Wonders Abound & Leaps of Faith

I. DRIVING HOME ON A WINDY NIGHT

The winds were howling as we drove home late at night. The moon was just a sliver, but even in the darkness we could see the world around us vibrating and shimmying, leafy branches trembling, yellow mustard undulating, the world in frenzied dance. As the hills quivered, the word hosanna came to mind. I guess I was thinking about the shaking of palm fronds as Christ entered Jerusalem, some biblical residue from my churchy childhood days unexpectedly surfacing. But hosanna seemed an appropriate word, and hosanna was in the wind, and as we traveled up the canyon, there seemed no better sentiment than praise. The gravel crunched beneath our tires, and a little fox darted by in the headlight’s beam, effortlessly scrambling up a steep embankment and vanishing into the brush. Noise enveloped us, and motion, and life. There was a rush of fragrance: eucalyptus, orange blossom, the damp dark loam along the creek, then the rattling of the cattle guard as we drove across, and a warm light glowing in a window ahead, and we were windblown home amidst hosannas.

II. THE ONGOING (WE HOPE) SAGA OF THE LILAC

A decade ago (or more) I planted a small lilac bush in a clay pot on the deck outside our bedroom. It was not ceanothus, that lean California abstract take on lilac, but a real lilac of the sort I knew back East. Ah, just thinking of those lilacs blooming in May makes me sigh; they smelled like it was 1910 and time for a lacey blouse, a picnic on the grass, a first kiss. Ted Kooser, one of my favorite contemporary poets, is a man who understands lilacs.  Let's take a station break for one of his poems:

OLD LILACS

Through early April cold,

these thin gray horses

have come near the house

as to a fence, and lean there

hungry for summer,

nodding their heads

with a nickering of twigs.

Their long legs are dusty

from standing for months

in winter’s stall, and their eyes

are like a cloudy sky

seen through bare branches

They are waiting for May

to come up from the barn

with her overalls pockets

stuffed with the fodder

of green.  In a month

they will be slow and heavy,

their little snorts so sweet

you’ll want to stand

among them, breathing.

Worth it; wasn't it?  But back to the reality of my lilac in the clay pot on the deck: it wasn’t doing so well.  For one thing, the lilac is deciduous -- nothing but bare gray branches for much of the year – and that’s not so bad when it’s waiting in the stall of a genuine winter, but it’s downright dissonant in these parts; it wants a bit of frost, you see. Instead, my lilac endured brief seasons of sogginess, harsh dry winds, and then relentless sun. Its fledgling blooms often blackened on the twig, singed by heat, their promise unfulfilled. Occasionally a fistful of genuine lilac flowers would manage to blossom amidst the sparse green leaves, and I would put my head close to them, getting scratched by the surrounding branches and dusted with the debris of the tiny rotting buds that didn’t make it, but I would close my eyes and inhale their perfume, one of my favorite smells in all the world.

But this small seasonal gift did not outweigh the obvious fact that the lilac wasn’t thriving. Aside from its personality clash with the climate, there was also the matter of congestion in that container. By now it was surely root bound and cramped and yearning to stretch its legs. And so, after all these years of watching it survive instead of prosper, I decided not to give up, but at least to free it from the pot and relocate it to a more sheltered area in the yard. Needless to say, Monte helped me – don’t think it’s easy extricating a plant from the vessel that has been its home for ten years! We managed, though. We carried it carefully, a hugging sort of holding, and planted it in partial shade and good rich soil at the edge of the orchard.

And in the large clay pot that once contained the lilac, we planted something else that thrills me: a dwarf lemon tree! So, we’ll have to see what happens. We'll keep our fingers crossed, of course, but I am feeling like I just might have my cake and eat it too. Lilacs and lemons. Can you imagine? I’ll keep you posted on this one.

III. I SUBMIT TO THE GHOULISHLY MADE-UP GIRL AT THE COSMETICS COUNTER

When I was a young woman I would not go out in public without eye makeup.  Why it seemed so essential is beyond me now. Did I think that the world would cringe and turn away? Was the plainness of an unpainted me so terribly disappointing?  Looking at old photographs today, I can see the absurdity of this misguided vanity, but like so many girls, I was propelled by insecurities, brainwashed by advertising images, and dead wrong about what really mattered.  I did, however, develop a technique for doing my eyes. I went for drama and emphasis, of course: a smudge of shadow, black liner, and black mascara. It was the late 1960s, and while the times they were a-changing, my approach to eye make-up never did.  Fast forward forty years or so, and what we have here is a situation. There is no pretty way to say it: a woman of a certain age who wears too much make-up -- or applies it the same way she did in 1969 –-is pathetic.

But I sort of knew this. (Come on -- give me some credit.) My way of dealing with it had been some vague experimentation with a soft pencil and a mortifying magnifying mirror, and culminating in a few half-hearted strokes of mascara. I even read a recent quote by, of all people, Carla Bruni, about the fact that make-up ages you, and I think she has a point there, but I still suspect it’s a matter of degree and finesse. So my touch got lighter and lighter until I started bailing on my face altogether. And Monte, bless his heart, says he likes me that way, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I could still use a little more pizzazz.

I happened to be in Nordstrom’s, and suddenly one of those cosmetic girls appeared, the kind who seem to be modeling every product at the counter all at once and who, if they don’t ignore me completely, just look at me with a mixture of pity and disdain, as though I am so old and out of it there isn’t any point. But this girl was sort of nice, despite her ghoulish appearance: blue-black hair, blood red lips, milky pale foundation, multi-hued iridescent eye shadow, Cleopatra-style eyeliner complete with wings, thick fake lashes, and sharply arched brows. It wasn’t a look I’d care to replicate, and it didn’t inspire confidence, but she had a pleasant (if incongruous) smile, and she asked me if I needed help instead of assuming I was beyond help.

So I let her have at me. She applied a base and chose pale muted shades, she brushed on contours and shadows and skillful dabs at crease and corner, she deftly waved her mascara wand and lengthened my lashes, and she muttered little lies about how great I looked, not so washed out anymore, and how we would start out conservatively -- oh, just look how my eyes sort of pop already -- but then when I got more confident, we’d go for a bit more drama and zing, a little braver, not too much, just enough to make a statement, get my groove back, you know, sort of step out.

Maybe I was just moved by all this attention, grateful to be visible for a moment, but I actually believed that I looked better. I bought some products, 40 bucks, and that’s with saying no to almost everything. Now I’m ready to step out.  If ever there is someplace to go.

IV. VIRTUAL TEA WITH MY DAUGHTER

Here in Sacate Canyon we have emerged from the Dark Ages; we now have a DSL internet connection. This has been like a fountain of youth for my computer, which is suddenly downright perky. Uploads, downloads, business transactions – everything is quick and snappy, and for the first time ever, we can actually watch videos and hear radio broadcasts, and most amazingly of all, we're having live visual chats with our daughter in England!

It’s a wondrous thing and I will never get used to it. We set the laptop on the kitchen table and have tea and conversation, whenever we’re in the mood. (Well, we do have to factor in that 8-hour time difference, but still…)

This morning Monte carried the computer around to show Miranda the house and the day. (Yes, we’re a suave and sophisticated bunch, we are.) Look at the waves of mustard rippling in the breeze. Look at the new red slipcover on the living room chair. Look at the fresh-baked cinnamon bun sitting on my plate. Look…I’ll hold it up to the kitchen window now.

Miranda doesn’t mind. “Oh, I remember that view,” she says wistfully. She is sitting this time in her little study, familiar shelves of books behind her. She turns her screen to the window above her desk and together we look down into the green backyard in the misty light of early evening.  We’re looking at England, real time. Frankly, we don’t even have that much to say; we’re just hanging out together, visiting casually with our girl.

Sometimes she pixilates.  I hate when that happens. It reminds me of when Dorothy threw a bucket of water at the wicked witch and she melted away, except this is my precious daughter dissolving in front of me, breaking up into tiny squares. I feel relieved when the image resolves itself.

And there she is again, all composed as she should be.

But the really hard part is saying good-bye. I can’t bear to be the one to end the session. I advocate some sort of ritual to make the transition a little easier. A queenly hand wave, perhaps? They humor me. A certain song?   Last time we did this, Xander quickly pulled up this ditty from The Sound of Music:  So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, good-bye/I leave and heave a sigh and say good-bye. And I like that fine, but nobody else has quite the same need for a balm at parting.

V. AND THAT’S NOT ALL

See what happens when two weeks elapse without a blog post? And there’s so much more I want to tell you about. My journey along the Silk Road, for example, at the Bowers Museum…and a weekend visit with my friend Corrine, who showed us some of her remarkable paintings, one of which I've posted at the start of this post because it is about a great leap of faith, and evocative of wonder. More later.

Yes, I’ll be back soon. This time I really mean it.