A Race to the Vet

A race to the vet late this past Saturday afternoon after one of our beloved cats, “Sparkle” tumbled off the back of the sofa where she had been sleeping and hit her head on the radiator. She meowed several times, more from shock than pain, the human version of “Ah!” She could not stand. Her head swayed from side to side on the spindle of her spine, like she was watching a tennis match.

Ken’s words froze me to the bone.

“Sparkle’s hurt!”

I turned the jets off the gas cook top where I was preparing dinner and ran into the living room while he pulled the sofa away from the wall. Sparkle was splayed out on the floor, still crying, scrambling to get up but unable to pull her legs together. I thought the worst. Of course. That is what I do.

After examining her for possible broken bones, I carefully gathered her up and placed her on the sofa. Her head still wobbled back and forth. After a few moments, she grew quiet, alert to my gentle stroking that was trying to reassure us both. We remained that way for several minutes, enough to make me hope that she would be okay, but then I noticed her eyes. Her head wasn’t swaying, but her eyeballs were switching back and forth instead, like the cartoons you see where the characters’ eyes are bouncing back and forth after having a piano dropped on their heads.

A telephone call, then a mad dash to the vet to use the emergency services I had chosen them for.

I do not usually drive fast, preferring to putter along with the crowd, but yesterday I slammed the hammer down in the left lane of the New York State Thruway, and cursed anyone who dared travel at less than the speed of sound.

I kept an iron grip on my thoughts, but unwelcome scenarios sneaked in. Did Sparkle have a stroke? Did some mysterious neurology in her brain misfire and cause her to fall? Was it a blood clot, like the one that felled her cousin, Bear, when he was only five years old? Were we racing to the vet only to stand sobbing while the vet plunged the final needle into her vein?

A line from a favorite film, “Thelma and Louise” blasted into my brain: “Drive, Louise, drive!” Reminding me to pay attention. You don’t wander off into fields of grief while driving hell for leather along the Thruway at over 80 MP. What if we were pulled over by a cop? Hopefully, one sympathetic to the love an animal. Will they fire off their sirens and lead the way through the traffic to Exit 12? Would we lose precious time by being pulled over?

I slowed to 75.

We arrived to an empty waiting room. Anything after 5:00pm was considered emergency hours, so it would cost $130 to walk in the door. I would have paid a thousand. They took Sparkle and bade us remain behind in the waiting room.

“What?” I said, watching her disappear through the mysterious door. “We can’t go in with her?”

“In a moment,” they counseled. “The vet will check her first.”

“But we want to be there too,” I said. “Doesn’t the vet want to know from us what happened?”

They glanced at each other. Another nut job crazy pet owner.

After a moment, a technician came and escorted us to the exam room where Sparkle peered from her crate. The vet, a young woman, entered the room and introduced herself.

“I have already examined her quickly,” she assured us. “She seems to be okay, but let’s take her out and get a closer look.”

I gently pulled Sparkle from her nest of clean towels. She stood up and looked around, then perked up at something she saw through the window.

She was standing.

“Let’s see if she can walk around a little,” the vet suggested, and placed her on the floor. Sparkle walked around, sniffing, then scraped her face on the table leg to leave her scent, then wandered over to Ken and rubbed his knees with her paws, an endearing behavior she does to lay claim to us every day. We watched for several moments. Her eyes stayed where they belonged; front and center.

“She seems okay,” the vet continued. “But I would like to keep her overnight, just in case. If she is having seizures, we can treat her right away. I will call you if there are any problems during the night.”

We agreed. Kissed her goodnight. I even pulled off my fleece jacket and handed it to the vet.

“Please put this in the crate with her,” I implored “It might comfort her in a strange place.”

It really was to comfort me.

“Fine,” the vet smiled. Obviously, she has seen this before.

Ken and I drove home in silence. In hope.

I called later in the evening.

“She seems fine,” they answered. “What a mush! She is charming everyone in the back room, so she is getting lots of attention. We are really loving on her!”

We picked her up early Sunday morning. The vet pronounced her a “normal, healthy cat!” And added:

“As a cat owner, you probably already know cats don’t always land on their feet. Maybe she hit behind her ear when she fell off the couch while asleep, and disturbed her inner ear, which would cause the nystagmus you saw. ”

Or as Ken said, "She had her bell rung!"

But, the vet continued, "She seems fine. Take her home!”

Which is where she is now, dozing on the fleece blanket covering my lap as I write this.

So... prayers are heard at 80 mph. Nice to know.

Joy

I remember when the word gay meant gay, as in happy, sunny, joie de vivre, bubbly. But language is a living entity. Words grow up. They fold into a chrysalis and emerge as something new. Gay has undergone this curious metamorphosis to mean men who prefer men.

How did this happen? Why was this word chosen? Why not silk, or green, or a made-up one; say, lars?

“That man standing in the lobby is lars.”

“They have a loving, lars relationship and want to adopt a child.”

Works for me. I would like to have “gay” back so I can use it in a sentence when I write about joy.

I wonder if the same thing could happen with the word, “joy?” Shall we change the harsh sounding “lesbian” to “joy”? That buzzy “z” sound in lesbian grates on my ears and puts my teeth on edge. It is hard and final, so unlike the women I know who share themselves in those relationships. To be fair, perhaps we should let women have joy since the men have gay and the whole world could be a happier place.

“The women down the street are joys, you know. They have two cute little long haired dachshunds and walk them past our house every morning with their little plastic poop bags dangling from their wrists. They live next door to the gay couple that throws such great parties, the ones where straights and gays and joys are all welcomed.”

I hate to lose “joy” but think it’s only fair. Besides, we can always slip a replacement out from another word bank, browse the world’s language cache for a suitable substitute; say, “froh” from German (we can toss out any of those annoying umlauts to suit our purposes) or we can even borrow from the French now that their fries are back in town. You never know. All things are possible.

Have a joyful, gay, froh day!

A Little Complaining Goes a Long Way

I haven’t complained in my notebook for awhile. Suddenly, I miss my daily whine time. It completes a circle somehow, satisfies the untied knot in my heart to open my mouth and bitch. It feels good to get away from complaining, and good to return to it, and to the sympathetic pages of my notebook that never loses patience, never flaunts disgust, never rolls up in despair (“Oi vay...here she goes again!”). I can write and complain until my hands fall off. My notebook accepts it all without a whimper.

I have at it. I complain about my job (who doesn’t?), our growing financial squeeze, the price of gas, the snarl of traffic, cell phones ringing during meetings, my flabby muscles, the frequency of bad hair days. I go on and on. I have a veritable complaining party and then feel refreshed at the end of a simple piece of paper, like taking a cold shower. Get in, clean up, then get out.

These sessions are like nursing a spiritual cold. Whining are the symptoms, like a stuffy nose or sore throat. And as everyone knows, antibiotics won’t work; you just have to wait it out. Some people believe if you swallow pills to ease the soreness, it will take that much longer to heal.

Let the symptoms breathe! Complain!

Thoughtful people in my life sit back and say, “Well, I just think of so-and-so, who just crashed on Mars and doesn’t have cable. Then I feel better about my house burning down.”

I don’t know what to say to people like this. My sister has cancer. So does her husband. So does my husband’s beautiful 40-year old daughter, who is fighting her way back after surgery and months of chemo to keep her role as wife and mother of two young sons. I know about unfairness, death, disaster. I have choked in the quicksand of depression. I know fear by her first name. Anger and I have wild discussions. Feeling guilty about complaining just makes me feel worse, like I have no rights at all.

Well, I am standing up for complaining. My tattered notebook stands by my side, witness that we both survive. Complaining about the little stuff helps me hold the big stuff; the life-altering, mind-blowing, soul-spinning events you cannot plan for. In its weird little way, a little complaining is the seasoning that keeps living palatable.

And now. I’m done.

Family of Friends

Like many families these days, my parents and four siblings are flung all over the map. We are not exactly the reunion types, so gatherings are few and far between. While we have shared memories of growing up, we have drifted onto five very different paths. Not unusual in this day and age; many of you live out the same fragmented family lives.

So what do Ken and I do on the grand “traditional” family holidays? The ones where everyone gathers around a communal table to share a turkey dinner or the sharing of presents, or the Easter rites of spring?

We have slowly built our own simple traditions around these holidays. One of my favorites is Easter. Not only are the daffodils drilling their way up through the frozen earth and the crocus popping, for the past three years, we have gone to our friend Beverly’s house for this holiday. Another couple joins in as well with their two young children, ages 4 and 6, who are not only adorable but a pleasure to be around. I am ready to vote Carlos and Lillian as parents of the century. It is clear they love their children, but it is also clear who the parents are. Unusual in this day and age, when parents seem to feel they need to consult their children on everything from supper time to the mortgage payments.

The afternoon begins with an Easter egg hunt outside. The kids search for the candy colored eggs carefully placed about the yard by the Easter bunny, then we go inside for drinks and dinner preparations. Bev is a master chef and enjoys creating recipes from around the world. We have been introduced to cuisines from Thailand, Morocco, India, Mars. But on holidays, she brings out the traditional foods; the ones that say; we are family, this is where we are from. So this Easter, we feasted upon tortellini soup, baked ham, creamy potatoes o’gratin, crispy asparagas, and snappy sweet peas.

Lillian brought her famous flan for desert. I should have realized something was up when they all asked for TWO pieces right off the bat. Since I am not a big custard fan, I was content with one small square. But then I slid a spoonful of sweet silk into my mouth, along with a little of that syrupy caramel. Voila. Confection perfection. I consumed three pieces, just like that, and don’t even feel guilty for it. There are some things that are worth the calories. Lillian’s flan is one of those.

So, while I don’t spend Easter with the family I grew up with, this most special day of new life and new hope is shared with my growing family of friends, one of our many blessings!

Easter Sunday

Today is Easter Sunday.

I was raised in the standard Protestant Christian tradition but a series of events chased me beyond the borders of trust into a world rich with alternate views. I have cobbled together a crazy quilt of beliefs that has proven surprisingly strong in its flexibility, like the ads you see for the plastic bags that can hold all the trash of the world without splitting.

My spiritual desert has become home. I prefer it over the rich tapestries of a cathedral. In losing my religion, I found my faith.

Nevertheless, I find the trappings around this holiest of holy Christian Days increasingly odd. For weeks, there have been marshmallow and chocolate bunnies everywhere; dark chocolate Lindt eggs with crisp candy coatings, pink and green wrapped Hershey squares (the same ones sold in October dressed in brown and orange), jolly jelly beans, green and yellow plastic “grass” to tuck around an Easter basket. Merchants are pushing “Easter presents” in a not-so-subtle push to imitate the commercialism of Christmas (imagine going through that TWICE a year?)

You can also find chocolate crosses, confection replicas of the one Jesus died on, in either milk, white or dark chocolate. Some of the fancy ones have sugar roses at the center. When I was a kid, the Easter bunny used to bring us one. At least, we didn’t have to worry about who bonked the ears.

I have noticed a hesitation around the salutatory: Happy Easter. We are struggling to find the Easter version of Happy Holidays. We’re not there yet, as far as I know.

I am pleased to see we have come full circle back to what the vernal equinox used to be: a celebration that the earth has completed another cycle, spring has returned to the land, the birds and the animals are chasing each other for you-know-what; the does are dropping fawns on the soft detritus of last year’s leaf litter. The early Christian church fathers were clever enough to attach their religious and political messages to these ancient celebrations already celebrated by the pagans, whose spiritual orientations were intimately attached to the cycles of a greater God(s).

The commercialism of Christian holidays is increasingly difficult to maneuver around, which is why the simplicity of desert faith is so healing. I recommend it for all you who labor and need rest. Don’t forget the chocolate.

Do What You Love

They say, “To be happy, do what you love.”

If you are lucky, what you love to do is also how you pay the rent and afford your meals. In Stephen King’s “On Writing” he describes his daily mornings spent in his writing room crafting the stories that sent him off the charts of publication fame. Interspersed with writing is reading, the fuel of any writer’s craft. In the afternoons, Stephen is off for a four-mile walk (which almost ended his life in 1999 when he was hit by a distracted driver).

I spend what seems like five minutes writing in my notebook, answering email, or reading a novel, then look up, and realize: Half the day is gone. Gone! Vanished! And I haven’t moved my butt out of the chair. I get up, and oi! Stiff back, neck, hips. And I hardly scratched the surface of all the delicious things I planned to do with reading, writing, studying, connecting.

In the meantime, my body is asking: “So, where did you go? Forgot about me, did ya? What happened to those walks around the lake? Look at all those twigs and sticks all over the lawn! Did you sprinkle the pelletized lime yet? No? Not even purchased it from the nursery? What about the trumpet vine that took over the garden last year and was finally voted in for mayor? You said you were going to move it “in spring.”

It would be so easy to stuff that voice away and hunker down on the sofa in my den. I do it almost every weekend. You would be surprised how much easier it gets the more you do it.

On the other hand, the sky today is that wild blue yonder of early spring. The wind is whipping energy off the frozen earth to reveal the tender shoots of snowbells, little shooting stars of hope: Spring’s calling card. The moody greys of winter are surrendering. And while driving home from the supermarket, I spotted a few hundred migrating mergansers resting on the lake. The crows are flinging themselves all over the place with twigs in their bills, then sneaking in to the big spruce across the street to build their nest. The Titmice are chasing each other with their little black, beady bedroom eyes.

Time to get out there. See ya later, alligator.

Wild Geese

Do you know the poet, Mary Oliver? Oh my, let me introduce you to one of my muses:
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Writing in the Ring

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I enjoy many different blogs, but one of my favorite daily inspirations is Victoria Cumming’s “Teachings of the Horse.” http://victoriacummings.blogspot.com/

Victoria’s March 16th post speaks about facing your personal demons, and the lessons learned from life’s great challenges. She also parallels riding (horses) and writing. It reminded me of a piece I wrote about the same thing almost two years ago. Thank you, Victoria…this one is for you:

I am sick of writing practice and tossed my notebook into a corner. It has become like riding used to be: All that practice at the sitting trot around the ring, balanced reins on the serpentines and figure eights, smooth transitions to the canter on the correct lead and back down again, for what? You do not need these skills on the trail. You do this for an hour, sometimes with an instructor, sometimes not, for what purpose?

To show off, that’s why I did it. There is just enough competitive spirit in my little pinkie to make me want to be really good at just one thing. And not for the heck of it either, but to win a tangible reward—a slip of cheap blue ribbon, a brief applause, a smile of pride from someone who knew the sacrifice and the pain that grew the skill.

I used to show horses. Not very much. It was expensive and after the unexpected loss of my own horse, I was dependent upon the loan of someone else’s good animal. I rode a lot of them as a trusted exercise girl in the barns where I worked, but there were only a few whose backs I braved to ride before a judge. Those little shows gave me purpose. I had to perfect my transitions, correct my diagonals for a reason beside better balance. I would be judged for it. Working toward a show sharpened my senses and my self-discipline. It also made me a nervous wreck.

So it is with writing. Going round and round the ring writing in my notebook. Fillng tome after tome with assignments, promises and prompts, emotional gusts and boring treatises to myself. What is the point? It is dull and plodding but, like sliding a sweat-soaked saddle off the back of a steaming mare, there is the meaty satisfaction that both the ride and the writing has brought together an essence of body and soul that nothing else can duplicate. Sometimes, the magic happens. In both, the entire universe is in that moment where past, present and future bind together into one sudden and immediate presence.

Writing, like riding, will never be perfect. There is only the randy hope there will be the occasional flash of brilliance, where the horse finally curls her back in acceptance of my weight, or the nugget of an idea gallops out upon the page. In both, there is the intuitive instant when you know this is the way it is supposed to be, this is the moment God waits to show her face, and we find we are up to the task.

Those moments in riding and in writing have been few and far between, and never in a public arena. They are private moments, between me and a beloved animal, me and a piece of paper. Yet the daily work that made these moments happen was because I was working toward something. I had a goal. It is why I have become rather cavalier about writing in the ring—there is no show to work toward, no final day of revelation where I can trot out into the sunshine on a gleaming gelding to claim a well-earned prize. The only prize here is yet another filled notebook and a weary hand.

But…you know I will keep writing anyway. It is my private access trail to myself.

Winter's Losing Battle-A Story

Tap, tap. Tap, tap.

“What?”

Winter spun around at the unexpected touch on his shoulder. He had been trying to push some trees over with his icy breath.

“Good morning. I told you I would return,” said a voice of silk.

“You can’t! It’s still March! I have lots of time. I am still strong enough to blow you from here to the Atlantic!”

Winter blew hard to prove his point. A sudden snow flurry obliterated the forest. The rocks peering through their unexpected white blanket resembled a Bev Doolittle painting.

“See?” Winter. “I still own this land and all the light-starved people in it.”

Spring smiled.

“Look over there,” she said. “My friends are on their way.”

Winter turned to see where Spring was pointing. The mountainside he had so proudly encased beneath a thick sheet of ice last December was beginning to sparkle. The hard shell still made it appear gray in the morning light, but when he looked closer, he saw what Spring already knew. There was a trickle of water under the glass, a thousand silent streams slipping over outcroppings and sliding under piles of stone. And the worst sight of all: at the bottom of the mountain was an open pool of water being fed by a trickle of ice melt. If this kept up, Spring would get an upper hand.

“NOOOOOO! There are days left yet! This is still ALLLLL MINE!” Winter jumped up and down like a child caught in a tantrum. Tree branches crashed to the ground with the thunder of his fury. A Red-tailed Hawk struggled in the wind, trying to gain altitude to reach his mate hanging in the sky above.

Spring swept her scarlet cape open and lifted her face to the sun. To Winter’s dismay, the drumming of a Pileated woodpecker sounded across the land. He heard the bird’s cry: kik kik kik kik kik kik! Fish crows cavorted, spinning and zipping through the tops of the blue spruce trees that lined the path, chasing each other, flying and spinning so fast it was hard to know who was chasing whom. A Red-bellied Woodpecker whirred overhead as it landed on the trunk of an old oak and started poking for insects.

Winter fell to his knees.

“I…am…not…done…yet….” he whispered.

“I am taking the land back,” announced Spring. “Look over there.”

Winter groaned and glanced up.

Above his head were a thousand gleaming black wings stippling the blue sky. Red-winged blackbirds had just landed in the bare branches of the forest, hungry and excited to return to their natal land.

“I arrived on a cardinal's song in February,” Spring said. “Didn’t you hear them calling me, announcing my arrival with their “pretty pretty” song? They knew!”

Winter glowered and looked away. A brief shower of hail clattered around him.

Spring stepped aside. Under her feet were the purple snouts of a dozen crocuses nosing through the frozen ground, nonplussed by the sight of spent hailstones.

Winter gasped. A cold wind howled.

“I still have time,” he said.

Spring laughed. A rainbow shimmered above the clouds.

“If you must,” she smiled. “But I am right behind you.”

“I am Spring, and I am here!”

Windows and Birds

It happens to all of us, unless you live in a windowless tent.

Wham!

You look outside. On the ground, the sidewalk or the driveway lies a dead bird.

Most often, it happens during migration when the birds are flying to and fro over the earth in response to a power we can only guess at. In spring, they fly thousands of miles to their breeding grounds. When they’re done, they fly back. They know when and (usually) where to go. Birders can only predict and follow with radar, expensive telescopes and binoculars. We get excited about the “season” when the chance of spotting an unusual bird increases. We spend days driving around to the hot spots, warbler traps, ponds, lakes, shorelines, mountains. Every habitat hosts its own specialty.

We also build sparkling structures made of glass, power lines, towers, rotating blades, sucking engines, and an entire forest of obstacles for these creatures of the air to maneuver around. And they don’t get it. When they see a promising expanse of blue sky and the reflection of an oak tree to escape into when being chased by a hungry hawk, they fly for cover only to annihilate themselves in the false hope that your window is the gateway to safety.

I can’t bear the thought of discarding their dead bodies in a garbage can along with the cat poop. So last week, when the male Downy Woodpecker hit the kitchen window box and the Fox Sparrow nailed itself on the garage door glass, I scooped them up and put them in a plastic bag to store in my freezer until the ground thaws and I can bury them in the fairy garden.

This creeps my husband out but he is really okay with it. ("For better or worse," remember honey?)

I had decals on the main glass panels of my house. There are now tons more, all over the garage windows, on the sliding glass deck door, the long pane in the front. The house is peppered with silhouettes of hawks, spider webs, chickadees, and cardinals, little plastic stick-on sheets standing guard against the innocence of birds.

You can buy them too, at any Audubon store bird store. If you can’t find them leave me a comment and I will be glad to help.

After all, every bird counts.

"Thank You for Saving My Life"

My husband turned to see who was speaking to him. It was a ten year old boy.

“You saved my life this morning. I really appreciate it. Thank you.”

Ken is a crossing guard at the corner of one of the nastiest corners in a small New Jersey town. Children who attend school there must maneuver their way through rush hour walkways and streets full of drivers rushing to the train. Regardless of the direction from which they walk, bike or run to school, each child is required to wait for Ken’s signal that it is safe to cross the multi-corner maze. But last Thursday morning, one kid thought he would slip by and bolted from behind him. Sure enough, a car whose driver was blinded by the morning sun came zooming around the corner. The kid froze. Ken, a former Marine (if there is such a thing as “former” Marine) reached out an iron hand, grabbed the kid by the collar and hauled him back to the sidewalk, and explained to him in that nice way Marines have not do that again or he wouldn’t live to see his next geometry quiz.

The kid had all day to think about it. He returned that afternoon to thank him.

Last winter, when there were about two feet of snow and ice on Ken’s corner (part of the same unshoveled sidewalk system you see every winter in this town) Ken was standing on the street side of the pile, waiting while a little girl maneuvered over the miniature toboggan run so she could cross the street. A Lincoln Navigator whose driver was yakking on her cell was ripping around the corner, oblivious to Ken holding out his sign. At the same time, the girl fell on the ice and slipped into the street directly into the path of the behemoth SUV. Ken jumped over the girl and waved his sign like a flagman and yelling. Other people saw what was happening and screamed at the driver: “Stop, stop!” The woman jumped on her brakes and careened to a halt. He stood in front of the car, standing over the girl in the street like he was Superman. Another tactful lesson on safety ensued.

Drivers get annoyed with crossing guards. Here’s a man or woman in a lime green vest and a plastic sign, stopping a mile’s worth of traffic to let some little kid cross the street. Can’t they just make THE KIDS wait? The guards get yelled at and sworn at. Ken has been grazed deliberately by bumpers. He had to replace his STOP sign once because someone rammed the old one while he held it out trying to get the driver to halt. He has seen drivers shaving in the rear view mirror, reading newspapers, applying lipstick, talking blindly on their cellphones, kissing their dogs, texting their friends, turning around to laugh with their buddies in the back seat..

I asked him if he would ever apply for another corner. Someone else might want a chance to have a near-death experience twice a day, Monday through Friday. Why be selfish?

“Not a chance,” he answers. “I love it there. It gets my adrenaline going.”

Mom and Dad: You are lucky. Parris Island is protecting your kids.

Semper fi.

Daylight Annoying Time

There is something inane about yanging around with one hour every spring and then reversing it again in fall. Everyone I know hates it. Leave it alone already. Make up your mind.

“Don’t forget to change your clock this weekend!” we call to each other when leaving work on Friday afternoon. By Sunday evening, there is a least one clock or watch or timepiece that is forgotten. And then there are those electronic gadgets that are all different and you have to figure out how to change twice a year. The one that you have to specify AM or PM or your morning alarm clock is going to go off while you’re eating dinner instead of getting you out of bed on time. Who hasn’t arrived at work on Monday morning and wonder why everyone else was there already? Who hasn’t rushed off to Sunday morning church to find the doors still locked because the service wouldn’t start for another hour?

The clock in my husband’s car stays the same year-round. “It’s right for eight months of the year,” he claims.

I am more anal than that. My clocks all have to be the same, down to the last minute. I hate looking at 7:00am in my bedroom, then 7:10am in the kitchen, then 6:55am in the laundry room. It’s confusing. Am I late or am I early? Is it time to take the pie out of the oven or does it have another ten minutes to bake?

Some US states (Hawaii and Arizona) keep their time close to the breast. Whatever time it is in Phoenix, that’s what it is, regardless of the time of year. I find great comfort in that. You can trust time in Arizona. Leave it alone, for God’s sake. It goes fast enough as it is. Who are we to diddle with the Universal clock?

By the way, don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend.

Horse Sense

Does everyone have a symbol of their inner self? A vision, a dream, a picture that sweeps them away from their own flesh and blood and connect them with something beyond themselves? When you see a Northern Harrier coursing over a meadow, does part of you fly with it, wings rocking, eyes piercing? When you drive along the highway on your way to a job you abhor, do you ever imagine that you are the big guy from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest who ripped the sink out of the floor and plunged it through the asylum window so he could escape? Do you run with him over the dry field to hop into a truck to unknown promises? Are scenes like this so memorable because they symbolize, at least at some time in our lives, what we would like to do ourselves?

I wonder if other people have symbols they carry around with them throughout the day to help them through the rough bits. Wiccans refer to their familiars (which can be an animal or not) that helps guide them through their spiritual realm.

My parents tell this “when-you-were-growing-up” story:

“When you were a baby, you were awful in the car. You screamed from the moment the engine started to the moment we reached our destination. The only thing that would stop you from crying was seeing one of those Flying Red Horse signs at a gas station. You would stop screaming and stare at it for as long as you could see it. Then you would start all over again.”

I no longer scream in the car, but the sight of a horse still stops me in my tracks. Can’t explain it, but you horse people know exactly what I mean. The closest I can come is to say it has a lot to do with spirit and passion, wildness and movement, honesty and strength. For readers who were not born with “the horse thing” it must be puzzling to read my blog posts that refer to “pricking my ears” or pretending my car is a galloping mare. My “inner horse” is part of my internal spiritual landscape. It is one of my most important personal symbols.

The definition of a symbol is something that points beyond itself. It’s like trying to see in the dark. If you look directly at an object, you can’t see it but if you turn your head to the side, the object becomes clear, identifiable. But you have to look at it from the corner of your eye because you can’t quite make it out when confronting it directly. Sort of like some knotty challenges in life.

What is your symbol? If you don’t have one, what would it be if you did?

How Many of You Have Children?

“How many of you have children?”

Every hand in the audience goes up except mine. There are knowing nods, eye-contact acquiescence that yes, we have the “special connection,” the misery-loves-company camaraderie among a group of people who share a common, poopy ground. They have children. Young children, old children, children who have children. Adopted children, children from other countries and other cultures. Children on the honor roll, children on the naughty chair, children who don’t have a clue, and children who tell them, the parents , what to do. Mom or Dad roll their eyes and grin at the others in the room. I go along with it until someone asks sympathetically, “How many children do you have?”

I look at them and sigh.

No speaker ever asks, “How many of you have cats?

As soon as the question is asked, “How many of you have children?” I know the rest of the speaker’s comments are for everyone else in the room, not the nameless, invisible, pitifuls in the same room. We are the ones without baby food stains on the hem of our sweater. We are the ones who don’t have to bolt out of the room at 2:30pm to pick up kids from school. We are the childless, marginalized anathema to the continuance of our species, which, as far as I know, does not need any more help in the procreation department. But we vanish from the speaker’s radar, no longer part of the group’s identity. The next set of remarks are for those who understand what parenting is all about. Not just understanding from a book either, but from countless nights walking a crying infant or wiping up the bathroom after three days of stomach virus.

I have no experience with childbirth or snotty noses. There are no hand prints on my refrigerator door. I do not lie awake worrying about MySpace pages. I am not setting up play dates or saving for college tuition. The jokes about motherhood (supposedly) go over my head. You can put a stopwatch on any informal group of women. Within five minutes, the conversation will be about children, their children and your children. Boys, girls, sons, daughters. Soccer teams, baseball coaches, playdates, diapers, doctors, ear infections. It is the grand common ground women are so good at discovering.

“How many children do you have?”

“I have six cats. All rescued”

“Oh.”

I used to get annoyed when people suggested, kindly, that my cats are my children. But I've gotten used to it. I understand they are trying to level the field and bring me into the fold, now awkward. But I know the difference between a kid and a cat.

This was never part of my plan, though I confess there never really was one. The stars just never aligned themselves that way. The experience that would bond me with women from all of human history has eluded me. The one thing that women have in common in all cultures: past, present and future, is childbirth. That singular ability to bring forth life (which one of my sisters describes as “s…….g” a football) has passed me by. And now it’s too late. I am in my 50’s and childless. I slept through Christmas. But I still love. I still love.

So abandon me on the ice floe. I still don’t have enough money for college tuition.

Maniac Flyer

Depending upon my neurosis-of-the day, my fears manifest themselves in different disguises. At 18 years old, it was fear of not meeting a man, marrying, buying a house and having children. At 25 years old, it was. Funny how fears can fade the closer you get to them, unless you are talking about that plane ride from North Jersey to Cape May.

A friend had driven to the Cape ahead of me to assist in a NJ Audubon event that I was not available to attend. I was planning on meeting up with her afterward to spend the rest of the weekend doing what birders do in Cape May, NJ.

Rather than have two cars there, her husband, a pilot, offered to fly me down in his plane. I love to fly. I would hop onto a magic carpet. Until that day, I bragged to be willing to fly in any kind of weather.

I have since modified that approach.

On the morning of the flight, my friend called from Cape May.

“The wind is terrible. I don’t think my husband should fly you down.”

“He just called me to say he thought it would be fine.” I answered, eager to go. “The news media always makes it sound worse than it is. He told me it was up to me. I' m ready!"

I thought it would be neat. My husband came too, just for the fun of the plane ride and to keep the pilot, "L," company.

We met at the local airport. We were the only ones standing in the wind, which should have been my first clue. "L" opened the hangar door, picked up a long lever and dragged the plane from its moorings to the tarmac.

I paused. We’re going to fly through the air in something the pilot can pull like a little red wagon?

Never mind. Get in. Ken in the back, me in the front. Pull on the headsets. Oops. Better call my friend, "S" in Cape May to confirm we are coming.

Taxi down the runway. Hmmm. The treetops were bending in the wind. The airport flags were streaming flat out, like they had just been starched and ironed.

Wow, I thought. Look at that Red-tailed Hawk being knocked backward.

I had total trust in the pilot. Still do. His reputation for safety is second to none.

Not even Starbuck’s strongest blend can wake you up faster than flying in a small plane in a windstorm. The Beechcraft started to buck and kick the second we flew over the pine trees at the edge of the runway.

This is cool, I thought, pulling my seatbelt tighter.

A whoosh of wind shoved the back of the plane hard. If it wasn’t for the harness, there would have been daylight between the seat and me.

I pretended I was on a naughty horse. Sit down and back. Sit down and back. Hands quiet.

The plane plummeted. My arms and hands flew up. I glanced at "L", who was smiling.

“It’s a little rough but it will be okay. We just have to get above it. It will be smooth as glass.”

I smiled back. “I’m fine! This is fun!” I called.

The plane rocked to the side, then back again. It reared up, then bounced along as if we driving hell for leather along a road strewn with boulders. I looked at "L", as peaceful as a Buddha at the controls. I stole a glance at my husband in the back seat. He was smiling benignly. You would think he was watching a favorite football team on TV.

"L" picked up the radio.

“New York, this is Beechcraft Bonanza 3509. Come in please.”

Tick, tick, tick. Bee hum static.

“New York, this is Beechcraft Bonanza 3509. Come in please.”

Silence.

“Hmmmph. That’s strange,” he mumbled.

I looked at him. That's strange?

“New York, this is Beechcraft Bonanza 3509. Come in.”

Nothing.

I glanced out the window to my right. What a thrill it was to see the wings actually move, almost like a bird! I wondered if they ever ripped off….

“This has never happened before." "L" twiddled with the mysterious instrument panel.

“What?” I said. “The city that never sleeps picks this morning to stay in bed?”

He didn’t respond, just kept repeating the call number to identify himself as the only aircraft hurtling through the same wind that could blow small cars off the George Washington bridge.

They never did answer.

In my equestrian days, I refused to stay on the back of a badly mannered horse. I was never thrown (though I did manage to slip off a Tennessee Walking horse, touted as the smoothest ride in town). If the horse didn’t straighten out quickly, I stopped and got off.

I looked down at the disappearing earth. Too late to get off this ride.

We flew on, "L" and Ken relaxed and chatting through their headsets, me with a frozen smile pasted on my face less the men think I was a baby. I was somewhere between the thrill zone and hysteria. And, what do you know? Look at this: If I look out at the wings for too long, I get woozy.

Sit back and look straight through the horse’s ears. Keep your balance. I sat back and stared straight over the plane’s dashboard to the horizon. All righty, then.

The plane continued to reel and shudder.

"L" informed me, “We actually don’t have to contact anyone. I do it as a precaution, so someone knows where we are.”

I nodded. So they know where to search for the wreckage.

"L" finally made contact with a military base in south Jersey and received permission to fly through their airspace about six miles above the earth. (SIX MILES. FROM MY HOUSE TO STOP 'N SHOP). It was just as he had predicted. The sky was a peaceful blue. The plane settled in to a smooth gallop. I sighed. Now all we had to do was get down.

In half an hour, we reached the airport at Cape May, where his wife, my birding buddy, was waiting. We bounced our way back down through an elevator of rocks, landed and taxied over to where she stood in the wind with her dark hair billowing around her anxious face.

“Wow, "L", that was great." I said. "Thanks so much!”

“You’re welcome,” he answered, then added.

“You know, that was a rough flight. If I had known it was going to be that bad, I never would have flown, but 99.9% of the time, the degree of risk is exaggerated. There is only .01% that it is not.

“Today was that .01%.”

“And here you are, flying in a plane for the first time with someone you hardly know but totally trust. That’s amazing.”

“But you are a maniac."