Your elevator pitch—tell me, she said. What’s your book about in a 3-4 sentence summation? I didn’t have an answer at the time, but this is what I’ve come up with so far:

Mine is a story of being the second of seven, each born within 9-years, and raised by an impervious single-mom. (That three-tent circus alone might be “worth the price of admission,” as my dear friend Nan would say.) I’ll also revisit the impact of my father’s compulsions, which resulted in unprecedented consequences by way of his genius, albeit deviant, manipulation. And I’ll explore faith vs. folly as they pertain to my mother’s independence, which was often at odds with her installation of the LDS church as patriarch by proxy of our home.

So this blog may be a forum for wordsmithing—pounding out, if you will—some of the memories that are trying to make their way into my book. On top of that, I might stomp in the puddles of parenting, wrestle in the reeds of politics, or sit on the dock musing over the inner-workings of the universe. Whatever I’m writing, this blog is my pond to play in, and you’re welcome to swing by for a friendly splash.


Friday, September 17, 2021

Breathing In the Redwoods

I’ve looked for the poem—the one that haunts me with what was raining down in the ashes after the Lightning Complex Fire of 2020, the fire that consumed Big Basin State Park. But I haven’t found it—through the haze of my mind, and the enormity of the internet. When you see what is familiar—hear the voice of someone closer to the flames—know this is after that.

It may have been 33-years to the day—give or take a few—that my footsteps last pressed into Big Basin’s fallen nests of needles—kicking up a mist of pine and trail-dust into the midday rays. 

Placards at the trailhead professed the age of this great forest pre-dated the Roman Empire. Humans accompanied these animals, and birds, and trees going back more than 10,000-years. The Cotoni and Quiroste Tribes were stewards of the land and used fire to promote growth of useful plants, long before Spanish expeditioners arrived.

With this, I imagined into the words and wars ingrained within each of the rings of these giants, as I listened for wisps of history breathed through the pines and falls, and dirt around us. 

My brothers and I braided the trail like challah—jockeying to be in front, with our friend David; occasionally falling to the back, in the ebb and flow of reconnection.

I still hear David’s wheezing—walking on his tip-toes, as if the air two inches higher, would be richer, easier to breathe. His head occasionally snapped back with guttural laughter bubbling up through his esophagus, like he was gargling it before blessing it into the world. His arms hinged, thumbs pushed forward in the straps of his back-pack—owning that hike, like we were in his backyard.

David stopped to identify a banana slug—"it has no known predators,” he said, pointing to the swaying wet lump that resembled a jaundiced penis with four antennae wriggling toward the sky.

“Ewww,” I responded, staring for a pregnant moment—chortling before moving on.

We walked amidst a chorus of the red crested, Acorn Woodpecker contributing trills of scratchy “waka—waka-waka,” like a metal rake dragged over leaves; the push-push, pull-pull of the Brown Creepers quadruple-syllabic shrill; and the pygmy nuthatch answering with its rhythmic chirp of tchuu—tchuu, tchuu, tchuu. Furry percussionists tambourined through brush, pushing us to imagine the menagerie burrowing tunnels under the soil. 

We were present that day—together in the life of friendship, in the life of the forest, until the sun grew tired and gifted us long shadows in the golden hour. 

Nearly 800-miles, and thirty-three years later, the skies of the Salt Lake Valley filled with hazy carbon—the ash of many a forest’s inhabitants. Memories of that hike in 1987 flood my chest—heavy with the weight of mourning. The ash of burnt fur and feathers, pine needle nests, and the bark of those great giants absorbed into the cells of my own body. 

There’s a rabbit in me, a buck in me, a wild coyote in me—and my body carries the last fear and determination and instinct for survival that stayed with them, to the last mile they ran, to the last river they sought, to the last hurried, burrowing feat until they laid down and let the fire consume them; until they were lifted into the skies and traveled east to me, on the winds of the jet stream.

I wonder—if I am a great sequoia, or ponderosa, or redwood giant, do I drop my needles in fear, or hold them tight in resistance to contributing them to the kindling? Do I hold my breathe in my core while fire takes up residence on my skin, burning away layers of life for months on end?

At the start of the pandemic, before we humans scurried into hibernation, I stood in the presence of a quorum of giants at Mariposa Grove in Yosemite. I walked under a tree with arms stretched like a candelabra, the same way it stood when flames walked through the corridors below, countless times over centuries. There is evidence of flames that licked the knees of its brothers and sisters, hollowed out their cores, and yet, many of them are still standing. 

Nearby, a placard explained their resilience, and the necessity of flames—that serotinous cones are naturally glued together and require fire to melt the resin to release their seeds. These forests need fire to propagate. 

I imagine these brave giants, meditating through those tumultuous flames. I hear them say, “There is heat. There is sadness. There is fear,” and I imagine them reaching deep into their roots and bringing forward, “there is growth happening.”






Tuesday, January 9, 2018

The Noise of Ludicrous Happiness



Be Alert. Make Noise. There is no guarantee of your safety in bear country.

What is this admonition? Can you hear the noise of my ludicrous happiness?

I’ve stood in a pinafore dress on Central Beach. Riptides licking my ankles. Salt-spray kissing my cheeks. Waves washing me in the depths of an ocean below. Alert to golden flecks floating around me below the blue and white sky above. I’ve made the noise of sputtering and squawking water from my lungs, clawing my way back to the shore.

I still explore beaches, and waters, and sandbars.

I’ve shared an unabashed duet of Mirror in the Bathroom with English Beat in the confines of a red Nissan Sentra on the corner of 20st and Broadway. A would-be car-jacker emphatically pounded the glass of my passenger side-door. Alert to the shopkeeper jumping on the pavement, waving his arms a block away, giving warning to my surroundings. I leaned on the horn and squealed tires in response.
I still delight in the anonymity of urban cities.

I’ve jumped on the hood of a stranger’s car while jogging in the suburbs of Oakland. Alert to the stillness of the neighborhood, instinctively barking back at a pit bull. “Fuck you, dog! Fuck you!” I screamed into the 6:00 am air.

I still wander streets at any hour of the morning and night.

I’ve grown humans from seed within my hara. Delivered them into existence through my pelvis. Alert to the scent of bodily fluids and sterile gloves. Panting and growling in between commands to push up to 9 lbs 14 oz under my pelvic bone.

I did this not once, not twice, not thrice, but four separate times.

I’ve loved deeply. Alert to the crack of my own heart and the collapse of my own lungs in mourning. Howling each time. Sliding down an apartment wall.  On the stoop of my front doorstep. In the hallways of a hospital.

I still hold space for lost loves in my heart, and breathe new love into my lungs.

Have truer, more obvious words been written? “There is no guarantee of your safety.” And yet, do you hear the noise of my ludicrous happiness? 

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Securely stuck

There’s a steel beam anchored to the edge of my fourth rib, just beneath my left breast.
Pushing up, it demands more space.
Jutting through my throat, bluntly pressing against my occipital nerve.
Pulling down, desperate for the ground.
Ankles securely anchored in gravy-thick silt, 
I sink deeper in the struggle to find balance.
And then my head tips back, forty-five degrees, where the air begs to be swallowed.
I look up through aqua white distortions.
And I remember to breathe.

Photo credit Jason deCaires Taylor, The Silent Evolution  http://www.underwatersculpture.com/sculptures/the-silent- evolution/

Friday, September 30, 2016

Wise Words: "Why's everyone gotta be in such a hurry that they can't even let a good person be good?"

Jeremy has been homeless since he was 23. He was perched casually on the sand colored brick wall at the foot of Walmart on Parley’s Way holding a typical cardboard sign, which I didn’t take time to read. I chose to read his face instead. Friendly. He seemed friendly.

Mr. Cheeks and I approached, out of breath. Cheeks was insistent that he had walked enough, so I’d been carrying him for a few blocks now—my eight pound, short-legged companion. 

I’ve been traveling for work a lot lately, and was feeling a sense of isolation, even though I had been home since the previous evening. And here was a person whom I imagined might be feeling a little isolated as well.

I asked Jeremy if I could join him and he offered a corner of his sleeping bag to pad the unforgiving surface of my new found seat. 

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Pretty good,” he said. “Just tryin’ to get a few coins together—they add up ya know.”

Soft blue eyes looked back at me, with a few stripes of gold pointing toward his pupils. They were curious and cautious eyes, like the eyes of a kitten not ready to trust the string held in front of him.

Short hair peeked out from under a ball cap. I don’t recall the color of his hat—maybe white with a black and red logo—but I’m not really sure. I did notice the sandy curls that lapped around the edges though, and they made me think of my own boy, whom I assumed would be close to the same age. 

“Where are you from?” I asked, hoping he’d indulge me with his story.

“Colorado,” he said at first. And with an embarrassed snicker he corrected himself. “Nah—actually that’s where I’m tryin’ to go,” he said. “I’m from Oregon. That’s where my family is. But I left and went to Colorado because pot’s legal there, ya know; and then I went back to Oregon, and now I’m tryin’ to get back to Colorado, cuz I know people there, and have friends there and shit. So I’m hitchin’ rides and askin’ for coins cuz they add up, and they don’t mean anything to the good people that give them to me. Like you. You gave me some and you’re a good person. You must be a good person, cuz you do good things. And there ain’t very many good people, ya know? Like maybe one in a thousand or somethin'. But you’re a good person. So don’t you forget it. Cuz there’s more bad people out there than good. And they can’t do good because they’re bad. People are either good or bad. Because they either do good or bad.”

An older-model mini-van pulled up, clicking and wheezing—pistons struggling to keep the engine alive. The light had turned red, and the woman within the van was fidgeting with a slightly tattered clutch, pulling a bill out while simultaneously trying to get Jeremy’s attention.

He continued talking as he sauntered to the driver’s side door. “Thanks, mam,” he said, just as a horn blared from the German car behind. I glanced at the light, which was now green, and I looked back at the offending car. An exasperated man—buttoned up tight and proper with a nice looking tie—gestured, both hands in the air, and slammed them down on the steering wheel as the van in front of him rolled on.

“Fifteen seconds,” Jeremy said as he returned to the wall. “Fifteen seconds and that guy has to be an asshole. Whys everyone gotta be in such a hurry that they can’t even let a good person be good?”

 “I study the Bible,” he continued. “I’ve read it twice all the way through. There are lots of people that think they’re good because they go to church, but they’ve never even read the Bible.”

“Look,” he said, raising his left hand off the wall. A pentagram with precisely spaced numerals—666— was freshly scratched into the curve of his hand between his thumb and first finger. Graphite shavings smudged over the incision finished a self-administered tattoo.

“They say it’s the sign of the Devil,” he said, “but it’s not. How can it be? It’s in the Bible,” he said. “And God created the Bible and he created the Devil, so really it’s a sign of God.”

I wondered if he could sense my uneasiness with the concept. And I wondered if his unorthodox perceptions were a symptom of mental illness, or simply a skewed interpretation of the ancient book. 

I couldn't say. I've never read it cover to cover.

Jeremy was still talking. Still sharing his deeply held beliefs. He referenced Lazarus and Job. He spoke of Adam and Eve, the Immaculate Conception, of Jesus and the Cross. He knew the stories, or at least his perception of them.

He didn’t really pause, but I managed to ask him where he learned so much about the Bible and he told me. He read it straight through—not once, but twice. In a jail cell.

Which made me wonder if he thought of himself as good, incapable of bad; or did he think of himself as bad, incapable of good?

And then he asked, "You know why I don’t like jail much? I missed my family. I couldn’t see my family when I was in jail.”

“Where’s your family now?” I asked.

“In Oregon.” He mused on, “I miss my sisters. It’s crazy how fast time goes. How fast it goes and they’re all grown up. I spent 15-years with them, and now they’re all grown up,” he said. “I miss my brother too.”

“When was the last time you talked with them?” I asked.

“Ah, a couple weeks ago, I guess,” he said. “I talked to my mom a couple weeks ago, I think.”

“I’ve got four kids,” I shared. “I’d go nuts if I didn’t know where they were for two weeks. Do you want to call your mom?”

“Yeah? You’d let me use your phone?” he asked.

“Sure, why not?” I said as I unlocked the screen. “Give your mom a call.”

He continued rambling about good and bad, God and the Devil, as the phone rang on the other end.

“Hi. I’m in Salt Lake City,” he said. “Some people are nice enough. Like this lady here. She just let me call you. Yeah. I’m alright. Just gettin' rides…”

I set the dog down and took a few steps away to offer some privacy. The call was brief, but Jeremy seemed more at ease—more in his body and less in his head—as he handed the phone back to me.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was good. I miss my family.”

We both looked down, and in a way, I think he knew I was sending up a silent prayer for him and his family.

“Well, I should probably head home,” I said, looking back up and extending my hand to shake his, instantly wishing I had offered a hug instead. “Good luck and safe travels, Jeremy. I appreciated the conversation.”


And as I walked away, I hoped he felt less alone. I definitely did.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Cathartic Construction


Left: Joe & Mom, 2000 
Right: Rob & Christjen, his son, 1996
The walls in my mother’s house have moved again. I’d like to say that’s merely a metaphor, but the frequency at which she tears down and reconstructs the walls within her home has been a barometer of her strength and resilience since 1999.

When I was a child, paper and rubber threads of overzealous erasing littered our dining room table fairly regularly. After reconciling an empty bank account, or waiting on something baking, or while the little kids were playing in a bedroom or the backyard, my mother would sit at the table, pencil in hand. Some days she wrote. Other days she drew. But her mind was always occupied.

One particular Sunday afternoon in what may have been 1982, I found her at the table while something savory was simmering in the kitchen behind her. She had a look of deliberation as she drew a reconfigured landscape that in her mind, and on the paper, was situated around the house my Aunt Lois owned, which my grandfather built in 1948.

The house on Benson was just under 900 square feet and sat deep on the lot. In front, there was a long narrow driveway that led to a shed, which I always imagined housed black widows and gardening tools. In the front yard, there was also a plum tree, generous with fruit; which often fell to the ground in the summer heat, spoiling the birds and bees in the area.

From the front porch, the door opened directly into a family room, and the house was divided into six unequal sections. Most notably, there were no hallways.

At the back of the family room, you could continue straight into the kitchen, or turn left into the master, which doubled as a pass-through to the kids’ room at the front, and a bathroom at back of the house.

If you went into the kitchen, you’d find a mud-room that opened into the alley-way and led to my grandparent’s house. We used this door most often, and the boundaries between the two homes often seemed blurred.

This was the house my mother was drafting that day.

When asked what she was doing, she told me about visions of pouring a shapely driveway. She imagined a full garage replacing the shed, and a pergola and water fountain replacing the plum tree. She also envisioned a black wrought-iron fence replacing the chain link.

Her ability to convey her vision on paper was impressive; but more so, I was taken with the softness of her eyes and the upturned corners of her lips, and the elegance of her hands as she sweepingly described what each shape on the grid-lines represented.

She told me about how her father built the house with a handsaw and a hammer—no power tools. And how he was fortunate to have used real wood. She recounted that building materials were sparsely available in the 1940s, and most of the neighbors built their homes out of clapboards reclaimed from fruit boxes that nearby canneries had discarded.

It didn’t matter that this was her sister’s home, or that it was in a run-down neighborhood, or that she had no income to speak of to purchase it, let alone enact the changes. 

When I asked her why she was drawing it as though it was her own, she said, “If I imagine it, it will happen. God will provide—maybe not this house—but he has something in mind. I just have to envision it and then ask.” And she meant it.

Mom asked without abandon. Not just about housing, but everything. She asked with an embarrassing amount of faith, entitlement, and confidence.

And he did. Her God provided. Every. Single. Time.

On May 31st, 1999, my brother Robert was promoted to Executive Chef. As a high school drop-out who found passion and success in the culinary arts, to him, it meant a future. After an evening of excessive celebrating, Rob went to bed. And then he was gone. 

I won’t try to describe the devastation.

Pain shifts time and memory. I don’t recall if Mom purchased the home on Benson right before, or right after this happened; but I do know the walls started moving almost immediately after Rob’s death.

And then, on August 10, 2000, my brother Joe was killed by a drunk driver. And the walls went up and down even faster.

At one point, Mom hired an unemployed neighbor who worked for a few dollars here and there; but she was never satisfied, and she redid most of it. Over and over again. On any given day, a new drawing could be found on a random beam or piece of scrap wood, depicting her new vision for the space. And a month, or a week, or a day after it was completed, the cycle would repeat.

Mom was capable of anything. She sought advice from the “do-it-yourself” advocates at the local big box store, and she learned from trying, and trying again.

Some days the only place to wash your hands was the kitchen sink. Other days, the kitchen was dismantled and dishes had to be washed in the bathroom. By the end, and somewhere between the third and thirtieth iteration, a hallway had taken form, and the kitchen moved from its original southeast corner of the house to the opposite side of the structure—plumbing, electrical, and all.

The changes only stopped when she listed the house; and she was fortunate to sell it at the top of the market in 2006, before the housing bubble burst. Shortly thereafter, she purchased her current home in Utah, and it wasn’t long before her catharsis continued.

It’s been nine more years of construction, and with each cycle of tearing down and rebuilding, she says it is the last.

My mother turned 70 in September, and plans to retire from her career as a high school English teacher this year. When I arrived at her house Tuesday evening, somehow I allowed myself to be surprised that another wall had been taken down. 


And then we talked about her health. And I was devastated to learn that this cycle really may be her last.










Thursday, December 10, 2015

Table Talk

I had dinner with my youngest daughter today. At the kitchen table. Grilled cheese and tomato soup—the nasty kind from a Campbell’s Soup can. It’s something we don’t do often—sitting at a table, that is. (Sadly, the grilled cheese and Campbell’s Soup are a staple.) I was grateful to have taken a few minutes to sit down, because it reminded me yet again how full she is of quirks and curiosities in the most pleasantly peculiar way.

At the age of two, she put puzzles together “brown-side” up and sorted Legos by color and size. She would line them up, end-to-end. It was a serious process for her. When she was tired, she would sit near her crib, blanket in hand, and quietly wait for someone to notice. She’s a brilliant kid. And not the least bit socially awkward. (At least not from my perspective.) And then she shared this:

So, a strange thing happened in my psychology class today. I didn’t know it was a thing. That this thing I’ve done all my life was weird. It has a name.
I laughed. What? I asked. What do you do that’s so weird?
I eat paper.
Seriously? Hmmm. Just the frayed edges of spiral-bound? Or, all paper?
No. Corners mostly. And Dum-Dum lollypop sticks. They’re the best. It’s a texture thing. It feels good in my mouth. And I’ve always done it. I just didn’t know it was weird.
Really?
Mmmhmm. It’s called Pica. It’s an eating disorder. People who have it eat things with no nutritional content. My psych teacher told me there are two teachers at school who have it too. One eats chalk. My Spanish teacher. I’ve seen her do it. The other one eats sucker sticks—the paper kind. And while he was talking about it, everyone was like, “Ewww! What? Really?” And the more we talked about it, I realized they didn’t think that was a normal thing.
My mother does it. I grinned. The frayed edges of spiral paper, napkins, and sucker sticks. I’ve seen her do it for years.
I wonder if it’s hereditary—Pica. And since we talked about it, I’ve been craving it all day. The texture.
So I looked it up. And while I didn’t find out if it was hereditary, I did learn Pica is a Latin word and it means Magpie. And I laughed again at the irony of names and how fitting they are at times. Her middle name is Margaret and we called my daughter Maggie Moo for years.
She graduates this year, and I’m hungry for a few more nights with her at the table.
*No children were harmed in the publishing of this post. Explicit permission was provided by Maggie Moo herself.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

1979, Cousins & Cobbler

On the east facing wall, cups and bowls tip sideways in the cabinets and are ready to spread a rainbow of mix-matched Tupperware durability across the cluttered, honey-comb tiled countertop at any given time.
On the opposite wall, legs of wiry spaghetti stand upright in the stock pot for a time, as a Mason jar of home-canned tomato sauce sprinkles the range. The percolator, the salt and pepper shakers, and an aluminum canister holding a generation of lard never leave their station; sending false promises of bacon into the air anytime the oven heats up.
And today, a sticky gravy of cinnamon and peaches licks past a lattice crust sending smoky saccharinity through the 800 square foot farm-style house.
Looking out the window above the sink, past the trinkets and the up-cycled jelly jar that holds an accidental collection of twist-ties and brightly colored plastic barrettes, her mind is busy but she doesn’t share what it’s busy with. 
And a cloud of black cherry Flavor-aid plumes as tap water hits the bottom of the pitcher.
It’s 4:00 and the sun is still hours away from setting. In exchange for a tidy kitchen tonight, she’ll offer a round of pop-bottles to the girls tomorrow, whether they want the job or not.
“Lala, come help Gramma set this table!” Aunt Lois calls into the yard. “Julie, Dawna, you too!” That's the adult table she's referring to. The one for all the aunts and Grandma. Whether here, or across the ally at his house, Uncle Danny takes his meals in front of the television, most often alternating between Grease, Alien, and a George Strait special which he plays on the Betamax.
“1, 2, 3…” we hear, all the way to 20. “Olly olly oxen free!” And then squeals emerge from hidden corners of the four-lot property.
My breath is damp as I hold my shirt over my mouth, still hiding behind the garage and the grape vines. And then the shouts, “Aaaahhhhh, don't catch me!” “Run, Nita! Run!” Followed by laughter. A brief argument ensues between the boys and the girls about what’s really “home base.” But it’s cut short by my grandmother's pronouncement, “Dinner!”
And with that, fifteen pairs of dirty bare feet pound toward the back door. Each jockeying for position in a single-file line that tends to break rank bulging three wide, here and there. A few tears are shed, as the less favored fall to the outer edges, and others claim someone’s butting.
Another six mouths are already at the “little kid table” on the back porch. Two tucked into old-style high chairs--the type with metal trays. The others are boosted up via an eclectic collection of a worn out Webster’s Dictionary, two sets of Yellow Pages, and a stack of last week’s subscription to the Sacramento Bee.
Within minutes, everyone is served and sets of best-friends have scattered around the yard. Some are on swings, others in the half-built tree-house. Some have even climbed on top of the chicken coop. My crew and I? We are the tame ones, sitting on the back stoop, gushing about boys, and hairstyles, and sleep-overs.
At nine, life is good, especially when you're living commune style for the summer. Because half a cup of noodles with a splash of color and a slice of toasted Wonder bread is enough when you’re with cousins. Especially when there's a promise of peach cobbler for dessert.