves were looked on as a good thing in the early years. Guardian spirits traveled with our girl and she always made space for them to be near. Together with her lovely man Sam, Sally Round traveled back and forth between the place of her birth and the wide continent across the ocean. The two made many interesting friends who enjoyed their company and saved up little projects for Sam--a wee deck off the back door, leaking faucets, screen doors that no longer slid. Sal was a woman of grace and child-like humor with a heart that could keep a secret and a confidence. But something had begun to happen slowly yet progressively to Sally’s internal wires, until the summer when her trust meter became locked in the ‘off’ position. In the years of her fifth decade her nose became over-loaded with the multiple offending smells. Sal could not sort the good from the bad. Her brain became a gate-keeper who never rested. She eventually became very ill with a body that could not release the memory of smells that ought not to be.
Life on The Planet had changed so much since Sam was a boy milking cows on his Uncle Andy’s farm in Wisconsin. Once when a particularly fierce electrical storm shook the skies above his Uncle’s farm, a bolt of lightning found its way through a socket empty of its bulb. From that open socket the lightning rod traveled down to crackle into the cement floor below. Young Sam Tall sat milking the cow on that cement floor. The force of the lightning raised Sam Tall off his seat, into the air and across the barn. “Wow!” That was the extent of his Uncle’s reply as he watched young Sam stunned, his thin frame still shocked on the cold cement floor. Placid yet unrelenting awareness like this fashioned Sam Tall to see life as puzzles to solve, knots to loosen from a familiar length of rope usable again once the tangles are undone. I have heard him say on more than one occasion that a person stunned by lightning experiences things that can’t always be proven. How indeed do you account for those instances in a body’s life where energy enough to light up a city lights up your own dear self? Electricity isn’t a simple thing to understand, and yet it’s what makes every happen. The moving of energy vs. the blockage of same is all about being alive.
Sally’s illness was very strange and difficult to understand. Healers approached her symptoms with herbs, adjustments and assurances aimed at releasing the trust button from its stubborn and persistence on-position. In truth most never believed Sally’s illness. Friends and family were at first sympathetic but with time more of them simply didn’t see why she just couldn’t get over it and on with a ‘normal life.’ Sam, every loyal to his sweet wife directed his lightning pace and quick responses to fend off the smells that were making Sally so ill. At first the smells were easy to address. A flowering bush that bloomed intensely could be trimmed the blossoms bundled and set out at the curb to be taken away. Open fires were another smell trigger. There were fixes to that too. Some of them easy, close all the windows. Escape was another fix. Others more involved. Those solutions meant learning to ask for the cooperation of others and we know how differently humans respond to being asked to change. Sam and Sally would have closed many windows, left more than a dozen homes, nests and apartments including their cottage in the valley and had traveled thousands of miles trying to out run the toxic smells. By the time our friends joined the small birthday celebrators for food and drink our brave Sam and Sal were living in their car as a last solution. Safe places alluded and offending smells had become life-threatening poisonous apples.
Where would you have me lead the reader now? What part of your stories needs to be shared with the world? “Tell me more about Sam. How did he manage?” Ah good question, yes Sam’s story is as much a part of this as Sally’s. Inseparable is his story from hers like braid rope wound, knotted and unraveled so that is where we’ll continue. Lovers and friends are attracted for different reasons. A missing part of the psyche, a mirrored image, a chord struck in the heart, love at first sight. Sam Tall lived single and satisfied a good long time. His likes were varied—baseball, social justice, reading (newspapers, books and the funnies). His opinions were strong—psychiatrists and therapists are charlatans, a skilled work force is the economic key, over consumption is the downfall of current society. In short Sam Tall was a curious soul with informed opinions who was drawn to what he has described as ‘the exotics’ of cultures and women different than his own Mid-Western American laboring ethic.
Fate conjured a plan for both Sam and Sally when one day Sam found a colorful envelope in his mail box written in an unfamiliar hand. Letters, newspapers and books were among Sam’s varied likes. In the lines of that first letter Sam and Sally would begin a life together based on stories written by hand. Like this tale, a story made up and written by hand begins because fingers set to write thoughts down. But the journey of any tale will find its way with scant regard to a narrow plan. Two people always start from unique points on the continuum and given time a commitment grows between them, or not. There must have been a longing for love in Sam Tall when he read, reread and then answered Sally Round’s first letter because that is what happened those many years ago. The love of letters, words and stories were a shared ‘like’ for our two dears and would serve as platter to the mixed banquet of experiences to come. Sam’s curiosity about culture and woman was answered when he set out to spend his first summer with Sally Round. He had room in his heart for Sally Round and in the end isn’t that what love needs? “How much room did tall Sam have for his Sally?” Well, let me say he had thousands of miles worth of room for the Round gal.
By the time this tale began its recording Sally Round had finally found a doctor who could name the poisonous apple illness: MCS or multiple chemical sensitivities, an environmental illness. “This illness will change your life. There are things that will help, but the only cure is to avoid all the things that make you sick…it won’t be easy.” Our two dears had crossed an ocean thrice over and drove thousands of miles trying to outrun the environment that made Sally sick. Surely, they thought, there would be SOMEWHERE safe enough to call home for more than a few days at a time? This tale is about two elderly dears who discovered that ‘home’ means knowing what matters.
By the time this tale began its recording Sally Round had finally found a doctor who could name the poisonous apple illness: MCS or multiple chemical sensitivities, an environmental illness. “This illness will change your life. There are things that will help, but the only cure is to avoid all the things that make you sick…it won’t be easy.” Our two dears had crossed an ocean thrice over and drove thousands of miles trying to outrun the environment that made Sally sick. Surely, they thought, there would be SOMEWHERE safe enough to call home for more than a few days at a time? This tale is about two elderly dears who discovered that ‘home’ means knowing what matters.
Things and people have been left behind time and again. Like land turtles Sally and Sam found that only what they could carry mattered. People –friends, family and society in the main have had to decide whether the things that matter to their multiple chemical sensitive friends mattered to them. For half a year our two elder dears slept in their car and parked their mobile bedroom in beach parking lots, driveways and lawns of friends and family. Living public lives with an illness unknown or misunderstood isolates, and that is what it was like. Public yet invisible, illness and homelessness are conditions that our society denies. Political mumble is just so much dank air. The sky is falling on thousands of us every day and every night. Life after dark is a time when the goblins of entitlement and gentrification screen out and isolate the fragile and the sick.
End of Part I of two parts
Read Part II
End of Part I of two parts
Read Part II
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