Rays

Nothing like the Sonoran Desert at dusk. Everything becomes so sharp and clear. So three-dimensional...or more. Feels like home with the hard red earth under my feet and the glow of sunset in the big, big sky. 

Tonight the moon rose like a huge piece of butterscotch, just above that dip where the Rincons and Catalinas seem to come together to shake hands and say howdy. So delicious looking. The full moon, I mean. The mountains, too, I suppose. Later, clouds moved beneath the moon like a shaman's misty dress and the light rayed out of the moon, upward, on the dark sky, like one of those rayed pictographs and petroglyphs I've seen on rock paintings all over the NW and SW. 

D.H. Lawrence said New Mexico was women's country. I'm not sure whose country this is: The desert is all, even when you can't see it. It thrums beneath the concrete and you know that one day it will out. I find reassurance in this fact when the sky is ruddy with pollution or the traffic goes on forever. When I know all that is wrong is temporary, too, suddenly I feel as if we are in this together, looking for adventure in all the wrong places, finding encouragement—isn't that what enlightenment is, essentially?—in all the right places. 

No dream has come to me. No flash of insight or story yet. Just cleaning. Fixing. Nesting. 

Although...

Things have already started shapeshifting. I looked over by the huge palo verde near the front of the house earlier today, and I saw a coyote watching me. 

It was nearly the same spot where I had seen the bobcat seven(?) winters ago. When she turned toward me back then, I didn't know what she was, and in the setting sun, I remember seeing her ears and thinking she must be a fairy. Until she looked at me, with the sun as her pupils, and I knew what she was. She was the wild in a bobcat. When she got up to leave, I followed her into the wash to see what I could see.

Today I saw a coyote in that spot watching me. But then I realized it was too big for a coyote. It was a wolf. I blinked. It couldn't be a wolf. I shook my head. It wasn't a wolf or a coyote. It was the palo verde tree apparently having fun with me. Or preparing me. Maybe both.

Time will tell. It always does.

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Signs Along the Way

Friday, December 13

We began as we always begin: holding hands and whispering to the earth, the sky, to all that is Visible and Invisible, and then we are away, crossing the Bridge of the Gods after a slight delay. A raven stands on the bridge railing—a raven! Rarely seen in these parts. Like a harbinger of what is to come: seeing into this world and that one?

We follow the Big River into Stumptown and beyond, hurtling down the road with the others until—boom!—we all run over a dead hawk, its feathers flipped up like some strange discarded headdress from an awful party. The first time we headed down to the Sanctuary—ten winters ago—just as we were coming up to the T-curves, we saw a car on fire. It was a conflagration, I tell ya. We watched the flames *engulf* the car. The automobile never had a chance. For a few moments, I felt like everything was going in slow motion, like a scene out of a movie. I said to Mario, “If I believed in signs…” Three hours later we were in a car accident, spinning out of control, me mewing like a frightened cat as the car spun around, as my hand went up to the window to hold myself in place, to save myself. I just wanted it to stop, to stop. Stop. To know if we would survive. Finally it stopped. We survived.

We got down to Arizona that year, eventually, sans car.

Now I watch for signs. I wonder what the raven and the dead hawk mean. I stay alert. At a rest stop, three young men throw snowballs at each other. They laugh. I wonder if they’ve ever seen snow before. A homeless man plays a flute and flies the sign near the restrooms. A modern day Kokopelli? I never hear the flute music, though Mario points the man out to me. I see the sign, I see him pull out a pack of cigarettes and sigh. I hurry away from him.

My three day (four?) day headache throbs, and I want to cry. Instead, I tell myself it is only temporary. It too shall pass. But I am tense. Grumpy.

We stop at a gas station near Ashland, just before we start up over the mountains. The sun is out, but it is cold. I look out the window, in a daze after driving for six hours, and I see a man hunched over, sitting on a stool or a milk box just beyond the gas station. He looks so miserable. What is he doing? I get out of the car, inexplicably drawn toward the man. He is older, wearing a black watch cap and a flannel jacket that doesn’t look warm enough over his t-shirt and jeans. An old green pickup with a small camper is parked directly behind him. As I get closer, I see he is surrounded by rocks: mostly crystal quartz. I grin. I put my hands in my pocket so that I don’t touch every single stone. The man looks cold and miserable. 

“Are these from Arkansas?” I ask.

He nods. “Mostly.”

Some are big, some smaller. The prices are quite low. The man looks vaguely tortured. 

“Did you pick them?” I ask.

“Some of them,” he says. “Others we got from people.” 

“I like ‘pick’ better than ‘mine,’” I say. I don’t know why I say this. Maybe because I’m afraid he’ll think I’m ignorant: that I don’t know where crystal quartz comes from. Just one of those inane things we say. 

He seems to understand because he nods. After a while, he says, “You do healing work?”

I look at him. Squint. Not something someone usually asks. Not something I usually answer.

“Yes,” I say, surprising myself by the answer. “But mostly I just love rocks. Have since I was a kid.” I pulled out the crystal I have in my coat pocket and holds it up. “I have rocks in the car, too. I just take them with me. Do you do healing work?”

He says, “She does.” He nods toward the truck, and I see a woman sleeping in the passenger seat. I don’t see her right away. I have to look and blink. Ahhh, there she is. 

“I do some meditation, things like that,” he says.

Mario comes over then. The man says he can give me a price break if I buy two. His cellphone rings, and he stands up and winces. I see the cane next to his chair now, and when he walks, he limps. He’s in pain. That’s why he looks tortured. I glance at the sleeping woman. Can’t she fix him? He excuses himself and walks away, knocking on the truck first. The woman jerks awake. A moment later, she gets out. I give her money, and I take the two crystals I’ve chosen—or the two crystals who have chosen me—back to the car. I am almost giggly with glee. 

And my headache is gone.

I put the rocks in the back of the car, and we start off again, heading toward the mountains. The headache comes back, just a bit. As we head toward the Siskiyou Pass, going up and up, I say, “This is where Emily and Mr. Em came. Only they were on horses.” (From The Monster’s Daughter.) I see it like a memory. Mario smiles at me. We reach the summit quickly, surprising us both, and I say, “And this is where Emily got off her horse and left an offering to the mountains.” Mario pulls over. 

I get out of the car, step into the snow, and I sing as trucks roar past us. I thank the Mountains and I leave a shell and a pinch of tobacco in the snow. As I look at the rocks in front of me, I feel as though I am looking at a painting: like when I’m in New Mexico and suddenly I feel like I’m seeing the landscape as Georgia O’Keeffe saw it. I get back in the car and say, “This looks like a Bev Doolittle painting.” Mario nods.

We go up and over the pass.

My headache is gone. 

I see Mount Shasta. She rises above the pollution that hangs over everything like a dirty fog. We stop, and I sing to the mountain. I sing to the dragon. I am giddy. I feel like I’ve stepped into The Monster’s Daughter again, just like last year. Emily and Mr. Em are all around me. It’s not surprising since I believe the mountain gave me the story in the first place. And I am so grateful.

Soon enough Mario and I make it to our lodgings. It is called a spa, but we stay here because it’s green: It was built sustainably, using sustainable materials, and they don’t use chemicals or pesticides. It costs the same as other hotels. The young woman at the desk greets us, takes my driver’s license and credit card, and says, “And how was your day today?” as she checks us in. I say, “Fine, and how was yours?” She keeps looking at the computer and doing something, and then she says in the same cheerful robotic voice, “And how was your day today?” I almost start to laugh. Instead I say, “Do you know you just asked me that?” This time she almost looks at me but doesn’t quite. “I’m sorry,” she says. Mario and I get our keycards and hurry away. Once we’re outside, we look at each other and laugh. Welcome to Stepford.

While Mario unpacks, I stand outside and whisper to the directions. It’s just polite to introduce oneself to a place. I leave a shell and tobacco, along with my song. We’ve been here many times, so I’m hoping we’ll be welcomed as friends. Of course last year, we got a flat tire, and I left my favorite coat here. Not exactly friendly. 

Mario makes me dinner: a microwaved Amy’s frozen dinner with our veggies and rice. Yum. (While on vacation, we do occasionally use a microwave oven, it’s true.) Then we walk around the place and watch the swans. The first year we were here, Mario was so excited to see them. Then I told him, “They’ve probably clipped their wings so they *have* to stay here.” He looked crushed. “Poor things,” he said then.

So every year we watch the swans and feel a mixture of regret, pity, and awe.

When we get near the pool, I think I see a person by the fence, and then it looks like a mermaid. As I walk toward it, I start laughing. “Hah! I thought it was a mermaid, but it’s a life preserver!” Somehow, given who I am, that seems quite apropos. I snap a photo of my “mermaid” and then we head back.

This year, this journey feels different. And the same. Every year the trip is difficult, and it is wonderful. I am always exceedingly grateful, and I always—at some point—wonder what the hell I am doing. I was wondering that about three hours into the trip today. But still, I do feel different this year. More here. Or something.

To bed soon and then off to the City of Angels in the morning. First The Bridge of the Gods and then to the City of Angels. All on the road to the Old Mermaids Sanctuary.

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Landed

February 2

It is our last day at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. For the last nine winters, I have written a last essay, often on the last day. I attempted to put into words what this place and this time has meant to me. This is most likely our last visit here, although I’ve said that before. But this time it looks more and more like the place will be sold. This year I’m not certain what to say about this last visit. 

Eight plus years ago, we found this place after I asked friends and acquaintances if they knew of an environmentally safe place in the Southwest where Mario and I could come for a few weeks a year. The Pacific Northwest winters were taking a toll on me, and I wanted some warmth and sunshine. Terri Windling answered my email, telling me she knew of a place that might just work. Nine winters ago, Mario and I arrived here, sight unseen, and discovered a place of extraordinary beauty and mystery—and we fell immediately in love.

That first year, I planned on resting while Mario worked. I ended up writing 60,000 words of nonfiction. I sat under an old mesquite tree many evenings, telling stories to the tree and other visibles and invisibles as the sun went down. I am sitting under that same mesquite tree right now. It is ancient and beautiful and has roots that go all the way to China, or close to it. 

The second winter we were here, the Old Mermaids came up out of the wash and told me their stories. Since then, we have called this place the Old Mermaids Sanctuary, or the Sanctuary. And that’s what it has been for me these eight years. I look forward to coming here all year long. I believe I’ve written nine novels while I’ve been on the Sanctuary. 

Away from the Sanctuary, these haven’t been easy years. I struggled with illness and had two surgeries, both my careers faltered, my father had major heart surgery, a close relative battled drug addiction, one of my brothers-in-law had a severe stroke, Mario dealt with some health issues, my best friend died, two other close friends died suddenly and unexpectedly, and my mother died. One could argue that these are just the days of our lives, but because of my nearly constant anxiety, the normal travails of life often felt more unbearable than they needed to be. 

As the years have gone by, life had continued to get more difficult instead of easier for me, despite my nearly constant attempts to change, to fix what ails me. I have tried just about every healing modality known to humankind (and then some) and still, I wasn’t improving. I studied shamanism and many different kinds of folk healing. Despite some improvements now and again, I was still sick and anxious. I started feeling resentful and morose. I used to think I was put here on this earth to love, but I didn’t love much of anything or anyone any more, at least not with the joy and passion I had once had. 

I didn’t believe this was the life I was intended to live. (Intended by whom? Well, me for one.) When I was younger, I wanted to help people, I wanted to change the world. Now, I just wanted to get well, be well. Whenever I would start seeing some kind of new practitioner, they were always optimistic and certain we could get to the heart of the problem to get me well. (Except Western medicine practitioners: They thought what was going on with me was chronic and I had to learn to live with it.) And then after a year or two into the process (whatever it was: therapy, naturopathy, etc.), the healer would say something like, “Perhaps this is just who you are.” Or maybe I had a block or a miasm or some such.

I never accepted this. And I always thought if I was incurable, then I would accept it. Every person I know with a medical diagnosis for an illness they have has come to terms with their illness. Except me. I didn’t believe it. Despite my own body’s evidence to the contrary, I didn’t believe I was chronically ill. Chronic means forever, right?

What mattered to me was good health. What mattered to me was a cure. When I’d read a book on healing or wellness, the authors would often say there was a difference between healing and being cured. And I’d think, “Bullshit. Obviously you have never been ill.” I didn’t want some pie in the sky healing where I thought everything was peachy-keen even though I was still sick.  

Every time I returned to the Old Mermaids Sanctuary, I believed I would be healed. Every time I wrote a book, I believed I would be cured. And when I wasn’t, I wasn’t so much disappointed as I was perplexed. Because I believed with my whole body and soul that healing is much simpler than we realize. The best shamans, the best healers, the best doctors can heal with a nod, a gesture, a reminder: or by doing nothing at all.

Yes. So where was my nod?

When Mario and I first got to the Sanctuary this year, I had quite a few travails. The details don’t matter, but I felt like I was being pummeled at every level of my being: physical, emotional, spiritual. After a week or more of wondering if we should just go home, I started reading book after book about healing modalities I hadn’t heard of before. I tried every one of them. Sometimes the symptoms I was experiencing actually got worse. Sometimes they got marginally better. 

I watched for signs. If a word or a phrase or a name caught my attention, I followed it through. I researched like crazy. I worked like crazy trying to find a formula to fix me.

I did a tarot reading with three cards. They turned out to be three major arcana cards. The World was me. The Tower was what was happening to me. The Star was how I could deal with the process. The Star is all about healing, completeness, hope, and intuition. In other words, I had done the work. Now let it beeee. I had been trying for so long, working so hard for so long: I needed to learn to let go. To do nothing.

Easier said than done.

I watched a video of Louise Hay called You Can Heal Your Life. Even though I hadn’t found affirmations effective for me in the past, I’ve always felt affection for Louise Hay. She seems so loving (and she’s an indie writer and publisher). She said after years of working with various affirmations and causes of illnesses with people, she discovered that when people learned to love and accept themselves, their lives turned around.

I had heard something like this before, of course, over the years. But I didn’t believe it. I thought, I don’t love and accept myself THIS way. Maybe if I was different THEN I could love and accept myself. But on this day as I watched the video, I realized I didn’t not love other people because they were sick, so why wouldn’t I love myself? I started talking to myself in the third person. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through this. That must have felt really bad. You’ve been very brave.” 

My spirits began lifting almost immediately. 

I also started to think about who I am and what my life is. All of my life I have talked to the trees, rocks, the sky, plants, animals. I have also talked to that which is not there. But it’s not something I advertised to other people. I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed of it, but I knew—especially when I was a child—that it wasn’t something we talked about. (I was a child with a very vivid imagination, as I heard over and over.) 

As an adult, I didn’t talk about it because I never wanted to be considered flaky. I believed I was practical, tough, logical, and absolutely not one of those "airy fairy flakes." Yet I was one of those people who had “gut” feelings that often turned out to be accurate. I knew things that other people didn’t seem to know. I did long distance healing on people—when I didn’t believe in it—and people got better. And I often sensed things that I could never prove one way or another. For instance, I carried on long conversations with plants and with the spirits of the land or a place. I didn’t know if these conversations were “real.” Could I ever know? 

As I struggled this time on the Sanctuary with so many physical problems, I decided to really try and let go and see what happened. (No, not try, just do.) Obviously I couldn’t control everything and the harder I tried the worse it seemed to get. So I closed my eyes and asked “what the hell is going on?” As I was asking this, an old plant friend of mine came and told me he wanted to show me something. I followed him down the wash to the fence the neighbors had put up across the dry riverbed a few years ago. He told me the fence was causing an energy blockage on the land. This time, instead of interrogating him on the truth or reality of what he was saying, I looked up and down the wash and I could “see” lines of light flowing up and down the wash in a kind of “x” pattern, only one “leg” of the pattern was slamming right into the metal pole of the fence. 

I asked him what I could do. He told me to get some rocks and put them around the metal post in a kind of snaky line. I went around the wash asking rocks who wanted to be part of this venture and I picked up the ones who seemed to want to come. When I was finished, I ducked down under the fence and continued walking in the wash. It felt completely different. For the first time since they’d put up the fence, the wash felt like a free flowing river. I closed my eyes and felt the Old Sea roll over me. It was glorious.

Within hours, many of my physical symptoms began to abate. Later in the day, Mario and I went to walk in the wash. We saw a rabbit on the way and I said, “It would be really nice to see your cousin the jackrabbit.” We hadn’t seen any jackrabbits this time. (We had never seen any on the Sanctuary.) Ten minutes later, two jackrabbits ran across the wash in front of us. On the way out of the wash, we said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to see the owl before we leave?” We hadn’t seen the owls here in a couple of years. A few hours later, an owl showed up on the Sanctuary, and we got to watch her for some time. (She showed up again the next day.)

Apparently on this day, wishes came true in the wash, so Mario and I returned and made other wishes.

Soon after I put the rocks around the fence, I returned to work on the novel I had started and stopped some days earlier (The Monster’s Daughter). I had gotten the idea for the novel just a few weeks earlier when we were driving down Highway 5 near Mount Shasta. Most of the novel takes place in California, near Mount Shasta.

Every year when we travel to Arizona, I make offerings to the land we pass through. I sing and say prayers. We stop at one lookout where I can whisper sweet somethings to Mount Shasta, and I usually leave a shell or a stone. Maybe this year the place decided they wanted the monster’s daughter’s story told and I was the one to tell it. I don’t know, but I wrote 101,000 words and finished the novel in a three weeks. 

As the end of my time on the sanctuary neared, I finally (again) decided that it doesn’t matter if the world perceives me as flaky or airy fairy or whatever words they want to describe someone like me. Healing is in the invisible realms, right alongside magic, love, and joy—right beside the wild.

In Western culture, we want to name things. We want to codify and explain. We want rules for life. Do this and you’ll succeed. Do that and you’ll heal. But the mystery will not be codified or explained. I can’t really explain where my novel came from or why placing stones in the wash coincided with the abatement of many of my symptoms.  Does it matter?

I hear, feel, sense the call of the wild. That is what I do; that is who I am. Instead of running from that call, it is my life’s work—my life’s journey—to listen to that call and to sometimes interpret it. Sometimes I’ll know what it means. Sometimes I won’t. This means I must live on the edge of what is known and unknown, the edge of what can be explained and what is unexplainable. It also means I will live as part of the soul of the world. That is the only way I can fully survive, fully inhabit this body of mine. 

I heard someone on the radio recently say that when we ask for healing, we need to be open to that which comes. We need to open our hearts. A few weeks ago, I bought a heart with a mirror at the center of it. Sometimes I look at it now and tell myself, “I love you.” When I first started doing this, I’d see my face and wonder, “When did I get so old?” Now I just see myself grinning and think, “Years from now I’ll thank myself for all the hard work I’ve been doing during these six weeks.” Or maybe I’ll thank myself for opening my heart and seeing the true beauty in myself.

I started writing this essay under the old mesquite tree. I had to leave and change my clothes because I had gotten thorns all over me. The first year I was here, I was constantly getting pricked by cacti. This experience inspired my story The Señorita and the Cactus Thorn. This year I keep thinking of Briar Rose. She was pricked awake. I feel like that this year. I’ve been pricked awake. Again. And again. Like, “Come on, Kim. GET IT. NOW.” 

I’m getting it. I’m getting it. 

Life is more than stories. It is more than suffering. It is more. It is more. 

One of the books I read this time said we needed to be more aware of our bodies to facilitate our healing. I said to Mario, “I am aware of every bit of suffering I feel. If I’m more aware of my body, it’ll be worse.”

He said, “More aware of the good things you feel in your body.”

“Oh.” That would be a new experience.

One day I was doing yoga and I suddenly felt the rug beneath my feet. I could feel the texture of it on my soles. It felt nice. I walked off the rug onto the cool stone floor. Mmmm. That felt nice, too. I padded around the casita for a few minutes, loving the feel of the stones and the rugs against my feet. It felt good.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it was a beautiful moment for me. 

I intend to string beautiful moment after beautiful moment together until there are more of them than non-beautiful moments. A string of beauty around my life.

I don’t think I can sum up my nine winters here. Being here has changed my life. It has saved my life. And I am grateful for that.

And this year: What about this year? I feel transformed, transfigured, healed, and so much more. What I’m bound to heart and soul and body is still the wild land and everything that lives on it. (And this includes human beings, of course.) These bonds are not binding but liberating. The land makes us; we don’t make the land. I am realizing that in my bones, finally. Maybe again.

This year I kept feeling the pull of the Catalina Mountains. It felt like a kind of yearning, so I followed this yearning. We drove into the mountains and stopped at a high plateau overlooking the desert floor. As we stepped out onto the blond rock, a tiny snake slithered past us. A snake at 7,000 plus feet in the middle of the winter. We took this as an auspicious sign. 

Through the binoculars, we could see the Sanctuary far below us. Gorgeous manzanita trees twisted up from the rocks. I bowed down to them. Stunted evergreen trees likewise rose up from the rocks. They were older than the hills—or close to it. Amidst the beauty was garbage. Normally this reality would have thrown me into melancholy. Instead I whispered an apology and left a song as a gift. (And next time, I’ll bring gloves and a garbage bag.)

At one point, two young men ran all around us, oblivious to the church-like silence most people were maintaining. They huffed and puffed and scrambled onto and off of this rock and that rock, speaking in a language I didn’t recognize. Every time they leaped dangerously from rock to rock, I prayed for their safety. And I smiled at their exuberance. For them, this sacred place must have inspired their bodies to run, jump, and huff and puff. Yes. What a place requires or wants can be different depending upon the person.

Of course.

Instead of being angry or annoyed with them I loved these loud boys. Ahhh. Finally. My heart was opening again. 

What does this all mean?

Perhaps I am finally awakening to the truth of my life. To the truth of the world? 

At the end of The Monster’s Daughter, my main character Emily says, “But Papa, I am so awake.”

Perhaps that sums it up for me, too. That is how I leave this place this year: I am awakening. It’s as if I’ve been on a long space voyage. I slept and dreamed through the entire thing. Now I’ve landed. And I am awake.

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The Monster's Daughter: An Essay

“I gift you with healing and magic.” —Sister Faye Mermaid

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.” —Rainer Maria Rilke

I’ve been thinking about gifts today. And trials. Reality. And monsters.

What is real? What is true? What must we endure and what must we overthrow? 

I don’t believe in suffering for the sake of suffering. Of course we suffer. That is a given. But why cultivate it? And because someone suffers they are not holy, good, or divine. Suffering does not make us better. Lordy, no. Does suffering hone us? Make the sword that is us tougher, more magical, more efficient?

I don’t know. I’m not a sword. I’m a human being. 

If I suffer, if something bad happens to me, I am not a better human being. I’m just a human being who has suffered.

Maybe it depends upon what kind of person one is when something terrible happens. If it comes as a surprise, if it is totally and wholly unexpected suffering, perhaps we can’t rise above it. Get over it. 

I had a remarkably fortunate childhood. I was bonded to the land more than I was ever bonded to any human being. I watched for messages from the skies as I dug my bare toes into the damp earth. I fed the animals, wild and tame. I ran with the wild things.

My mother broke when I was quite young, and she never recovered. Neither did we. Is the soul of a family always the mother? As she goes, so goes the family? 

I don’t want to go there. Why? I find psychology tedious--watery--and not in a good way. I’m too old to be buffeted by childhood trauma. 

And yet.

For years as child, I had merciless nightmares. They were so bad I would fight not to go to bed each night. But doesn’t every child do that? What does it matter? When I slept, the creatures came out of the woodwork and hunted me down. Or tried to. I was runner--a marathoner--in my dreams. I could outrun any monster. 

Except when I was the monster. In one dream I smiled while I spilled my guts. Literally.

As a girl, I tried to hold disparate realities in my mind, in my body, but it was difficult. Where did serial killers fit into my wilderness background? How did the outrageous acts of violence taking place in nearby Detroit, delineated on the nightly news, fit into my childhood? And the pristine river that ran behind our house--the river that flooded every winter and froze, becoming our winter water wonderland where I skated every chance I could get--why was it now unsafe to eat any fish or shellfish taken from it? Why did I see laundry bubbles on the surface when I went down to the riverside?

I did my best. I saved other kids from bullies but became terrified one day when a teacher threatened to switch us all because she was pissed at us. I hid under the bed each morning for days, refusing to go to school because I said I was sick. Why didn’t anyone believe me?

I wasn’t sick: I was afraid. Of course, I never told my parents what was scaring me.

Perhaps fear is a form of sickness. No, it’s a protection, isn’t it? 

And when my animals began to die, I was awash with grief. My parents took me to a doctor and he gave me pills so I wouldn’t be so upset. 

Was that the message of the late sixties and early seventies? Don’t feel. But if you do, take a pill, baby. 

I read books about the coming apocalypse via the atom bomb. I fantasized about making it to the mountains somewhere out west where I’d be safe from a nuclear holocaust. 

We were all going to die from the pollution or a nuclear bomb or some psycho hunting women and if we were afraid about any of it, please don’t mention it; step to the side and take your pills, please, please.

And then I grew up. When I was still in my teens, just barely in college, a psychologist diagnosed me with post traumatic stress disorder. Only she didn’t call it that because they didn’t yet diagnose civilians with this particular disorder. She said I had all of the reflexes of a child who grew up in a war zone. 

What?

She didn’t really know how to help me, except more therapy. 

How did talking about shit that happened when I was a kid help me feel better? So what if my mother was sick and my father was pissed and we were all just trying to do the best we could? I had it fucking easy.

How long after that did some medical doctor tell me I was allergic to the world?

Now THAT really did not help.

I refused to be allergic to the world.

This is my fucking world, buddy. I am not allergic to it.

And yet, I felt like crap.

I got married and Mario and I moved to the Oregon coast. While I was researching a novel, I learned more than I could quite fathom about pesticides and the dumping of toxic chemicals in developing countries. We were also part of a peace group, helping refugees from El Salvador. I couldn’t come to grips with how seemingly cruel people were to one another. I was diagnosed again with post traumatic stress disorder. Years later, I wrote about this period of my life in a roman a clef, Forks in the Road:

Yet the reality of what was happening to the environment and people was horrific. I wondered how anyone could know the things we now knew and not go crazy. I had always been overly empathetic. (Or just plain pathetic.) As a child, I cried when they cut down trees on the lot next door to us. I mourned the loss of those trees for years. When my dog was run over by a car I was depressed for months; my mom finally took me to a doctor, and he gave me what he called pep pills. My psyche could not take the onslaught of constant horror. 

Could anyone’s? 

On the Oregon coast, I began to fall apart.

One day I heard a bird cry out. A strange call. I went to the window and looked down at the sidewalk leading to our door. On the cement, half a snake twitched. It was so grotesque. Horrific in a way that only real life can be. I stood watching it for a while, wondering how it got there, finally realizing a bird had most likely dropped half of the snake as it flew over. The snake had lost its mind--and half its body. 

Soon after I lost my mind. 

Me, middle-class white chick, began exhibiting classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

I thought I was going insane. I could not read for a time; the letters kept moving on the page--and besides, the ideas were frightening. I had an anxiety attack that lasted a year. I hallucinated. 

A doctor told me I was allergic to the world. 

Whatever that meant. 

The world was poison and my body was like a map of those poisons--or a container for poisons, he said.

No, no, I screamed silently. The world is more than poisons; I am more than poisons.

“You are like the canary in the mine,” he said.

No. I refuse to be a fucking canary, singing the blues before dropping dead in my cage, feet sticking straight up to the sky.

I looked over at Em as we sat in the natural foods co-op in Nebraska. What if we had never lived on the coast, never worked at the co-op, or joined the peace movement, how would our lives be different? 

I doubted I had affected any change as a result of my actions in the peace movement. I gained knowledge. And got sick. Were the two related? 

Maybe when the biblical Eve ate the proverbial apple--acquired knowledge--she got sick. She left paradise because she could not bear to live in Eden when so many people outside suffered. 

Or she ate the apple, gained knowledge, and lost faith. She no longer believed in an omniscient, omnipotent God. How could she? If he was omniscient and omnipotent, how could he allow such suffering? And if he did allow it, he was a mean evil sonofabitch. She wouldn’t want to believe in him. 

So she swallowed the apple, threw up ignorance, and slithered away to be her own goddess--and became a pariah of the dominant culture. 

Had she ever wondered what would have happened had she stayed in paradise? Could there be paradise with ignorance? Or was paradise only possible with ignorance? 

Had Eve ever wondered about her choices?

I broke during that period of my life. Just like my mother had. Like her, I never recovered. And soon my life completely revolved around getting back to what I had been. Getting back to who I had been.

But that was an impossible task. We can never be what we were. Every single one of us has to endure something we wish we could avoid. 

I am a different than I would have been because of what has happened to me. Before, I was brilliant. I was beautiful. I thought I could do absolutely anything. I was going to save the world.

After I wished the world would save me. I am no longer brilliant, at least not in the way I was. My mind isn’t as quick as before. I was an amazing short story writer before. Now I can’t seem to go to that deep place in a short piece of writing--it’s too painful. I need to build up to it, which I can do when I write a novel. I would have never written The Jigsaw Woman before. Or The Church of the Old Mermaids. Certainly not Ruby’s Imagine.

I knew more people before. I was better at relationships. Better in crowds. 

Or maybe I wasn’t. Who knows?

It doesn’t actually matter. 

Lately I’ve realized I have been focused on my wound. I thought because I tried to ignore it, because I didn’t talk about it to family and friends, because I only wrote about it for people who were mostly strangers, because of all that, I figured I wasn’t someone who was wallowing in my wounded-ness. I didn’t blame my parents or my childhood. I felt angry and sad for moments of time, but then I would stuff those feelings as far down as I could. 

I mean, really, what good would it do to feel anything?

Don’t go deep, just stay in the shallows.

I’ve been wondering lately if perhaps as a culture we just don’t go deep. We stay in the shallows. Because it is unseemly to feel things. And especially to feel things and then talk about them.

I’m not sure I feel much of anything these days except bad.

And that ain’t good.

I hear this from many people.

Many beautiful things happen every day of my life. It seems stingy not to feel joy at my fortune. But I think feelings just got in the way: How many years can one feel BAD. If we give away one feeling (the bad feeling), maybe the others go away, too? 

Perhaps that is the greatest journey, the greatest task, to find again the treasure of our feelings.

Or at least my feelings.

When I was young, I believed I was put on this earth to love. I knew this was true because I was so good at it. Good at loving. 

I’m not sure how good I am at it any more. Yet when I do feel that rush of love now, I feel completely WELL. Whole. Holy.

Some days I’m not sure how to put one foot in front of another. When I have no answers. When I can’t let go and just be. I am so uncomfortable. 

Perhaps I need to feel love for my suffering. Perhaps suffering is like some kind of monstrous parent trying to help us get through life.

Pick another way, strange parental unit.

I am tired of my wound. I don’t want to pick at it any longer. I don’t want to focus on it. 

Perhaps I will go treasure hunting instead. Maybe learn to find treasure within. 

And without.

Today I found some kind of aloe vera plant growing near the house here. I love aloe vera plants. I can’t count how many times this plant has healed a part of my body. This particular plant, or bunch of plants, was blooming. I had never seen an aloe vera plant blooming and I was impressed. Coming up from the plump succulent leaves was a stalk and then apricot-colored trumpet-like blossoms fell away from the stalk. This plant was decidedly sexual. I grasped the closed blossoms in one hand and I could feel a kind of pulsing—throbbing? I smiled. Yep. I leaned over and felt the plump dark green leaves, carefully avoiding the tiny spikes on the edges. 

I went and got Mario, and we stood together next to the plant. While we were gazing at the plant, we heard the unmistakable whirr of a hummingbird, but when we looked toward it, it flew away and sat on a nearby cholla tree. She watched us, her head going back and forth, back and forth. I leaned against Mario, and without a word, we stepped back a bit, giving the hummingbird a clearer view of her intended: the aloe vera blossoms. Then we stayed very still. I closed my eyes and told her we intended no harm. We were peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. 

Several minutes later, she flew toward us and the aloe vera blossoms. She dipped her beak up into this blossom and that blossom, her iridescent green feathers catching the sunlight on this cold morning. I stayed close to Mario, feeling his warmth and familiar heft. I listened to the hummingbird’s wings—brrr, brrr, brrr. And I felt such joy and love. Love for this powerful little bird, for the sensual plant, for the earth beneath my feet and the blue, blue sky above, and for the man next to me. 

Ahhh.

What a gift. 

It felt good.

  

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Walking in Prickly Beauty

Once again I am at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. It is named something else by other people, but that's what we call it. It is here where I first learned about the Old Mermaids when they came up out of the wash and told me their stories.

We've been here for nearly two weeks. It's been blue skies most of the time, and yesterday, it finally got warm. We take long walks in the desert; we take short walks in the wash. In the evening, coyotes serenade us. (OK, they're probably serenading each other, but you get the idea.)

At dusk, we often see javelinas. One night when I was taking out the trash (down the long dirt drive to the road) a javelina followed me. She was either looking for love in all the wrong places or she wanted my garbage.

You pick.

I've also seen two road runners, once at the Catholic church near here where Mario and I went to walk the labyrinth. The second time was when I was in the wash. The one at the church seemed a bit thin and too interested in us. The one in the wash took one look at me, raised her tail, and sauntered away.

I believe that was the healthier response.

And of course, the Sanctuary is filled with rabbits and birds and cacti and my beloved agave, and mesquite and palo verde trees.

In the mornings, Mario goes out and writes in the Quail House. When he's finished he returns to the casita. I feed him breakfast. Then I go out to the Quail House and work. When I'm finished, he feeds me lunch. Then we go for a walk.

It is an idyllic life in many ways, these weeks we're here.

The first day I wrote here, on Solstice, I wrote a Old Mermaids Healing Tale. The second day, I wrote 10,000 words on a novel to finish it.

On Christmas, we drove to Scottsdale to be with two of my sisters and their significant others and my father and my aunt Alice. We had a good time, but I was wired the whole day and didn't relax, as is often the case when I see my family for the first time on a visit. Once when I went home to Michigan, I lay curled up in a fetal position for two days. I have no idea why. My family members are good people. We each have our own difficulties, like most people, although we rarely talk about them with each other. There is a tacit agreement, as there is in many families, to keep it light when we're together.

I've never been a keepin' it light kind of person. When I was younger, I always wanted to talk about things, get them out in the open, solve problems. But I've gotten over that. Spilling your guts at a family gathering never does anyone any good as far as I can tell. So mostly I just try to get along and still be myself when I'm with family. I want them all to be healthy and happy, and since I was a kid, I felt responsible for their health and happiness.

I'm not certain if I was born that way or if I was created that way. I remember when it started. It was in first or second grade and one of my teachers took me aside and told me that the other kids looked up to me. I was a natural leader. And if I was nice to Billy (the kid who pooped his pants in class, who always stunk, and who lived with the other poor people in Saxony subdivision), everyone else would follow my lead.

Now I was a naturally shy kid, so I'm not sure if anyone was looking to me for anything, but I listened to my teacher and I was kind to Billy. In fact, I became the little kid (because I was quite small) who was always standing toe to toe with the bullies trying to protect other kids, most especially one of my little sisters who was always getting picked on.

And I was the one who noticed things were wrong long before anyone else did and I'd try to get help. Tried to get help for my pony who was sick (she died). Tried to get help for one of my sisters who was starving herself. Tried to save the killdeer on school property that the boys were always trying to kill.

I was always trying to fix or save something or someone.

In any case, Christmas was wonderful this year and it was difficult. On the way home, in the dark, I heard Judy Garland singing, "Have yourself a very merry Christmas," on the radio, and suddenly I was remembering being a kid singing, "yesterday," while I was on a swing, wishing my life was easier and I was happier. I was about ten years old! As I sat in the car next to Mario, I looked back at my life and I couldn't find one memory where I was happy. I was always so sad. And that realization made me sad. My whole life was just one big pile of unhappiness. Every memory I had was rife with illness and sadness.

When we got back to Tucson and the Sanctuary, I couldn't sleep. My mind raced. I could not turn it off or down. I kept thinking about the day. I should have said this to so and so. I should have said that to so and so. I should have made a better effort. I should have tried to have a conversation with so and so.

Oh. My. Gawd.

I knew it was ridiculous, but I couldn't shut it off.

I got a few hours of sleep and woke up miserable. And I still had a stupid cough from the flu I'd had two weeks earlier. I felt sick and depressed.

I looked at the photos I'd taken Christmas day. As we were leaving Scottsdale, Mario and I had stopped at the Franciscan Renewal Center to walk the labyrinth there. Mario had taken some photos of me. In one I'm on a swing and I'm smiling.

It was the first photo I had seen of myself in probably twenty years where I thought I looked like myself. Where I looked as though I was full of myself--which has always been my goal. I looked at the photo and thought, "Well, I don't look sad there. I look happy. I must be happy." I realized I had been catastrophizing my life, something I was prone to do and something many people with chronic depression and anxiety do. It's all or nothing. I was always sad or I was always happy. It was always bad or it was always good.

For me, it was always bad. And even though I knew it wasn't always bad, since I was often depressed, sad, and/or anxious, it all seemed bad.

I thought about this year. It was a difficult year for me. I felt like I was slip-sliding backwards. I was sick or depressed or anxious the whole year.

At least that's what I thought.

I knew it had been a bad year for many many people. Friends of mine had lost family members. So many other people had lost homes and jobs and life savings. We'd all witnessed the horror of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

I'd finished school but at the end of it, I couldn't find a job. Any jobs in my field were shit jobs. The pay was awful, the hours were awful, and most of jobs were in hovels. I refuse to work for the good of society by having a shit job in a shit building. So that sent me into paroxysms of guilt. I'd just spent a very stressful year going to school. I'd spent our money, plus I'd gotten a loan from one family member and another family member had gifted me with money so that I could go. What had I done? Mario said it would come to something. It would have some meaning and value in our lives eventually.

But I didn't want to end up in the poor house or in the streets, panhandling. (Granted, we don't have poor houses any more.) Ever since I had gotten ill and had to quit my regular day job, I had tried to figure out a way to make a living in this ol' world. I had to do SOMETHING to be of value.

It had been a tough year in other ways, too. But I don't want to list all the crappy things that happened. Then I would have to remember them and relive them. Let's just say the whole year seemed like I was just dragging one foot forward and then jumping two steps back.

But as school ended, I realized two things. One, I realized again (again, again) that I am a storyteller and that's what I'm good at and it's what I want to do. Two, connection with Nature, particularly with plants, was where it was at for me. (Not in a botanical way, per se, but in that 'let's talk to the plants and get groovy' kind of way.)

Mario and I had launched Green Snake Publishing in the fall of 2010. We started out slow, but then after I got out of school this summer, we went crazy full speed ahead.

In the winter, we had published a new edition of Coyote Cowgirl. The cover design for that was a nightmare, at first. I knew what I wanted, but it wasn't coming out right. I was the concept person and then Mario had to bring my concept into reality. He didn't like doing it, and it wasn't fun for either of us. We wondered how we were going to proceed if every book was going to be this labor intensive.

Fortunately I have a friend who is a brilliant artist and we asked her to design a couple of our covers. She created a cover for Deathmark that we loved. This was a relief, to know we had someone to call on should we need it. She also did the cover art for The Gaia Websters.

But I also started playing with cover art. I love textures on book covers. I also like simple covers. We struggled with a concept for the cover of the reprint of The Jigsaw Woman. And then one day I took a clay statue I had made of Eriskegal (who is in Jigsaw Woman) and some indigo colored cloth and I put them together and took some photos. To us, they were stunning, and one of the photos became the cover art for The Jigsaw Woman.

The same thing happened with The Blue Tail. I knew what I wanted, but I wasn't able to convey my ideas very successfully to Mario or our cover artist, so I wasn't getting the cover art I wanted. I decided to start taking some photographs of mermaid tails and see what I could come up with. I had a green mermaid ornament. I put her on a green Fiesta plate. I took many shots. I found a couple I liked and then I changed their color to blue. Once again I loved the cover.

This happened again and again. I'd come up with a cover idea, and I was able to create the art myself and then Mario was able to design the cover. This was so freeing, especially since I had had some covers I was quite displeased with on books that had been published by major publishers.

We also found some proofreaders to help us with production. I loved being able to pay people to work with us. I have always wanted to have a business where I could help support my community members. Unfortunately, we just weren't making enough money (yet) to continue to pay for cover art or proofreading. Fortunately, someone who does proofreading at her work offered to help us (for free!), plus Mario and I continued to proofread. Since I've found typos and copyediting mistakes in all of my previously published books, I figured the three of us proofing each novel couldn't do any worse.

As I wrote in "The Making of an Indie Writer," I began to love writing and publishing again. I stopped worrying about the length of my novels. I tend to write shorter novels. Since Green Snake Publishing doesn't care about length, I could write a long or a short novel, depending on what the story merited.

I read the novel I had written last winter, The Desert Siren, and loved it. I wrote Butch, a novel I had been wanting to write to years.

My writing life was blossoming again.

And yet in other parts of my life, I was still struggling. I started a permaculture guild in my community, but there was trouble in paradise right away. At first people wanted to be involved, but then hardly anyone was involved. And then when the Occupy movement came to the gorge, some people in the guild got offended by any mention of it and wanted gone, gone, gone from the permaculture guild.

I was thrilled by the Occupy movement. After years of activism, I was exhausted. I didn't feel as though I had ever accomplished much. Seeing a new generation--and all generations--stand up for themselves and the environment was invigorating. I went down to Occupy Portland a few times.

I was also shocked by the invective directed at the Occupy movement. Here we were trying to make our country more democratic, more fair, more equitable for everyone, and so many people were just hateful towards us. I had someone in my own family write, "Let them come down here and we'll put them six feet under." When I pointed out that he was threatening my life, he continued to rant about how "they" should leave and go to another country.

What?

I was appalled by the ignorance. Our country is based in revolution, and pointing out what is wrong has always been a part of who were are as a nation.

Paradigm shifts are never easy.

Where was I going with all of this?

Was it a terrible year?

Yes.

Was it a wonderful year?

Yes.

I'm in the desert now. It's been a tough couple of weeks. I apparently somatize absolutely every feeling I have. Since I've been here I've had a cough, my feet have hurt, my hip has hurt, my back has hurt, and I've had insomnia.

I really think it would be easier on everyone if I just felt my feelings, whatever they are.

I am in the desert.

I love the desert.

I used to loathe it.

I love where I live in the Pacific Northwest. When I walk the great old forests, I feel as though anything is possible. I feel dwarfed by the bigness, by the awesomeness of the woods or the ocean or the rivers. I am a child or a bug or a puff of air. Small and probably insignificant.

When I am in the Southwest, I feel loved and accepted. I walk amongst prickly plants here. They all have prickles. I rubbed mesquite leaves across my cheek yesterday. They were nearly as soft as mullein leaves. And right there by the leaves was a thorn. Could have cut my cheek deep if I'd rubbed my face a little differently.

Everything is prickly here with a soft center.

I can relate.

Just call me Briar Rose. Not because I fell to sleep for a hundred years, but because I am covered in thorns.

When I lived in Tucson twenty-five years ago, I did not like it here. I hated it. I always liked the desert, but it scared me. That was the proper attitude. I love the desert. I feel at home in the desert. I feel welcomed in the desert. But I don't romanticize it. I know I could be dead in minutes should I get bitten by a snake. I could be dead in hours if I got lost on a hot summer day. I have to be alert. You can't let your mind wander in the desert. It is a constant teaching about being in the present.

The desert is a place for old warriors. A place for edge dwellers and crazy people. A place for peace mongers. A place for old dogs and new tricks.

I feel loved in the desert. Did I say that? Accepted.

I am battered and beaten up. My broken nose makes me look like one of those punch-drunk fighters. The white hair marks me as a desert dweller.

I fit in here.

The desert is where people throw trash, dead bodies, and beer bottles.

The desert is where some of us go to learn the language of our souls again.

For this coming year, I want to learn how not to be buffeted so much by the storms of my life. I want to be more Zen, in touch with the Tao, a more 'be in the now, baby' kind of person.

Really, I just want to be more myself. I can't believe myself was destined for such a life of sadness and illness. But whatever happens to me, I'd like to get my mind right.

What I've tried over the years hasn't worked.

Or maybe it has. I've gotten here. I'm sitting across from the man I love. I am surrounded by beauty. Prickly beauty.

My kind of beauty?

This next year, I hope to walk, dance, play, and write in beauty. I hope it's an easier year for everyone.

This next year, I'm not going to try to save the world. I'm not going to try to save anyone.

Perhaps I will save myself?

This next year, I don't want to just survive: I want to thrive.

I wish the same for you.

May it be so.

Read more here...

Some Pics

After a family reunion this weekend, we decided to drive up to Sedona. Fortunately, there was room at the particular inn we stay at. I love Sedona. And what I love about it is being outside, walking amongst the rocks and trees. I felt very relaxed and happy there. Next year we might have to move the Sanctuary up to Sedona for at least part of the time. I took some pics. You can look at them here.

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Sink or Swim

I'm sitting in the Quail House looking out at a forest of cholla trees. One lone scraggly creosote branch grows up between them all. Above, and nearly all around, is blue, blue sky.

Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy are singing "Adieu False Heart" on my computer and the hepa-VOC filter whirs behind me, muffling the sound of machinery that breaks the quiet on the sanctuary today.

Before I began to write this morning, I stood outside to talk to the Desert and all her creatures. I could almost feel the motion of the Old Sea beneath my feet and all around me. I nearly always hear a siren song in this desert--and often I feel at a loss as how to interpret it.

This year has been a tough one on the sanctuary for me. I'm not sure why. Three winters ago, we only spent a couple weeks here, trying to recover from the sudden death of my mother. Last year, my father had major open heart surgery, and every day I came into this Quail House and sang a healing song for my father. I had a knot in my stomach the whole time. I started a novel, The Rift, but I never finished it here and I've never been back to it.

This year, I thought it would be great because my family was safe and sound, knock wood.

But I have felt anxious the whole time, and I haven't felt physically well. I was angry because I didn't feel well. I struggled with asthma every time I took a walk; I had a sinus infection and one cold sore after another. On top of it all, I had this sinking feeling that I was failing at everything.

Mostly I was exhausted from a year of changing my whole life again and again and again.

Maybe not my whole life, but a lot of it.

I changed too many things to go into now.

Let's just say it was a rocky year, and the first few weeks at the sanctuary seemed to mirror this rocky road. I felt crappy and crappier.

And then last Saturday morning, Mario happened to look at cnn on his computer and he found out there had been a shooting at a Safeway in Tucson a few miles from here and Representative Gabrielle Giffords had been shot along with many others.

I started to cry. We don't have a TV here, or a radio that works, so I searched desperately online for news. I knew little about Gabrielle Giffords. The ranchers I interviewed for my jaguar book had said Giffords had tried to help them out with the problems they were having on the border. I didn't know if she was a Republican or Democrat at first. I didn't care. I was just horrified that once again someone had gone on a shooting spree.

I wasn't surprised it had happened. I had been holding my breath since the presidential election, in fear that someone was going to go after one of our elected officials.

I had seen it before. I was nine when President Kennedy was murdered. When it happened, I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming: I couldn't believe someone would kill the president.

And then Martin Luther King was murdered. And Bobby Kennedy.

I grew up as a witness to so much violence in our country. My formative years were the sixties, and the entire world--beyond our little house in the country--seemed tinged in bloody violence.

It also seemed that any time a Democrat became president, the crazies came out of the woodwork, frothing at the mouth and bent on vengeance.

But vengeance for what? It was as though an entire segment of our country felt entitled to rule the world. Elections didn't matter. They wanted their people in office no matter what. When it didn't happen, they went crazy. Or they took off their tin hats and the crazy happened.

I was such a bleeding heart liberal that I was always disappointed with whomever was elected. They were never liberal enough for me. I couldn't understand why everyone didn't want a safe and clean environment. I couldn't understand why it mattered to anyone if someone else was gay. I couldn't understand why it mattered to anyone whether someone who was pregnant decided to terminate her pregnancy.

So no one fit my particular bill.

But just because they didn't agree with me didn't mean I felt any violence toward them.

For many years, I loathed the government, and I wasn't shy about saying so. It seemed like every politician was bought and paid for by some corporation. It didn't seem like anyone was working for what I cared about.

Then the Oklahoma City bombing occurred. When they arrested Timothy McVeigh, they kept mentioning that he had anti-government sentiments. I remember standing in front of the television looking at the smoldering Murrah building and thinking, I am not like him, I am NOT like him. I had criticisms of the government, but I was not like him.

And yet, I was making broad judgments about people. I wasn't working to change anything in my community at that particular time. I was just complaining.

I decided then and there that I would be careful with my words.

I would no longer dismiss every politician just because. I would no longer badmouth the government just to badmouth "it." The government was made up of we the people. We were the government.

During the Bush years, I was appalled by what he and his administration did. I was repulsed. I was furious. I felt that many of their policies were anathema to what our country was. But I never wished any of them ill. I wanted them out of government because they weren't re-elected. And I worked hard in our peace group. I worked hard to get politicians elected who were more in line with what I believed.

When Barack Obama became president, it seemed like even more crazies came out of the woodwork than they did when Clinton was elected. Only now they had a television network dedicated just to them. They had radio personalities urging them on. I was afraid someone was going to get shot. The anti-immigrant rhetoric, especially in Arizona, was frightening. I had lived in Arizona twenty-five years ago, and the politics then were strange and bigoted. (The governor wouldn't even recognize Martin Luther King Day.) Now it all seemed even more volatile.

This is a long way of saying that I wasn't surprised when I heard about the shooting in Safeway. I was appalled, grief-stricken, horrified, but I was not surprised.

I had seen too much of this over my life time.

I'm exhausted thinking about all of this. More and more I feel out of step with the world. I hear more and more people say they don't like people and they can't stand being around other people.

I keep thinking of this old science fiction story I read thirty plus years ago where no one ever left their homes. They stayed inside, isolated from everyone else.

I'm always wary when someone says they don't like people, when someone says they would much rather spend time with animals. I love domestic animals like I love people: one at a time. I am most comfortable in the wild, communing with the wild things, the plants, animals, the Invisibles. But I understand that human beings are my tribe. If I hate people, then I hate myself.

It seems so easy to say, "I love animals." It's like saying you love being around a nine-month-old child. A baby can't question or judge us, neither can animals.

Are we are forgetting how to have relationships with other people? Are we forgetting how to be in community with others of our own kind?

Relationships with other human beings are difficult. But don't we have to figure it out? I mean, we can't live without each other. We're either going to sink together or learn to swim together.

After a lifetime of living around violence, I am nearly always on the lookout for it. It's understandable. In every group of women I've ever been with, nearly all of them have either been raped or sexually abused as children. Nearly all of them have been a victim of some kind of violence over the years. I am wary most of the time--and I think it's smart to careful.

But there is a difference between being careful and hating other people.

A few days after the shooting at Safeway last Saturday, Mario and I went out to a movie here in Tucson. I had brought a stone with me, a little moss agate. I dropped it in the middle of the movie. After the movie was over and the lights came up, I started looking for this little stone. Immediately, three or four people started looking with me. These complete strangers were crouched down looking at the filthy floor, trying to find my little fifty cent stone.

I was so moved by this act of kindness and I felt such love for these strangers that I wanted to hug each and every one.

I restrained myself.

We never did find the stone. But I felt buoyed by the experience.

I don't know what I'm trying to say.

I'm sorry there's so much violence.

I'm sorry all those people were killed.

I hope beyond hope that the crazies out there will settle down. Take a chill pill. Help someone find their lost rocks.

I am going to try to be better at forging relationships with people. It's difficult. I have to learn to go with someone else's flow. I'd rather hide sometimes. Or at least I'd rather write a book. That seems much easier.

So often when I'm around people, I feel a little seasick. But then, even when I'm not around people, I feel a little seasick. Maybe it's not them; maybe it's me.

In either case, I'm going to dive right in.

Maybe I should learn to swim first.

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