American Girl in Airport Atrium

I have received a compliment on my bag and a free mocha. The free mocha was thanks to Dilettante Chocolate making a mocha instead of a hot chocolate for a young woman and then giving her both, so she was determined to give one away. “You’re doing me a favor,” she said.

I have a seat at a table looking out on duplicate faces on the tails of Alaska Airlines planes, with pine trees and mist beyond. A mobile of fish and birds hangs over the heads of the quietly munching travelers. A woman in a checked dress plays “An American Girl,” making her own band by recording tracks of herself on tambourine, keyboard, and drumsticks. Ah, the skill required to lose yourself in music in an airport atrium, between Wendy’s and Starbucks.

The woods I left early this morning already seem far away.

The Three Gifts of Epiphany

A friend recently forwarded me an article about the Magi from a pagan angle, written by Erick DuPree (http://wildhunt.org/2017/12/column-we-the-magi.html). I appreciate the idea that these three wise people (could they have been women?) traveled a great distance to affirm the one-ness of different spiritual traditions. 

These Magi were not Jewish, but they came to honor the “King of the Jews.” As DuPree puts it, “When the Bible tells that the Magi, upon seeing Jesus, ‘bowed low in homage to him,’ it wasn’t about believing that Jesus’ spiritual tradition was more valuable than theirs, but instead bowing to one another out of mutual respect. It was an Epiphany – a profound, intuitive realization that people from all spiritual paths have gifts to give one another.” And the path can be long and arduous—it can take 12 days of crossing deserts and mountains from who-kn0ws-where to be able to share a gift. All inspired by faith in a star in the sky. 

The gifts the Magi gave symbolize regal power (gold), priestly power (frankincense), and the power of death and the after-life (myrrh, used to anoint the dead). Could these be interpreted as practical power, mystical power, and the power of bridging those worlds, as in the border between life and death? What more can we give our children and ourselves but these three things: grounding, soaring, and crossing between states of being with grace? 

Perhaps the Magi carry keys to any spiritual path. If we seek those three gifts, to give and to receive, what star must we follow? What journeys must we take? 

Jacob Rufus Marley Chicken-Bone Mt Fuji McRae-Clark

He is 15 and a half years old, which makes him over 100 in German shepherd/Rhodesian ridgeback years. He walks with a stiff front right leg. When he stands still, his hips sag down, protesting the effort required to stay parallel to his long spine. His soulful brown eyes are cloudy. His hearing is supremely selective.

He was my husband's dog first. I met him, Jake the dog, when he was 5 years old. Now he follows me from one room to another, painfully. He does not want to be left behind or left out. He likes to know where everyone is. My husband and I do not take overnight trips together anymore, so one of us is always with him at bedtime.

We dismantled our bed frame so Jake can get on and off the mattress easily. We tried making him sleep on the floor, but he paced and none of us got any sleep. We get up many times during the night to let him out and clean up his poop, which lands on the bed or the floor and only very rarely on the ground outside. Sometimes he ends up lying in his poop. As I apply multiple baby wipes to clean his fur, I wonder, has his time come and should we let him go?

I have guilty fantasies of going on extended family vacations, and of getting a solid night's sleep. But then he eats his special dishes with gusto--scrambled eggs and baked sweet potatoes are his favorites these days. He comforts my daughter when she cries. He sticks his nose right up to her face, as if to smell the content of her tears, to understand her better. How can we end this?

Now, spring, now

Yes, it is time.
The clocks have sprung; the sun returns.
Now, spring, now.
Do not wait any longer.
Give us to the froth of the waves,
Delaying moonlight.

But what lingers?
The need for a cool, dark cave,
with earthen floor and flickering fire.

I fold my wings.
I know they are meant to fly,
but winter has ground my heart into powder
gold--useful,
but not for the normal purposes of the heart.
Spring, can you return the egg
before the fall?

The Otter

A morning walk on the beach. At the end of the sandy spit, I see a head in the water, gliding toward me. It dips and a sleek brown body undulates behind. It comes straight toward me, reappearing 10 feet or so closer each time it surfaces until it is perhaps six feet off shore. Then it veers out into the bay, facing south toward Mt Rainier and the rising winter sun.

Fairies of Hanukkah

My daughter made her first menorah, or hanukiah, this year by gluing small silver nuts, as candleholders, on the inside of an empty Altoid box. Two nuts stacked on top of each other made a place for the shammas candle. Birthday candles just fit. This was an activity at the local Jewish community Hanukkah party.

Since we just started exploring Jewish traditions in our family, we don't have a fancy menorah. The Altoid box is what we put out on the table each night. We don't know all the words to the traditional prayers, so we say what we can remember and make up some impromptu tributes to the light. My daughter thinks of fairies when she thinks of blessing candles, so our Hanukkah prayers have strong echoes of woodland paganism.

I tried making latkes for the first time tonight, on the fourth night of Hanukkah. Achieving the right crispness clearly requires more practice.

Oh, Fairies of Light, forgive us the soggy latkes!

Election Week

In Port Townsend, Election Day was unseasonably sunny and warm. I had lunch with a friend on lawn chairs outside, faces turned to the sun. We talked about finding our voices and supporting the empowerment of our daughters. 

The day after the election it rained. And rained. And rained some more.

The day after the day after the election, across Port Townsend Bay, fog shrouded Indian Island, so I could only see the top of the giant crane at the military loading dock, where it sits poised, waiting for disaster. 

The fog burned off. The moon came out. I learned that Leonard Cohen died. We have given up Manhattan.