gifting...

Imagine if you’d kept every gift you ever made or bought for someone. Imagine if everyone else did the same thing. I’d be missing half my cd’s, three quarters of my books, almost all of my clothing, and almost all of my furniture. Actually, all of my furniture, except my couch. Even my beds and chairs and tables have been gifts. My favorite stuff—my bedroom suit, my dining room table and chairs, the lamp on my bedside table, my cedar chest/coffee table were all gifts to me, and they all have stories. My pots and pans were wedding presents to my parents. There’s not much in my house that wasn’t given to me or to other people. I like it that way.

I’ve spent the better part of seven years working for the church or working for almost free. As a result, I’ve gotten very creative in my gift-giving. Give me a blank cd, poster paper, some markers, and a ruler, and I can make a tailored gift for almost any occasion. And I have. I have made photo albums, happy thought cards, really bad water-color paintings, and cd’s for pretty much everyone I know and love. Even when I go out and buy something, I try to personalize it for the person receiving the gift, except for wedding presents, because the couple already knows what they are getting.

Giving gifts is an important expression of our mutual affection, I think. Granted, we’ve let those traditions get kind of out of hand, if you ask me. I can’t imagine knowing that someone in my family went into hock to give us all fabulous and expensive Christmas presents. I mean, what’s the point? I have every single thing I need. In fact, I’m in the process of going through all my closets trying to get rid of the excess. I think about people who don’t have any excess to get rid of, and I feel guilty. Something like a billion people live on less than $1 a day, so who am I to horde my stuff? Who am I to expect all new stuff at Christmas, on my birthday, or some random Tuesday? Yuck.

I can’t remember what I got for most of my birthdays. I mean, there are some exceptions—like I remember that my grandmother gave me her old high school ring when I turned 13. I remember my mother gave me the ring her parents had given her when she turned 21 on my own 21st birthday. My mom and dad gave me a Ronald McDonald doll that blew a whistle on my 3rd birthday. My mom and dad gave me a portable cd player for my car on my 18th birthday. And that’s really about it. Sounds crappy, huh? Maybe. But my favorite parts of my birthday weren’t my presents. They were my cards. I have them, believe it or not, all of them. Mom and Dad were great about writing notes, letters really, in all my birthday cards, from the very first one down to the ones I still get every year, on my birthday and at Christmas.

Those letters are the best gifts, ever, hands down. Their wisdom and their love are a gift to me every single day of my life. I went through the whole pile a few months ago, and even as a small child, my parents were writing to me about how much they loved me, how proud they were of me, what their hopes and dreams were for me and the world they were passing on to me. Those letters are full of pride, love, and hope. They are worth more to me than any gift I could have ever unwrapped. And even as a little kid, before I knew much about anything, my sweet Momma was putting them away in a box for me. She gave me two presents—she kept those letters for me, knowing that one day I would need them, want them, and understand them for what they were—her and my father’s advice, encouragement, and hope for me. She wrote them, and saved them, twice in the blessing.

I can’t imagine what my life would look like had Mom and Dad just signed their names to the bottom of my cards. Sure, I would have probably kept them and looked over them from time to time. I would have appreciated them, just the same. But these gifts of their words to me are priceless. And in the case of my Dad, they are the words he left to me, just to me, as if he knew that he’d better get it all down on paper, because he wasn’t going to be around for the long haul. He sometimes apologized for not understanding everything I was trying to say, or for being so quick to fix things, or not always listening when I needed him to just be quiet. He reminded me to be brave, called me a treasure, and let me know that he believed in me, even on days when I really screwed stuff up. I go back to those letters, and to the letters my mother still writes me on my birthdays and at Christmas, and I remember that my parents’ love is their gift to me, and my life is a gift back to them, and I want to be good at being that gift.

The gifts you give are sometimes the gifts you want—I always find myself looking over things in a store, and wondering if the person I’m buying the item for will like it as much as I do. Bizarre, but I would never buy something for someone that I didn’t like, unless they specifically asked for it. My mom thinks it a silly habit. She even asked me once why I always make or buy things for other people that I like. I explained that while I know that seems kind of catty and selfish, it’s just how I function. Plus, I like the idea of giving someone a gift that I like, because if I’m buying instead of making, me liking the item in question seems to give it a more personal touch.

Gifts that belong to your heart are another matter entirely. We all bring gifts to the table. Some of them are easy to overlook, to make excuses for, to be shy over. For instance, I love to sing. I sing in the shower, I sing while I’m cleaning my house, I sing in my car at the top of my lungs. I hum in the pool, swimming laps. I like the way my voice sounds. I like that other people like how it sounds. But I’m oddly reluctant to sing out in front of people, even my own family. I am sometimes afraid that I like singing more because of what people say about it than the fact that I’m pretty good at it. I want to sing because I’m good at it and it makes me feel good, and not because of the strokes I get when I do it. I want to give that gift of song for the pleasure of giving it, not for the pleasure of having it received in a way I deem acceptable. That’s the hardest part of giving anything, be it a gift of the hand or a gift of the heart, I think.

My friend Ryan has a gift of listening to me, even when what I’m saying makes no sense at all, or is utter bullshit. When I talk to him, I feel like I’m the only person in the world he’s paying attention to, at the moment. He hears every word I say, and sometimes, he hears the words inside my head. That’s one of the things I like best about him. And he gives pretty stellar feed back. None of the typical “let me fix this for you” stuff. Ryan and I have talked about heavy things, some of the heaviest. We have no secrets from each other, at least I don’t think so, anyway. Not one time, in any of our conversations, even the really hard ones, has he ever said “Stop talking” or “You’re out of your rabbit-assed mind, Rachel”. We don’t rush our thoughts, even when they come tumbling out a mile a minute. I cherish that. I know that our phone calls will be daily, and they will be long and good. Ryan has helped me understand my speech and my silence, and the necessity for both. We agree to speak freely to each other, to not edit ourselves. We agree to sometimes be uncomfortable in our talks, to be silly, to be unorthodox, to talk about big ideas and overplay small ones.

Someone told me once that pain was a gift. That thought really messed me up for a couple of days. Pain as a gift…that’s a hard one to access. Pain is the one thing each of us avoids as much as the next person. Pain is part of the human condition, part of the ultimate payment for eating the apple, part of living with other people, part of dealing with the curve balls life lobs at our heads with wild abandon. Pain is as unavoidable as death, and scares me more than death, if the truth be told. Even the word pain is short and clipped and feels rather abrupt coming off the tongue.

Pain, I suppose is a gift, if you take the tack that the absence of pain indicates the presence of pleasure, or at least the potential for it. Touch a hot stove, and you will feel pain. You will probably remember that pain the next time you even see a hot stove, much less get close enough to feel its heat, and that will maybe save you the unfortunate experience of another burn. Have your heart broken by a tall guy with blue eyes and political ambitions, and you will probably avoid dating political science majors for the bulk of your college career, and potentially the rest of your dating life.

Maybe I’ll accept pain as a maniacal teacher, or a kind of learning tool, but as a gift? I’m still not sold on that idea. To be honest, the idea of pain as a gift has kept me up more than one night, wondering what in the world that idea really means. Pain has taught me many lessons, heart lessons and head lessons. But I don’t know that it’s really a gift, as such. Or maybe it’s like the bedside lamp I mentioned earlier.

This lamp is a family antique. It’s not pretty, at all. In fact, I have long referred to it as “The Ugly Lamp”. My brother and I knocked it off a table once, and cracked the globe. My mother was mortified, and my dad was most displeased, as it came from his side of the family. Luckily, we were able to find a new globe for it, and have it painted to kind of match the horror of green and pansies that lived on the bottom half of the lamp. The Ugly Lamp belongs to me, now. It lives in my room, and oddly enough, does not absolutely clash with my wall color. I hate to admit it, but I have grown, over the years, to grudgingly love The Ugly Lamp. It’s one of those old lamps that was converted from being a gas lamp into being an electric lamp—I like that. It belonged to my great-great grandfather, who by all accounts, was a very nice man. I like that I have something that belonged to him. I like that it lights up my room, and used to light up his living room. I like that it’s heard stories I’ll never know, and now it’s part of my story. It’s a gift that had to grow on me. Maybe pain is like that—you have to sit with it, and let it mellow out, and get used to it, and even at some point, be grateful that it belongs to you.

brokedown palace

i have the grateful dead on repeat today. for some reason, "brokedown palace" is the song i want to listen to over and over again. and "sugaree". and just because i can, i have been listening to james taylor, too.

the older i get, the more i seem to have delayed reactions to things. and the reactions seem to be getting more and more visceral the older i get, as well. the upshot of this is that it's pretty hard to garner any kind of reaction from me, at least on most days. yesterday was not that day.

it's no secret to people who have known me for a long time that late may is probably my least favorite time of year. i realize that may be a dumb thing to say, but i really can't help how i feel. some years, it doesn't even bother me. may 18th is just a regular day, not the day my dad died or the day we buried my poppy. this year was mostly like that. i waited to get good and upset until yesterday, when an entire avalanche of horseshit combined with missing my dad and my poppy, and conspired to have me sit at my desk and cry for a good half of the day. and then, thinking that i needed some consumer therapy, i went to home depot to pick out carpet samples to take home and try out, and got so overwhelmed with the gravity of picking out 850 square feet of carpet by myself, that too made me cry. all the way home. i am probably the only woman in the history of the carpet industry who cried because she had to pick out carpet. i woke up this morning with splotchy marks still on my face, and gritty eyeballs. and i almost started crying on the way to work, because i just wanted to stay home today. sometimes, i hate being a grown up. and i really hate feeling sorry for myself--it's such a time suck. but it's real.

so, i'm working today, in spite of how i feel. i'm listening to music that soothes me. i'm talking to the baby Jesus. i'm on my way out to take communion to one of my little old ladies. i wish i could get someone else to take it to her, today. she's getting so old and frail, and i don't think she's going to be with me much longer. but, she's very uncomfortable, and she misses her husband, so i certainly won't be sad for her when she leaves the party. i will miss her, though. and today, it would be nice to have a buffer between me and that feeling. however, to ask someone to do that for me would require me to risk being told "no", which i don't think i could stand to hear today, at least not without a temper tantrum and more tears. so, i'm on my way to see miss mary. and i'll smile. we will laugh. we will share communion. and then, i will get into my car, crank up the tunes, and be glad that tomorrow is a day off.

i love you people.

mil besos--rmg

pretty is as pretty does...

My friend Beth took this picture at some random bar in Austin. I guess it’s cheating for me to use it here, but I don’t really care. I guess it’s even sort of cheating to call Beth “my” friend, because she started out as my little brother’s friend, and I have co-opted her since we got out of high school. Anyway, Beth sent me this picture and the minute I saw it, I knew it was something powerful. Incidentally, Beth is getting married soon. She also has a new bike, eight toes on one foot, and double AIDS. That's what I heard, anyway.

Beauty is a weird concept. Like love, beauty can be used to describe or mean about a million different things. For instance, you could say that life is beautiful. Or that a particular person is beautiful. Or a painting or a sunset. You can say you had beautiful meal or a beautiful evening. I’ve even heard beautiful operas and seen a beautiful ballet. Beauty isn’t always the Venus D’Milo, or a perfectly chilled bottle of champagne.

In my opinion, beauty is best viewed against a hard edge, because that’s when it’s the most real. Beauty is easily accessible in a museum, even if it’s not the art form of your choice. Beauty is easily accessible on television, on the radio, in magazines. Beauty of form—we have a glut of that, or at least we have a glut of what society tells us is beauty. But it’s fluff, because you don’t have to try and see it. It’s in your face, totally obvious—air brushed and color-modified for your enjoyment. We have lost the art of hunting beauty and of creating it. Let me explain…

I have found great beauty in my life. Even when I realize that people I love and care about deeply could care less, or worse, never cared to begin with and just gave me lip service out of some sick and twisted sense of chivalry. I have seen beauty even when I’ve wanted to tell the truth and knew I would get into trouble for telling it. Life is even beautiful when people can't tell the difference between the truth and a big fat lie, because the potential for truth to win out is there, and truth is always the sister of beauty.

There have been moments when the beauty of life is enough to break my heart, in a good way. There was a Sunday in 1996, when I was three weeks away from turning 18. That was the weekend my dad got diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. That is what we like to call a real bitch. Dad got out of the hospital, and my mom was bringing him home to recuperate or die, at the time, we just didn’t know which…and I was following them in my own car. I was fiending for a cigarette, and since my parents didn’t know I smoked, I was chewing my cuticles and bawling like a banshee. To add insult to injury, this huge, nay--cataclysmic, thunderstorm started screaming out of the sky. At one point, I had to pull the car over because it was raining harder than i was crying, and the combination of my snot and the pounding rain made driving not such a great idea. And then, as quickly as it had started, the rain stopped. The sky was still this mournful deep gray color, but sprawled right across it was the most incredible rainbow I had ever seen. I have yet to see anything that beautiful in my life, again. It was so powerful, so moving, such a stark contrast to the way I was feeling on the inside that I got out of the car to look at it. Over those wheat fields, in the midst of this ugly awful thing invading my family and our lives, that color riot looked touchable, accessible, promising, and ever-so-slightly hopeful. It was beautiful, and for the briefest of moments, in the middle of my own pain, it made my life beautiful, too.

Beauty can be a real doozy—just ask the Trojans. My best friend Ryan’s great-grandmother used to remind me often that “Pretty is as pretty does.” I didn’t understand what the hell that meant until I got into junior high and promptly realized that some of the prettiest people on the outside are some of the most miserable inside, and that just because someone has a nice face, it sure doesn’t mean they are nice as a whole person. Conversely, many pretty people are treated like morons simply because they are beautiful, which is unfair, because the world is big enough for at least a few people to be both beautiful inside and out, right? As for the rest of us, who in the world ever says (and really really means) “Oh, I would rather be less good looking than I am, and have a better personality.” ?


Your family is obligated to tell you how cute or handsome you are. From where else did we get the phrase “a face only a mother could love”?. My mother is the exception to this rule. When I was younger, I took her appraisals of my physical appearance much more personally than I do now. My mom is the one who would tell me, “Why yes, Rachel, those pants DO make your ass look like a tank.” Or “Come over here so I can tweeze your eyebrows. You look like a yeti.” She would then pin me on the bed, literally screaming and crying, and tweeze her little heart out. But those tweezing sessions always ended with a kiss, and a “You really are a lovely girl, Rachel. I love you very much.” Thank God that woman is honest and has an eagle eye for stray eyebrows, otherwise, I could have been a real disaster area.

Your friends have that same obligation to lie to you about how you look, (except for the gay ones, and they are bound by the code of the gay mafia to steer you away from artificial fibers and animal prints, no matter how good you think you look decked out in jaguar spotted pleather), although they can be trusted a little bit more to tell the truth. Friends can be more diplomatic than family, because they love you by choice, not by genetic or legal obligations. The good part about a friend telling you gently that you look like a Thanksgiving Day float is that she (I can only speak from my own experience, people…) will usually make a nice suggestion for what you can do differently, or loan you something out of her closet.

The people who are blindest to looks, and most aware of looks, are the ones who are in love. Love is beautiful. Love is a duality of being. Love is blind, but love also sees every flaw in stark detail. Granted that flaw-viewing is usually done somewhere between 2 am and 4 am, in the blinding white spotlight of our own minds: the interrogation room into which we retreat to find out if we really mean what we say, and if we really say what we mean. That room is a hard one to be in, and the privacy glass isn’t always as fool-proof as it looks.

Beauty is tricky, because it can be so easily contrived. A turn of phrase or a glance held just long enough can make the most awkward silence beautiful. Sometimes beauty is empty space—no color, no sound, no sensory stimulation, just starkness. Beauty that is only on the surface is dangerous, because a good coat of spackle can fool the most wary of eyes, if those eyes are beguiled by how good that spackle looks, how solid, how true. Beauty without substance is no better than a soundbite from the nightly news—it doesn’t make much sense or hold much water without the real story to back it up and make it real.

My high school boyfriend told me I looked beautiful in my black prom dress. He also told me I looked beautiful in my red prom dress (the next year). He told me I looked beautiful in a bridesmaid dress, too. I think he was lying about the last one…But I basked in the glow of his admiration. My God, is there anything better than being 17, knowing nothing of the heartache that adulthood is about to drop on your carefully coifed and laquered hair, loving a boy who will ultimately break your heart ? I remember his face, his wide-open face, and how he smelled like Tide detergent and Zest Soap, and I remember I believed I was beautiful, simply because he said so.

My college boyfriend told me I looked beautiful at a wedding for some mutual friends. I was in a borrowed dress, 10 pounds lighter than the last time he had seen me, and had a new haircut. “You look beautiful” were the first words out of his mouth, and immediately put me at ease. I needed to hear him say that. I believed him when he said that. And even though I haven’t spoken to him in years, I will always be grateful for that compliment, because in that moment, he honestly meant it, and I honestly believed it.

The next man who told me I was beautiful was a total stranger. I was in this sporting goods store looking for replacement poles for my camping tent, which mysteriously turned up two years later (and people say God has no sense of humor…). This guy in an army uniform followed me from the front door all the way to the back of the store to tell me I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Not just beautiful. The most beautiful. I was totally dumbfounded. I’m honest enough with myself to say I feel like I have a nice face, but my ass and thighs never got that memo. They’ve always been sort of all I can really see when I look in the mirror, which probably goes a long way in explaining why I am so bad at dating. To have a total stranger take that kind of notice of not-so-little me was incredible in my life. I’ve always been friends with girls who’ve gotten free drinks, been hit on in bars, or received obnoxiously large bouquets of flowers from mystery men because they were beautiful. But this time, it happened to me. Granted, it happened in a sporting goods store, and the guy who said it may have just gotten back from being deployed in a country where women are kept under veils, but it still happened to me, instead of happening to someone else while I watched, trying my best not to feel like “the other sister”.

I had two very distinct feelings about this incident. One: I was humbled that a total stranger said something so nice to me, and walked all the way to the back of the store to say it. Two: I felt the compliment had to be directly attributed to a) I had shaved my legs that morning, and b) had actually put on make up, a skirt, and dress shoes in stead of flip-flops. It was hard for me to just take that compliment and deal with it. Maybe it was because it came from a total stranger. Maybe it was because I struggle with my own self-image, and most days don’t feel beautiful at all. Maybe it was because my brain vapor locked and all I could do was smile and say thank you, instead of giving the guy my phone number. That was one of the most surreal moments of my life, and one that I take out to remember on days when I feel like I’d rather stay in bed than put on lip gloss and go out side. What is comes down to is the difference between being beautiful and feeling beautiful. Sometimes those are the same thing. Most times, they are not, at least in my world.

I could take off on a tangent right now about how the media and MTV and whoever else have taken physical beauty and made it into some monstrosity and mockery of real beauty. But you already know that, so I’ll spare us both the agony and the angst.

Beauty is many things. There are probably as many explanations of beauty as there are for love. What makes something classically beautiful as opposed to something that is beautiful to just a specific audience? Is there some hidden standard that makes Leonardo Da Vinci a universally laudable master, but makes Salvador Dali a niche artist? I guess it boils down to the paradox of visual beauty I have in my own head. I love nothing more than to watch the sun set over some empty panorama—the ocean, a back pasture, a stretch of highway, the mountains, etc. I also love to stand and look at big buildings, intricate and massive cathedrals, banks, municipal buildings, sky scrapers, etc. They are both pleasing to me, but in very different ways. I would be hard pressed to say which I favor more. Watching people mill around St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York is as beautiful to me as watching all the colors melt into dark over a stretch of county road.

another note from the bathroom wall...

This is by far the most interesting thing I’ve seen on a bathroom wall. Ever. I took this picture in Ben’s Chili Bowl, in Washington, DC. It’s my favorite restaurant in the whole world, hands down. They serve bites of heavenly food in little red plastic baskets. And you can bet dimes to donuts that while you are sitting and eating, you will hear Rev. Al Green on the jukebox.

Right before I moved from Washington, to start up a life in Austin, the good people at Ben’s repainted their ladies’ room with blackboard paint, and left chunks of chalk by the lavatory. I guess they figured if people were going to write on the walls, they could at least do it with some ease and style. From what I can tell seven years on, no one has erased a word. This little gem was chalked high up on the wall, right smack on the air conditioning duct. I knew the moment I saw it that I would spend some sleepless nights trying to answer that question, and trying to figure out how to write that answer down in a way that made some sense. This has made for some heavy duty thoughts.

What would I be willing to die for? Dying is so major. It’s the one thing, the one life experience that we really know very little about. Dying is an action, and most people of faith will tell you that is by no means a final action, just the final action that we know about on this side of things. My friends who do hospice work talk about the “actively dying” the way mid-wives will talk about women being in “active labor”, and the two are eerily similar. Instead of giving birth to a life that will live outside oneself, you are actually giving birth to your own self, on a totally other level. That’s how I get my head around it, anyway.

But I can’t really get a handle on what it’s like to BE dead, much less what it’s like to actually die. Forget about saying what I would die for…I still am trying to get a real grasp on the “what am I living for” option. I suppose the answers aren’t too far removed from each other, not any more so that actively dying and actively laboring, anyway.

I had this scary moment at work once. For a whole morning, I was pretty much convinced that a man with whom I had an appointment was going to be so angry when I refused to give him any more money that he would seriously mess me up, maybe even kill me. I realized then, as I realize now, that my drama-queen tendencies were turned up to around eleven on a ten point scale. But there was just something inside of me that could not let go of that fear. I slept like a rock the night before, but when I woke up the next morning, I found myself almost ritually saying goodbye to things in my house, the cat included. I even made my bed, wiped down the sink, and took my dirty laundry from the hamper in my room to the laundry closet downstairs. I was almost positive I wasn’t coming home, and didn’t want my mom to see my messy room. How bizarre. The meeting went just fine, and the man in question didn’t even yell at me when I told him I couldn’t give him any more money—he wasn’t exactly happy, but he didn’t shank me with a sharpened spoon, either.

Going home that night was so sweet. I didn’t think about the fact that I could get plowed into at high speeds on the freeway. I didn’t think about the fact that I could get robbed and stabbed in my bed if someone decided they wanted to break into my house. I didn’t think about freak accidents or plane crashes or myocardial infarctions. I just thought about how happy I was to be alive—to get to sit in my car and blare the radio in traffic, to call my mom and check in on her day, to hear my nephew shouting babbling kid-speak when I called my brother, to know that my cat was going to be demanding food and attention the minute I opened my back door. This rush of gratitude washed over me, and I was just so glad I didn’t die that day. But the question is still unanswered.

What would I be willing to die for? I would die for my belief in God and Jesus. I would die for my family. I know that. I would die for my friends. I know those things. I’m always really bad at those party questions, when someone is asking you “Would you be willing to sacrifice your own life to be able to discover a cure for *insert your favorite disease*?. The answer is always “yes”, because you have to say yes. Who in their right mind would be callow enough to say, “Oh sure, a cure for HIV or cancer or the herp would be great, but I just don’t think I could give up my hold on living in this world for that. I mean, everyone knows we’re just like five years away from a vaccine, anyway…” Say something like that around the people I run with, and you’ll be handed your hat—after it and your ass have been stomped flat.

But really, would you? Would you die to save people who would never know YOU did that? Would you be willing to die an utterly unrecognized death if it meant that the world would remember the action itself, but not the name of the person doing the dying? People are always willing to die for God, family, honor, etc. At least they say they are, anyway. Because we’re supposed to want to die for those things—not just be willing, but to almost welcome a noble death.

I’ve never been put in a situation where I actually got called out, called to make good, called to take a stand for those things, in a way that actually threatened my life. And I’ll part with a nasty secret—I’m glad it’s never come down to that. Not because I think my answer would be any different if I were asked it with a gun to my head, instead of typing this essay in the comfort of my own bed, with Jinx the Cat sleeping at my left knee. I know myself well enough to say that I would die for the God and my family. Personal honor doesn’t really mean much to me, because it’s tied up with my family and my faith, so that isn’t such a big deal for me.

People make choices every day about what they are willing to die for. I wonder how many of us make conscious decisions about what we are living for, though. The two probably aren’t nearly as much alike as we would like to think they are. There are some days where I’m willing to live for my next pay check—just get me through this day, so I can know I did what I needed to do to get me one step closer to new counter-tops in my kitchen, one smaller pant size in my waistline, one more glance from the cute guy in the corner of the room.

There are days when I am totally numb to what’s going on around me—just making phone calls, sending notes, writing up reports so that my work is transparent and I stay in good graces with the people who’ve hired me. I wish I was better at living for good things—like making a difference in lonely old people’s lives, or being a better daughter to my mother, or friend to my friends, or co-worker to my office staff. So many times, we get so caught up in punching our widgets, we forget that we ARE living, and we will not pass this way again. We live out of habit, and die out of boredom, fatigue, hatred, lack of valuable stimulation—not just die as in cease to respire, but die as in totally stop the action of really and truly living.

JimValvano was a basketball coach for Villanova and a major hero in my life. They were a Cinderella story in the NCAA tournament during 1980 something. Jimmy V got cancer, and it was real bad. Terminal, in fact. But he never stopped talking about living, even as he was being eaten alive by tumors. He talked about living everyday—that to do that meant that you cried, you laughed, and you thought EVERY SINGLE DAY. How exhausting, and how exhilarating. How beautiful and true, as well. If we laugh, and cry, and really think everyday, what we live for and what we die for get a lot closer to being the same things. That’s what I think, anyway.

visual learner

i look at his picture from time to time. it's not in a frame, or anything. i have to look for it when i want to see it. it's not like i have it socked away in some drawer or keep it in the coin pocket of my wallet along with my nephew's nursery school photos. and i never look at the picture of him when i'm busy. or with other people. and until now, i've never even told anyone that i have looked at him, many times, and wondered about what i would call Serious Questions.

supposedly, his name was jonathan. he was someone's brother, husband, friend, employee, son, nephew, hero, confidante, inspiration, nemisis, alter-ego, etc. theoretically, if the man i look at is jonathan, a name that means "gift from God", he worked in new york, at windows on the world. he is one of approximately 200 people who made the choice to jump out of the world trade center on september 11th, and a man named richard drew snapped a series of photos of him as he fell. whoever he is, he has been immortalized in print, in photos, and in the hearts of millions of people, not the least of whom are his family.

his photo bothers me. i'm not easily shocked anymore. once you've seen how the sausage is made, you can't really be shocked; suprised, maybe, but never shocked. the fact that richard drew took this photo doesn't bother me. it's not the first time i've seen a dead body or someone in the process of dying. in my line of work, you either make friends with death, or you find a job at starbucks. what bothers me about this picture is what i am confronted by, and how it is so deeply juxtaposed against a stark backdrop. what i see in "falling man" isn't some desperate act, although i suppose one could characterize it as such. what i see is something beautiful, something hopeful, something that is ultimately full of life and a love that i find difficult to put words toward.

i will be the first person to admit that what happened on 9-11 was the seminal point of my coming of age, as well as that of my generation. nothing has ever been the same. nothing ever will be. i'm reminded of a robert frost poem, used so well by se hinton in "the outsiders"--"nothing gold can stay". how true. and things are always so much more golden, halcyon, and idealized in the 20/20 vision of the rearview. i have written about that day. i have dreamed about that day. i have wished that it had never happened so many times. and i probably always will. but my pain and my fear and my issues about that day are those of a spectator. i didn't know anyone directly who was killed--friends of friends, that kind of thing. no one on my christmas card list was lost to me that day. and while my life, my little small insignificant life, was radically changed by new security measures at the airport, new warning systems, new news formats, and new prices on just about everything, pretty much i kept on going the way i always have. there is something about the pain and the anguish and the terror of that day that does not belong to me, because i was not there. to co-opt it, to run on about it, to be all ptsd about it seems like something akin to rape, recurring nightmares notwithstanding.

i suppose that's why i look at his picture. there is something that is still so surreal about that day--something that defies my ability to believe that horrible thing happened, and i have stood at the lip of ground zero, held my best friend's hand, and wept at the emptiness in that place that can never be filled, no matter how tall or wide or broad or deep they build. i watched it happen. on nbc. in my nightgown, holding caro's hand, and actually having to remind myself to breathe and not scream. and i was 1500 miles away from the reality of it. i didn't believe what i was seeing. and i suppose that, too, is why i look at his picture.

i have a hard time understanding blind hatred. i've been a lucky girl for a lot of years--i've never been in a controversial demographic, one way or the other. i can't remember ever being really and truly discriminated against. i have never been disenfranchised. i have never been threatened with death or punishment because of my beliefs or behavior. i can't imagine that i would ever come to a point where i would feel ok about subjecting other people to my will or my whims, no matter how much i joke about taking over the world. the right to choose your bliss is a precious one. the admonition to "live to the point of tears" is one i take very seriously. i demand that from myself. to imagine that choice being removed from me, or to imagine removing it from another person is so beyond me that i run out of words when i think about it. and that is why i look at his picture.

"falling man" is a hard picture to look at the first time. i saw it three years ago, for the first time. i keep going back to it periodically, to remind me of things, not the least of which is that life, even the briefest of moments in the most desperate of places and direst of straits, is so precious. the concept of life is a large one. life is more than the numbers in our bank accounts, credit scores, winners and losers of office politics, winners and losers of national politics, family squabbles, rifts in friendships, etc. life is the substance that cannot be measured in quantity. it's forehead kisses from someone you love. it's driving at dusk on two-lane blacktop to the middle of nowhere, with the top down, just because you can. it's mac and cheese at your grandmother's house. it's angels on the head of a pin. and they are myriad. and they are beautiful.

in the final analysis, i suppose i go back to look at "falling man" periodically because i don't want to forget. i don't want to forget how special we are. how brave we can be. how volatile and beautiful and terrifying and exhilarating the substance of life can be. i don't want to forget that we all have choices to make, lives to live, crises to reconcile. i don't want to forget that love is stronger than hate, peace is more powerful than war, dreams come true, and God is bigger than my dreams. "falling man"'s choice, while controversial by some standards, says all of that to me, in an image. and i suppose i have exhausted my 1000 words describing this very moving photo.

i like what was written at the end of an article in "esquire" magazine says about "falling man"...

"maybe he didn't jump from the window as a betrayal of love or because he lost hope. Maybe he jumped to fulfill the terms of a miracle. Maybe he jumped to come home to his family. Maybe he didn't jump at all, because no one can jump into the arms of God.
Oh, no. You have to fall." that's kind of amazing and wonderful and redemptive, i think.

mil besos,

rmg

play list for traffic jams, hospital visits, and short trips in the car for the week of april 7, 2008

Well...All Right 2:15 Buddy Holly
Mockingbird Hill 2:18 Les Paul & Mary Ford
La Cienega Just Smiled 5:04 Ryan Adams
Wonderwall 4:08 Ryan Adams
Goodnight Elisabeth 5:20 Counting Crows
Three Hits 3:11 Indigo Girls
Choctaw Bingo 8:33 James McMurtry
Roller Derby Queen 3:28 Jim Croce
Wildwood Flower 4:25 June Carter Cash Wildwood Flower
First We Take Manhattan 5:52 Leonard Cohen
Failsafe 2:37 The New Pornographers
Sweet Lorraine 5:26 Patty Griffin
Father, Son 4:56 Peter Gabriel
The Emperor's New Clothes 5:16 Sinéad O'Connor
Down By The River 9:20 Neil Young & Crazy Horse

i swear, if my shrink ever saw my itunes playlists, she would be convinced that i am seriously wrecked in the head. happy listening.

i'm almost recovered from crud-fest 2008, so expect a good post soon.

mil besos--rmg

stream of consciousness, vol 2

i heard on a movie once that the pacific has no memory. i wonder if that's true. the last time i saw the face of that blue water, i was in another country, and two months out from losing my father. i saw his face in the sunset and the sailboats every night, and drank away his voice at the bar when the sun was gone from the sky. i hope the pacific i see this go around is a little more on the peaceful side.

spring is here. i can smell it in the air...the pregnant smell of freshly turned soil and the faint taste of salt from the sea that seems to be wafting up from the coast. i read a book about horses this week and i harkened back to my childhood...to the way fields would roll past the car window and i would day dream the whole way to where ever we were going...about who i would become...who i would marry...what i would be when i grew up.

if we went north, i knew i would see terraces, shallow and full of hay or wheat or cows at the snodgrass dairy just outside of town, my grandmother would point out shortcuts to the farms where she lived as a child. my grandfather would talk about the doodlebug train that ran from here to there and could be boarded at the depot, which i only ever knew as an art gallery. and the toilet factory and the smell of tape as we crested the hill into the metropolis seemed to promise new school clothes or a roller skating adventure or a movie and later, it meant i was on a date.
if we went west, i knew the land would flatten, flatten flatten and maize would give way to cotton would give way to maize would give way to cotton and in the middle of nowhere every 20 or 30 minutes out of the flat distance would spring the iron and rust of the oil pumper, going like some beast from the past or the future, making money out of light sweet crude or something. i kenw we were going to the doctor or shopping or that i was going to have to run some crazy distance to see if i could actually make it. i knew that road like the back of my hand, and soon the curves didn't mean anything in the road because they just tasted like tears. and they smelled like cigarettes and anger and that adrenaline smell you get in your nose when you fall down and aren't sure if you're ok or not. and the only good thing about that road was the rest stop 26 miles exactly outside of town, because i made out there with a boy i loved once. i still have a fond place in my heart for rest stops, just because of that. it was a catharsis...i hurt so badly that day, and was so angry and so so so sad that kisses seemed to be the only thing that could even come close to being any kind of a balm. that being said, i still hate it when he visits my sleep, which he did last week, and which i am still angry over. that town, those memories, most of them are just another word for hell. someplace i don't ever want to go again.

if we went south, the hills would roll roll roll and surely a thunderhead would loom just out of mason and i would watch the rain come on over the hills and be amazed that i could see so far and live in such a magical land. and sometimes, instead of reading about harriet tubman or anne frank or singing along to the beach boys, my mother would tell stories about jackalopes or indians and i would be right back in the 1840's. and we would drive by cherry springs, where the last comanche captive owned a dance hall and aunt sarah and uncle billy saw elvis and jerry lee lewis on a double bill one night. going that way meant camp, or the alamo, or the riverwalk, or friends or the beach or the lbj ranch or fredricksburg, which always meant that i woud hear stories.

we almost never went north, unless we were going someplace else entirely in a different state. the fields and trees and small towns gave way to rolling prairie and interstates and soon i could drive, but didn't much want to because i wanted to sleep and read my very important books and think my very important thougths and be so sure that no one understood me at all. the road to dallas feels 15 to me. like i want to cry and laugh and take over the world. and it means the mississippi river, too.

elton john is on my mind. i am a very small child, and i am hearing "rocket man". or james taylor or jim croce or jesus christ superstar, and i can hear the lines on the records and now i miss those noises when i listen to them on my cds. the snap and the crackle and the way a pipe smells and because it's spring, i'm a little happy and a little sad, and mostly i miss my daddy and my poppa. i still have so many questions. not the least of which are about the fields and the crackels and how to buy the right air filter and not get hosed buying tires and if this all makes sense one day. that's all. i hope the pacific has a merciful memory...deep, but not painful.

dona nobis pacem.

mil besos--rmg

the bar association and other musings

Oh, the bar, scene of so many happy evenings, interesting conversations, and even true love. A good bar is hard to find. My favorite bar in the whole world? That’s easy—Mean Eyed Cat, in Austin, Texas. It’s a Johnny Cash-themed bar, the beer is always cold (you can get Lone Star Light in a bottle, which is my litmus test for any good bar), and the music selection is unparalleled anywhere in the known universe. I truly do love that bar. What I love more about that bar are the people I go there with—it’s one of those places you only go with certain people, special people, because you want to savor the evening, and not worry about who’s staring you down, or how many beers you really ought to have.

Bars are funny places, and the feelings they bring out in me are many. I very rarely end up leaving a bar totally shit-canned. I also can say I’ve never left a bar with anyone I didn’t come in with. I have held friends’ hair while they vomited in bars. I have held friends’ hands’ while they cried in bars. I have hidden in the back of a bar to avoid talking to people who creep me out. I dug thrown up mushrooms out of a bar sink one night, to avoid my co-worker being arrested for an intoxication in public ticket. And one fateful night, at a bar called Blaine’s, I got up and danced on the tables when Sweet Home Alabama came over the speakers.
I remember when I thought bars were like Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders—full of delights and drama the likes of which I never could imagine. There’s a part of me that’s disappointed every time I rediscover that a bar is just a public living room, filled with people you don’t know.

Just like bars, most things in life are not the way I thought they would be. I thought by now that I would be married, or at least close to it, have a kid, maybe have a law degree, or be doing something fabulous in policy creation or in the non-profit sector. Instead, I quit a job I was good at, moved in with my mother (to whom I am terribly grateful), I had a very non-traditional, job taking care of my cousin with CP and his twin brother who is totally fine, except that he’s a 12 year old male, took a job for yet another church, bought a house, and set about to start my real-live adult life. There have been random crushes in the middle, one that showed some promise, but turned out to be nothing to get excited about. Reality is not what you imagine. Reality is what really IS, regardless of where my peers have ended up. This is my life—confusing, complex, never boring. It’s not where I imagined I would be, staring down the barrel of 30. But it all belongs to me.

See, most people have a pretty good idea of what they are supposed to do and be. I am supremely jealous of those people. For example: I changed majors five times in college. God bless my mother for never yelling at me like the rest of too many other mothers faced with vacillating and vexing offspring. Mom told me, “Babe, you know exactly how much money you have for college. You know exactly how many hours that will buy. Study what you want, and worry about making money later.” Good advice, to be sure, but now that I’m sitting on history degree, with a minor in political science, I’m wondering why I couldn’t have picked a major that was interesting AND lucrative.

I can tell you all about political theory and the rise of empires in Europe. I know the military history of Rome and the rise of the Republic. I think those things are important. I think those things are worth knowing. But I’d also like to know how in the world those things are supposed to get me to retirement, with something besides my big fat brain chock full of trivia to support me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disappointed with my life at all. I’m very grateful to be alive, to be reasonably healthy, reasonably sane, and reasonably intelligent. I’m grateful for the opportunities of which I have been able to take advantage. I have lived a big life, up to this point. The question looming on my mind, and I’m sure it’s on the mind of my friends and family, is, “What in the hell comes next for Rachel?”

There have been many nights in my life when I have lain awake in bed, tempted by forces unseen to pack a bag, gas up my car, and just start driving. (My friend Dustin, who is a hero in my pantheon, suggested that I do just that as a remedy for my quarter life crisis. Instead, I went to the beach and worried about work the whole time I was gone. So much for advice…) But every time I sit up in bed and wonder which bag would hold the most stuff, or who I would call when I got to where ever I was going, all I can think about is the shit that would hit the fan once I was really gone. Where would my car payment come from? How would I pay Capital One the fee they are due this month? How would I explain to my family that I just had to bug out and find myself?

Find myself—God, but that sounds so freaking cliché. It’s a poor phrase, but so dead on the money. Where IS me? Is me what I own, or is me what owns me? Am I more than the sum of my credit card statements? Am I more than the degree that I still haven’t had framed, and have only actually looked at twice? Am I more than just my parents’ child? Am I more than all the jobs I’ve had, all the jobs I’ve not taken, all the jobs I’ve been turned down for? Am I more than the friend I have been, the sister I have tried to be? What in the fuck am I doing? Is there any end to the questions? More than that, is there even one sensible answer to even one of the questions? When do I stop asking the dumb questions, and start asking the smart ones? Is there a drug for this? Is there a premium on questions? Is there a surcharge if I ask the wrong ones? The answer, I think is always “Yes”. And the answer is always, “No”. This means that I’m right where I’m supposed to be: the most damnable place of all, if you ask me.

Do I imagine that I am going to find some state of inner peace by finding artful and artless pieces of graffiti scrawled on the bathrooms across this country? Do I think that one day, I will walk into some diner with my digital camera and find my soul mate? Do I think that anyone besides my family and friends will want to read any of what I have to say? Yes. Probably. Maybe not, but it’s worth the shot, right? I mean, going off to do “book research” sounds a hell of a lot more noble than “finding myself”.

I am as mystified by life and my place in the universe in my late 20’s as I was at 17. The upside, if that’s what I can call it, is that I am not alone. Oh no, not alone, not by a long shot. Three quarters of the people I call “friend” right now are suffering right along with me. We are clueless. Some of us know what we want to be. Some of us know who we want to be with. Some of us have an idea of where we want to go, and a few have an idea of how to get there. But for the most part, we are stumbling along together, leaning one on the other, trying to make our way into the wide world. In some ways, the advantages our parents gave us have crippled us. In some ways, the progress they made has hindered our development. How else do you explain the fact that half of all marriages fail? How else do you explain upper and middle class child neglect? How else do you explain our inability to function without cell phones, SUV’s, and the internet?

We are a generation of infants with adult bodies. We have the ability to reason, but not the wherewithal to get any real life business taken care of. We are horribly lazy. We have no voice in the public square, because we can’t find our cohesion, other than to be angst-ridden and wear the throw back clothing of our parents’ generation. We want to be cool, but we forget that when you are cool, you also have substance. And we don’t want substance, because that just takes too much fucking work.

Some of us are motivated, yes. But to what end? So we can drive the two-story, eight mile to the gallon behemoth that Hummer just put out? So we can buy a monstrosity of a domicile in some cookie-cutter neighborhood and fill it with stuff from Ikea and play house with the last person we had sex with because we think we might make pretty babies with them? What are we doing? What do we want to do? I ask myself that question, and I have trouble getting an answer. I ask my friends that question, and I have trouble getting an answer.

I want more than a house. I want more than a husband. I want more than two point five children. I want more than a volunteer position at the hospital auxiliary. I want more than a career. I want more than credit card bills and unrivaled cell phone reception. But I have no idea what that means. I don’t think it means going back to school and getting that Masters’ Degree in Renaissance Art that I’ve been toying with. I don’t think it means joining an on-line dating service because I’m too afraid to see what’s out there on my own. I don’t think it means freaking out and freezing my eggs before I turn 30, because I might not get married and I want to have a kid. I don’t think it means getting a job at the local coffee house to pay down my credit card debt faster. And I don’t think it means laying awake at night worrying about urban renewal policy and universal healthcare insurance.

In the final analysis, I think answering those questions is going to mean a lot of things. And it’s going to mean only one thing. The lot of things will lead to the one thing. Very Zen, I know. But at 1:20 on a Tuesday morning, it makes good sense to me.
Of all the things that I do know, I know this: I will not find bliss at the bottom of a coffee cup, unless I am sharing a cup of coffee with a good friend. I will not find my purpose in life sitting on my ass, letting life pass me by. I have, as have we all, an infinite amount of potential within me. And unless I am willing to waste that potential, (which I am not, because I firmly believe that all sin boils down to waste) I won’t find the many or the one.

mil besos--rmg

portrait of a lady

she told me a lot of stories. about losing her youngest son, about getting sober, about how much she loved her husband. she told me about her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren, about trying to raise four kids on one income, about her husband's heart attack. she told me about how good God had been to her and how much she loved me bringing her communion. she told me how pretty i was, how blue my eyes were, and how she would dance at my wedding.

we had some inside jokes. we always laughed a lot. she kissed me on the cheek when i would leave, and i would spend most of the visit holding her hand. she had the same birthday as my nephew, and always asked about him when i would go for a visit. she was a complicated woman, but always the consumate lady. always gracious, always complementary, always focused. i felt like i'd known her my whole life and i only knew her for about a year and a half. her children said she'd kept every card i'd ever mailed to her.

when my office manager came into my office monday morning to tell me she had died, my outlook had just reminded me that i had an appointment with her at 3pm. i got up, shut my door, and put my head down on my desk and cried like a little kid. it's not that i was sad for her. i was sad for me--she had become my friend, and i had come to look forward to our visits. in this business, i try not to have favorites...but she was my favorite. and today, we will honor her life. and i will smile and be glad that i knew her. and tonight, i will go home, crack open some champagne, and celebrate another week, another life i got to share, and be grateful.

welcom home, sweet jomeree! i can't wait to see you, again. and we will both be dancing.

mil besos,

rmg

thoughts on planting...

I took this picture in the bathroom at Gruene Hall, which boasts the oldest dance floor in Texas. I’ve literally danced out of my shoes at Gruene Hall, sung at the top of my lungs, and consumed more beers than I’m comfortable counting. My mom always jokes that we’ll rent it out for my wedding reception one day. It’s a great place, one of my favorite places in the world, I suppose.

But this story is not about Gruene Hall. In fact, the story that goes with this picture happened a long way from Gruene Hall, about as far away from a party spot as you could get, if you want to know the truth. This is a story about being on the edge of things. That’s what this picture reminds me of—that thin edge of reality we all secretly stand on, but want to pretend doesn’t really scare the pants off of us. That thin edge of reality that we get to avoid because we have a little money put back, a job that pays our bills, a family that can bail us out, and friends who keep us sane. That thin edge of reality that reminds us that today, this minute, this situation, and this breath are secretly all that we really, really, really have. That thin edge that is the same edge for you and me and every other person in the whole wide world.

You might remember that I went to Mexico last summer for a week. Hands down, this was one of the most amazing weeks of my entire life. We did hot, sweaty, tiring work. We helped with vacation Bible school, put a new roof on the church sandbox, demolished a house and leveled a lot, and put up a structure for community meals. In the end, we came away with much more than we brought. At least, I came away with more than I brought.

The colonias along the border are famous for their squalor, sort of kingdoms of abject poverty, poor hygienic conditions, and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. The houses in the colonias are barely houses in the way you and I think about living structures. They are sometimes cinderblock, but most frequently corrugated metal and cardboard, shored up with wooden pallets scavenged from where ever they can be found, held together with bailing wire, crooked nails, glue, chicken wire, twist ties from old bread bags, and God knows what else. Some colonias have running water and electricity, or paved roads. Most of them don’t have any kind of amenity you and I would find in our own subdivisions. But they all have a soccer field. And bands of feral children and mangy dogs and wild cats roaming through the streets. The colonias are desperate places to live. Living that close to the bone, living so close to nothing—no safety net, no savings, no nothing, has got to be hard. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must be like.

I’ve never gone to bed hungry because there was nothing to eat in my house. I’ve never gone to bed being afraid that someone could come in and take everything and everyone I lived with. I’ve never been at the end of my rope, with no place left to go. I’ve never had to get up every morning and wonder how to feed, clothe, and shelter my family. I’ve never watched my child’s face get eaten up by ringworm, or had to bury a child because they got sick from drinking contaminated drinking water. I don’t understand that kind of poverty or that kind of pain. I had the good fortune of being born into a family that had jobs, houses, stuff, etc. As I looked at the faces of the young women in the colonia, some who were my age but looked much older, I marveled at the crap-shoot my good fortune really is. And I tried not to feel guilty.

On the first day of the trip, my job was to help staff the vacation Bible school at the colonia called “Colocio”. This was the “poor” colonia. I thought the hardest part of my day was going to be calling back Spanish phrases I hadn’t used in years, trying to drown out the drone of my Spanish teachers telling me “Rachel, pay attention to your conjugation!”. I was wrong. The hardest part of the day wasn't trying to look past the lice that climbed over the heads and faces of three and four year olds, or trying not to scrape myself on the nails protruding from every hard surface, or dodging rocks in the ground that seemed hell-bent on not letting us sit down, or trying to stay under the sunshade and help glue flowers to papers, or having to remember not to refill my water bottle from the tap. The hardest part of my day was realizing that what I thought I was bringing to Piedras Negras was nothing, in fact.

I came to Mexico thinking that we would be helping out so much by doing what amounted to crowd control and manual labor. That by the end of the week, we would have shown ourselves to be magnanimous people who wanted to help these people better their situation, not the ugly Americans who want to build walls and fences. I imagined that we were going to be heros, in some form or fashion. What I left with, on that first day, was a decidedly different impression. I came to understand that I wasn’t there to build, or staff, or speak. I was there to bear witness, to be present. I was there to hold small children’s hands, kiss their faces, learn their names and tell them mine. There was not one single thing I could do, or be, or give, or teach that was worth anything. But my presence, my willingness to be present and invested, and not look away from the poverty and the mess and the smell but to look right into it, was worth everything. Sometimes, most times, the best thing we can do in any situation is to acknowledge that the situation is there. Not to fix it, or go around it, but to sit and recognize the fact of the matter. That was my job, my real job, anyway.

We were treated like family, by every person we came into contact with, and not just the church people who were hosting us. Every mother of every child, every brother and sister, every little kid, every watermelon vendor, every truck driver with a load of stuff for us treated us like we were family. They smiled, spoke slowly, and thanked us for what we were doing. They thanked us for coming to spend time with them, for playing soccer and teaching them how to jump double-dutch. They thanked us for dancing with them, for raking dirt, for Gatorade, for bothering to be with them. They thanked us for acknowledging them as people. Can you imagine? It was enough to fill my heart to the brim, and break it a little, so it could hold even more.

As we drove out of Colocio on that first day, down a road that was more pot holes than actual road, we passed dwelling after dwelling that seemed to go from bad to worse. We found out that this particular colonia had just been granted running water and electricity four years ago. Some yards had chickens or a small garden. Most had wee little children hiding in whatever shade they could find, waving madly at our big white van. Dogs ran around the van in circles, so the going was slow, sometimes so slow that I just wanted to lay down in the seat, cry and imagine myself away from that place. It’s hard to see something like the colonias and not wish it away. But I stayed sitting up, willing myself to just accept what was in front of me, and not go to the magical beach that lives in my head.

Just before we turned back toward the church to have lunch, we passed a house that looked like it was about ready to fall down. The house just looked stressed out and tired, like the mortar and the cinderblocks had just seen too much and were about to give up the ghost. And up against the fence was this beautiful climbing rose bush, in full flower. I caught my breath at the sight of it, awestruck by the appearance of something so pretty in a place that seemed so bent on being ugly and awful.

I’d like to tell you that my first thought was “Oh, how nice…someone planted a rosebush in their yard, just like home…”. My honest first thought was “Why bother? Why? When you’ve got a dirt yard, and a dirt floor, and have to live with 27 other people and God knows what else in that house, why?” And my second thought was, “ That’s by-God the most hopeful thing I’ve seen in a long time, in a place where hope comes at a high cost.” Who knew such riches lay before me in such a poor, poor place? Who knew that on that knife-edge of life and death, some gentle soul would have the audacity to plant a rosebush, to give color and beauty to a little corner of someplace that so desperately needs it. They gave it to me, as well.

I have thought about that rosebush every single day since I saw it. That rosebush has haunted my thoughts, my dreams, my prayers, and my wishes. It’s easy to get so bogged down in the grind, to see nothing but the dirt and the mess and the cycle that keeps you dirty and messy, whether you live in a ritzy suburb or a colonia.

We’re not so different from each other, down at the bottom of everything. Hope comes to us all at a high cost. I’m looking at the yard of my heart with new eyes now, trying to figure out where to plant my rosebush, where to plant that seed of hope, that riot of color that seems to draw your eyes and your heart up and out of where ever it’s been. I want to have the will to plant that rosebush, to tend it, to be comforted by it. I want to shake the hand of the person who planted that brave sign of life and hope in that dusty yard in Mexico and thank them for the gift they gave me on that hot and hard Monday, because hope is worth everything.

mil besos--rmg

land of the living

"Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day, it cannot always be night."
You will be right." --gwendolyn brooks


my antibiotics are starting to make me feel really wonky. i read all about the medicine i'm taking for Kidney Infection 2008, and i appear to be having all the "normal" side-effects. i am tempted to swear off anything other than water and cranberry juice for however much longer God lets me live, because i don't ever want to get this sick ever again. holy moly. what a way to start the new year. although, i will say that only wanting to eat oatmeal and soup and cereal is doing wonders for my diet. and all this water is doing wonders for my complexion. i suppose i can't complain all the time, huh?

i'm trying to get back into the swing of work. being off for a week for Christmas was wonderful. i slept, i saw my family, it was wonderful. being off for a week sick was horrible. i feel so sluggish and out of touch with my old people. and yet, all i really want to do is go home, crawl back into my pj's, pull the covers up, watch a movie, drink lots of fluids, read a book, and try like anything to get some real sleep. apparently, the fine makers of levaquin figure if they can stomp out your infection, a little lost sleep on your part is really no big deal. while i appreciate their fine product, i think they are total asshats for allowing such a disgusting side effect spring from their product. i plan to write them a strongly worded letter regarding same as soon as i can get 8 hours of sleep in a row.

i've been at work for 2.5 hours. i think that's enough damage for one day.

mil besos--rmg

year in review 2007

everyone is sleeping, except for me. mommy and grammy are snuggled in with my little chunk of a nephew, little bro and sister-in-law are snuggled down across the hall. and i'm sitting at grammy's computer pecking away to add to my blog. christmas comes almost a week late for our clan, and we're totally fine with that. there are, need i remind you, 12 days of christmas, and we celebrate them all. make sure and keep all those live christmas trees and greenery for the big epiphany bonfire on January 6th (which is also JJD3's anniversary into the priest-hood).

so, here we are, friends and neighbors, at the close of another year. i must say, it's been quite an adventure, at least on this end. let's recap, shall we?

January--rachipoo makes her first mortgage payment, after closing on the barbie townhouse in the alamo city. on her first night in her new home, the skies open and rain cats and dogs. rachiepoo realizes that her newly bought roof leaks, right on to the floor beside her bed. she frantically calls her home owner's association manager, and is pleased to find out that this is not her problem, and aside from a slightly damp spot on her carpet, all will be resolved. rachiepoo thanks the baby Jesus for condo living, and vows to never complain about her HOA dues, ever again. at least until february. also in january, rachiepoo joins a gym so she can squeeze herself into yet another bridesmaid dress in april. for those of you playing the "at home" addition of adventures in rachiepoo, please move your wedding token to the number 13 spot. do not skip ahead to the altar portion of that section. it's just not your turn yet.

February--rachipoo works a lot in february. she also celebrates her mother's birthday. and bk's birthday. and she eats pancakes on shrove tuesday. she also begins teaching in chapel as part of her job. she learns that she has what might be termed as "anxiety" about this venture, because she begins spending most of her monday nights and early tuesday mornings worrying about what she will say to the children about the baby Jesus. she hopes she will remember to be orthodox and not say outlandish things that might get her into trouble.

february also brought with it a new discovery. identity theft can even happen to rachiepoo. she is very much dismayed. after several calls to the bank and a frantic call to her mother, she meets her new best friend, her personal banker, who presses lots of buttons and suddenly makes everything better. and she gets her money back. rachiepoo begins keeping all her mail. she also begins saving up for a shredder, and begins to wonder if she can begin a cottage industry selling hamster cage liner to expedite paying for said shredder. she is very glad that february only has 28 days this year.

March--rachiepoo worked alot in march as well. in fact, she worked so much that she doesn't really remember much about march at all. she paid bills, saw friends, and talked on the phone. a lot.

April--rachiepoo pays her taxes, and wonders where all that money went. rachiepoo is in her 13th wedding. it is at the beach. hilarity ensues, and whilst looking something like a doric pickle, she managed to carry off her duties with some sense of grace in tact. she also manages to spill a margarita on her dress. further hilarity ensues. upon returning from the beach wedding (congratulations koehlers!!), she has bestowed upon her a cat. jinx becomes part of rachiepoo's world. after a warming period, marked by jinx's being extremly emotionally needed and equally extremly afraid of the full length mirror in rachiepoo's hall way, the two of them become fast friends. also in april, the birth of ella the wonder girl expands the female population of women on the paternal side of rachiepoo's family to lucky number 7. there is much rejoicing. a girl, finally!

May--rachiepoo celebrates cinco de mayo in the district of columbia. she eats at ben's chili bowl a record four times in three days. that's right. four times. she is happy and excited and sleep-deprived (quite willingly) with missy and caro and alex. there is much frivolity involving a blanket and a pair of eye glasses. there is also chinese food (a trip to the hood, included, for free), some cookies, lots of walking, and a trip to the new spy museum. a sideways trip to the shenendoah valley also occurs. la fonda the honda experiences a runaway truck lane. bladder control is threatened numerous times. airline miles have rarely been spent for such a worthy occasion.

may is, as some of you may recall, the time when rachiepoo is drawn indelibly back to alabama. she is happy to see her granny and papaw, her uncle pedro and aunt inez, her cousins anna and mia, their husbands gene and archie, their children austin (keep austin weird, ya'll), and ella the wonder girl. she is also happy to see her various other semi-family folk. she teaches austin the capital of new mexico, and that a pirate's favorite letter is "arrrrh". she also attempts a swimming lesson that both rachiepoo and austin agree ended badly. fortunately, austin later enrolls in a class at the "y", and is now slated to be the youngest swimmer at the 2008 summer olympics. rachiepoo is excited about going to china to cheer him on, if he will let her anywhere near him.

rachiepoo's friend lala moves in for the summer, until lala's husband can move to san antonio. much hilarity and wine drinking occurs on the balconey. rachiepoo and lala also discover that jinx is very afraid of lala's dog, roxy. roxy, however, discovers an unrequited love for jinx, or at least for the treats he leaves for her in the cat box. more hilarity ensues.

June--rachiepoo works alot in june, again. she also has to learn some hard things about working with sweet old people, i.e. they keep getting older, and as they do this, they sometimes die. rachiepoo does not like this lesson, but grits her teeth, and learns it anyway. what's the alternative choice, really? rachiepoo also enjoys a wonderful family reunion with her mother's family. she is surrounded by small children and grown ups that she loves. she hears lots of stories, laughs a lot, and is reminded that a kiddie pool in the backyard ALWAYS equals a party. she is fascinated by her cousins and nephew dressing up in her old dress-up clothes. she is slightly nostalgic, but in a good way.

june also brings another huge benchmark to rachiepoo's life. she drives all the way back to btex to attend her 10th high school reunion. she stays at chez weatherman. she stays up very late and hears and tells many stories. she laughs. a lot. and is glad that, in spite of her initial misgivings, she attends the party. rachiepoo and lala continue to drink wine on the balconey, occasionally joined by jax and kirby. even more hilairity and lots of existential ramblings occur.

July--rachipoo goes to mexico on a mission trip. her life is radically changed. she wants to go back. a lot. she plays with kids, wishes she could recall more spanish, and enjoys coca-cola made with real sugar. she also drives a van load full of people to the market one day. she is very afraid, but is suprisingly, not the worst driver on the road that day. she is very glad to not have to drive to the market everyday. she buys her little chunk of a nephew a very cute soccer uniform, which later becomes his favorite article of clothing, cementing her place as "greatest auntie ever". rachiepoo loves her time in mexico, but is also very glad to come home and sleep in her own bed and drink from the tap with no fear of explosive bowels.

August--rachiepoo works a lot in august. she pays bills. she sees friends. she says goodbye to her summer crush. she learns that crushes are nice to have, but are nicer to be over. she is very glad to learn this lesson. rachiepoo also goes to a fun party at her friend joy's house, where she is accosted by a pseudo-politico who tries to find out about rachiepoo's political beliefs. luckily, rachiepoo knows better than to talk about politics in mixed company, and instead tells some funny stories to throw people off track. she gets home very late, but is glad to have gone to a lovely party.

September--rachiepoo, for the second time in less than a calendar year, follows the herd back to btex for goat cook off. ryanegro and bean are there, so what's not to like? bean's new manfriend is there, also. rachiepoo has to face down an old ghost, and totally wusses out and hightails herself through the arts and crafts mosh pit to avoid a potentially very uncomfortable situation. she is very gratified to know that cutting and running, is in fact, in her blood. she and ryanegro and the bean and the man friend and the reinisch folk have a stunningly good time. she stays up too late. she may have had a little bourbon. she also stays at chez weatherman, again. she is glad she went. she even ate some goat.

birthdays are always a good time, (happy b-day to momo, kirby, aunt inez, and jax!)and while 29 was rather anti-climactic for rachipoo, she manages to keep herself in good running order. she is plotting next year's big day before the flan is even cooled on her plate.

October--rachiepoo works a lot in october. she sees friends in austin. she wishes her friends all lived in san antonio, so she could only drive across town to see them. lala and her husband (t, to his friends) buy a house. lala moves out. rachiepoo is sad. but lala manages to still come over and drink wine. rachiepoo is pacified. rachiepoo also has a mini-showdown with one of her co-workers. using her outstanding skills in pacification and diplomacy, rachiepoo extracts an apology, and is sure that she will never have to walk down that road again. at least for another month. rachiepoo loses another old person. boo. and yay. it's a mixed bag. rachiepoo also celebrates her little brother's birthday and her sister-in-law's birthday, and her birthday. her family really likes combined celebrations. she also sends her granny some flowers on HER birthday. yay.

october brought with it another addition to rachiepoo's universe. juju the hyper tiger kitten comes to be jinx's baby. juju is very small, and very fast, and has very, very, very sharp teeth. rachiepoo's legs have not been this cut up since she was learning to shave. jinx occasionally looks up at her, and asks "why did you do this to us? we were so happy, once." rachiepoo's mother is quick to remind her that juju is a baby, and just needs some getting used to. rachiepoo takes this to heart, fills a squrit bottle with water, and attempts, night after night, to tame the beast. rachiepoo spends a couple of nights in her guest room, just the same, and begins considering renaming juju "chorizo".

halloween, apart from hanging out with lala and t, is a real let-down. rachiepoo discovers that it's really just for the kids, and she feels slightly ripped off. christmas decorations appear the next morning. what the hell, people?

November--rachiepoo celebrates one year of gainful employment at the church of st.'s adirol and ritalin. she is still very happy to have her job. she is ordered to go fold laundry on one of her old people visits. she is not altogether pleased with this, but since one of her old people died, she folds the close with a very tight smile on her face. november, in her mother's and grammy's town means only one thing--a ten day salute to sausage. rachiepoo does her duty as a townie, and goes to wurstfest. she and grammy and mom and aunt sue all laugh. a lot. rachiepoo foregoes the funnel cake. she is a little disappointed, but knows her pants will thank her later. 12 members of the mother clan gather to eat the roasted turkey. rachiepoo is, as ever, the designated dressing taster. the dressing comes out wonderfully and is applauded by all. much eating occurs. rachiepoo has to take a nap. rachiepoo also discovers that she still holds amazing sway over her 14 year-old cousin. cousin anna's pregnancy is moving along nicely. rachiepoo is stoked about seeing a new baby in may. YAY!

December--rachiepoo works alot. a lot. she is on a search committee for a new assistant priest for st's. a &r. she enjoys this more than she should. she continues to make lots of visits to her sweet old people, who for the moment, are suprisingly healtly. she is very thankful. rachiepoo preaches a sermon to the kindergarten class and compares Jesus the Grown-Up to bob the bulider. she waits for calls from irate parents. none come, that she knows of...yet. she is very relieved. half-price books garners a gain in sales, as rachiepoo cannot seem to read enough. she badly wraps her family's presents, and thinks that next year, she should just invest in cute bags and coordinating tissue paper. she thinks her lack of technique may have something to do with kirby forcing her to drink a bottle of champagne against her will and watch old 80's movies on her vhs player. rachiepoo also remembers to take her daily vitamin and her calcium supplement, and is amazed at how well this makes her feel. she also begins a list of new year's resolutions that she hope she can keep until at least MLK weekend.

and that, my dear people, is the year that was 2007. 2008 looms large, and i hope it's filled with many laughs and good stories and new memories for all of us. i hope you got what you wanted for Christmas. i know i did, and i still have stuff to unwrap. i got each of you--on my side, in my heart, in my head, and in my prayers. and that is so much more than enough. good night, er, morning.

mil besos--rmg

christmas songs

it's monday. i am trying to not do as much work as possible today, because i know the next week is going to be insane, and i'm trying to conserve energy. it's not as slack-tastic as i'm making it sound. i am doing my transportation report. and i'm working on two calendars for old people who need rides to church. and i'm making appointments for christmas communion. i'm just not going anywhere today. and i'm pretty sure that if i don't iron clothes tonight, there's a high probability that i will end up teaching chapel in my sock monkey pajamas tomorrow morning.

so, this close to the end of the year, everyone makes lists about favorite christmas movies, favorite christmas gifts, etc. this year, i'm hopping on the band-wagon to bring you my favorite non-religious christmas songs. don't get me wrong, i LOVE the religious christmas songs (i am epsicopalian, for heaven's sake, we even sing advent carols...), but the non-religious ones are some of my favorites. there are also some non-christmas songs on the list, which i'll explain. i'm feeling chatty today. deal with it. you people live for this stuff.

1) war is over--john lennon and yoko ono. this is absolutely my favorite christmas-time song. it's wonderful. it makes me happy. i will roll down the windows, crank up the heater, and sing at the top of my lungs. the celine dion version, however, makes me want to punch through my eardrums with an icepick and drip lemon juice into the festering hole.

2) all that i want--the weepies. LOVE THIS SONG. yes, i realize it's the jingle from the jc penney's commercial. i could care less. this is one of my favorite i-tunes purchases. it's so, so, so pretty. and i like to believe that one day, i will know what that song means. aww.

3) go places--the new pornographers. this is a great song for any season, but it's a waltz, and that makes it automatically christmassy, to me.

4) river--joni mitchell. the ultimate break-up song, featuring a christmas theme, and it always makes me think of "love actually", even though this song was not featured in the soundtrack. this is a wonderful song, no matter who is singing it--indigo girls or sarah mclaughlin. it's beautiful, and haunting, and it just hurts so good.

5) long december-- counting crows. haunting melody, haunting lyrics. adam duritz makes me a little bit weak-kneed, i'll admit. i'm a sucker for a man in dreadlocks. i like this song, a lot, because in spite of the maudlin tone, it's actually quite hopeful. and after all, isn't that what christmas is all about--hope?

6) babylon--david gray. i bought this cd the christmas i lived in washington, dc. every time i hear this song, i remember the smell of snow, and going downtown to pick out presents to bring home to my family. and i remember how happy i was to be going home.

7) good king wenceslas--i know it's technically a church song, but I LOVE THIS SONG. and if you sing it with a lisp, kind of loud and obnoxious on an airplane, your mother will laugh so hard that she could possibly loose bladder control. your brother might laugh til he cries. and the other passengers will look at you, and wonder how such a pretty face could belie such an empty head and whether or not you might have a shot at getting married to corky, from "life goes on".

8) santa baby--the eartha kitt version. my little tiny nephew knows some of the words to this one, and i think that's about the coolest thing i've ever heard in my life. he's a genius. he can now also sing "happy birthday" to the baby Jesus. he's the smartest kid in the world.

9) baby, it's cold outside--sarah vaughn and louis armstrong. i could listen to this song on repeat for at least a day and a half. i have fond memories of driving from austin to my mom's house, singing this song at the top of my lungs. there are some wonderful harmonies in this version. and anything by louis armstrong is cooler than cat pants.

10) have yourself a merry little christmas--james taylor. if the soundtrack to my childhood had to be sung by one person, james taylor would be the voice. i freaking love james taylor, but not in a scary stalking kind of way.

here are some songs that i will immediately change the station to avoid...

1) jingle bell rock. i HATE this song. my dislike for this song rivals my dislike of misogyny, xenophobia, hate crimes, and crushing poverty.

2) any and every christmas song ever covered by celine dion. i will throw up if i have to listen to more than 15 seconds of any given song. this is a proven fact. if you don't believe me, come over and i'll show you.

3) the little drummer boy. pa-rum-pah-pum-pum is an onomatopoeia that should never be sung by the human voice. it's a nice song, in theory. but i hate it. a lot. and the grace jones version scares the poop out of me.

4) i saw mommy kissing santa claus--this song is disturbing for a lot of reasons. but robert knox put it best when he said,-- "Apparently this kid is used to seeing his whore of a mother liplocked with another man. "Oh, what a laugh it would have been if Daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night." These are the lyrics. What a laugh it would have been?! Hey kid! What a laugh it would've been to spend Christmas day at an orphanage wiping the remnants of a murder/suicide off your stocking! "-- too true mr. knox, too true.

5) jingle bells--barbra striesdand. while i will admit that babs is a guilty pleasure of mine (right up there with whitney houston, pre-crack out), this song is just awful. and i hate it when she sings it super-fast. it makes my heart beat really loudly in my ears, and i just know that at any moment, my head is going to explode in a cloud of confetti and candy, just like those christmas cracker things from england. ugh.

6) feliz navidad--jose feliciano. i know, i live in san antonio. i should love this song. the truth is, i can't stand this song. it's nasally. it's piped into every grocery store for a 1000 mile radius and plays 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. the accordion part is the real kicker for me. unless i'm listening to klezmer music (and wouldn't those be Hannukah caroles, anyway?), or doing the Santa Claus polka at Wurstfest, i want nothing to do with mixing christmas and accordions. not to mention that this song is so freaking ingrained in the subconscious of almost every single person i know, no one can keep from humming it or singing along quietly everytime they hear it. it's awesomely bad.

7) hard candy christmas--dolly parton. seriously? this song is part of the soundtrack to "the best little whorehouse in texas". should we be playing a song like this during the season of the birth of the Baby Jesus? it's from a movie with the word "whore" right in the title...and it's awful.

8) the 12 days of christmas--i realize that there are 12 days in the christmas season. i send my lazy christmas email instead of christmas cards during these 12 days. they save my bacon every year. but i hate this song. the only version i have ever liked was on my "john denver and the muppets sing christmas" cassette tape, which i would give my right big toe to have, again. it was awesome. otherwise, this song is like playing monopoly--it never freaking ends well. and when it's over, you wonder what happened to that two hours of your life, and try to reconcile the fact that you will never, ever get them back.

9) i'll be home for christmas--this is the MOST DEPRESSING SONG, ever. i feel like i need to go take an anti-depressant just thinking about it.

10) carol of the bells-- another song that just goes really, really fast and makes me nervous because i can't always understand all the words. this song makes me feel like i've had a venti latte with an extra four shots, seriously. i am getting a scary buzz just thinking about it. i feel bad about not liking this song, because it's got such a nice melody, and it's very difficult to sing. but it creeps me out. like there might be a bunch of scary elves with candle flashlights chasing me through target singing this song, and if i don't find the right paper to wrap presents in, they are going to turn me into a doll with big buggy eyes. scary. creepy. awful.

if i don't get back to work, the elves might come get me, anyway.

mil besos-rmg

for these and all God's blessings...

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,

and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;

though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,

and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,

and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,

O Lord our God, and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties

which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.
- Hebrew Prayer Book

i love thanksgiving. aside from my birthday, it may be my favorite holiday. i like that when i was a little girl, thanksgiving was always the same--utterly predictable, and utterly wonderful. i also like it that as a grown up, thanksgiving has always been the same--a moveable feast, different every year. i was bothered by that for the longest time, and then i realized the obvious--thanksgiving isn't about the place, or the food, or the silverware, or the house, or the time you eat, or whether you see a movie or go shoping or get a nap. it's about the attitude you bring to the table, even if you never actually sit down at a table, or if it's the grown-up table or the little kid table, or the take out counter at jason's deli.

i have so much for which to be thankful this year. the whole list is enormous. the short list reads something like this:

family--all of them, the crazies, the normals, the in-laws, and the out-laws, but especially my momma. family is sometimes a hard thing to be. we don't always understand each other, we don't always know the ways to love best, or say true things, or absolve hurts. but we are family, and that is something special. that's something that doesn't just fall off the cart every day. family is work, play, rest, and welcome. family is babies and old people, baptisms and funerals. it is change and it is changeless. family is where you go to say real things, to make up, to fight, to get married, to heal broken hearts, to let your mother brush your hair dry, to ask your grandparents to tell you that story one more time, to hear your aunt laugh in the phone, to talk to your brother about things you did when you were small, to learn about your sister-in-law's dreams, to put your nephew to sleep, to smell babies, to love and be loved. you are my family. you are me. i am you. we are in this together, for better or worse. i am so grateful that i was born into this family, into these stories, into this gumbo of people who are so different, so similar, so beautiful, and so funny. i can't imagine belonging anywhere else, and even on days when i know you wonder about what i'm doing next, how i'm doing, and what in the world i am thinking, i am so glad i belong to you.

friends--you are the family i have made for myself. each and every one of you--the ones i talk to every day, the ones i talk to once in a blue moon. you are irreplaceable to me. you have taught me more than i can imagine. you are my sanity in an insane world. you are the rudder and the wind in my sails. you are dinner and drinks, baseball and dancing. you are movies and sunrises, tents and starshowers. you are couches and futons and guest bedrooms. you are take-out, homemade, four-star, diner fare, starbucks, french-pressed, deep fried funnel cakes. you are my face aching from laughter, and my eyes tear-swollen, my overage on the cell-phone bill, you are text messages at 4 am. you are concert tickets, bob dylan, 70's soft-rock, angry girl music, beethoven, yo la tengo, bluegrass, funk, soul, hip-hop, and reggae. you are chocolate and peanut butter, salty and sweet. you are the ocean and the mountains, the shenandoah valley and big bend national park. you are all the capitals, all the ghost-towns. you are black and white, you are technicolor. you are the secret language that only we understand. you are the secrets and the truths. you are broken. you are beautiful. you are my face.

health.

work.

free time--for new paint in my powder room, for kittens with razor-sharp claws, for the giggles (which i seem to be getting with terrifying frequency, a la my 13 year old self), for good books on my reading list, for naps, for trips to see friends and family, for frequent flyer miles, for staying up too late, for over-analyzing things with my nearest and dearest.

memories--for learning how to remember without feeling sad, for being nostaligic instead of tragic, for knowing lessons and still being willing to learn, for the art of forgiving, for the ability to walk away without being angry.

for my whole life--all the intersesctions, all the contradictions, the ups and downs, the scary things and the exciting things, for chicago and dc and birmingham and brady and new braunfels and tyler and austin and houston and all the places i have been fed and slept and laughed and cried. for the home that lives in my heart, and the people who live there.

yes, for these and God's blessings, i am truly thankful. and while thank-you seems like such a small thing to say, it's all i have. and so this year, i will try to live my "thank-you" loudly, and try to be a blessing, as much as i have been blessed.

love, a many splendored thing, has spread itself so richly over my life.

mil besos--rmg

I think over again my small adventures,

my fears,

These small ones that seemed so big.

For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.

And yet there is only one great thing,

The only thing.

To live to see the great day that dawns

And the light that fills the world.
--inuit song

pet post

well, since the law of the jungle is "ladies first", i'll introduce you to the latest stray to find its way into my life...this is juju. she's about a month old, has wicked sharp teeth and claws, and her favorite time to play is from 2:30am-3:30am. she's really great, though, and she provides a lot of comic relief. she's getting rather vexed with me, as i have taken to spraying her with lavender water every time she climbs on the night table, or my dressing table, or up the screen, or the shower curtain, or bites her brother on the tail. which brings me to the next member of my menagerie...

this is jinx. jinx found me in april, and has been providing enough cat hair to make at least seven other cats over the last 7 months. he's such a good boy, and is content to just be petted. juju came to live with us as a result of jinx being VERY emotionally needy. and by very emotionally needy, i mean that he was up in my face every five minutes. he's adjusted to juju very well, apart from his insistance on sniffing her hind-parts every five minutes and pinning her down to groom her (i think jinx may be suffering from some gender identity issues) four or five times a night. he and juju could care less what i do, so long as i keep food in their bowls. jinx's favorite toy is a string, just behind him in the picture--that's right, a string. he hates every toy i've ever brought, but he thinks a friendship bracelet from circa 1992 is the greatest cat toy in the universe. ( good grief, the carpet in my room is scandalous. i vacuum it all the freaking time, and it still looks like it's infested with funk...sick out. )

i struggled over the decision to bring another cat into the house...you know the old chestnut about single women and cats...but, jinx needed a buddy, and juju needed a home. i've managed not to fill my cabinets with unlimited cans of cream cheese frosting, and i am reasonably sure that i will not start eating cat food as a dietary supplement, no matter how bad the hair balls get.

the last two nights, i have shut myself up in the guest room to escape what i will lovingly describe as "juju's late night fun hour". i can tolerate a lot, and i know she's only a kitten, but i can't really deal gracefully with having my face jumped on and my ears swatted in the middle of the night, so rather than throwing the sweet little creature against the wall, i opted to just changed rooms. she and jinx were curled up next to each other, right in front of the door when i went into my room to get dressed this morning.

mil besos from the pseudo cat lady in waiting...

rmg