Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Annie, my mum, with Clara I've slowed down just lately, on these entries to the blog.  I am overwhelmed in my desire to express thoughts.  And, just because I have "feels" (to coin a current phrase) doesn't really mean that it's got to be written. I write because it's satisfying, most of the time, and cathartic, almost all the time.  I often sit down to write intending to write one thing, and then--as if my fingers on the keys had a mind of their own--my writing is off in a different direction than I'd even known it would be. So much is swirling around in my little world right now.  Some of it overlaps everybody's own experience, such as the emotions around the recent wildfires, being wrought from an already raw population of people in our state.  I am certainly one of those people, yet, the fires have not directly touched me and my family, blessedly.  But, all around me, people I love have been directly touched by, or impacted by, the fires. 

If most people are like me, then they must be feeling almost numb.  I do not live in Paradise, but, like all of us in the low Sierra mountains, I feel their loss in the people I know who lost homes or even family.  I feel it in the nearness of the tragedy.  I recognize the streets; the schools; the quirky landmarks and the parks. California is experiencing something new.  We are experiencing wildfires that take everything.  Everything--in horrifying magnitude.  Californians can't remember a time more than a decade or so past that we saw whole towns wiped off the map.  Now, in these past 13 months, and more sparsely spaced, events before that time, we are coping with wildfire losses that knock us out at the knees. The deadliest fire in California history is raging even as I write this.  Already, there are 6700+ structures burned, and 29 confirmed fatalities.  The acres ravaged stands at over 110,000, with only a small percentage of the fire contained, and heavy dry winds

How do you like to work on grounding yourself, when you really realize you've become adrift? For me, the things I always used to do seem unavailable to me.  I spent many years of my life as a single person.  I didn't even marry my husband until after I turned 50.  So, I have no kids.  Dogs are my kids, really.  Over time, I've enjoyed many relationships, and left as many.  But in between, I was always alone, and being alone allowed me the solitude to enjoy meditation, writing... Now, privacy is a thing of my dreamscape.  It's not that I can't enjoy meditation, or listen to Native American flute as it drifts through my house.  But, there is no space that is mine alone.  And, to ground myself, more than anything, I really need solitude.  I often walk long walks with the dogs, which presents so many gifts all rolled together anyway; I bond with these two pooches whom I adore; I get fresh air and exercise; and my mind can wander.  I love my walks! But, I

Ayala Cove, at Angel Island I miss the salt air.  I miss hauling all our duffel bags and crates of picnic supplies and extra clothes across the parking lot; down the gangway.  I remember flip-flopping along rickety, briny smelling docks, knowing where the weak spots were and avoiding them, to our beloved sailboat.  I say, "sailboat," though there were many to love through the years. When we got the O'Day, which we sailed for one day only.  The O'Day fell from grace before it could be christened when, on the open Ocean just outside the Santa Cruz harbor, we smacked off a wave that opened a large hidden crack in the hull, my father crawled in the open cabin, took a look, and stoically turned for the harbor.  Once the O'Day was returned, my father chose an Aurora, which was a sweet little boat of about 20 feet, and my father liked that he'd found a boat he could haul around behind our big International Travelall.  He was able to keep it home, and tow it

It seems that this season, this summer-into-fall, has brought its theme into full focus for me this year.  Fall, the time of harvest.  And the idea of harvest is one of reaping benefits; of bounty.  Yet, there is another idea we humans have exchanged at times less optimistic: we reap what we sow. I am undecided in this moment.  Undecided as to whether I am reaping, or harvesting.  Reaping seems more like a cutting out.  Harvesting, to me, suggests enjoyment of an effort well made. A celebration of culmination.  In the moment I finish this writing, I feel more that I am cutting some things away.  But, perhaps not the things that I think. I've lost people from my life this year.  They still walk and talk and breathe, just not in my life.  Do I understand that people come and go?  Yes.  And, some of them, I have chosen to lose.  Intellectually, it took me quite some time to understand that just because I was putting energy into a friendship didn't mean the friend would rec

My father with me on the back of the tractor.  I was about five. I think my father set me up to be the tomboy I have always been.  Certainly, there was probably a leaning not to be very girly--I didn't really know what to do with dolls, but loved putting GI Joe on my Breyer horse models.  But, my father was born to mentor and share his knowledge, and he simply couldn't keep it to himself.  Luckily, it was usually fun to learn something he wanted to teach me or show me.  But, sometimes, I was a reluctant participant, and his will won over mine (no small feat!). When I was one year old, we moved to a home my father had designed and built for his little family--my mom, my sister (not yet born, of course), and me,  and himself.  The unusual redwood and adobe brick home my father built sat upon 7 acres at the foot of the Santa Cruz mountains, in a little town called Portola Valley.  It was its own town, but it is literally spitting distance to Stanford University and the u

Kimmie's yard sale finds from the day before my visit -- arranged in front of the walnut drying shed on her farm Our searing summer of 2018 seems to be a debt that our soft, warm, generous Fall of this year is paying off. October has earned its place in recent memories as the loveliest.   And, it was my good fortune to be reminded of the splendidness of this fall with two weekend days spending some time with long-time, special friends. Friends Amy and Doug had me, my mom, and Jeff to dinner Saturday evening.  Amy and her brothers and parents were friends with my family when we were children.  Her generous family lead to our enjoying the iconic Sugar Bowl ski resort with them in their family's cabin many years of our childhood, but, more; it instilled a history woven into our lives.  Amy and Doug met while Amy lived at my last childhood home in Palo Alto, with my mom, shortly after my parents' divorce.  She was living there when she first began dating Doug.  They a

How many of my readers have watched the show, "Queer Eye (for the Straight Guy)"?  I have come to absolutely adore that show. The show's premise is that four gay men who are experts in their particular fields--mostly style, but also personal growth and relationships and even culinary skills--accept requests from people who have somebody in their lives that could use help with those things to effect a big change in their lives. First off, I just enjoy the premise, and it's real, not faked.  But, I have come to really appreciate the men who are the show's personalities.  They embody the understanding of acceptance and of raising your voice against the cacophony of voices that would overwhelm your own. It is completely apolitical.   You won't hear anything about partisan opinions or militantly extreme ideas or points of view.  That is not the point of the show, and they adhere to a relatively middle ground.  They don't always meet with straight men

The third installment of the short story, "I'll see you in the Fall" and the final installment.  At the bottom of this post, you'll find a link to the entire story in one post (in case you missed a part). ====== Continued ====== I'll see you in the Fall --    copyright 2002 (completion date), (2018) first publication. I moved to Davis that Fall, into a place with two friends from my junior college.   Classes continued to demand ever more of my energies.   Life improved now that I was a Davis local.   My circle of friends expanded, and, in an interesting twist, I found myself emerging as a leader among them–in classes,   in social settings, and in academic organizations.   I felt honored and happy that my friends sought me out as their confidant; their spokesperson; and often as their ‘prime mover.’   I’d been a leader many times in my life, but this was the most significant-feeling of any in my life as it felt more hard-won, and more

Original work by Nicola Holmes, copyright 2002 (completion date), (2018) first publication. I’ll See You In the Fall By the time I arrived at UC Davis, I’d been a student again for about three years.   Returning to college at the age of 28 held both perqs and drawbacks.   At Davis, I worried about being viewed as ‘old’–I was 31 when I started my first full-time quarter there–and I wondered if I could keep up with the competitive population of each of my classes. I loved the feel of the campus, and this bolstered my resolution to keep fighting.   The UC Davis campus felt like an old friend to me.   I’d attended summer classes there during my Junior College years, hoping to get ahead on my coursework, and to prepare myself for the pace of university classes.   Summer was hot and quiet at UCD, but the Fall–the Fall season at UCD was amazing.   While the many trees were busy turning their cloaks to gold and red, the bustling pace of student life belied the onset of