Local news at 11:49

Got home last week and leaving again on Monday. I am totally dazed but no matter. I must do it. Must get to Portland to visit Baby T before she leaves for college which, at the rate she's growing, is coming up waaaaaaaaaaaay too fast.

But the birds in the Bird Park are none to happy about my travels. I've been gone most of the time since September but the 7 o'clock Magpie faithfully continued checking in. She's been doing it for years now. The gulp of magpies only figure out that I am home several days after my return. Until then, she pretty much has the place to herself although no one seems to be suffering without me. Even the one legged magpie is fat. They all have stomachs somewhere between the size of a large navel orange and a small (okay very small) grapefruit.


The latest Bird Park sensation has been blobs of sugar free cherry jam. Yum. And leftover oatmeal. Not so yum but gone by noon. Oh and apples. Everyone likes the apples. Magpies hog them so I have to put several out to keep everyone happy. As is their fashion, the quail share. Seems the Bird Park has settled into being their wintering ground and spring hook-up scene, the quail version of Maui at spring break. The evil neighborhood fat cats make it a less than hospitable place to bring the family, at least when the kids are still the size of golf balls. The cats eat them like popcorn. I should put a sign on the fence like the ones you see at carnivals. You know the kind only it would read... YOU MUST BE AS TALL AS AN APPLE TO ENTER.

And so

Hexagram 58
THE IMAGE

Lakes resting one on the other:
The image of THE JOYOUS.
Thus the superior man joins with his friends
For discussion and practice.

Along came a spider

Little Miss Muffet got it all wrong.



The spider was just a happy little dude checking out the world.

Prostitute Mickey

Prostitute Mickey 1

OMFG...a part of me just died but I can't stop laughing. WTF?
And, as though I'm not already curled up in a ball weeping, I immediately watched

Prostitute Mickey 2

My tree

I spent most of the day in Ashland today, my old home town and place I raised my children. It rained and even the melancholy of the rain was comforting. After lunch with a friend, I got coffee at Bloomsbury Books and waited until it was time to pick up another friend and take him to Fight Night at my in-laws... pizza, cake, ice cream and boxing. It's a tradition, Fight Night.

My tree today

I also visited my tree today. To some degree I measure my life by this tree, or at least my life since that Easter Sunday some 25 years ago when I sat under it and and experienced a "moment of truth". My tree lives in Lithia Park and, at the time, was just big enough to sit under and shelter me from the passing world from which I felt so estranged. Ever since that day, and even though we moved to Nevada, I visit it occasionally to see how it's doing. At this point, it is one of my oldest friends.

Unfortunately, my tree stands at the edge of a playground so its early years were especially hard. Kids can be brutal to young trees, grabbing and breaking branches but, in spite of all that, it is a lucky tree. It also grows close to Lithia Creek and the sloping bank has, for the most part, protected it from the children. Otherwise, I think they would have mauled it to death by now or at least mutilated and dwarfed it.

For several years it looked so sickly I was afraid it would die. Perhaps it took awhile for the roots to reach the creek. And one year I discovered that the top of its trunk had somehow broken over and died. It hung down black and bare into the lower branches. That was a desperate time. I was afraid the gardeners might cut the tree down but, like I said, it is a very lucky tree. Instead they have pruned it back to health. These days, it is looking really good, even with the new forked top. It seems shorter and bushier than normal but it is still growing upward. That's the important thing. Today I saw that the gardeners have pruned away some of its lower branches, the ones facing the playground. I am guessing that is so people can more easily sit in its shelter. It is a very accommodating tree.

Lithia Park's official photo

(That's my tree on the left peeking through
the autumn leaves from the other side of the bridge.)

And my tree was there when I released the remains of my uncle, John Chance, into the snow melt rage of Lithia Creek. The shocking wild flash of ashes turned the creek suddenly white, lingered a moment in the flow as though they didn't want to go, then vanished. My tree holds the memory for me. It's what friends do.

From Beatitude Magazine

Midnight notes along the way

Blue lantern on San Pablo Ave.

After the memorial last Sunday we stayed in the Bay Area a couple more days so Monday night I read poetry at an open mic in Berkeley. It's a weekly event hosted by Poetry Express at the Priya restaurant. I read there last spring. They are a good bunch of friendly, open-minded dedicated writers and it was nice to be back even though I didn't talk to anyone, just read and when it was over, left. I dedicated my reading to Philip. We're in Oregon now. We were going to return to Nevada in the morning but a new storm changed our plans. Looks like we'll be here until at least Sunday.

Philip John Chance, RIP

He died on Halloween and his memorial was on a blue moon and that seems about right.

source

We went to my cousin Philip's memorial in Lafayette today. He was recuperating from a cycling accident in August then died from a blunt force trauma to the head in the nursing home. He was 53. Police are investigating.

The program from the memorial reads...

"Thank you for coming to remember Philip, the good, the living on the edge, and that he had the courage to even survive as long as he did. We ask that you awaken and practice moments of kindness."

He was brilliant, alcoholic, often homeless (unless you accept the fact that the forest was his home) and apparently lost (unless you accept that he followed his drummer through the Arizona mountains for last 30 years of his life on his bicycle because wanting to and having to were the same thing). I just don't believe it has to cost you your life.

When words slip away

In the course of dying from a rare affliction which will first rob him of language, art critic and artist Tom Lubbock recently published excerpts from his memoir of the experience in the Guardian. It is well worth reading and, especially, I think, if you are a writer. Over the course of his disease he reverts to pure poetry, the first and last link, the voice of the soul.

Postscript:
Tom Lubbock died 9 January 2011. His obituary was published in the Guardian UK. If you do nothing else, read the end, Tom's final words.

Navel Gazing and Rambling at 8:38

Okay. I don't really want to be doing this but water has to go somewhere and we know it seeks the lowest level which, at this moment, translates into me slouched in my chair staring at the monitor, palms of my hands resting on keyboard, typing whatever comes into my head, the sounds of the house in background ... the squeaking of Mr. Lee's chair in the next room, the tapping of his keyboard, the whir of the fans in the laptop to my right and the quieter fans in the tower under my desk. There is also a low level hum in the walls. I don't know what it is. The heat's not on. Just a hum. Can you hear electricity in the walls? I sometimes think I can. Maybe it's just the tower. And then there's the infernal ringing in my right ear. When we were in Costa Rica recently, I realized that the ringing in my ears sounds exactly like the high pitched toneless buzzing of insects in the jungle. I don't know which insect, maybe some kind of jungle cricket, but the sounds are identical. That is some comfort actually because I like the sound of insects in the jungle and really don't like the ringing in my ear. I do my best to not obsess about it. Obsessing about it is definitely not a good thing so when I discovered the similarity between the buzzing in the jungle and the ringing in my ear, it was a relief. But enough about the ringing. Like I say, I don't want to obsess about it. I have that tendency. I am listening to the buzzing jungle.

Gustavo didn't seem to mind

So on to better things. What else grabs my attention this evening? I am too full, too hot and tired but it's too early early to sleep. I am too hot because the house is too cold so I have too many clothes on to stay warm. But now I'm hot. Which brings me to the thought that there must be a lot of people in the world who, in spite of the ringing in my ears, would be grateful to change places with me. People who are starving or cold or both. God. Life is fucked up. And this brings me to Catholic Guilt. I'm not a catholic anymore but seems most of us Xs never get free of the damn guilt. Which reminds me of my patron saint. You might wonder why I have a patron saint being an X catholic. Aren't saints basically a catholic thing? Actually, I'm an X everything. These days I don't trust any dogma. However, when we were in Oaxaca a few years ago I found a saint I can do business with. My son was in the military at the time and overseas on a peace keeping mission. The entire time he was gone I lived in an undertow of deep unrest but sitting with Gustavo in the corner of that old stone church gave me some comfort. I didn't use the kneeler. Gustavo isn't that kind a saint. I sat in the chair.

Gustavo helped me sit with it

Actually, I'm not sure his name is Gustavo. There was a tombstone looking slab set into the floor or wall, I can't remember which, with the name Gustavo Santa Ana caved into it so I call him Gustavo. I spent a lot of time there. I even wrote a couple of poem based on the place and named them both Contact Language although one is subtitled letter 611. I've been thinking about Gustavo on and off these last few days. I wish I were in Oaxaca. I feel like sitting in the gloom with him. I googled Gustavo Santa Ana just now and, although I found nothing on my Gustavo, I came across an article in the Orange County Weekly Navel Gazing section by Gustavo Arellano announcing that Jesus Christ Himself will be at the Santa Ana Artists' Village tomorrow to join the protest against the God Hates Fags protest Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church are waging against the Artists' Village because the theater is staging The Laramie Project, a gay-rights themed play. Just sayin.