14 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
(a letter of self-worth)
Yes you, you who thinks you are not enough.
You who tries tirelessly
to do everything you can to show that you are deserving of love,
worthy to be here in this world,
but always worrying that it is not enough.
You that feels it is what you are able to do that shows your value instead of who you are.
10 Sunday Mar 2013
Posted in Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Memoir, Writing
Lately I’ve become obsessed by scent. Perfume, to be more precise. I seldom wear it and know little of it, which is why this obsession is so strange.
It all started with the quest to find the perfect perfume for my daughter’s bridal shower a few months ago. I wanted something intimate and earthy, something that would literally become her. A signature scent that would be all her own, by which she and others would identify her. It had to be perfect, like her–warm and rich and exciting, and deeply satisfying. Something that made you want more. That you would never forget and never forget wanting.
And in this quest I tumbled down a rabbit hole into a rich and sensual world where one single sense seldom privileged—smell—was given full rein to romp and roam and sate itself in scent.
We humans rarely give ourselves that pleasure. We privilege sight, touch, sound, taste, and the feel of things. Poor scent is a step-child to the other senses, neglected, forgotten. Not so for other species where the sense of smell is primary with a full palette of colors and a symphony of sounds.
Often when I sit on our front patio overlooking the surrounding hills and valley below, my little dog sits with me, looking out as if as mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape as I am. She seems totally enraptured, her nose raised, nostrils quivering, her whole body trembling in delight. But she’s reveling in smell not sight. She’s drinking in that delicious flood of scents flowing uphill from the valley below.
I imagine her savoring each scent the way we savor each note when listening to a symphony, carried away by the trill of arpeggios, deep thundering drums, long sweet notes like violin strings, the soft low moans of cellos, blasting trumpets, cascading piano keys, all washing over her, tumbling together, fading away, like movements in a symphony of scent that I am deaf to. How I envy her!
We’ve long known how smell and taste are intricately connected—in fact, we can distinguish far more flavors through smell alone—inhaling and exhaling—than we can by our tongues.
What’s new and interesting is how scientists are discovering a similar interconnection between smell and sound that gives rise to a new sensory perception quaintly coined “smound.” If this new science bears out it will only confirm the old science. In 1862, the perfumer G. W. Septimus Piesse noted how “Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees,” and he developed an “octave of odour” to measure those scents.
Musical metaphors are used in describing perfumes, which are said to have three sets of “notes” that unfold over time, each interacting with the others to create a “harmonious scent accord.”
As I wandered along countless cosmetic counters in the search for the perfect perfume for my daughter, spraying sample scents on slips of paper and waving them in the air, or daubing them on my wrists and forearms and inner elbow, knowing how scents change when applied to skin, mixing with our natural pheromones and warm pulses, I was savoring those musical notes: light florals steeped with sandalwood floating on a musky base. Amber and lotus blossoms with a hint of peach. Cardamom married to rosewood. Lavender and rosemary. Vanilla and violets dampened by oak moss.
But there was more to the whole process than scent–the name had to be perfect too, evocative and mysterious, lyrical and alluring. The shape of the bottle had to be sensual or simple, daring or dreamy, as fitted the fragrance and the name. It all had to flow together.
I finally found it, amazingly. The perfect perfume for my perfect daughter. She loves it, and her lover loves her in it. So I’m happy. But still hungry.
Still wanting more. More of my own to daub on earlobe and wrist, to line along the window sill like colored glass or exotic orchids. Scents to soothe and stir, arouse and savor.
I want to collect scents the way I do books. To sit quietly, alluringly, on my shelf, its richness and beauty and promise in full display, just waiting, waiting, waiting, for the perfect moment when I take it in my hands and lift the stopper and let the initial scent rise, and all its sweet layering, lingering notes play over me again and again.
I want scent to light up every neuron in my body. To flow through me, light and airy, like champagne bubbles. I want to hear it taste it see it feel it popping all about me.
I want, I want to be. Sated in scent.
03 Sunday Mar 2013
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tags
Big Sur, Carmel, Elephant Seals, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, McWay Falls, Nature, Photography. Redwood trees, Waterfall
One of my favorite places to visit is the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur, a two-hour drive from our home. There you can find not only 300-foot (90 m) redwoods which are over 2,500 years old, but an 80-foot waterfall that drops into a protected cove, one of the few waterfalls that empty directly into the ocean. The masthead photo on this blog is of the McWay Falls.
Recently I had the pleasure of taking some out-of-state guests there. Following are photos from our trip.
The drive to the park on Highway 1, winding along the coastline high above the Pacific Ocean, is one most spectacular that you will find anywhere in the world.
Here you can see the highway hugging the coastline. Often it is washed out by rains and mudslides in the winter.
Along the way are glimpses of beautiful coves and beaches and wild flowers..
Julia Pfeiffer Park is located 27 miles south of Carmel. It spans the highway with redwoods groves and picnic areas on one side, skirting the McFall River.
My cousin shows off one of the largest, and perhaps oldest, of the redwoods found in the park.
Visitors can walk through a tunnel under the highway to find trails leading past the falls up to where a home once stood with fantastic views of the ocean to the north and south.
This home had been build by the former U.S. House Representative Lathrop Brown and his wife Helen who acquired the property in 1924. In 1961 they bequeathed the property to the State of California and dedicated it to their friend and neighbor Julia Pfeiffer Burns. They requested their home to be demolished, so only a stone foundation remains.
This is the view from their home to the north. The water colors are some of the most beautiful I’ve seen since traveling in the South Pacific.
A closer view of the northern shoreline.
Here is the view of the McWay Falls through the trees from where the house once stood. Closer views of the falls along the trail follow.
The drive home is no less spectacular, passing along homes built along the hillsides, then dropping down to sea level where we find Elephant Seal Beach, and a peek of Hearst Castle.
Elephant Seal Beach is a protected sanctuary with docents available to answer questions. It’s a few miles north of Cambria along Highway 1, before the climb up to Big Sur.
A chummy clan.
Here you see a bull, its mates, and a baby.
A peak of Hearst Castle high on the mountain top. Soon after this view we turn away from the coast, passing through these mountains to our own hillside home on the other side.
23 Saturday Feb 2013
Posted in Art, Poetry, Recommended Books, Spirituality, The Writing Process, Writing
Tags
beauty, Impermanence, Japanese art, poetry, Wabi Sabi, writing
One of the things I love most about reading is discovering in another’s words something about myself that I had never realized or articulated in quite that way. Even more rewarding is finding this coming in a serendipitous way, as happened this morning.
I was searching for the poem “Joy Ride” by a blogger called “Wabi Sabi”, a poem I had read recently but failed to save. In my search I came across other blogs featuring the practice of wabi sabi and stumbled upon a book called “Wabi Sabi for Writers” by Richard R. Powell. I was struck by how he seemed to describe my writing practice in a way I had not yet realized.
Now I had long been fascinated by the idea of wabi sabi, the perfection of imperfect things, how the little seeming flaws in things add character and beauty and depth. But I hadn’t realized how much it influenced my writing.
Contemporary wabi-sabi tea bowl (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On my shelf is the book “Wabi Sabi –The Japanese Art of Impermanence” by Andrew Juniper, which I took out again to revisit. He writes of how difficult it is to define the term: “Wabi Sabi is an aesthetic philosophy so intangible and so shrouded in centuries of mystery that even the most ambitious Japanese scholars would give it a wide berth . . . talking about it only in the most poetic terms.” He goes on to say that it “seeks beauty in the imperfections found as all things, in a constant state of flux, evolve from nothing and devolve back to nothing.”
This description struck a chord with me. It is an idea that I return to often in my writing, what I was trying to capture in my post on fog and mist when I wrote:
“I think photos of mist and fog speak to me because they ring true. They reveal in stark and dreamy notes how ephemeral it all is, this life we live, the forms and forces of nature. All in flux, in constant motion, emerging and dissolving over and over, without end.
For what could be more constant and eternal than the fleeting? Or that which emerges, fragile and half-formed, from the fertile wombs of earth and stars, seas and seeds, dreams and desires and the lusts of ages that brought us all to the brink of being.”
The post on “Birthing and Rebirthing” attempts this as well. I wrote:
“We live in a universe of relationships in which everything is connected to and influenced by its surroundings. We are all tumbling together in the wash of time and space, breaking against and polishing each other. Shedding what we were in becoming what we will be.
What if all we are is a constantly becoming with no end in sight, with endless sights and sounds and relationships and experiences to sculpt and renew us? Birthing and rebirthing each other, over and over, ad infinitum, en potentia.”
Juniper also tells the story of the monk caught between two hungry tigers who reaches for a wild strawberry and savors its sweetness, right there while facing his own impending death. He claims wabi sabi is like this tale, “an expression of the beauty that lies in the brief transition between the coming and going of life, both the joy and melancholy that make up our lot as humans.”
Without remembering where I first heard this tale, I wrote about it in my post “A Deer’s Scream, My Mother’s Eyes, and a Ripe Strawberry.” I end the post with this:
“Perhaps at the very end, when there finally is no escape from death, like that deer, like my mother, and that awful inevitable conclusion chasing us down grabs hold, and there truly is no escaping, something unimaginable happens. Some unseen hand plucks us like a ripe strawberry from the jaws of death and swallows us whole, savoring all the sweetness of our brief lives, and reaffirming with a sigh, “Oh, so delicious!”
In his introduction to the book “Wabi Sabi for Writers” Powell writes about how a “heightened awareness of both beauty and suffering leads some people to despair,” and how to move beyond that.
One way to understand Sabi is to see it as a step beyond sensitivity to things, to see it as a deep awareness of the poetry at the heart of all things. The curious magic of this literary awareness is that while you are focused on the poetry in each object of attachment, your ego is quieted. To have a sabi mind you allow ego to rest in this un-voiced poetry. This new understanding of Sabi as an antidote to despair was Basho’s most important discovery. Sabi, he realized, was central to the Way of Elegance.
The Way of Elegance encourages a creative response to challenge and difficulty and produces eccentricity, pluckiness, fortitude, and resourcefulness. Yet sabi by itself can be overdone. The depth and character that comes from this clear-minded approach to life can make you feel mature, seasoned, and even superior. This is where wabi comes in. Wabi is the humbling factor, the stabilizing reality of the vastness and complexity of nature and our own place in it. When the two are balanced, they produce a lightness in a writer’s work which Basho called “karumi.”
Finding that balance between the beauty and fragility of things without falling through the gap into despair, is something that I strive for, in life as well as in my writing. But it’s not always easy, as I write in “Saving, and Savoring, the World.”
“The unbearable lightness of being,” is how I think of it. I’ve always loved Milan Kundera’s novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” but I fell in love with the title long before I ever read the book. The word “unbearable” can mean something so heavy and burdensome that we can barely bear up beneath it. But it can also mean something so ineffably sweet that we can barely contain our joy. It’s the second meaning that resonates with me.
It is this quality that made me fall in love with the poem “Joy Ride” by Wabi Sabi.
I finally found the link so you can read it here. The poem is all about the “impossible joy-ride” we embark upon at our “naked, gasping birth.” Here’s a few of my favorite lines to entice you:
. . . how a river of pleasure runs through your nose
when a rose shrugs off its holy fragrance
and oh,
feel how your heart pumped as you jumped on your bike
willing your eight year old legs to ride forever
how you soared, when you stopped on the road to Yosemite, awed
and had to lie on the hood of the car to keep from falling into the stars . . . .
Emily Dickinson once wrote that “life is a spell so exquisite everything conspires to break it.” So exquisite. This unbearable lightness of Being.
17 Sunday Feb 2013
Tags
Blogging, culture, Pleasure, Science, Social Media, The Atlantic
Recently I wrote about blogging as virtual “love-making,” riffing on the new science which defines love as a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.”
But there’s more to it than that, it now appears. According to an article in The Atlantic, “The Selfish Meme – Twitter, dopamine, and the evolutionary advantages of talking about oneself” by Frank Rose:
“Researchers have previously shown that certain online activities—such as checking your e-mail or Twitter stream—stimulate the brain’s reward system. Like playing a slot machine, engaging in these activities sends the animal brain into a frenzy as it anticipates a possible reward: often nothing, but sometimes a small prize, and occasionally an enormous jackpot.”
Apparently this behavior of constant searching taps into a primal food-hunting drive and the reward we feel when the sought-after food is actually found—it’s matter of survival.
But even more interesting is the discovery that sharing information about ourselves as commonly done on Facebook and on blogs can be even more pleasurable. It can, in fact, give the neurochemical equivalent of an orgasm, according to an article on the Web site for the Today show “Oversharing on Facebook as Satisfying as Sex?”.
So beyond the reward of the hunt, it seems, is the deeper pleasure of sharing what we have (our catch, ourselves) with others.
In that case, blogging may be a new form of “breaking bread.”
We’ve all experienced the pleasure sharing a meal we’ve created with people we care about, and we know how this stimulates conversations in which we share our thoughts and stories.
In a sense, when we blog, we’re inviting others to our “table,” and sharing the best of what we have to offer that day—our thoughts, insights, images, poetry, memories. We’re feeding each other and inviting responses. And, while things we find on other sites may create those deep resonating connections we call “micro-moments of love,” the deepest pleasure comes from our own offerings–sharing ourselves with others. Giving more than receiving.
It all makes sense. Blogging, after all, is about creating community. Creating bonds of interest, of mutual satisfaction, mutual admiration.
It’s all about connecting. Hooking up. Taking risks. Being vulnerable and open.
Blogging may not be “orgasmic,” but if you think about it, it’s pretty darn sexy.
11 Monday Feb 2013
Posted in Nature, Oak Trees, Photography, Water
Tags
hiking, Nature, oak trees, outdoors, Photo-essay, photography, river, walking
We walked to the river recently, my husband and I and our little dog Mitsy. A short hike down a canyon a few miles from our home.
I left a crumb-trail of photos, if you’d like to join us.
This is where we started. The river lies below that ridge of mountains you see in the background in the photo above.
The way winds downward and grows narrow.
Among the hollows the oak trees look so dark and wild.
Eventually the canyon opens up into a wide, grassy meadow before descending again to the river. A place to linger among the oaks.
We find a tree perfect for a child to climb or swing from . . .
. . . and places to picnic in the sun-filtered grass . . .
. . . while we admire the gracefully curving branches of the oaks, some bending so low as to touch the ground.
We watch out for the critters, spotting the tracks of deer and a mountain lion in the mud left-over from a recent rain.
xxx
And strangely enough, we see the barefoot print of a child, judging from its size.
We cannot imagine what a child this young would be doing out here all alone in the wild. A fairy child, perhaps? Or one raised by wolves? Or the one that lies down with lions and lambs?
Soon enough we catch glimpses of the river far below the meadow. Here a ribbon of blue shows beneath a fringe of pine and oak branches.
Another glimpse, framed by falling strands of moss, shows where the river parts, passing in two strands.
Nearer now an old tree stump stands guard.
Closer still the river is almost lost among shadows and leaves.
The final steep trek winding down toward our destination.
Ah, the river, at last.
Looking to the east is a sign warning us to stay away–a military training camp lies beyond this peaceful setting.
Looking westward all is calm and still.
A stand of trees fed by the river rises straight and tall on one side of the shore . . .
. . . watching their white-barked cousins dance on the other side.
Our little dog sniffs among the leaves . . .
. . . and wades among the shallows . . .
. . . and stops to gaze upon the perfectly rounded world reflected in the still water.
Up close the river is just as pretty–a still life of rock and moss . . .
. . . lies beside the rippling water . . .
. . . while green fronds rise from the mud below.
One last drink before we head home.
The walk back is just as lovely as the way down, the path still dappled in sunlight.
I never tire of admiring the oak trees, each so unique and elegant . . .
It’s almost two lovely to leave . . . .
04 Monday Feb 2013
Posted in Blogging, Culture, Human Consciousness, Science, Writing
Often when I leave comments on a blog posts that moved me, I write “I love this post” or “I love the way you do [this]” or “I love that quotation.” Lately I’ve been wondering if I’m overusing the word “love”.
Am I really feeling this strong emotional attachment, or am I just being lazy, unwilling to take the time to precisely articulate what strikes me about a particular piece?
After reading a recent article in The Atlantic on the science behind love, I’m inclined to believe that, more often than not, I use the word “love” because that’s what I’m actually feeling– a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.” That’s how Barbara Fredrickson defines love in her new book Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do.
In The Atlantic article “There’s No Such Thing as Everlasting Love (According to Science), author Emily Esfahani Smith writes:
Fredrickson, a leading researcher of positive emotions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presents scientific evidence to argue that love is not what we think it is. It is not a long-lasting, continually present emotion that sustains a marriage; it is not the yearning and passion that characterizes young love; and it is not the blood-tie of kinship.
Rather, it is what she calls a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.” She means that love is a connection, characterized by a flood of positive emotions, which you share with another person—any other person—whom you happen to connect with in the course of your day. You can experience these micro-moments with your romantic partner, child, or close friend. But you can also fall in love, however momentarily, with less likely candidates, like a stranger on the street, a colleague at work, or an attendant at a grocery store. Louis Armstrong put it best in “It’s a Wonderful World” when he sang, “I see friends shaking hands, sayin ’how do you do?’ / They’re really sayin’, ‘I love you.”
So when I say I “love” Louis Armstrong’s song, now I know why—because I feel such a strong positive connection to what he’s saying, as well as with how he says it, and the music he says it with, that I experience a triple love-whammy!
What I feel when reading things by fellow bloggers, or see the images they’ve created, is similar—a deeply-felt resonating connection, often on several levels.
Smith writes:
When you experience love, your brain mirrors the person’s you are connecting with in a special way,” and then she goes on to explain how “[t]he mutual understanding and shared emotions” between a story-teller and a listener “generated a micro-moment of love, which ‘is a single act, performed by two brains,’ as Fredrickson writes in her book.
This can happen between a writer and reader as well, or between an artist and viewer. In his book “Tao and Creativity” Chang Chung-yuan describes this connection between poet and reader as a “spiritual rhythm.” It is the means by which the reader participates in the inner experience of the poet. He writes:
In other words, the reader is carried into the rhythmic flux and is brought to the depth of original indeterminacy from which the poetic pattern emerges. The reader is directly confronted with the objective reality which the poet originally faced. The subjectivity of the reader and the objective reality of the poem interfuse . . . .
This is very interesting because Fredrickson discovers a similar phenomenon when she compares the brainwaves of a storyteller and listeners. Smith describes this in her article:
What they found was remarkable. In some cases, the brain patterns of the listener mirrored those of the storyteller after a short time gap. The listener needed time to process the story after all. In other cases, the brain activity was almost perfectly synchronized; there was no time lag at all between the speaker and the listener. But in some rare cases, if the listener was particularly tuned in to the story—if he was hanging on to every word of the story and really got it—his brain activity actually anticipated the story-teller’s in some cortical areas.
The mutual understanding and shared emotions, especially in that third category of listener, generated a micro-moment of love, which ‘is a single act, performed by two brains,’ as Fredrickson writes in her book.
Fredrickson also discovered that the capacity to experience these daily love connections in our lives can be increased through simple loving-kindness meditations, where, as Smith describes, “you sit in silence for a period of time and cultivate feelings of tenderness, warmth, and compassion for another person by repeating a series of phrases to yourself wishing them love, peace, strength, and general well-being.”
“Fredrickson likes to call love a nutrient,” Smith writes. “If you are getting enough of the nutrient, then the health benefits of love can dramatically alter your biochemistry in ways that perpetuate more micro-moments of love in your life, and which ultimately contribute to your health, well-being, and longevity.”
So remember, fellow readers, as you go meandering from one blog site to another like busy little bees, making those “micro-moment” connections with people whose work you admire, that you are engaged in a kind of virtual love-making. You are distributing a pollen-like “nutrient” that nurtures others, as well as yourself.
As Louis says, “what a wonderful world” we live in!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT69i1lU
31 Thursday Jan 2013
Fellow blogger Nathan Bransford recently came up with a list of his favorite 100 movies, and challenged readers to do likewise. I was intrigued by the idea and couldn’t help making a list just to see what I might come up with.
The list below isn’t necessarily what I consider the BEST movies (best produced, acted, directed, etc,) but they are the ones I remember ENJOYING the most. Ones I wouldn’t mind seeing more than once. Or twice.
I was surprised at what ended up on my list. Some I never expected to see there weaseled their way in. While others I fully expected to see were politely rejected.
The movies that did make the list seem to fall in three categories: edgy, artsy, and feel good. The best fit all three categories, like True Romance and Wings of Desire.
Even so, Pulp Fiction is top dog on my list, though I’m not sure why.
It’s certainly edgy enough, and some would say artsy, but feel good??
Not unless you see Butch sacrificing freedom for honor and coming back to save Marcellus from the perverts with a samurai sword as “feel good” (it kinda was). Or you see Vincent stabbing Mia in the heart with a needle to save her and then having the incredible good sense to stay loyal to his mobster boss and refrain from seducing his wife as “feel good” (it kinda was). Or you see Jules keeping Hunny Bunny from peeing her pants and getting her and Pumpkin–the young lover-robbers–out of the restaurant before they kill anyone as “feel good” (it really was, wasn’t it?). And Jules transformation from hit man to the Good Shepherd? Now wasn’t that something!
But Vincent getting popped on the pot was just too too sad, and the college kid getting his head accidentally blown off when the car goes over a bump–what a bloody bummer!
So you see my dilemma–how can you NOT put Pulp Fiction at the top of the list? Just talking about it makes me want to go twisting down the hall, all Mia-like, and pop it in the DVD player.
Then there’s the 81/2 and Nine rating dilemma. Which goes higher on the list? I mean, how can you top Fellini–that winged statue flying through the sky, that luscious scene on the beach, and the circus at the end, for goodness sake! What’s not to love?
But then there’s Daniel Day Lewis in Nine! I mean, come on–Daniel Day Lewis! And all those beautiful woman singing and dancing–Fergie on the beach belting it out for the boys, Penelope Cruz pole dancing and slithering down the stairs, and Kate Hudson all dolled up singing “It’s Italia” in this husky sex-kitten voice (who knew she could sing?).
And then there’s the amazing, marvelous Marion Cotillard stripping off her clothes while she flings her heart on the floor for that two-timing fool, begging him to “Take it all!”. (Don’t do it, honey, he’s not worth it!) Talk about HOT, HOT, HOT!!! (Did I mention Sophia Loren? Nicole Kidman?)
And what to do about all those King Kongs? Who knew I liked the big hairy lug so much? But apparently I do, because all three versions of King Kong made my list.
So which gets top billing? You’d think it would be THE CLASSIC Kong. And while I do love Faye Wray, Naomi Watts climbed right over her (don’t let all that sweet vulnerability fool you). But even she couldn’t compete with the cheesier produced 1976 version starring bad boy Jeff Bridges and the sultry Jessica Lange–I mean, once again, HOT HOT HOT.
Then there’s the Before Sunrise and Before Sunset duo. Who knew walking and talking could be so sexy and entertaining? But how do I rate them?
Putting Sunrise first would seem to make sense. I mean, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were So Damn Cute in the first film, it just about broke your heart. While nine years later when Sunset was filmed, well, did you see those deep furrows on poor Ethan’s face, as Julie so indelicately pointed out? Shudder!
But, OMG, that sweet, funny song Julie sings at the end strumming her little guitar! I knew poor Ethan was a goner right then and there. And so was I. Age before beauty, I say. Before Sunset gets top billing, no question.
Finally, what do I do with all those other classy foreign films I love so much– Ran, Rashomon, Ikiru, La Dulce Vita, La Strada, Fanny and Alexander, Wild strawberries–how do you rate those?
Well I didn’t. I clumped them all together somewhere in the top third of the list. Just thinking about which one to put first made my head hurt. Just throw them in there and get it over! I told myself. And so I did.
But what, you say? Where’s Casablanca? Gone with the Wind? All those Hitchcock classics? Woody Allen, for Pete’s sake?
You can’t tell me Fight Club and Grease beat their films! Well, sadly, they do. I’m quite ashamed. Really.
The truth is, I just never liked Gone with the Wind. Rhett was all right, but that Scarlett was a bitch! The whole movie was ruined for me by her whiney voice, pointy chin, meany-eyes, and temper-tantrums. And Casablanca? Did you see the ending?? Unbelievable!
Now I know Hitchcock and Woody should be in there somewhere, but oddly, none of their films rose to the top of mind as being truly memorable.
Yes, there were certain scenes I’ll never forget–the plane chasing the guy in the cornfield, and all those birds!! (terrifying). And then there’s Woody’s droll face and priceless banter and Diane Keaton, all cute and clueless and helpless looking. I truly did enjoy them. Didn’t I?
So why are they all melting together in my mind? Why does a surge of endorphins go dancing through my veins singing “fun fun fun” when I remember Independence Day, for pity’s sake, while the same endorphins just look at each other and shrug when I mention North by Northwest or Annie Hall.
It’s not my fault. I myself would gladly choose to like the others more, but, alas, it appears I don’t.
So there you have it, my 100 favorite movies, the first third or so in semi-order of preference, with the second third more loosely assessed, and the bottom third, well they just didn’t get as much attention.
I’m sure other movies that didn’t get on the list will be clambering for my attention, and telling me off for leaving them out. And no doubt, I may have been too hasty in putting this together. By next year, I may have a brand new list. I have no 2012 movies listed here, for instance. But for now, I’m done. Whew!
What were your favorite all-time movies? Which would you add to or leave out of my list?
Maybe now I’ll pull together my 100 favorite all-time books! That should be fun–if it doesn’t make my head spin too much (ah, The Exorcist)!
My Favorite 100 Movies
27 Sunday Jan 2013
Posted in Addiction, Life At Sea, Memoir
Tags
Addiction, Body art, Family, Heroes journey, Homelessness, living on the street, Parenting, Recovery, Riders of the Storm, Survival, Tattoos, Wild Child
Recently I posted a tribute to my daughter on her wedding day, and as I wrote it, I wondered about the tribute I might pay to my son, whom I love equally, but whose life journey, even while raised so similarly, led him down a very different path, often heartbreakingly so.
It always amazed me as my children were growing up how they had come to be, in some uncanny way, the embodiment of very different parts of my psyche. My daughter was growing up to be the woman I had always wanted to be—beautiful, brave, strong, independent and self-confident. While my son was turning out to be the kind of boy that I and so many young women were drawn too——wild and reckless, handsome and charming, sweet and funny, willful and stubborn—a born rebel, who cherished his freedom, testing limits and bending rules. Living with him was like living on a roller-coaster ride, full of thrills and chills that never seemed to let up.
Almost from the day he was born he was a handful. I would ruefully tell other mothers how he entered the terrible twos when he was one and never grew out of it. At the tender age of two he ran away from home–twice. Once to visit his grandma five blocks away. Another to buy candy. A policeman brought him home that day when he was trying to cross a busy street with a nickel in his pocket. I installed locks on all the doors and gates after that.
Yet he was a loving child, a sweet child, popular with other kids and his teachers, even while he spent much of his early grade school days in the principal’s office. Not because he was a bully, but because he refused to be bullied, or see those he cared about bullied.
When he was 11, we moved on our boat La Gitana in Ventura Harbor. He immediately took up surfing, and learned to row and sail a dinghy. He became an avid sport fisherman, making all his own lures and rigging his own poles.
When we finally did take off on our journey there was always a line in the water and he supplied most of the fish we dined on. He could free dive to depths of 20 or more feet to spear a grouper or capture a lobster.
He made friends easily with other sailors and fishermen who were impressed by his skill and knowledge. He became a certified scuba diver at the age of twelve. He was a true Pisces—at home in the ocean he loved.
Trying to home school him was a challenge, but once I enrolled him in a self-paced program where we mailed his work back to a teacher for grading and feedback, it went better. Not that we didn’t have our moments.
By the time we reached Australia, he was 16-years-old and didn’t want to leave. In Australia at the time, many children that age left formal schooling to learn a trade. Often they lived on their own, helped out by the government, or boarded with those who were teaching them a trade. Chris was invited by a boat-builder to join his crew. When it was time for us to leave Australia, he begged me to let him. It was his dream to become the captain of a sports fishing boat, and this seemed like an opportunity for him to pursue that goal. I interceded on his behalf with his father, who, against his better judgment, allowed him to stay.
I’ll never forget the day we sailed away, leaving our son behind in Australia. I felt like the worst of all mothers, like I was abandoning him. And something in his eyes made me wonder if he was thinking the same thing.
At the same time, I felt like I was giving him an opportunity to be the man he wanted to be, to live the kind of life he wanted to live.
I had read books of young 16-year-old boys taking off on their own from Ireland to seek their fortunes in America, how difficult it had been for them, but how they had thrived. It’s what I had hoped for him. I trusted that he had what it takes to make it on his own. To this day, I don’t know if I made the right decision.
He spent two years on his own in Australia. We exchanged letters and talked to each other as much as we were able. Always I asked if he was ready to come back on the boat, or go home to stay with his grandparents. Always he said no, he was fine. But I never really knew. I learned later that the old guy he had gone to work for was hospitalized and eventually died. I heard tales about him drifting around working as a carny, and later for a Mafia-type family who owned a string of Italian restaurants. He’s very tight-lipped about those days, and I do not press him.
He came home at age 18 around the same time we returned from our travels, and he was tall and handsome and had an Aussie accent. He seemed happy and confident. He spent some time with his grandfather, going mountain climbing and obtaining his GED. Eventually he became a commercial diver, working on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Then he moved to New Orleans. Two years later when he returned home to California he was a heroin addict.
That’s when the roller-coaster ride became a nightmare. He couldn’t hold a job, couldn’t stay clean. He spent years on the street, in and out of rehab, in and out of jail and prison, in and out of hospitals when he overdosed. We took him in when we could, until we couldn’t anymore. On more than one occasion I moved out with him, thinking hands-on mom-care would help. It didn’t.
The worst part was when I didn’t know where he was. I didn’t know if he was sleeping on a park bench or was rolled up on someone’s couch, or lying in a ditch somewhere. When he was in jail, or even in the hospital, there was always hope. He was safe, for now. And maybe at last he’d hit bottom. Maybe this time he would begin to turn his life around.
Yet even in the midst of all this he showed strength and resilience, street-wise resourcefulness, and a basic goodness that would inspire him to share the little he had with those who had less.
He saw himself as a “Rider on the Storm,” riding a long wild wave that would surely crash him on the rocks unless he could hold on tight and ride it out, and manage to turn it at just the right moment. He couldn’t control it, and he couldn’t stop it, but he could perhaps outlast it. And he did.
He claims now I helped save his life. And sometimes I believe him. My love for him was so strong, my prayers so constant, my will so fierce, nothing could make me let go, nothing could tear him away from me. That’s how I saw it, willed it, demanded that it should be. But I know better. A mother’s love isn’t enough to keep a child safe. Yet still, still, we would so believe.
Sometimes I think he’s the bravest person I’ve ever known. No one else that I know could survive what he’s survived. I know I wouldn’t. Even his father, strong as he is, would not have survived that craziness. Few do, I’m told. Only fifty percent of heroin addicts survive their habit, and only half of those who do eventually lead drug-free lives.
I’m proud of him for being a fighter, a survivor, for not giving up, for having the stamina and courage to start over again and again and again—with nothing, no job, no money, no prospects.
I’m proud of him for winning the heart of the woman he now loves, for helping to bring their child into the world and raising her together, for caring for this child with such love and tenderness. For becoming the Father, the rule-maker rather than the rule-breaker, the Authority Figure in his young one’s life, someone she will look up to, and trust to care for her and keep her safe.
I think of those fairy tales and journeys heroes take, how they go into the dark, scary places of the world, do impossible deeds, overcome unimaginable challenges, fight off terrifying monsters, then save the princess and ride away with her on a white horse. To some degree, in some measure, he’s done all that.
I see him as the warrior turned woodsman who has built a home on the edge of the forest. All the scary things are still out there, but now he’s a seasoned fighter, and he has something other than himself to protect and keep safe. He’s guarding hearth and home, this dragon-slayer, demon-hunter, who has lived with and among dragons and demons for so long.
His body art tells the story of his survival and his path to recovery. Draped along his upper chest are the words “Riders on the Storm” to remind him where he’s been. On his shoulders and across his back are nautical stars and a compass rose to guide him through the storm.
On his arm is an anchor with the word “Family” wrapped around it, to help keep him grounded and remind him of what’s he’s fighting for. Beneath his heart are the infant footprints of a son he almost lost and is seeking to regain. Soon to come, he tells me, are the fingerprints of his tiny daughter whose hold on his heart is so fierce.
Perhaps we all live at the edge of a dark forest, at the edge of the wild, with the dark scary things we fear forever yawning at our backs—addiction, disease, poverty, financial ruin, failure, loss of loved ones, war, famine, even enslavement for some. Perhaps our life journey is to keep ourselves strong enough to survive the darkness, and bright enough to face the light and keep walking toward it.
I trust we all shall continue doing so.
20 Sunday Jan 2013
Posted in Life At Sea, Memoir, Photography
She was married beneath a cliff on the edge of the sea standing barefoot on the rocky beach. Barking seals sunning on rocks and crashing waves nearly drowned out the simple ceremony.
Hunchbacked boulders rose from the sea behind her like giant guardian sentinels. A single guitarist played flamenco music to match the red rose in her hair while the late afternoon sun glimmered across the waves.
Sea. Sky. Earth. Fire. All four essential elements holding the world together blended beautifully together that day.
It’s not surprising she would choose such a setting for her wedding day, with all the things that she loves, that helped shape her into the strong, fearless, independent and beautiful woman she is today, in full display. Sea, sky, earth, fire.
She grew up on a cruising sailboat, after all. The rhythm of the sea and sky moves through her body. She was rocked to sleep in her bunk with the sound of the wind and waves rushing all around her, and a sky full of stars for a nightlight.
The world was literally her playground. In every new port or cove we entered she and her brother would row ashore to explore on their own–us trusting they would return safely to us.
Even when her bother stayed behind in Australia she continued to explore on her own.
In Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Spain—this woman child of fourteen slipped through the streets with her canvas backpack and torn jeans scrawled with the names of the heavy metal rock bands she’d come to love.
With her long dark hair and sun-browned skin, her dangling earrings and silver bracelets, she looked like the Gypsy she may have been, her Spanish heritage in full flaunt.
Her first guitar was purchased in a tiny shop in Toledo. I can still see her bending tenderly over the strings, strumming softly, her face half-hidden by her long bangs and curling strands of hair.
When we returned home after seven years of living on our boat, I worried about this woman-child who had barely seen the inside of a classroom, who had been home-schooled nearly all her life, whose lab work was diving for scallops, gutting fish for frying, drying sea-horses, and identifying shells she’d found beach-combing.
Whose knowledge of history was gathered from the villages she roamed, the cathedrals and castles and museums she visited, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon in Athens, the Alhambra in Spain.
Political science was gleaned first hand when we were caught in a coup in Fiji, aided by navy sailors flying the cycle and hammer in Port Aden, accused of selling arms to enemy rebels in Sudan, and sailing into Panama on the day it was invaded by US warships in the overthrow of Noriega. How would she survive High School in the United States?
I needn’t have worried. She was as solid as a rock. She had such a strong sense of herself that none of the juvenile drama and gang warfare and cliquish snobbery fazed her.
Nor was it surprising that she chose archeology as a career, or took up skydiving and surfing as her hobbies, or fell in love with someone who loved the sea and sky as much as she did, a fellow skydiver and surfer.
My daughter is as earthy as she is sea and wind washed. As down-to-earth as they come. She digs in the earth for a living. She hikes across hills and mountains surveying the land and mapping archeological formations. She uncovers and catalogues chards of earthen pottery and stone tools from ancient middens.
She hammers copper and strings stones to make her own earrings. She grows her own herbs. She designed her own wedding gown, baked and decorated her own wedding cake. She runs marathons, works out in boot camps, and eats mostly vegan, mostly organic. She takes charge of any calamity with the iron resolve and don’t-mess-with-me attitude of a Marine staff sergeant. If she hasn’t had her morning coffee—well, watch out.
For there’s fire in her soul too. You can see it in her dark snapping eyes, her loud belly laugh, and the way she salsas across the dance floor. In the way she tumbles from planes and rhumbas across the sky, nearly 2000 jumps now.
The thorny rose tattoo that circles her ankle, the diamond stud in her nose, and the chipotle pepper in her dark chocolate wedding cake all attest to her fiery, feisty nature.
You can see that fire in the flamenco inspired wedding dress she designed with the tea-dyed Italian silk, layers of French Chantilly lace and funky high-low hemline, a red flower in her hair to match her red heels. You can see it in the flowers she chose for her bouquet, the scarlets and purples and oranges. You can see it in the way she looks at her new husband and basks in the love-light of his eyes.
Sea. Sky. Earth. Fire. All are perfectly balanced in this beautiful daughter of mine, and blended in perfection on her wedding day.
Did I mention how much I love her? How proud I am of her?
For you baby girl, from your mama–the speech I never gave but composed in my heart as I watched you on your wedding day. January 12, 2013. Twelve days after the world was supposed to end your new life begins.
