A Babylonian Ice Cream Social

The universe is an intelligence test. 

--Timothy Leary

One day when I was practicing chanting in my temple in Vietnam, there was a 

durian on the altar that had been offered to the Buddha. I was trying to recite the Lotus Sutra, using a wooden drum and a large bowl-shaped bell for accompaniment, but I could not concentrate at all. 

I finally carried the bell to the altar and turned it upside down to imprison the durian, so I could chant the sutra. After I finished, I bowed to the Buddha and liberated the durian. 

If you were to say to me, "Thây, I love you so much I would like you to eat some of this durian," I would suffer. You love me, you want me to be happy, but you force me to eat durian. That is an example of love without understanding. Your intention is good, but you don't have the correct understanding.

Thich Nhat Hanh, 

The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." 

The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. 

Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. 

But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? 

Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

--sophie scholl

There was a time in my young life when it was necessary for me to go to daycare.  I hated it.  My dislike for daycare was so strong and fierce that when I didn’t have to go anymore, my dad made me a daycare graduation certificate.  It’s not like I was molested or kept in a cage, or anything dramatic.  But daycare was not my house, not my toys, and it felt like (even though there were probably only 10 or 11 of us) there were 40 kids crammed into this little house.  The lady who kept the daycare was a nice lady, as I remember, who had a penchant for daytime soaps.  One of the three things I vividly remember about daycare was being introduced to The Young and the Restless (which I called the Lung and the Restless until I was about five or six), a fact I’m sure didn’t delay my parents in pulling me out of day care as soon as possible.

Vivid memory number two: peeing my pants and getting into major trouble for it, from all directions, and getting teased for doing it.  Never mind the fact that I was waiting for the bathroom, and Craig, who I already didn’t like was taking the longest dump in kid history and I told the lady I HAD TO GO.  I remember standing in that hallway and feeling the gush down my legs, soaking through the terrycloth of my little kid shorts.  Ever since then, I’ve tried my very best to make it to the bathroom at the very first hint of needing to tinkle.  Some shit I don’t forget, people.

This brings me to vivid memory number three, and possibly the central reason I hated daycare.  The lady who kept us was a nice lady—nice enough to let us be in the same room when she watched her soaps, nice enough to not yell too much when I had a hard time napping, and nice enough to give us ice cream.  Not a bad deal, really.  Except that the ice cream was always Neapolitan.  Always.  Hear me now: on the list of things I really don’t like in this world--including cancer, crushing poverty, bigotry, and violence—Neapolitan ice cream ranks just below the threat of thermonuclear warfare and slightly above having to go to the mall at Christmas time.  I hated it as a little kid, and I hate it as an adult.  If given the choice between Neapolitan ice cream and something you scraped off the bottom of the cat box and froze, I’d have to give it a real long think.  Seriously.

See, the real problem with Neapolitan ice cream is that there’s just too much going on. I know, I know…it’s only three flavors, and it’s the three favorite flavors of the entire ice cream eating universe, all smooshed up together in one big happy carton.  All I really care about is the chocolate.  I can handle the vanilla, if I have to.  But, you guys…there is no flavor in the world that makes me want to barf more than fake strawberry.  Ugh, I get all spitty and burpy just thinking about it.  As luck would have it, the daycare Neapolitan always had chocolate in the middle.  You’d think that would be the prime spot to put the chocolate, since it’s sort of the main attraction to all right thinking people in the world.  But it’s invariably played down by the vanilla, and the strawberry leeches into it, and you just taste everything all at once.  And it’s not just one flavor…it’s all of them.  And that, to my three-almost-four year old mouth (and to my almost-35-year-old mouth) was just too much business, especially when one of the overriding flavors is one that makes me want to barf.

Living a real life in Babylon is a lot like eating my way through a huge freaking carton of Neapolitan ice cream.  The best stuff, the stuff to get excited about, to stand in line for, to sweat, work, cry, bleed, and truly love is usually sandwiched between the insipid and the outright awful.  And I almost never get to take one single bite of any one flavor.  There’s no working my way through the strawberry awfulness with a furtively hidden gag and watery eyes, knowing that in two more bites I can have the ho-hum vanilla and the truly sublime chocolate.  And that is hard.

My father and my grandfather used to remind me, often in identical phrasing, that we all have to take the bitter with the sweet.  And boy, do we ever.  And the bitter and the sweet come in the most exhausting combinations…like getting all excited to see my far-flung cousins, and crying for an hour because the reunion is at a funeral, or having a really great tax refund, only to blow out two tires and have to spend the money on the car instead of a fun weekend.  It’s knowing that my wedding day was the most special and holy and wonderful day and I got to marry the most incredible man who loves me more than I can possibly comprehend, and that my brother showed up drunk and late.  It’s peeing in my pants and having my mother bring me dry ones and giving me a big hug in the middle of the day, and still getting dessert at lunch, except it’s freaking Neapolitan ice cream, every damn time.  But that’s life.  And it’s life in Babylon, for sure.  We take the bitter with the sweet, and know that somehow, in some way (that’s both magical and miraculous) the two sensations buffer each other.

Sweetness can kill us and numb us just as much as bitterness can suck all the moisture from our mouths and make us feel jaded.  But because they come together, it’s just about impossible to be carried away by either one, and hopefully, we end up, if not satisfied, at least sated...and if not sated, well, at least we know we had something to sustain and nourish us.

T.S. Eliot understood that concept, and I think that’s why he said that April was the cruelest month, and this month has reminded me of that quote, over and over…the whole world is blooming, and winter is receding and we’re all set to work on our gardens and tans, and I’m celebrating meeting my husband a whole year ago, and along comes North Korea, and the Boston Marathon bombing, and a building collapse in Bangladesh, and George Jones and my Aunt Lu freaking die.  The sweet reek of the flavor I most ardently dislike encroaches on the ones I love best, and they are all in my mouth, and there’s nothing to do but swallow and take a big drink of whatever is nearest to hand to clear my palate.

It’s hard to swallow all of those things gracefully and gratefully.  But the alternative isn’t as simple as it was in daycare.  Refusal is not an option.  We lick our plates and bowls clean, in this part of the world.  Even the crappiest tasting, crappiest feeling, crappiest of crappy desserts is still dessert.  It’s still nourishment, and nourishment brings life—a life that is moving and being and changing and rising and dying, and I don’t want to forget that.  Because even thought the strawberry bleeds into the chocolate, and the vanilla is just so…vanilla, there’s this big, wide ribbon of chocolate moving through the middle, and somewhere, I’m convinced there’s a bite that is unsullied by the lesser tastes, telling me that I can and I will finish, and I most likely won’t throw up on the rug, when I’m done. And on most days, days when all I can see are dish after dish of frozen tri-color nightmare stacked up in rank upon rank, with just one spoon and only me to eat them, that is enough.


Mil besos,
rmj

force of nature: a portrait of a lady

	force of nature
Part of Speech:	n
Definition:	in physics, one of the four fundamental forces that occur in nature and affect thestructure of the universe, including gravitation, electromagnetism, strong force, andweak force
Usage:	science --dictionary.com

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

--mary oliver

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

--ts eliot

¹⁷ She girds herself with strength,
    and makes her arms strong.
¹⁸ She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.
    Her lamp does not go out at night.
¹⁹ She puts her hands to the distaff,
    and her hands hold the spindle.
²⁰ She opens her hand to the poor,
    and reaches out her hands to the needy.
²¹ She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
    for all her household are clothed in crimson.
²² She makes herself coverings;
    her clothing is fine linen and purple.

...

²⁵ Strength and dignity are her clothing,
    and she laughs at the time to come.
²⁶ She opens her mouth with wisdom,
    and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
²⁷ She looks well to the ways of her household,
    and does not eat the bread of idleness.
²⁸ Her children rise up and call her happy;
    her husband too, and he praises her:
²⁹ “Many women have done excellently,
    but you surpass them all.”
³⁰ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
    but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
³¹ Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
    and let her works praise her in the city gates.

--proverbs 31

it's hard to know how to write about her.  she wasn't my mother or my grandmother, but she had a firm and honest hand in raising me, in helping to mold me into a woman.  i'm not over-exaggerating when i say that the women in my family are known for being forces of nature unto themselves, and she was no exception.  i can't remember a single time i saw her or had an update about her that she wasn't doing something active, wasn't involved in making something, wasn't relishing time with her family.  she was a doer.  she was relentless.  she was never bored, and it was impossible to be bored when you were in her presence.  

i wasn't the only little girl in my generation of cousins, but i was the one who lived closest to several of my great-aunts and uncles, and it was good to be a girl.  when i was three, and went crazy over weddings and being a bride and conducting pretend marriage services for everyone in the family, aunt lu made me a little white dress, head piece, and flower.  someone, probably my momma, took a picture of me in that dress, on my birthday, grinning wide enough that i'm surprised my head didn't split in half, standing just in front of my dad.  the look on his face was priceless.  and even though it's sentimental and probably a little stubborn (no shocker there), when it came time to buy the dress i would wear to wed my beloved, i just couldn't imagine buying a white dress...i'd already had one that was perfect, and i was sure that no white dress i ever tried on in the store would be as perfect as that one was. i wore that thing until it fell apart, wore the headpiece until it cracked beyond repair, carried that fabric flower until it had enough dirt on it to grow a whole garden.  

when i was five and totally underfoot all the time, putting on shows and telling crazy stories, and wanting to be everywhere the grownups were, she made me a red apron with a goose on it, just like the one she wore.  i found it in my box of little kid things, a few months ago, and marveled at the detail she put into this little scrap of cloth, for a little scrap of girl.  the tucks, the pleats, the way it laid just so when i tied it on...such love and care over such a little thing that made such a huge impression on me, even at such a tender age.  i knew that apron meant i could be in the kitchen, and i knew the kitchen gave me access to magical smells, stories i'd never heard before, and lessons on how to peel things and stay out of the way.  it also meant i got to help make bloody mary's, which were one of the hallmarks of Christmas at aunt lu's house.  

at around age seven or eight, i was absolutely delusional over "little house on the prairie".  G-d knows how many episodes i've seen in my life, or how many times i've seen the reruns.  obsession doesn't even begin to cover the depth of my devotion to that series.  aunt lu made me this incredibly "little house dress", out of black calico.  there was a petticoat, and bloomers, and...my favorite of all...a sun bonnet, made out of bright white cotton.  the bonnet became a staple of just about every knock-around outfit i wore, and i loved to run as fast as i could, to make it trail out behind me.  i guess i figured if i looked the part, and ran fast enough, i'd end up back in 1880, and might turn into laura ingalls wilder.  i was so crazy about that outfit that i wore it to school, not ever thinking that it might garner unwanted attention from my classmates.  it was exactly right, the fall of the skirt, the buttons, and that wonderful bonnet.  it even scored me a spot in a fashion show, my only modeling venture to date.  i wore it until i couldn't wear it anymore, but it's still in the dress up box.  

the mean girls came calling in late elementary, like they do.  there was a huge flap over poodle skirts, and i was pretty sure if i didn't have one, i was going to die, or at least be a social outcast for the rest of my young life.  well, of course aunt lu had a pattern for one, sandy and susie had had them, and aunt lu wore full skirts in the 50's and 60's with the best of them.  and so, on my 12th birthday, this absolutely gorgeous blue poodle skirt, complete with rhinestones on the collar of the poodle, AND bobby socks, were presented to me.  i was absolutely over the moon.  i can't tell you what it was like to open that box, and see that poodle staring back up at me.  it wasn't pink, like the mean girls had.  it was blue.  bright blue like a springtime sky, like the one over my head, today.  that skirt made me feel special, not just because the meanies couldn't be mean about me not having one, anymore, but because at 12, i was finally starting to understand and appreciate my place in our family as an individual, not as Slana and Bill's daughter, or Callie and Bobby's granddaughter, but as my own self.  aunt lu always, always, always made me feel like i was special, apart from who i belonged to, or what i did or didn't know how to do or be.  

by the time i was in high school, i'd outgrown all my playclothes, and they had long since been packed away.  but i still loved playing dress-up, and found myself school plays. aunt lu never missed a performance i invited her to.  that goes for band contests, too.  she showed up.  she cheered.  she loved.  it's no secret that my senior year in high school was difficult, and much of my spare time was spent with my parents in San Angelo, or working on homework.  the play gave me respite.  i could be someone else for those hours of practice in the afternoons and evenings.  that last year, i played a woman who was a lot like aunt lu, feisty and firey and always for good reason.  i had my costume almost all worked out, but couldn't find a bag or gloves that were right for the time period in which the play was set.  naturally, aunt lu had a bag, and gloves, AND a hanky that she lent me.  and of course, they were perfect.  putting those gloves on, prissing around with that handbag, and waving this gorgeous hanky let me jump into my character's skin.  and knowing they were from aunt lu, that those gloves had hugged her hands, that bag had held her things, that hanky had dried eyes and blown noses...that helped me relax and not think so much, and not be afraid i was going to get out in the lights and forget everything i'd ever learned in my whole life.  

the clothes she put on my back, on all our backs, in our lifetimes with her, made me warm, made me know how much she loved me, made me understand my place in our family that much better.  she had a knack for telling stories, for laughing at herself and the world, of being incredibly creative and kind that is hard to look at dead-on, without raising a lump in my throat.  what she gave and did, she did freely.  what she said and though, she said and though freely.  you never had to wonder what she thought, or where you stood in her book.  she was an incredibly woman, an independent woman long before that was something women thought about being.  whether she was putting finishing touches on a meal or a garment, she was focused and determined, and we all shared in the riches from her table and hands.  i'm grateful every day for the time i spent with her, for the stories she told me about our family, for the drive to provide for her family, to do amazing things with short supplies, and for the way she loved.  

the women in our family are incredibly strong, devoted, resourceful, and kind, and aunt lu was and will always be one of the legends in our family lore.  she had beautiful, strong hands, and there was always room at her table,an open bed in her home, and a heart that loved her friends and family in life-changing and life-giving ways.  she was a wonder and a blessing.  

mil besos,

rmgj