November 2024, Malibu The creatures are misbehaving. The fires are burning north of here. I was called to ‘help’. It mystifies me that there is no word for holding space in the sacred burning ground of homes and lives and present sorrow. For those nights, at home in my own bed, overlooking the ocean, listening … Read more
Every single one of us is alone in the world. It takes courage to meet the full force of this. Until we learn to inhabit our solitariness, to be with it, to make friends with it, the distraction and noise of otherwise seduces us into false belonging, and then? Emptiness and weariness. The GOOD NEWS … Read more
Waban, Massachusetts, 1960 We sailed for India in 1957 and returned to the States seven years later, HOWEVER right in the middle, in 1960, we flew back for 6 months…right smack at the height of political drama while Nixon and Kennedy were going head to head. In addition to profound personal upheaval for the younger … Read more
I wonder what it is to be you. Somewhere from my ancient past, THIS: (Did I read this or hear it or know it when I came in from whatever realm preceded this one?) Every single being on earth, be it a rose or a lizard or a tree or a horse, comes in complete. … Read more
Charleston, South Carolina—1985 The Spoleto Arts Festival was spectacularly in full bloom, with Charleston throbbing and spilling over with musical, theatrical and dancing artists from around the world. The festival was Gian Carlo Menotti’s creation and SO thrilling for we artistic dreamers. My own children’s theater company had been accepted by the spin-off local tangent, … Read more
Last night I treated myself to watching ‘Ladies in Lavendar’, being reminded of this gentle, innocent, magical story with the news of Maggie Smith passing a few weeks ago. FLASH! LONDON…1984 In mid February I had received news that a special friend of mine, who lived in Peterborough, England, was seriously down for count with … Read more
I think I’ll call Mom. Oh, that’s right, Mom….You….left 17 years ago…as in your body….not sure you actually left as I feel you all the time. I feel like calling you….oh, wait a minute…our calls were not on cell phones. ‘Cell phones’ you ask? Yes….Oh brother, I’m not going to try to explain that….though actually … Read more
Every year on this day, phone calls and messages come through and waves of wonder, sadness, gratitude, and love blow through my heart. I was a member of ‘the grief team’ for 9/11 and was assigned twenty women to work with for a year. What is there to say? St. Exupery’s works were fundamental north … Read more
Oh Sacred Day! Mom. Seventeen years ago you left….you set yourself free….and I see that it was perfect…now. You ignited a chapter…you lit a fire…family connections and paths became more clear and catapulsion happened. You left, Dad plummeted and left, Norman and I went homeless, the children became my liferafts, depth and clarity fine tuned … Read more
“And so here we are”, said the spider to the fly. “Yes indeedy”, said the fly to the spider. “What to make of IT?” said the spider to the fly. “You tell me. “ said the fly to the spider, “And by the way, I have never seen myself as a victim of circumstance but … Read more
February 1968, Northfield School, Northfield, Massachusetts Then: On a freezing evening in a chilly auditorium, the weekend movie had been announced but as not many in our dorm had ever heard of it, I went alone. During Christmas break, my older brother had mentioned ‘Elvira Madigan’ over tomato soup and Boston brown bread, saying “You … Read more
A spider and I have accidentally grown a relationship, and I know that my mother is smiling. Back story: Perhaps because of ‘Charlotte’s Web’, perhaps JUST BECAUSE, my mother had a fondness for spiders. For decades, my family’s summer refuge was a rustic rented cottage on the shore of Lake Michigan, in the woods, with … Read more
In the midst of the froth from heaviness and confusion to joy and hope, a dragon card appeared with a message for us all in this, ITS year. Dragon eyes see beauty everywhere. It is said that if a Yogi does not see beauty in the world, their agni is dim. Agni is defined … Read more
Clockwork Orange, poisonous toads and saving the crocodiles. Yesterday while driving up PCH I was drawn into an NPR report on crocodiles in Australia being poisoned by toads. What? And apparently it’s a disaster…and lizards and snakes are also being victimized by the SITUATION. The toads are actually innocent. They do not hop about biting … Read more
The moon, pale as swan wings, watched as they moved over the blue. The swan felt the warm weight of the woman resting on his wings, followed the pathway made by the music. The sea cradled the creature as he moved, light on the water. The sky revealed the light of heavens, a dark cloth, … Read more
As I watched a miniscule bee traverse one kitchen tile back and forth, back and forth, he/she was clearly befuddled. A tiny voice tinkled out saying “In a place called lost, strange things are found”…. there was no giving up….but the bee was wearying. You need to meditate, said I silently…slow down…let your brain go. … Read more
HAPPY BIRTHDAY my darling MELANIE!!!! What you bring, who you are… there are no words, only music and awe and wonder that you chose ME to be your mother…. THANK YOU, SWEETIE PIE!!!! And now a joyful, gleeful, love-filled BEAUTEOUS BIRTHDAY to YOU!!!
July 22, 1976…Excelsior, Minnesota Nine months pregnant, the weather was hot, the mosquitoes were feasting on every bit of flesh they could find, and I was determined to tend to my garden full of zinnias and black eyed susans and poppies and cone flowers and nasturtiums while dodgling buzzing bees that were drunk on the … Read more
Perhaps because I do not express my political opinions publicly, the supposition seems to be that I am uninformed….perhaps…because I have received at least TWO DOZEN texts from people sharing the news of Biden’s decision today, delivered with respect but also as if I am in kindergarten. Haha. I grew up in a family where … Read more
My hood is inhabited by numerous Trump supporters as well as numerous non humans. It seems that the non humans are more tuned into the humans than the other way around. One of our night-time visitors is a mountain lion, whose medicine (according to Native Americans) is LEADERSHIP. Every single time this mountain lion visits, … Read more
Down by the sea, this elegant adorable spindly legged graceful creature struggled with itself over ‘Do I go into the water? Do I not go into the water? I WANT to go in, it’s calling me and looks like fun, BUT it’s splashy and cold and there’s something about it that makes me scared, WHAT … Read more
The coast has been invaded by boisterous partying heat escapees. The pelicans do not seem pleased, the sea lions are keeping their distance and the local humans are complaining loudly….yes, we’ve been infiltrated by foreign bodies….and the evidence is written in big letters on the names of the yachts…’OUTSIDERS’ just sailed out to sea and … Read more
Yesterday evening, standing on the edge of my bluff, beholding the golden light, soft winds and rustling leaves above the ever expansive sea and feeling that all really is well with the world in spite of…..
The Santa Anas have arrived in fulll glorious might resulting in a myriad of responses.
Recently the words ‘ If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you’ crossed my path.
Sitting at a stoplight on PCH, a small creature that is not the usual four legged vagabond in this hood, scampered out into the middle of the intersection…
Three days after the three days of isolation that the atmospheric deluge commanded.
During my flu recovery this week, I began watching a mystery and withiin the first five mnutes knew everything that would happen and who had DONE IT.
Is there a mouse in the house? or something bigger? or maybe under the house, trying to scramble in?
The prediction of torrential rain exploded joyful ecstatic impishness in my core yester eve …but…I will WAIT until the heavens have really let it rip before venturing forth on my bluff, says I.
As baby teeth loosened, popped out and found their way under the pillow, a winsome, poetry laden tooth brownie found his way to our home every single time, and left wee treasures, ALWAYS with a note scratched out on a tiny slip of paper.
Sitting at a traffic light in my blue Taurus station wagon on East Bay Street, in Charleston, contemplating how on earth I was going to pull off participating in the ‘Proprioceptive Writing Course” at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. I needed to do this.
May we learn to walk upon the earth
With the confidence and clear-eyed stillness of animals,
In the late 60’s, living in suburbia New York, my mother’s passion for ‘doing’ rose up with a no-turning-back vegeance and she announced that she needed to go back to India, to gather information on the famine so that she could write THE BOOK.
Once upon a time ago, when I lived in NYC, my nest was half a block from Central Park and two blocks south of the Natural History Museum.
May you have friends who can see you, may your senses be windows of wonder and your mind a prism of spirit.
‘By the skin of my teeth’ floated through my so-called mind this morning as I pondered how on earth my existential reality is managing ever snce the writers’ strike obliterated my income.
Late late, too late, I finally slipped into bed, opened the window and where was I? And when?
My stunningly brilliant, queen of communicating and passionate pianist mother was stroked at the age of 83.
‘The color gold represents success, affluence and luxury, evoking a feeling of grandeur and sophistication.’
Feet in the ocean, after a few days of Maui despair and then a call from a young girl who lost her brother to opioid overdose.
Once upon a time ago in Sri Lanka, when the monsoon winds howled their way to our bungalow, my sister and I nodded to each other and headed for the beach at a breakneck speed.
There is a tribe of women in our midst that moves and grooves, inspires and solidifies future generations silently, with no recognition.
As the strike continues for this third month, we whose livlihood has depended on ‘the industry’ have been called to pull back burnered thises and thats to the forefront to handle our existential survival.
Somewhere in the recesses of my so-called mind, I can see and hear Clint Eastwood (r-e-a-l-l-y?)
Oscar, my singing frog, has disappeared. I miss his rowdy presence but life does have a way of moving on in mysterious ways.
“I wonder as I wander out under the sky”…another gift from lifetimes ago when osmosis-ing hymns while sitting in pews was a Sunday happening.
This morning I was called to ‘be with’ three families that are hovering on homelessness as a result of the writers’ strike.
Oberon. One day, while Obie and I were innocently standing on the sidewalk waiting for a red light to turn green, an animal psychic slid up next to us and said “Every dog has a soul mission. This dog’s mission is to bring gentleness to his male master.”
A few days ago, a heart stopping, soul vibing journey into the world that I grew up in, in South India, captured and carried me back into itself through Abraham Verghese’s book ‘Covenant of Water’….
Jose and Matilda, my guardian lizards, were sitting on my doorstep dreaming in their lizardy way, when wafting through the cosmos,
Shifting winds, shifitng planet and the creatures that inhabit our bluff are dancing to the shifts!
This week has been one of my phone ringing non stop with people in crisis. Crisis? Disharmony with reality. Unacceptance of what is. Pain, frustration, outrage. Each one needing to vent and be heard.
In her late 80’s, my mother, having not only survived two massive strokes but also defied all odds by negating the prediction that she would never be restored to being a recognizeable verison of herself in language or limb usage, would sit and say “I am of no use! I must be of use!” I listened and comforted her but now?
The parrots in my trees are raucous, chatty, screechy, non stop vibrationally wild, but this morning?
Julius had been born on the third floor of our funky green house by the sea in South Carolina and had been my best friend through the trials and tribulations of mothering my girls, following my dreams, facing dragons and meeting angels in every size and shape imagineable….he was my partner.
Avec my Saturday morning haferflocken (oatmeal, thank you, Norman!), I watch a children’s odyssey program and I inhale the most wondrous collection of intriguing tidbits.
As a girl in South India, my sister and I had the incredible good fortune to study with one of the prima bharatanatyam dancers in the country, as she was on maternity leave for two years.
Sitting, watching a giant hawk circle and glide in its magnificence while two baby hummingbirds innocently flit from blossom to branch to me.
On June 4th, 1957, my mother, father, two older brothers, younger sister, nanny, and I, climbed the gangplank of the SS Mauretania in New York City, waving good-bye to my grandpa, who thought he would never see us again, as we were heading for exotic, mysterious India, on the other side of the earth.
The cold drink display in Whole Foods is in the very front of the store and impossible to ignore if one has one’s eyes open.
As my eight year old grandson, Huck, has a passion for snakes, and knowing that I had a weakness for all tortoise related creatures, I was coerced into watching a documentary on reptiles with him.
Last week, a special friend of mine gifted me with an expedition to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
This afternoon, as I stepped out of Trader Joe’s heading for my car, a robust, shining African American man came out at the same moment, flung his arms open wide and said ‘What a beautiful day!
Once upon a time ago I created and directed a children’s theater company in Charleston, South Carolina.
In between life…as in taking a break from brain, I watch people….and specifically zero in on one particular person at a time who catches my eye and I wonder what it would be like to be that person.
From John Masefield’s ‘Sea Fever’ (thank you, Mom, for imprinting my being with poetry and literature galore!). These words ran through me in broken intervals for those eight years of being a gypsy:
The road that leads from my bluff to civilization, swerves by a view of a canyon that opens on to the sea. Every single time I drive past this canyon, I flash back to a memory from my girlhood in India.
