Blowin' in the Wind

So today I found out that it isn't only my skin that has gotten loose and old, and subject to blowing every goddamn which way like it's not even attached, like it's not even mine, as it sits on my hand (just for fun, apparently) under that snarky little "Feel the Power" arrow on the evil hand dryer at Target. Yeah, I went there today, and I used that dryer. I did it for you, because I wrote about it last night, and I just kept thinking about it, and wanted to touch base with reality, have the real gale force wind blowing across my skin rather than just trying to wrap words around it. Okay, that's not true. I did it because I happened to be at Target (yeah, I know they're politically incorrect, but they're not quite as politically incorrect as WalMart, where I NEVER shop, and not quite as hey-this-is-cute-let-me-wear-it-for-two-days-before-it-falls-apart as KMart, so there). Okay, that's not really true either, because it sounds like I went there by accident, which I surely did not. Geez, this truth stuff is taxing.

The real reason I happened to subject myself to the torture of the Xlerator is that there is a powerful phenomenon that has taken root since we last spoke (or whatever it is that we do). Target keeps me regular. There. I said it. And Jamie Lee Curtis isn't even sitting on my couch (damn).

I know! I don't understand it myself. When I shop at Target, I unfailingly need to go to the bathroom while shopping. Sometimes more than once. I know, I know, this is way more than you needed to know. But hey, I'm just trying to explain why I dried my hands, give a girl a break. At least I'm not pontificating about the many things I notice in public bathrooms, though come to think of it, that's a good idea for a future post, thanks for bringing it up.

That's what you get for wondering.

Anyhow, back to what I learned today. I learned that skin ain't the only thing that blows around in this "season of life", let's call it. All kinds of things blow by, whoosh around, vanish completely while we look the other way, even disappear right in front of our eyes. Yesterday's post was one of those times.

I had it all worked out, this re-entry thing. Like I said yesterday, this coming back in is not the simplest of feats. Witty. That's the ticket. That's what I told myself. I wrote and wrote (in my head, mind you, you didn't miss anything) for several days, experimenting with my first post back. And guess what? They were ALL about the blue moon that we had last night. I posted on facebook that I was returning, and people asked me when, and I said yesterday, December 31. And the REASON I was coming back on December 31 was because there was a blue moon and there was something poetic about that "once in a blue moon" thing and the fact that I had not written here in several months, and boy howdy, I was gonna take advantage of that, you know, tie it together real pretty with a purple ribbon. I had it all written. It was witty, I tell ya. I was all ready to go, and I sat down for my first post back, and what did I write? Roy Rogers, hand dryers, relationship pitfalls, and fully shame-indoctrinated cartoon rabbits. Not a damn thing about the blue moon. Whooosh. There it went.

(I gotta say, I am thoroughly impressed with myself. Only one day back and I'm into full judgment mode again. Wow, that was so easy. And they say that it takes a while to get back into the groove. Pshaw.)

The blue moon was cool, though, wasn't it? Happening on New Year's Eve and all? Portentious, kinda. I mean, I couldn't see it, but I knew it was there. I made a blue moon cake (green cake inside, bien sur) for the occasion. Here it is, even though there's not a darn thing that's witty (or portentious) about a green cake with bluish-grey frosting. Yummy, though.


As for resolutions, well, you know that old story. No need to put undue pressure on myself (which explains why I signed up for Nablopomo, I guess, yeah?). I dunno. Become less bitter? Write every day? Find a kernel of something to write about every day that is fit for public consumption so that I can once again seat myself comfortably and happily in this blog? Figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up? Eat Froot Loops (which have fiber now, in case you haven't heard, just to tie the whole post together, doncha know) more than once a year just for the heck of it?

Sure. Those'll work.

It's going good ("it's going WELL, Robin!") so far.

The Change of Life

Flashes.

No, not hot flashes, though I mean those, too. Flashes. All sorts.

Sleeplessness.

Leaving space not only for fatigue but for increased liminal space, the space in which ideas blossom and messages slide right in like a lover surprising you by sliding into the airplane seat next to you at the last minute.

Moods.

Moods that make us hard to live with. Moods that make us inclined to ask what is so hard about living with someone who questions what “easy to live with” means, recognizing it as a smokescreen for submission, compliance, servitude. Personal power is never easy to live with, especially for those who have never felt it.

Aches. Ailments. Anxiety.

A Trilogy of A. Reminding us that we are not here forever, that much is uncertain, that the someday is now.

They don’t call it the change of life for nothing.

I will be an artist of my own making. If not now, when?

There is art in writing.
I will not apologize for writing here when I should be “working”.
I will not accept that writing is any less valid than any other effort that we do not hesitate to call work.
I will no longer flinch in defensiveness at those who read my writing and say “You have too much time on your hands.”. No. I don’t. There isn’t enough time for all the things I want to say, write, feel, do.

There is art in caring for children.
In the strategizing necessary to maintain an emotional tenor that leaves one available, caring, and open, yet not vulnerable to the deeply personal bait that children routinely dangle as they make their way through the maze.
There is art in knowing when to approach, when to stand back, when to hold on, when to let go, when to insist, when to fold.
There is art in talking to children, in answering their questions without answering too much or diminishing their curiousity.
There is skill in this. I am not ashamed of having those skills.

There is art is offering what you know to the world.
There is art in being able to translate from one world into the next.
There is art in finding the words that make someone recognize the alien as if it has lived within them their entire lives. Because it has.

There is art in traveling, in exploration.
What is art if not freedom?
There is art in respect, in visiting new places with a minimum of the egocentrism and privilege that is implanted in us with every group sing, every state of the union address, every parade, every page 72 of our history books.

There is art in argument, in curiousity, in insistence, in analysis.
We live in a country that is not shy about its disdain for intellectuals.
I will not play along, in spite of the onion skin that has never protected me from casual meanness, intentional or otherwise.

There is art in creating
children, jewelry, vessels, rituals, solutions, things never seen before, thoughts, words written on paper or screen, classes, training, tools.

I have told the story.

When I was in my mid-20’s, I wanted to move to Maui. I believed I could do anything, I could strike out, in a classically 20-something kind of way. I packed my bags, and put my belongings into storage. I got on a plane. I rented a sublet. I sought out temporary employment, doing…well, whatever. I went to the beach in Kihei and watched the whales spout. And then I went home, as nearly everyone does who leaps into the water with a foot still on the dock. It’s an uncomfortable stretch that’s bound to cause a cramp eventually. An adventure is not the same as a life.

When I was in my 30’s, I wanted to move to Hawaii. Again. I wasn’t specific this time. I thought about where the jobs were. I researched, I interviewed by phone, I traveled for final interviews. I got a job. A good job. I said my goodbyes, packed my bags, and put my belongings into a Matson shipping container on the dock in Oakland. I drove my car up a ramp to join them. I lived at the YWCA in Honolulu for a month or two, and then rented a house nestled in lush foliage on the side of a rainy valley that was fifteen minutes from the ocean. I kept a swimsuit and goggles in my trunk so that I could stop by the beach to swim on the way home if I so desired, though often I just wanted to go home after a day of work. Even in Hawaii, living is living.

One foot on the dock is no way to leap. Diving is not so good either, as we all know a story of someone who met an unfortunate end trusting the unknown depth of water. Jump. With both feet. It’s the only way. There is no such thing as careful.

When I was in my 40’s, I found myself in a place that was alien to me in nearly every possible way, and which remains so. I set myself on a path to make the best of it, because it was for my career, not for my life. I was reminded that, in a new place, you have to adapt to cultural norms in order to get along. You have to submit. I stink at that. So I continued to speak up here and there, just to remember what my voice sounded like, to remember who I was when I stood, in boots and heavy backpack, on a log bridge across a roaring river in the Sierras, defying the elements, when that same evening I played half of a recorder duet over a desolate lake on the longest day of the year, wondering at the light sky at 9 p.m. The pressure, subtle and overt, to silence that voice was phenomenal and often remains so—people can see you remembering that, and they don’t like it much, even when they don't know it. They have their own reasons, to be sure, but there’s that flaky skin to contend with once more.

I spent my 40’s in the illusion of profession, in the false promise of letters behind a name, and then with the birth of a child. Nurturing a child is as close to the core of life as you can get. I accepted my life in the space created by the intersection of a venn diagram.

Now I am in my 50’s, with the flashes, sleeplessness, moods, and A’s that grace those that are fortunate enough to make it this far. I have devised a machine, a clever Rube Goldberg inspired contraption, designed to extract (with a loud, obnoxious, sucking sound reminiscent of a combination of nursing and the last drops of a milkshake in a large metal cup drawn unselfconsciously through a straw) the power from each of them. It's going pretty well.

And I’m working on that onion skin thing, because I’m done apologizing.

I am an artist of my own making. In the last two months, I have been called “wild” and “fierce”, always by people younger than me. I am putting those on as a cloak. I may even get that purple streak in my hair.

They don’t call it the change of life for nothing.