On Learning and Life and Time....

Oh my God! Bam! It hits me. Along with all the other crises I am facing, (some real, some exacerbated, some imagined, some too bleak to even accept are real), just now I realize that I'm distraught because there is still so much I want to learn and I am surely past the half-way point in my life and I can't delude myself into thinking that magically opportunities for study will appear....My time is taken up with trying to maintain the systems -- taking care of kids, paying rent, buying food, etc. --to have time for the luxury of systematic learning.

This morning, in my half-asleep/half-awake state, I had a clear vision that I should take a class in linguistics or communication. Lately I have been involved in many discussions about problems surrounding our little world, emanating out from Berkeley, and what seems to be at the very root of solving those problems is that large word -- and larger concept -- "communication." But I digress.

The point for me right at this moment is that I have to face the fact that there are multitudes of things I will not be able to study. I will run out of time, and energy, and functioning brain cells, (I'm already out of money), for such pursuits. This morning, before I had this epiphany -- that time is dwindling -- I told my kids about my dream/thought and joked that maybe I'd return to school for another degree...a masters in communication or linguistics....

This afternoon, as I'm working my way through pronunciation of my daily Hebrew word (delivered free of charge to my in-box), and I again face the fact that reading one Hebrew word a day is not going to make me fluent -- boom -- it hits me! There is a whole list of things I am going to have to give up on. Reality dictates that I will not be able to effectuate these goals before my life comes to a stop.

In a mild panic, I unconsciously begin a mental list: learn Hebrew, re-establish my near-fluency in Spanish, learn the difficult process of making dye transfer prints, write and publish the growing number of books I've started (which is a list, with sub-lists in itself), trek in Nepal, take classes in a (huge) variety of topics, start a foundation that gives sabbaticals to mothers, grow crops in my tiny concrete yard, work on Jewish/Muslim relations, make documentary movies (another list...)....And this is only the beginning.

I think of people I know who are satisfied to live their lives along their already established paths. Who have no curiosity or desire to learn anything new. My innate sense, I must in candor admit, is disdain but maybe instead I should be envious....Living like that would make things easier....Maybe part of growing older and more mature is accepting these facts....

Passing....

Time. Or more precisely, the passing of time. It seems to be a topic I write about frequently, (either blatantly or in more subtle forms)....This morning I can think of nothing I want to write about more than the death of a woman I never met...a woman I always thought I would meet, planned to meet in the future....
My aunt lives on the East Coast; I am in the West. Actually, she is my aunt by former marriage. When I divorced, we kept up our relationship. Even deepened it. She told me that she described our relationship to her friends as, "When they divorced, we took custody of Karen." I like that. My aunt is one of my favorite people on Earth. She is smart, straightforward, funny, kind, stylish, wise. Definitely someone you want to know; an excellent role model. Her best friend, I always imagined, must be like her. They'd been friends many years, I think from when they were pregnant or when their kids were young. It had been a long time....
Like my aunt, her best friend lived on the East Coast. Our visits never coincided but we always asked about each other. A couple months ago when I visited my aunt and uncle with my new "Prime Mate," whom they hadn't yet met, my aunt's friend called the first night to make sure he was a-okay. And I frequently asked my aunt about her friend. I recall when her husband passed away. I recall when she started dating. We traded lots of news...but we never met....I always meant to plan a trip so we could finally meet, but somehow I just never made it happen.
My aunt's friend took ill. Seriously, rapidly ill and the last couple of weeks brought steady decline. When I'd heard that her condition was bad, it hit me hard. I felt for her, for her three grown children. For my aunt, and my uncle, and their son. At first I thought their pain was the only reason I was sad. And then it dawned on me -- I felt that awful cloud which so often shadows our lives...the procrastination which hangs over us, until taking action is no long an option. Until it is too late to do the thing we had wanted to do.
Maybe this morning's email -- one phrase confirming a life is gone, confirming opportunities no longer viable -- will serve to remind me to do now what is meaningful....

Detroit...in Photos....

I want Detroit to be on my mind more than it is, truthfully. I'm too busy, I guess, taking care of the decay and failing systems in my own backyard (literally) to remember to check in on this symbol of the rest of the country....I don't need symbols 'cuz I got the real thing....

But something about the gray skies this morning reminds me to check out Detroit via online Time Magazine. I find a short photo essay by Sean Hemmerle, entitled "The Remains of Detroit." My brain begins to wake up as I click past greenish-gray lit photographs of Michigan Central Station. I insert myself into the photographer's shoes -- mine would be getting wet and dirty from rain and detritus abandoned on the floor of the once crowded station, as I lose myself in the glorious light slanting in where the windows and roof used to be.

What are our values, I can't help but wondering, that we abandon people and buildings and other lovely ideals in favor of money in the pockets of a few who made these decisions? The beautiful train station, designed by the same architects as New York's Grand Central Station, opened in 1913, has been devoid of passengers since 1988. A gorgeous theater, with no less magnificent a name than "The Michigan Theater," built in 1926, now has a few cars parked under its ornate ceilings. Acres and acres of manufacturing space now host a few ratty mattresses under broken windows. And too, there are the neighborhoods, with houses missing and untended yards, looking more like abandoned fields than city blocks. (....If I bought a house there, I could fill the yard with summer crops....)

Anyway, I guess I don't need to make any more value statements....The photographs speak well enough on their own....
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html

Lemon blossoms and dog piss....

I am stretched out, eyes closed, on my chaise. My laundry floats and breathes on the line...in and out, up and down, gently swaying in the afternoon breeze. I give in and close my eyes....A thirty page to do list waits for me; no matter how hard I try to ditch it, that list waits patiently like the puppy my Standard Poodle is not anymore....

The other night I dreamed I needed to drive forward twenty feet, pull across a narrow lane into a parking lot. It was my van, dents and old, dusty raindrops and all. The engine started but when I tried to put it into a forward gear, it would only go into reverse. I tried and tried and then I gave in and raced out, driving backwards, onto a busy, four-lane road, which turned into a freeway, which turned into a one-way highway...further and further from my parking spot. I didn't know how to get back there.

This morning I wake with the commitment to make more time -- to steal the time if need be -- for my family, friends, photographs, and anything else which fills my soul instead of robbing it. So this morning, in between working, I also call my stepmother and my aunt, email a couple of friends, and even sort a few photographs....That's how I came to be reclining, in the hot October sun, in my yard.

I'm out there with my eyes closed, seeing nothing but orange behind my lids. I'm drifting in and out of my yard...and suddenly I'm aware of a sweet and lovely smell which is enveloping me, gently carrying me away....Oh, it's so good....I drift around with it for a bit....I realize, ah ha, it is the sweet smell of the sun hitting the lemon blossoms on my little Meyer lemon tree. My eyes stay closed and I am in my yard and I am also floating past my childhood, acres of orange groves and sweet citrus blooming into the night....It's so sweet and good....I don't move. I want it to last forever. And then, without warning, I smell the strong scent of dog urine. I can almost feel it in my nostrils, the acrid stench. It is unmistakable.

At first, I'm confused. My brain fights to regain the sweet citrus magic....Where is it? Did I imagine it? Can I bring it back? I almost laugh when the simple truth hits me: the wind has shifted and now, instead of smelling my delicate lemon blossoms, I'm smelling evidence of my dog's business, lifted by the sun, off the concrete....And I realize once again, it's all a matter of perspective....Just a simple matter of where you're standing and which way the wind is blowing....

Detroit Dreams

One of these days I'm going to forecast my trends instead of just spouting them to friends and relatives....Actually, I have some sort of dim memory that was supposed to be a major inspiration for this blog...but then, life got in the way....Well, never to late to hop on the train -- unless it's already left the station....

Quite a while back (months? a couple years?) I read an article in Harper's about Detroit. About how certain people were planting vegetables and other crops in the yards of abandoned houses and vacant lots within the city limits of Detroit. I loved that article. I showed it to those aforementioned family members and loved ones. Told them this I wanted to do too....I was fascinated....A beautiful notion: making things grow where otherwise there was only waste and blight....

More recently I read another article (Harper's? Time? New York Times?) about another "certain people" (the same people? do they know each other? working in concert?) who were buying houses cheap. Like for a coupla thousand dollars -- as in just over a couple hundred dollars -- and were fixing them up, green and nice, and selling them cheap to other like minded people. I think most of these people were artists and they were all moving close to each other. Forming a sort of urban, cold weather commune. And again, I showed the article to my loved ones. Threatened to buy a house there, as my own 'hood is completely unaffordable. Naturally no one thought I was serious. "Detroit?!" they asked. My kids knew I wouldn't leave good ol' Cali while they're still here...but still...it was mighty tempting. Even if I couldn't do it, it seemed like a great idea and I hoped others would jump on the bandwagon....

Then today I pick up the Oct. 5 Time magazine and find the cover article is all about Detroit. The editor's page is entitled "Assignment Detroit." Time has bought a house there -- and from the photo, a sweet looking home -- and the magazine will host various events throughout the year while they check on the health of Detroit. As they rightly surmise Detroit is a mirror of the nation...or as Mr. John Huey says, "we believe that Detroit right now is a great American story...."

I'm jazzed.
Let's keep a watch on poor, beleaguered Detroit. I'm rooting for it -- even if that means I won't be able to buy an affordable house there because the property values take a gigantic leap....
Look back to my blog and to time.com/detroit to see what's happening....My next fantasy is that Time magazine will invite me to their "D-Shack" for the benefit of my West Coast observations and ideas....It's always good to keep dreaming...so go to it Detroit!

Dad....Still Here....

Weeks have gone by, danced away, lazed away, drained away...gone, just the same, and I have not added anything to this blog of mine, which looks like it is becoming a yearly thing, certainly not daily....
I've thought about it....Opened the page. Left it sitting on my desktop. Had a vague idea of what I might say....But the page sat blank and unused.
This morning, it seems obvious, after I send an email to my brother and sisters. Everything looks clear. And it is okay....My mind has been preoccupied...and, actually, that's a lovely thing....

The email:
Dears,
I must admit, it is a lovely morning (especially because we had thick night fog, which is burning off, and keeping the heat wave reasonable). I sit here working on a transcript; it is boring but I am busy, engaged.
What I must admit, is that when my mind looks to what is there, in the back, in the front, in the parts I cover up with work, I am thinking of Dad....
It has been like this for me since Sunday -- well, probably actually for five weeks...well, probably actually, for the last several months!
I miss his presence on earth terribly.
I am not reconciled with the fact that he actually is gone.
I have had a few brief minutes here and there to reflect on what a tough year and a half it was....His initial throat problem (when I knew intuitively it was cancer and it was bad...), radiation, surgery, steady decline, though all the while, hoping that what the doctors assured was true....And all the while, Dad the same as always -- though, actually, changing in some subtle and some overt ways -- Dad, the same, not making it any easier to be close to him....
And anyway, the sun now is coming in the window where I work, and maybe it is Dad....Like he told me a few weeks before he died: he will be like Orion in the sky, I can't see him (without the aid of a very powerful telescope -- and, of course, he knew the exact magnification necessary), but he is there just the same....
So...I'm crying now but will try to dry my tears and return to work.
my love and good thoughts to you all,
KSJH

Endings....

Summer is, I guess, officially over...though the season doesn't expire for a few more weeks....Two of my children started high school yesterday -- my daughter, my baby, took that leap towards adulthood with a smile and her usual centered attitude. My middle child, who grew into an even taller, guitar playing, stringbean over the summer, is now a high school junior. My oldest returns to college next week...no longer a freshman....

The other day I came home to find my two boys reclining in the yard, books on their laps, oblivious to anything except the world created by the words their eyes were devouring...ah...such is summer reading....Ignoring dishes in the sink, phone calls to be returned, bills to be paid, I plopped down between them, no book, but I closed my eyes and my thoughts wandered....What had happened to summer? Where had it gone? Down what hole had the days drained? Summer started with a bang and a wake up call when I returned from an exhausting visit with my boyfriend's family to find that my house had been the locus for a frat party populated by fifteen and sixteen year olds. I arrived home from the airport -- tired and grumpy and glad to be home -- and couldn't cross the living room without my feet sticking to the old wood floor. Every step restricted by beer residue (and God knows what else). Two rooms had more than traces of three-day old, teenage, vomit....All in all, it wasn't a very relaxing way to ease into summer.

Two and a half months have somehow passed, thankfully with no more shocking parties. There haven't really been any lazy days either....The beginning of July brought my dad's 80th birthday, complete with a giant party and a reunion of out-of-town friends and relatives. My dad attended, though to me he seemed propped up solely for the festivities. By the end of the month, his doctor told him he had only two weeks to live. The cancer which everyone had assured him was gone, was certainly not gone and instead was ravaging his already weakened body....My mind played over all these events which had comprised my summer....

In the yard with my boys, as the sun warmed my cheeks and my closed eyelids, the only sound coming from the windchimes and my boys turning pages (because I've trained myself to tune out the afternoon traffic), my mind meandered over the summer days....A school ending party, children reading, children taking giant -- sometimes dangerous and inappropriate -- steps, my father leaving us forever, more family gatherings, hikes and swims at ten thousand feet, and then, school starting up again. I realized that immutable truth: life ebbs and flows, some things end, some things begin, but always, while we live, there is change. There is sadness and sweetness, a tangy mix for us to savor....