Rain for days now, soaking, drenching, gentle and then hard, stopping and starting, heavy downpour to light drizzle, thoroughly wet through and through, mud puddles, backyard swamps, RAIN. We keep repeating, "We need it," to each other through shivering lips. Everyone says it. the cashier at the grocery store, my Little Sister's grandmother, my friends and I:

"We need it, we need it. Thank God for the rain. They've been predicting the worst drought in twenty years for California, maybe this will mitigate it."

Yes, it's great for the thirsty earth, for the dry garden, for my neighbor's corn, for the vast orchards of asparagus and lettuce, for the peach trees, for the depleted reservoirs which were showing their bones when we drove up to Ashland last summer, under the heavy pall of smoke from two hundred separate forest fires all around the state. And when I read about what's going on in Australia, I want to run outside naked in the downpour, to splash and shout, "More, more more!"

It feels like hope, it feels like a reprieve from all the doom and gloom of the economic news. It feels like Obama winning the election.

On the other hand, it's a bitch to drive in. Friends who are in wheelchairs are more housebound and hampered than usual. And my feet are cold.

Sunday was the second day of classes for the certificate in counseling drug addicts. I love the class--the teacher knows his stuff, he is expert yet humble and real. There's TONS of material, more than I can assimilate, and there's all the initial stress of finding a strange campus, parking, wandering around looking for the right building--in the rain. Sunday I stupidly left my car lights on when I rushed into class, and when I came out my battery was dead. This necessitated waiting around in the rain and growing darkness for campus police to come give me a jump. I was chilled to the bone, but when I finally got home C had made his incomparable black bean soup with chunks of pork.

And class, as I said, is good. For one thing it's just good to be learning something new. There's so much to assimilate in this field: family dynamics, legal stuff, psychology and physiology of addiction, different kinds of therapeutic interventions and protocols. It's very practical, measurable and results-oriented--you can measure success by the addict not relapsing. That works better for me than being the kind of therapist with patients who just have general malaise. (Can you imagine treating Woody Allen? I'd jump out the window. Of course, I'd land in a big pile of dough, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad.) It's also, embarrasingly, the kind of therapy client I always was. How can you tell if you're getting better or if you're just getting better at complaining? It's so subtle and elusive.

Sitting in class for seven hours a day, listening, is hard. The other students are mostly working in the field--there's a nurse, a couple of therapists who want to learn more about addiction issues, and some social workers. Some are in recovery themselves.

The main fear I had going into this was that because I don't have an alcohol or drug problem myself, I would be less qualified than someone who had real exprience of recovery in their life. I have struggled with addictions, but most of them have been behavioral--co-dependecy, addiction to procrastination, playing computer games, and sugar. The teacher, who is in recovery himself, said that the counselors who helped him the most were not former addicts themselves. The crucial ingredient is caring and believing, not one's own personal history.

I did find that in the last ten years or so my attitudes have shifted. I am more conservative than I used to be. When I was working with addicts in the nineties, I was inclined to see the face of angels in each and every derelict. I got enthralled with the drama and the romance of the stories and was a bit starry-eyed and overcome with the meaningfulness of it all. Now I feel more anger and exhaustion at the waste. I am more sympathetic to the people around the addict, and less inclined to buy into the charm of larger than life personalities.

The teacher showed us a movie called Shattered Spirits with Martin Sheen playing the alcoholic father of a classically dysfunctional family. The movie was a bit corny, but it hit the marks very accurately in terms of the unpredictability (yet predictability) of the father's rages, and the children's different responses to it.

There was the heroic child, the daughter who did everything right and took over parental responsibilites. The scapegoat was the middle son who acted out, got poor grades, and was made to bear the brunt of the father's rages. The youngest was the "lost child," introverted, solitary, living in an imaginary world. I saw aspects of myself and of friends and people I have known. But mostly I just wanted to slug the alcoholic father. I had little compassion for him. Perhpas it's my age--women with declining hormones get less empathic and more irritable--but as the credits rolled and the classroom lights went on, I saw many of my classmates were wiping away tears. I was fuming and wanted to swim 20 laps. Interesting.

The teacher was honest when I raised this point and said that inside of every addict lived Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They are all--and of course, we are all--capable of evil or greatness. It's a primal question, a primal problem, just made more stark and dramatic by the choice the addict faces about whether to put booze or drugs into his body. If I drink a glass of wine, my morality and ethics do not hang in the balance. I don't risk turning into another person, someone so ugly I would rather die than be her. But the addict does face that.

On the other hand, I have faced ugliness within myself, and sometimes watched, horrified, as a part of my mind and psyche that is capable of thinking terrible, destructive mean thoughts, let itself be heard. I do live cognizant of my own shadow. It's pretty dark. I am capable of hatred and vengeance, of pettiness and meanness and grudge-holding, of bitterness and withholding. I'm grateful I don't act out of it much. When I do let slip, I feel terrible. But there it is. Part of being human.

Because I was in class all weekend, I saw my Little Sister yesterday. We made chocolate chip cookies, a la a seven-year-old. She loved squishing the gooey mass of dough between her fingers and getting flour all over my pants and sweater, all over the table and floor, over everything. She insisted on making one huge "cookie" which turned out surprisingly well once we had cut it into tiny chunks. then we watched Pride, a better-than-I-expected movie with Terrence Howard playing a swim coach. Watching the fine rippling bodies of the young swimmers was a great motivator for me to get back into the pool.

I'm reading Exit Ghost by Philip Roth--my Dad sent it to me. Dad loves Roth. I wasn't so enthusiastic--I read the first of the Zuckerman trilogy, when he's a young man, meeting his idol, Lonoff, and liked it in spite of myself. The second one, not so much. It felt too solipsistic, too much of the writer writing about sitting around isloated in his own study--and the guy is so sexist and so in love with his own sexism. It's hard to get over that. But he does make beautiful intelligent complex literate sentences and his take on America--or a certain slice of it--feels accurate and vivid.

My discomfort with Roth is personal and I own it--I don't want to ever be like him, solitary, self-absorbed in a hall of reflecting mirrors. (He's great at narrative, but all his characters sound just like him.) And I suppose I see a side of myself that gets so obsessed with my own work, my own process, that is capable of that kind of narcissism, and I recoil from it.

In the second Zuckerman book, the one I didn't like, Zuckerman the writer-hero is suffering from some mysterious pain. By the end of the book he is in the hospital, finding some measure of relief in self-forgetfulness, helping to tend the other patients and seeing that everyone suffers.

In this third one I'm reading now, the poor guy is seventy-one, incontinent and impotent because of prostate surgery a decade before. He's as lust-filled as ever, but I have more compassion for him. And his description of the zeitgeist of New York around the time of the 2004 election is fascinating, especially in light of how dramatically things have changed recently.

I reluctantly must admit that Roth is a major important great writer. I might not want any woman I care about to date him, but he did his work faithfully, and he's a pleasure to read. And here I have to admit another thing. I loved Junto Diaz' book Drown but I set aside Oscar Wao in order to read Roth. Oscar Wao isn't wowing me the way I thought it would. Yes, the language is amazing, but the story gets confusing. (Same for A History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which is a great novel, but I got lost halfway through the plot.) I'm not getting a clear enough narrative through-line to keep me turning the pages. There. I said it. Heresy.

Okay now I'm going to go swim because I sat on my butt eating raw cookie dough and popcorn all yesterday afternoon. And whenever it finally stops raining it will be close to summer, and sleeveless shirts and a wedding gown.

I just signed myself up for a core course in the Chemical Dependency Certification program at a local college. My first step towards moving into counseling work again. I have doubts about this--will I like it? Will I be bored? Will it be a waste of time and money? Are there any jobs out there? But I have been trying to get my butt into graduate school for twenty years now--longer--twenty-eight--yikes! And I am so interested in the brain and how it works and all the things that afffect it. So, here goes.

It's a program designed for working adults, so that means weekends--C and I won't get our lazy wonderful Sunday mornings together--but he supports me taking this new step. He knows that as the poet in the schools work has dried up I've been loathe to go out and beat the bushes to find or create more. It was great while it lasted, but I've been doing it for seventeen years or so, and free-lance work is unsatisfying in some ways because you never get to dig in and commit (of course you also avoid feeling trapped.) I am not enough of a hustler to make much money at it, I tend to lie back and let the gigs come to me. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they are great gigs, but I'm ready earn a steadier paycheck and use different parts of myself. (I realize that as the economy is melting down may not be the best time to invest in a career change, but hey. There will always be drug addicts.)

At the same time, work on the next book of poems continues apace. I have a few revisions to do, and a couple more pieces to write and then it's ready to start sending out. I need to turn my attention toward the book of essays next. I printed out and looked at the hard copy of the women's self-defense piece which I had thought was so wonderful only to discover that it wasn't. Wonderful. It was lame and stiff. How did that happen?

I'm about to run out the door to teach my Tuesday evening essay class. I love this class, so full and committed. Last Sunday I took my Little Sister and her real big sister out to San Ramon to hear the finalists for the Contra Costa Poetry Out Loud recitation contest. Several of my students were reciting--I wanted them all to win. I also loved the students I didn't coach. I still don't know who won because my little sister got so restless and squirmy that we had to leave at intermission--she just couldn't sit in her seat a moment longer.

I took them to Borders where she acted up even more, and after buying her a Barbie book (her choice, definitely not mine,) and her sister Twilight, took them home. It was raining on and off all day, which was great--we need it--but dates with my little sister always work better when we can be outside and she can run around.

Yesterday E and I walked along the Marina, talking about all kinds of things, plans, family, travels, houses, partners. It was bright and cold and windy (it's colder today.) I gave her the latest version of the new book to read--of course it has changed a little since I gave it to her, I keep adding to it. I found out from the publisher that See How We Almost Fly will be published in the fall of this year--probably in October. Look for it then. Pearl Editions.

Gentle, fertile, life-giving rain. We woke to it this morning, drumming on the roof. It's continuing gray, and I don't mind. Let it rain, we need it. Already, my neighbor's tiny seedlings look slaked and grateful. I'm sitting here working on the love book: 45 pages and counting so far. I need a minimum of 48, so I'm almost there. Of course, they have to be 48 good pages, and coherent. I'd like it to be fuller than that, at least 50 or 55 pages actually. But you can't force poetry (you can't force anything.)

I'm liking this process of building a book, consciously, poem by poem, in a unified way. It's satisfying to have a theme around which the poems can coalesce.

This past week I coached a couple of the winners of the school-wide Poetry out Loud contests; this Sunday is the county-wide competition. I'll go and bring my Little Sister--along with a coloring book, crayons, and fried pork rinds to keep her happy. Meanwhile, C reminds me of the March 1 deadline for the book of essays which I should be working on. And the new play...

***********************************************************************************

This was my entry. I published it and went back to the poems. A gray day, quiet, the house quiet, just putting one line after another, occasionally emailing a poem to Ruth for her critique. Either she's getting soft in her old age or I'm really on a roll here, because she's been liking the poems I've been sending her--a lot. But still, nothing special.

"I have a very boring life," I told my essay class last Tuesday, only half-joking. "I get up, I roll over to the computer, I drink coffee, I write, I get the mail."

The phone rang. It was Marilyn Johnson of Pearl Editions. I won their poetry prize this year. See How We Almost Fly will finally be published!!!

I screamed in that poor lady's ear. She laughed. She's a poet herself, she understands. I was too excited to ask any of the relevant questions: when will it come out? Will there be any readings? I wonder about distribution. How do they get their books out?

Mostly I'm just so relieved. I called C at work and he was excited for me--champagne with dinner tonight. And I know the ritual I want to do with him. I want to take out the lists and lists and lists of contests to which I have submitted this book and just show him--just have him witness--how many there were. I want him to see, and I want me to see too. In fact, I want to count them up. Eight years.

If I am anything to anyone reading this blog, let me stand as a monument to persistence. Fourteen years of personals ads and blind dates and un-blind dates (which may as well have been blind) before I met my love, my life partner. I honestly don't know why it had to be so hard or take so long. My friends say I wasn't ready before, but I certainly felt ready. I was ready back in 1995! On the other hand, if I had succeeded in my quest, what adventures I would have missed along the way (but what other adventures I would have had.)

I don't know why things have to take the time they take, why some stuff comes so easily and a lot of it has to be worked for, sweated for--and in the end there's always that element of chance. This book has been good enough to be published for several years now--the individual poems that were in the ms were published, many of them had won prizes. It came in as runner-up finalist in several contests, but it never won; it was the proverbial red-headed stepchild. I loved it, but I was beginning to doubt--maybe it's just too raggedy, too inconsistent, about too many things at once. Why can't I write a book that's about all one subject, like Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, or that book by what's her name, the Pulitzer prize winner who won the Pulitzer Prize? Why do I have to be so all over the place?

And this is how it happens. Athletes go to the Olympics and either it's their day or it isn't. The judge likes the gymnastics routine or he doesn't. The audience comes out on a rainy night to see the play, or they stay home and watch Netflix. You go to the dance and you either meet the right partner or you don't. But you have to keep going to the dance--or doing something--or nothing happens.

Was it the right dance, this contest route? Sometimes I think I got addicted to the quest. I passed some kind of point of no return where not only did I not give up, it was as if I couldn't give up. The quest had taken on a life of its own. I hope this next project happens more quickly, more organically. This next book, the love book. How great would it be to just create things and hand them over to the production people and go on to creating the next thing instead of having to be an administrator for one's own work for years and years. But whether it happens or not, I'll be here at my desk, drinking coffee, looking at the mail, putting one line after the other.

My computer popped a gasket on Monday—as if the heat of this latest book I was going great guns on made it blow a fuse—and so for the past four days I’ve been laptopless. I’ve felt as though some one tied my right arm behind my back. Even though C generously offered the loan of his Apple while he was at work, I couldn't make the adjustment. Thank God the wizards at the computer fix-it store restored the motherboard to health (don't you love that word? Motherboard...)

Meanwhile, I‘ve been a freeway warrior, driving out to far-flung school districts (far-flung from Oakland, anyway) coaching students in preparation for the Poetry Out Loud competitions. It’s been an unexpectedly moving experience. The students have been diverse in every way—racially, culturally, geographically, and in their public speaking confidence and understanding of the poems. I’ve been touched by how much they’re into this, whether it’s because it’s a competition, or just because memorizing a poem lets you own it so much more deeply, but many of them have told me they love “their” poems, and they light up when extra layers of them get revealed through the coaching process.

I get to enjoy discovering or re-discovering great poems that are on the POL web site (www.poetryoutloud.org) and also exercise my latent theatre teacher instincts. It's great to encourage shy students to straighten up, make eye contact and come alive in their expression. A fair amount of the students have accents, and they are the most moving of all to me.

And my class at Writing Salon started—a full complement of 13 students. So I feel like I’m back in the teaching saddle again.

The laptop blow-out means I’ll miss the January 31 deadlines I was hoping to make for the completion of this ms., but that’s probably a good thing—had I managed to rush out enough pages by then, they would have been premature. Now I have to get my momentum back. But for the moment, C is working on the in-law again and I promised ravioli for dinner.

Yesterday was C’s birthday so we had a leisurely romantic wallow: bagels, lox, good lapsang suchong tea; flowers, a nap, the movie Milk, and a good dinner at a pub nearby with a tall glass of Guiness that was so thick you could stand a fork in it. Best was the talking—why are some restaurants and some dinners such perfect occasions for connecting, and others aren’t?

I remember an expensive dinner at a nice French restaurant after I’d won a poetry prize and gotten the MORE check, and the whole thing was marred for me by a large loud drunk woman at a nearby table who kept up a constant monologue to her poor companion.

I remember a wonderful meal with my mother—a date with just the two of us. I think I was eleven—I think we had just seen Hair. I had Creole shrimp over rice and we talked—that’s what I remember; we talked and didn’t fight. No other kids around interrupting, arguing, crying, asking for more, or spilling their water. I felt like a grown-up and ate slowly. My mother was very beautiful that day. She must have been all of thirty-five.

So many meals go unnoticed—most of them—but last night we were both conscious of how lucky we are, how precious this time is. Walking off the meal afterwards by strolling around the neighborhood smelling flowers and box hedges, in the very light drizzle. Listening to Eva Cassidy in the car on the way home, singing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

For the past couple of weeks I have been working on this little book project. It’s half poems, half prose, and when I started it I thought of it as a poetic essay but now I’m thinking a whole book. I worked on it all day Thursday, from 7:00 in the morning until my friend Amy called me to go on a walk. Thank goodness she called because I wanted to go on working—my brain was still making words and lines—but my eyes were blurred from staring at the screen too long and my body was screaming to move.

I went to the gym, swam like a possessed woman, and then showed up, still spacey at Amy’s new digs and we walked by Alameda Beach just as the sun was setting. She took me on a less-traveled path and showed me how one could bicycle around there, although my brain was whirring so hard I couldn’t even process her simple directions. Really, when you go deep into the writing it’s like a drug, it’s like taking a mega-dose of caffeine mingled with hallucinogens and maybe a touch of Ecstasy. Kind of rough on a lightweight like me who can barely finish a glass of wine under normal circumstances.

I have been thinking more about this forgiveness thing: why do I find it so hard to forgive some people and so easy to forgive others? I do have an unfortunate tendency to hold grudges. Yet while I was very sad about my marriage ending I could never work up much anger at Alan—it just wasn’t there. There was some anger, but not the gnawing bitter kind that stays with you for years. I always knew he was doing the best he could, he had loved me as best he could.

On the other hand I’ve wrestled with anger and resentment towards my mother for years—all my life it seems—even though I also know that she did the best she could.

I’ve forgiven the criminals who have injured me and my property over the years—the guys sexually assaulted or molested me when I was young, the muggers who snatched my purse(s), the guy who masturbated outside my window in Miami, whomever stole my car(s) in Boston and in Oakland, whoever broke into my house two years ago and a few years before that. I never think of them, but if I did, the thought would probably be “Poor bastard.”

But I hold onto resentment about old lovers and a few former friends who did me wrong. I tighten up inside whenever I think of them. Their trespasses were so much lighter, but the proximity and the trust I had in them made them so much more painful.

It’s helpful for me to remember that it’s not that I can’t forgive, but that I forgive easily in some areas, and with great difficulty in others. And to try and tease apart—what part of my not-forgiveness is anger, and what part of it is the fear that still wants to make a boundary between me and that other person: I will not get close enough to you even to forgive you. I am so scared of being hurt like that again. (Even though my rational mind knows that it would be impossible for them to hurt me like that again, because circumstances have changed and I’ve changed—and they’ve probably changed as well.)

All this rumination is taking place against the reality of a March 1 deadline for getting the book of essays together, and also wanting to revise Shame Circus and get on with finishing the new play. I wonder: why the hell did I create this new project in the midst of trying to finish so many old and ongoing ones? I wanted to; I have so much to say about love and getting married—even though these subjects embarrass me a little with their overt heterosexuality—and it was the most actively bubbling pot on my crowded stove.

I still want (and economically need) to get a job, preferably some sort of counseling work, something in a non-profit. I’m doing some teaching through Poetry Out Loud, which is great fun—helping students who have memorized poems perform them for a national competition—and my essay class with Writing Salon has enough students in it, so that will be good. I’m just not sure it will be enough. We’re also still laboring on the in-law—sanding and washing walls today (me) and replacing flooring in the closet (C). And the wedding is six months away and we’ve got to, you know, plan it.

Just one more word about the inauguration--I had watched a lot of it at Gerry's but missed the Inaugural balls. Today, on my computer, I just watched Barack and Michelle Obama dancing to "At Last" as sung by Beyonce. What a gorgeous moment.

The white one-shouldered dress that Michelle Obama wore looked like a wedding dress, and the lyrics to the love song were both a tribute to the love between the Obamas and also an acknowledgement of the emotion in the country.

"At last...my lonely days are gone." It was like they were marrying the country, as if we were enfolded all together in that powerful powerful love. That is both the seductive magic (and perhaps the danger?) of their sweet myth.

I talked about displacement with Carla and also with C last night, specifically how I've made Bush be a convenient target for my anger and aggression all these years. Not that Bush doesn't deserve it, but there's also something knee-jerk and unproductive about that dynamic.

Carla was talking about how she can get mad at the usher of a theatre where there isn't good handicap access, or at something or someone else for a seemingly "petty" thing (although when you're in a chair, nothing is really petty because the smallest things can prevent your access,) and the real object of her anger is the situation itself. It's no one's fault, it's just frustrating not to be able to get down or up a flight when you need to, or go to the bathroom when you need.

I think we all do that--throw our rage around, (or in my case, I've often directed it inward, which doesn't work either.) I felt lucky to be able to discuss this so openly with C because there's never a whiff of judgement or condescension or moral superiority from him when I confront my negativity head-on. He doesn't try to gain any holier than thou points--he's completely trustworthy.

This business of withdrawing our displaced rage from the conveniently placed targets and then working it through in some other way that results in creativity, love and wisdom rather than just a well-worn negativity groove is hard. I don't know how one really does it except through art. It's like that Langston Hughes poem, "A Raisin in the Sun." "What happens to a dream deferred?" And then all the different options are explored, "Does it crust over and run/like a raisin in the sun?/Does it sag like a heavy load?/Or does it explode?"

That poem, with its last word, "explode" presaged the Black power movement. And now we're in the after-after-afterglow of all that, the Obamas dancing cheek-to-cheek together at the Inaugural ball last night. It ends in a love song--for the survivors.

And...finally! President Barack Obama. How sweet the sound.

We watched it at Gerry's apartment, on his hi-def TV--C and I and Raquel, and Elizabeth and Theron and Ruth and Michelle and E. Three lesbians, two African-Americans, one Colombian, two straight couples...

I can't remember ever actually watching an Inaugural before. I think for both of Bush's inaugurals I was rocking back and forth in a fetal position under the bed. Or maybe I was down at the Canadian consulate, pestering them for a citizenship application. Either way, I paid as little attention as possible.

For this one, we were rapt. I was particularly impressed with Michelle Obama's ability to stand and walk all day on pointy high heels shoes in an inadequate open cloth coat when the outside temperature was 24 degrees, 16 with the wind chill. Forget Obama--he looked great, sure, but he also had a nice long wool coat, thick scarf and comfortable shoes. When you see Michelle do what she did you realize we were not all created equal--some were created with the ability to be a politician's wife, and others of us weren't. Since C has no aspirations in that direction I'm safe--I can sit comfortably on the couch in my jeans and sneakers, moaning and kvetching if the thermostat goes below 60. But her--dignity and grace personified.

At the very very beginning, before he took the oath, Obama appeared deep in prayer or meditation, as if he were in an altered state. He didn't crack a smile until afterwards. I could feel the waves of Buddha-ness emanating from him.

I confess I am having trouble getting completely on board with the centrist make friends across the aisle philosophy. I agree we need to forget our petty differences and work together, but I have a hard time forgtetting that Rick Warren got Prop 8 to pass just two months ago, or all the damage done by the Republicans. I confess to having evil thoughts when I saw Cheney in his wheelchair, and the Bushes on the steps of the White House waving good-bye. I thouht of all the harm Bush did in his years as President, all of the Iraqi women and children who died, all the people who wdied in Hurricane Katrina who didn't have to. All the dead soldiers and those maimed for life.

I saw Obama and Bush embracing, Bush embracing Michelle Obama and thought, "Not me. I'd spit in his eye."

Yet another reason why it's good I'm not a political wife. Seriously, the extreme graciousness of the incoming administration makes me realize my own tendencies to be petty and resentful, and to question how useful those qualities are (not to mention how unattractive.) I am not comfortable with white-washing over history but it also doesn't do much good to keep clinging to old hatreds. i wonder how much I'll be able to let go of, given some time, and what I will gain in exchange?

There is more to say but I'm going to take a nap before embarking on the evening's inaugural festivities. Being a political spectator is so exhausting.

Beautiful, warm, sunny weather--gloriously warm, seventy degrees yesterday. I am wallowing in being able to walk around inside my house without a coat on--it's as if I can finally de-contract all my muscles. So delicious.

This past day or two I've mobilized around next career steps. About fifteen years ago in a co-counseling session, I came up with a mission statement, a la Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people. (Yes, it's cheesy, but there's some good stuff in there.) My statement was: "I am an artist in community." I knew I wanted to create things, art, and I knew I didn't want to do it in an ivory tower. It was short, sweet, and simple. It worked.

There's another mission statement lurking around inside that wants to come out now. Something about serving and raising and uplifting the divine feminine, something about women and children. I've always felt it, ever since I worked with Haitian refugees and was so moved by their spirituality and the intense love I felt passing between us. I felt particularly moved by the "feminine" aspects of the culture--the earthiness, the practicality, the emotion and ritual, the female as well as male gods in the voudoun pantheon. Africans have a revered place for the Mother, both in society and spiritually (even though there is abuse of women there just as everywhere.) I responded to it hungrily.

This last year, going through the self-defense training at IMPACT, hearing the other women's stories and reflecting on my own, I felt it rise up again in me: this protective love for women and the feminine, this desire to serve what Robert Bly calls The Great Mother, the feminine force in life that nurtures and protects. (Not that men don't have it too, C is extremely nurturing, and so was Alan my first husband, and so is my father.)

I called a friend who runs a Domestic Violence Center in Oakland and she suggested I take a forty hour Domestic Violence training. There is also a 40-hour training in Sexual Assault. I want to take both. I have been calling and emialing around to find a training that I can take and so far have been unsuccessful. But I know this is the direction I want to go in. It feels exhilerating to follow up on it.

Meanwhile, we are jogging along--the in-law is almost complete. My story is out in The Sun. I finished the fifty millionth rewrite of the self-defense essay and sent it to Modern love, so now I am waiting with fingers crossed. I still have to work on the Carla article; it just won't gel yet. I am starting to try and get buff for the wedding, which is seven months away--building swimming back up again. I heard about a great aikido teacher, so I am going to investigate his classes.

I introduced C to Boggle and now he is addicted to it as I am. We went to see Rachel Getting Married the other night--a great movie, wonderful acting, terrific writing--but the hand-held camera was so jiggly it literally made C seasick. I looked over about three quarters of the way through the movie. At first I thought he was weeping because it was so emotional. Then I realized he was struggling hard not to retch. I passed him my hat and whispered that he could puke into it if he had to. Instead he fought the urge down and eventually put the hat down and pulled it over his eyes to protect him form the motion onscreen.

The next night we watched Peggy Sue Got Married with Kathleen Turner. I saw it twenty years ago when it first came out. All these movies about getting married--stepping over the threshold. Part of me, the old rebellious part wants to minimize that it's a big deal. We've been living together for over a year, it's just a piece of paper, what's important is the committment between us. I don't want to give our personal power away to a ritual. That's ego, my ego.

Because it is a big deal. It's a big vulnerable mysterious deal. We've got a lot going for us as a couple--mad love, humor, some skills, and perserverance (read: stubbornness) on both our parts, and a strong desire to really do this right. But we also know that 50% of marriages fail, that the statistics are even worse for second marriages than they are for first ones, that we both have individual failings that will make this enterprise challenging, and that sometimes it's just hard to compromise, give up power, surrender.

So here we are, not dramatic, but vulnerable. And open. And curious--that of all things, may save us.

We went to see Garage Mahal last night, Kai Eckhardt's band. Amazing. The guitar player was virtuoso, the drummer was fantastic, the piano player was dry and witty and mostly minimalist. It felt like a grown-up date: drinks, dress-up, city lights. Funny to be doing something so decadent in such dire economic times; splurging a bit on a fancy outing as we listen to the bad economic news on the radio get even worse (as if that were possible.)

But life goes on, and culture, even when the stock market is down the toilet and the deficit is in the trillions. My own output continues to flourish--lots of new poems, a revision of the self-defense essay which finally feels like I nailed it. I just hope there will still be magazines and newspapers and books and places to publish...

When we got home the last few minutes of a PBS Great Performances was on the TV: Jennifer Garner and Kevin Kline in Cyrano deBergerac. I've seen that play four or five times but never done as powerfully as this. Garner was a revelation! The scene we watched was the denouement when she finally gets it, who has been her lover all along, hiding behind his impenetrable wit and his big nose. In one scene she is imperious, flirtacious, grieving, suspicious, angry, shocked, overcome with shame, brave, deeply loving, transcendent. I always knew she was beautiful, but had no concept of her range.

This was Alan's favorite play when we were together--he related to Cyrano as an outsider, a romantic who didn't feel he would ever get the prize, a diamond who would be overlooked because he didn't look the part. But watching Kline and Garner's performance I got another shade of Cyrano--even when she tells him he's wrong, she can love him, she does love him despite his nose, he can't take it in. He won't believe it, and he holds her love at bay even in his last moments when she is trying her hardest to give it to him.

He was wrong all along. The obstacle to love was never his nose, it was his ego, his defences, the fact that he didn't believe he could be loved. He kept love away from himself.

And she is overwhelmed when she sees her own blindness, her complicity in the game.

All that was there twenty-five years ago when I first encountered this play but how differently I see it now. How slow I've been in learning, and thank God for great art which sticks around so that we can measure our own relationship to truth through how much of it we are able to see at any given time.

A few more moments--taking my Little Sister to play "tennis" this last Sunday--if you use the word in the loosest possible context, which I do. It was chilly out and no one else was foolish enough to come to the city courts by the lake. Just as well. After declaring that she was a great player (that's my girl, trash-talking is integral to sport,) she swung her racket around wildly, missing everything that came near.

I kept trying to soft-pitch her the ball so that it would hit right in the middle of her racket but then she'd holler at me, "Why you throwin to me like I'm a baby! I ain't no baby!" so I gave up.

We ended up playing some kind of invented lacrosse-golf-soccer thing with tennis rackets, but at any rate we were chasing the ball around and having fun, our noses running from the cold. The truth of the matter is we are both goofballs, and that is all we have in common, and it's enough. She's not a culture vulture like I am, she probably won't share my addiction/passion for books and art and theatre, I won't get the ego-gratification from mentoring someone who is like a younger version of me, and that's fine. She's a hurt kid with a whole backpack of experiences I am only beginning to learn about, and she needs to play a lot.

Moments with children are so fragile and hard to articulate, because it's an eyelash, it's a furtive smile, it's a leaning of weight against your own lap when you're sitting down. Nothing concrete, rarely verbal. A child is not going to turn to you and say, "You know, I trust you more than I used to, I feel like I can rely on you." She will never say that.

But she expects me now on Sunday afternoons; she knows I am coming. I feel like we turned a corner the week before, when we went up into the woods. Like we've dropped into a new level of being relaxed with each other. She has even said some nice things. When I backed up the car to get back on the freeway after stopping off at a quikmart she even murmured with a hint of surprise, "Hey, you're pretty good at that." Okay, being complimented on my driving skills by a seven year old may be grasping at straws, but over here at ADD central, we take what we can get.

She has given me a nickname--Ali-Al--which sounds a bit like I work for Hamas, but that's okay. When I dropped her off Sunday evening the house was warm and her grandmother had bought one of those fake logs at Walgreen's that make it seem as if you have a real working fireplace even if you don't. Her grandmother and her big sister were watching a video on the couch and I joined them, all four of us cuddled up in the warmth on a dark cold night.

I've also been over to Carla's old place a few times helping pack it up, and to her new place, unloading. The new apartment is so spacious, and the bathroom is huge and awesome! I love the colors: teal, lavendar, butternut. And I liked working with the other women; Kaila, Edith, Kathy, Christina, and with Allen.

I feel like C and I are turning a corner as well--a difficult corner for me to negotiate. I think this is the point in relationship where we start focusing on our own needs and wants and paths again. It's not as sweet as the initial bonding-nesting cozy romantic stuff. He's no longer just so moved and impressed by the fact that I write poetry. He knows it's part of my job.

He's moving on into his wider interests, music, math, building--and I need to make sure I keep growing too. You can't stay staring blssfully into each other's eyes for ever, even though a part of me would like to. (As Susan from Wing It! says "I'm a recovering barnacle." What a great way to put it--takes the shame off.) It makes me feel a little lonely, but a little bit good, too, to be thrust back into independence--and here's my life waiting, with all its same old quirky issues--principally the work-writing balance.

In short: I want a job. I wrote that this morning in my morning pages. Then spent some time this morning scanning the offerings at Cal State Hayward in of all places the Criminal Justice Department. I'm really interested in this new concept that's being pioneered that's called Restorative Justice. (Hell, it's probably been around since Biblical times, but it's new right now.) It seems so hopeful--offenders get to make restitution through working in the communities they damaged rather than just rot in jail.

I research this stuff and then I go, "Whoa! Not so fast! You agreed with your agent that you would have a manuscript ready for her by March 1st, you're in the middle of a new play you've committed to finish, and you've just written a mess of new poems. Are you going to be a writer or a worker out in the world?"

This question has been at the heart of my work issues for the last thirty years. I want both, I need both. One of my fondest memories is the time I spent working at SF General Hospital in the 90s. I loved the beehive atmosphere of a busy hospital, and having my own small part to play in it. I loved the mystery and excitement of encountering new patients all the time--their stories. And I can't write full-time anyway--I go in spurts. When I'm really on to something--an essay, a play--and I can scent the whole shape of the thing, I'm like a bloodhound and I can go long hours. But I can't do that day after day--it's crazy-making.

So how can I get organized and simple enough and efficient enough to do both?

I got a heartbreakingly positive rejection letter about Shame Circus in the mail a few days ago. The director said he "adored" the second aria. Not that he "liked" it, not that he "enjoyed" it, but he adored it. You can't get better than that.

The next paragraph started "Unfortunately, it is not quite right for X theatre at this time."

I hate that. It's like starting to date someone and having them tell you that you're beautiful, you're kind, funny and smart--but. "It's not you it's me." What is it then? What???

I wrote him back thanking him for his letter and asking the usual professional questions: are there any changes I could make, where else could I send this, what exactly would feel right for your theatre, etc. And now I'm back at my desk with The Recruiter. I have a Vietnam vet who agreed to read it for me and evaluate the descriptions of post-traumatic stress.

Carla says all we get is moments, and she’s right. So here are some of mine from 2008:

Listening to C play piano downstairs as he is doing now, while I type this in bed. The gentle sound drifts up. He’s improvising, noodling, it sounds a little classical, and then jazzy, and then like a lullabye…

Last Sunday, with my Little Sister in Redwood Park. She had asked me to “take her to the woods!” so I brought her up there. “Is this the woods?” she asked. She was curious, alert, interested, calm. Nature is big enough to hold her in a way that man-made environments can’t. We greeted and petted every dog we saw, looked at horse shoe prints, discovered moss, peered down gopher holes, collected pine cones. She was a dream, and I had so much fun with her. And it lasted for two and a half hours. She hugged me when we parted. A small turning point.

The wonderful Japanese restaurant lunch in Massachusetts in October, celebrating Dad’s and my birthdays. Eli flopping his all-of-a-sudden lanky little body on me, treating me like a bean bag chair. Noah slung his elbow over my shoulder just because he can—he’s shot up to almost my height and the next time I see him he will have overtaken me. Afterwards, standing in the sunlight with my dad and siblings and nephews, watching C play soccer with the boys. Pretending to be a shark for my nieces so they could enjoy screaming and running away.

White water rafting with C in Oregon, feeling the thrill of adrenaline as we rushed down the river, wondering if we’d keep our seats or get dumped overboard, getting drenched to the skin and at the very end slipping over the edge in our life jackets and paddling gently to shore.

The first bed and breakfast we stayed in in Oregon, a lovingly reconstructed old farmhouse—each detail was perfect. Seeing Othello in the big theatre, having read it aloud together and watched the movie. C whispering to me that he never would have enjoyed it that much if we hadn’t done that and how much he appreciated the new learning. Feeling like I could actually teach him something when he’d been instructing me all summer in carpentry and painting and sanding and spackling.

My fiftieth birthday party, I felt giggly and pretty and danced and read poetry and when I looked around everyone was playing music and making connections, and talking and eating and having fun.

Watching Arabian Nights a few nights ago at the Berkeley Rep. Gorgeous, rich theatre—I wanted to eat that production, I wanted to smear it all over my body like honey and sesame paste, it was like halvah, so rich, so sweet, so good.

Being at Harbin with Carla last July, laughing and crying on the bed, watching her enjoy water-walking in the big warm pool, slipping out of our room to go swimming in the early mornings, naked, with the pool all to myself.

In fact, swimming in general, a reliable way to reach ecstasy, especially when I have a lane to myself. There were some good swims in 2008. I hope for even more in 2009.

Reading Doubt and realizing I was in the presence of a work of genius. Reading Women of Manhattan and feeling my eyes widen in recognition: this writer gets it.

C proposing to me at the Berkeley Marina, my astonishment and our laughter and the deep gladness of knowing we both want each other that much. Being moved once again by how he’s willing to lay it on the line. Calling my father to tell him the news that evening; he was having dinner with my godparents, his cell phone was on because he was awaiting word from the hospital where my stepbrother Stoph and his wife Moire were having their first baby. Dad was so happy he said, “I can’t even begin to describe all the feelings that are rushing through me right now.”

Our sweet Passover dinner with old friends Lauren and Daniel and their two-year-old Mirabai. It was Mirabai’s first Seder and she was toddling around, very interested in everything and even wanted to come sit on my chair with me for a while which felt like a great blessing. Telling her about Elijah and opening the door. Passing on the tradition.

Dad’s visit—waking early in the morning and walking up 38th Ave to try to catch the radiance of his early morning self.

Watching Obama get elected. Screaming, “He got Ohio! He got Ohio!”—was it Ohio this time? The state he needed to put him over the top. Feeling so overwhelmed at what was happening I couldn’t take it all in. C beside me on the couch breaking into tears, friends drinking champagne together and feeling that the world had changed.

So many moments of sitting in audiences watching Carla perform, but the one that stands out to me is a gig at Anna’s. I was there with Gerry and she sang a song she had written about being scared in the middle of the night and I dissolved.

Climbing Mt. Grace in Massachusetts on a beautiful warm October day and seeing the undulant colored hills all around—a sea of hills, all the way to forever.

Having my play produced in Detroit and my Dad and stepmother and Masankho and C all came. Masankho just made it at the last moment. Seeing my dad crying at the end--he was overcome with emotion.

Writing Love Shack and realizing I’ve already got 13 poems towards my next book.

Making love in various rooms of the house and feeling like teenagers. First time I’ve lived without roommates in ten years. All our teasing, play-fights, and even some of our real fights. Holding ground—new and scary. Working it out. Tears and deeper understanding. Long walks in the woods.

Being scared to take the Impact class and taking it, and realizing the part of me that was hungering to fight and be powerful. Awakening the sleeping warrior inside.

Singing a duet with Catherine Rose at my birthday party and hearing her say she always thought I had a nice voice.

Making chicken mole for the first time and having it turn out well, making delicious gazpacho stuffed with fragrant herbs, making matzah brei for C this morning...

Sitting with a student at the Impact class where I was an assistant teacher. She was crying about a rape that happened years ago. Knowing exactly what to do—nothing—and doing it lovingly. Feeling her release her trauma, and knowing we were in the exactly right place doing just what needed to be done.

Going to The Albatross, a bar, with C and G and Carla, and playing that game about who would you like to have dinner with, living or dead. Realizing the people I most wanted to be with were right there at the table with me. Teasing Carla about how she needed to be carried out by two guys, even though of course it wasn’t because of the one beer she drank. Seeing how gentle and courtly G is with her.

Watching the Olympics, the tremendous spectacle of the opening ceremonies, even if it was politically incorrect and fake, it was still an amazing show. Watching the whole thing sitting on the couch between G and C, eating salt and vinegar potato chips.

Taking my Little Sister and her real big sister into the city to see Elizabeth’s show. Playing I Spy with them in the car going over, with C—just like a family.

Watching The Wire with C, occasionally pausing the DVD to deconstruct the action or figure out what the characters were saying. Feeling like it is a joint effort to appreciate this complex well-written show. Seeing how much of the street life it shows is similar to the lives of C’s students at Juvenile Hall, and how it affirms something to have that devastating reality reflected back.

Clothing swap with Marci and girlfriends, not so much the loot I came home with, just the camaraderie of women and bodies and clothes—humor, support, and generosity.

Singing with Beth and Hadass at E’s birthday, standing in the center of the circle, singing as an act of prayer, leaning in to listen closely and feeling bound by ropes of song and love.

And what were your moments of 2008, o readers, anonymous or named?

It was cold and beautiful on Alameda Beach the day after Christmas, that hushed, in-between time of year when everyone seems to be pausing to take a breath and a look around. Sunset was spreading pink and blue and purple and orange to the west. Darker clouds scudding, beach grass blowing, the twinkling lights of San Francisco in the distance. Bundled-up people in ones and twos and threes congregated by the bird sanctuary and embraced each other through scarves and puffy coats. You could see a flash of Carla's bright hair and brighter smile in the wheelchair as she waited with her father and her son for everyone to arrive. Amazingly, she didn't seem cold at all.

One of the things that has happened in this last year since her diagnosis has been the birth of a community. It is made up of the smaller communities that already existed around her before; her moms' group, her artist friends; her College of Marin people; her family. Now we've all overlapped and become friends with each other.

There was a lot of hugging and kissing, and then Carla moved to a regular chair, and four strong men carried her, Jewish-wedding style, down onto the sand where she could sit and watch the water. We gathered in a shivering circle around her, each person holding a votive candle, while Carla told us we had been the rays of light in the darkness for her over the last year, and the setting sun shot its last rays of gold over the glistening sand and tide pools and driftwood.

Carla's beloved brother Jason was with us long-distance via cell phone, and her dad spoke and then Maclen gave the most eloquent tribute any son has ever given his mother. Carla has reprinted it on her blog at www.carlamuses.blogspot.com if anyone wants to read it. I don't know how he got this breadth of vision and wisdom so young, except that he's had to develop it, but thank God he has.

Then we each took a smooth river rock from a bag and went down to water's edge where Carla's father Jack demonstrated the proper skipping technique. It was the best combination of emotional and playful, in a gorgeous natural setting and with the diverse crowd that's closest to Carla (well, there are other people close to Carla's heart who couldn't be there in flesh but were certainly present in spirit) that could be. How odd and fitting and heartbreaking and crazy that we were "celebrating" this year of her diagnosis, a time when we've all been stretched and pummelled by fate. How good to look out at the big ocean and lift up our eyes to the gorgeous ever-changing panoply of the sky.

And then we went out to eat Chinese food around a big steaming table.

This is how it's been all year--from the sublime to the ordinary. Lisa said to me, "This has been the best and the worst year of my life." The best because she married her beloved and their relationship deepens and sweetens daily, and the worst because of Carla's health. The same is true for me--I got engaged to the best, most mischievous, fiercely loving, creative, honest man I ever met, my play got produced, I became a woman warrior through IMPACT and so many other blessings, on and on and on--and I'm losing the friend in my life who always gets it, (who always gets me,) who can hold tragedy in one hand and comedy in the other and not flinch, who is hilarious, compassionate, clear-eyed, generous, and always a few steps ahead.

She gave me my birthday presents--a T-shirt which reads DESTRUCTOGRRL and another one which states "MY spirit animal is a dust bunny." Perfect.

I just finished reading Gavin deBecker’s wonderful book The Gift of Fear and I am wiped out. Literally. The book hit me like a train. It’s beautifully written, and it’s about intuition, violence, compassion, crime, mental illness, child abuse, and awareness. DeBecker’s personal story is inspiring: he grew up with a crazy violent mother, and a series of bad stepfathers, and emerged able to use his power and his pain for good not evil. You can see the hurt child in his eyes on the back jacket photo, but he’s managed to integrate all the hell he went through into a brilliant career.

I wanted to write him a letter. It would read something like “Mr. deBecker, can I work for you? I’m very intuitive and creative. Alright, I don’t know a thing about law enforcement, have only touched a real gun twice in my life, am so unobservant of my environment that my partner cleans the house and then waits around for me to notice something is different, but oh, I want to track down bad guys just like you.”

I told a friend I wanted to be a forensic psychologist once and she laughed so hard she dropped the phone. When she came back on she gently reminded me of how I had had to leave the room when she started watching CSI on TV—it was the autopsy scene that got me. Anyway I am signing up for a class on abnormal psychology. DeBecker says that 100% of serial murderers were abused as children, no big surprise there—and he recommended both the IMPACT program and Big Brothers/Big Sisters, both of which I’m involved in, so it all seems synchronistic.

What fascinated me most about deBecker’s book was the section on being able to predict people’s behavior. In fact, he says, most acts of domestic violence as well as celebrity stalking and assassination attempts are preceded by lots of warning signals on the part of the assailant. People say these things come out of the blue, but that’s not really true. Everyone has intuition much of which we ignore or override because of our social conditioning.

Reading between the lines, I imagine many other types of behavior could be predicted as well. I think back to the men I dated and was blind-sided by before C. Could I have foreseen infidelity? What blinded me to the obvious fact that they were either unready for the depth of relationship I wanted or not that into me?

I saw what I wanted to see, and selectively ignored evidence to the contrary. I assumed other people were operating under the same set of rules I was. Common mistakes. But I hope I can learn from them and not repeat them. For every time I’ve been taken advantage of, I hope I can put that experience to good use.

Saturday night we went to a Jewish music concert, produced by my friend Kaila Flexer. It was amazing. Kaila’s violin just soared, sensitive, subtle, passionate, and moody. I love the new stuff she’s doing with her musical partner. It’s really indescribable—heavily influenced by all the Balkan music she’s been studying, yet edgy and intimate. To have a listen or get their latest CD, go to Kaila’s web site at www.kailaflexer.com.

Then Kitka performed—they did a bunch of songs in Yiddish, and some in Ladino with their trademark drones and gorgeous close harmonies. I’ve been listening to Kitka for decades and they only get better and more beautiful.

The last group was klezmer, with a clarinet player who made me want to learn clarinet, and an accordionist who looked like Gilda Radner and could recite reams of translated Yiddish song lyrics with ease. Carla was doing sound cues for the whole thing, from her wheelchair. Zellerbach auditorium seats about a thousand people and it was almost sold out.

I was kvelling about how Kaila had put the whole thing together, and how talented she is, she and my beautiful talented friend Catherine Rose who is one of the founding members of Kitka and still singing with them, and how much determination it took Carla was to be able to do the cues She was exhausted, after having been there almost all day. She’s amazing in her work ethic and her dedication and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It may be both.

I saw my Little Sister on Sunday and helped her buy gifts for her granny and her sister, took her out to lunch, took her back to the house and made hot chocolate and tried to interest her in playing. The one thing she wanted to do was mess with my make-up, so I let her—she wrote Love in crooked letters on each of my cheeks, used a prodigious amount of every color eye shadow I have, and just went to town on me. By the end I looked like the Joker. Then I was in the bathroom trying to wash my face and she kept trying to take more make-up even after I had declared the game over.

“No means no!” I barked in my mother’s voice.

“I was just playin’ with you,” she insisted.

That’s her way, this “just playin’” which can also be called pushing limits until I push back hard—and then continuing to test. I think it’s her ADHD that makes time with her exhausting—she veers around like a pinball in a machine, looking for pleasure and satisfaction but unable to alight on anything for more than a few moments. We did have some good moments in the store, after she had picked out her gifts and when she got a store clerk to wrap them in the wrapping paper she chose, and with the color ribbon she wanted—black for her sister “because she’s Goth,” she explained to the amused clerk.

And the make-up thing was fun until it got out of hand, and making hot chocolate was fun until she dumped half the cinnamon bottle into her cup, and, and…

I wonder about deBecker’s predictions, whether she’ll make it or not, whether she’ll end up on drugs or in jail, or lead a good life. They say having a positive interaction with an adult helps—and she has lots of loving adults around her, although she doesn’t have parents—but she seems attracted to, identified with the values of the street. When she gets in my car she always turns the radio immediately to a hip hop station, and turns the volume up to earsplitting levels until I turn it back down so we can talk.

As I drove her to the restaurant, she said, a propos of nothing, “I live in the ghetto. People be shoot, be rob, they be kill.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I was born in the ghetto,” she said. Then she said, “I am the ghetto.” I don’t know where she got that, if it’s a line in a song or what, but I reacted. “You are not the ghetto,” I said. “You are a beautiful little girl! You are not where you came from.”

She didn’t say anything in response. I’m not sure if my outburst was the right thing or not. Maybe I should have just asked more reflective questions…

C is on vacation and it’s lovely. He’s working on the in-law, and it’s still freezing in the house—I’ve been wearing the same pair of long underwear for a week straight--but we have time for reading, studying, writing, listening to music, talking about our honeymoon—even grocery shopping together is fun. He’s downstairs now, going over some math problems while I stay snuggled under the electric blanket, trying to finish the play. I wanted to be done by Jan 1 and I don’t know whether I’ll make it or not.

I posted the letter below on www.change.gov. If you agree with the sentiments expressed in it, please consider also writing a letter reminding President-elect Obama of his promise to be a President to all Americans, including the LGBT community. The more of us speak up, the better. He won't be able to read every letter, but somewhere someone in his Administration will be keeping count. It would be good if they received a lot of thoughtful mail about this.

December 20, 2008

Dear President-elect Obama,

On your election eve we wept with joy as John McCain conceded and you accepted the presidency. We donated money to your campaign; close friends of ours worked for you; we rose at dawn to be able to vote for you when the polls opened, and we felt as proud of you when you won as if you were a member of our own family.

In fact we do sort of feel as if you are a member of our own family, even though we have never met you personally. Like you and your wife, we appreciate good books, we place a high premium on education (we are both teachers,) and we value equality and diversity. We love the children in our lives fiercely, and we rejoice to see a First Family where the children are being raised with wonderful values and appear so happy and well-adjusted.

Our joy in your victory though was tempered with pain the next morning when we found that Proposition 8, a hateful anti-gay campaign that would deny the dignity of marriage to our gay and lesbian friends, had passed, largely due to out-of-state influence and money. Your choice for a pastor to deliver the invocation at your inaugural, Rick Warren, was one of the people who campaigned heavily for Proposition 8 and was instrumental in its passage. We were as shocked and dismayed to learn you chose him to speak as we would be if an intimate member of our own circle made a racist or homophobic remark.

Do you have gay friends? That is the question that haunts us most deeply. We read in the newspaper about the tight-knit circle of trusted friends and family that have supported you every step of the way on your journey to the White House. This is something else we share—a deep commitment to our friends. Clearly both you and Mrs. Obama have a gift for reaching across all kinds of divides and reaching people human to human—that is one of your best attributes.

But is your warmth and empathy reserved only for heterosexuals, or are you able to also put yourself in the shoes of a gay man or woman who loves their partner as deeply as you love your wife, and who yearns to see that love legally protected and dignified just as your own marriage is?

This question is especially poignant to the two of us as we are planning our own wedding in six months. We are a heterosexual couple so there is no obstacle beyond agreeing upon what kind of cake to serve and refining our vows with the help of our rabbi. Our joy in our own wedding will be dampened though, by the sad thought that our gay friends and relatives are unfairly denied this privilege we enjoy.

Many of these friends have been in their own partnerships longer than we have been in ours, and have been valuable examples to us when we struggle with some of the speed bumps of commitment. Some of them are raising children together, or supporting each other as they care for elderly parents. Some of our gay friends are social workers, some are teachers. There are a few ministers and a couple of rabbis in the group, and also some writers, health professionals, lawyers, therapists, computer programmers, and artists. There's a small business owner (favorite small independent local bookstore,) and a number of people who work at non-profits. All of them want the simple right to have their partnerships treated with the same respect and legal protections as anyone else.

Rather than protecting heterosexual marriage, people like Rick Warren who campaign against gay marriage actually taint the institution for everyone. Is marriage a commitment based on love, loyalty, and commitment? Or is it some kind of biological game of pin the tail on the donkey—assuming the tail is one gender and the donkey another?

We also have to wonder: are you sacrificing the gay community and the rights of LGBT people in order to pacify the Religious Right? Will your own Christian faith blind you to the feelings of the many non-Christian Americans—the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, atheists, agnostics, Unitarians, and others who have supported you?

We respect the sincerity of your religious beliefs, but we fear that the fragile separation of church and state, which was so blatantly abused by the Bush Administration, may be in jeopardy again under your leadership. It would be a stain on the otherwise shining beacon of your presidency. Please say it isn’t so.

Reassure us that you have the rights of gay Americans (and non-Christian Americans) in your heart as you prepare to take the Inaugural oath in January.

* Include an openly gay person in your inaugural ceremonies to reinforce the message of inclusiveness that your campaign was based upon.

*Get to know some gay people personally and allow yourself the pleasure of a meaningful encounter with their families.

*Share this letter with Pastor Warren, and let him know the pain that Proposition 8 has caused among gay people and their allies in California. Request or demand that he aplogize to the LBGT community for hurtful, divisive, ignorant and inaccurate statements he has made.

We will take a day off of work in order to watch you on January 20th as you swear to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. It will be a moment to remember forever. Our hearts will be full of pride in you, and concern for your safety and integrity. Please live up to the vision of inclusiveness that you promoted during your campaign.

With love and respect,

"Mmm, the sun's out--hey, I feel WARM! Maybe it's warm out!" I said to C, snuggled under five layers of down coverlets. He kissed me with icy lips and set a steaming mug of coffee down beside me.

"Your information is incomplete."

After he had gone I noticed a light white mist in front of my face. It was my breath. Yes, I could see my breath in my bedroom. That can't be good.

Yesterday the house was so cold (49 degrees) that I bundled up and went to a Bikram yoga class where you can take unlimited classes for ten days for ten dollars. It was so worth it. For the first time since this cold snap started I was warm, I was hot, the sweat was streaming down my body.

Bikram is basically yoga in a sauna. They heat the studio to ninety degrees and everyone is there in tiny shorts and teeny tiny tank tops which become soaking wet as class progresses. The instructor is trained to bark out very non-yogic things like, "Push! Push! Go beyond your limits!" but I ignored her and did what felt right to me.

I had a whole narrative going on in my head about how I'm fifty, I'm stiff, I have short stubby peasant legs and a long body and I am not shaped like an Indian yogi, etc. etc. Then I happened to glance around the room and noticed a beautiful young woman at the far side of the studio, doing the poses perfectly. She had no legs. I repeat: she had no legs.

I had chatted with her in the dressing room, but only looked at her face. She had prostheses, which she took off once the class started. She was doing the poses on her thigh stumps. When I talked to her after class, I noticed that she also had no fingers, just palms of her hands, and fused-together stumpy things where the fingers would be.

Okay, so then I pushed myself a little harder.

We watched Letters from Iwo Jima last night with three comforters wrapped around us on the couch. In the movie you know all the Japanese soldiers are doomed from the start so it's heartbreaking to watch--it's not a question of if they will die, but when. there is one who truly wants to live and at the end of the movie he is still alive, but barely, a wounded prisoner of war. The whole "war is hell" thing is brought home to you over and over, until you can't escape it.

I am wrestlingthis morning with not working. Actually, I have twelve schools I need to contact/recontact for this Poetry Out Loud thing, so that will be work for January. And I just got a check from The Writing Salon, and expect a check from MORE and another check from The Sun when the Dede piece comes out there. My bank account is healthy.

It's more that C goes off every days to the wars and I stay home and have freedom, and that's hard to reconcile. I sometimes envy him the cameraderie and sense of purpose his work situation can provide and I know he envies me my freedom to devote myself to writing and creating. And in these uneasy economic times we both worry about the future. I'd like to embrace it with open arms, whatever changes may come, but when I'm numb with cold my arms don't open so easily. I just talked with my sister on the phone who sensibly suggested that I check with PG&E to see if they have any programs where you can get a subsidy to insulate your home. Sounds good.

It's that time of year again--I'm typing this wearing long underwear, sweatpants, two shirts, a sweater, a cozy bathrobe, fuzzy slippers and fingerless gloves. The approximate temp in the house is a toasty 52 degrees. If I put on the space heater and try to use the printer at the same time, I blow a fuse. It's the time of the bear, of hibernation, the electric blanket, four afghans, and all that.

I read a piece in The Sunday Times about the Obamas' best friends. They have been part of the same close-knit group of ambitious mostly black young professionals with kids since college. I have been thinking how much I don't really like self-help books (despite the fact that I have two at my bedside right now, The Gift of Fear by Gavin deBecker, about trusting your gut when it comes to staying out of danger, and The Gift of Compulsions, by Mary O'Malley, which I'm hoping will help me break my complusive web sudoku habit. She advocates cultivating comapssion and curiosity about one's compusions, by the way. Wow, that's a lot of C's.)

I have several friends who have done diligent inner work and come out with some wisdom and want to write about it--How to Live Better, basically. I support their ambitions, but hope I never ever ever succumb to that impulse. For one thing, if you've been blessed with a visit from the creative angel, I think it's more fun to make art. But the main reason is I believe that living better, being better, having a better, healthier etc life, has something to do with your inner work and everything to do with the company you keep.

I guess that's un-American. It's not pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps, meditate yourself into Nirvana, get up at 5 and swim laps till yoiur body is as hard as iron, that's for sure. I don't believe that life improvement is a do-it-yourself job, an inside job, as everyone else says. I think it's all about community. The article about the Obamas and their friendships says that to me. The Obamas would not be where they are today were it not for their family ties, and this very high-powered, focused and determined group of friends who took time off work, and offered real companionship and solid support along the way. For years.

I think that's how things happen. I think that's how greatness is achieved. Not by everyone writing and buying these self-help books and tapes and DVDs and working so hard to improve themselves, but by being there for each other. That's not very lucrative. You can't sell a million copies of "Create Community" the way you can "Learn to Pull Your Own Strings," but it is what I believe.

Sunday Carla and I went into the city to see Natta and Meyra perform devotional dances at the Buddhist temple in the Mission. It was gray, cold, and rainy, and Carla's new wheelchair is stiffer and more difficult to handle than the old one. And it doesn't like rain. Still, it was worth all the effort to see those beautiful young women, so pure in their devotion and their art, dancing their hearts out with so little in the way of material resources to back them up, but only the fire of their love.

After the performance, Carla wept and wept. She has the gift of extreme vulnerability now; the smallest things touch her heart so deeply. Afterwards we ate at Cafe Gratitude and joked about dragging the boys there--C and Gerry. I can just imagine them rolling their eyes and snorting as the server comes up and enthusiastically affirms to them, "You are abundance! You are beautiful! You are delicious!"

I sent out the following letter today...thought I'd reprint it here in case someone reading this blog knows someone who would be interested.

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you because you either are a good man, or know some good men, or both. Impact Bay Area, a wonderful self-defense training course for women, needs more suited instructors. (They also just certified their first female "suit," so if you are a strong woman, you might want to consider that.) I thought I’d write up a little more description of the job in hopes that you would forward this along to whomever you think might be good for the job.

Impact was started by some male martial artists after a female colleague, a black belt in karate, was attacked and raped outside their dojo. Despite her skills, she did not know how to deal with a street fight, and they decided to create a program that would enable women to deal with real-life assailants who were not playing by the rules. (At the time the program was called BAMM--Bay Area Model Mugging.)

They did a lot of research with police, crime victims, and perpetrators to determine the most common ways women are usually attacked, on the street and in their homes. They interviewed survivors and asked “What did you do to get out of this situation?” They also spent a lot of time developing the padded suit that the “mugger” wears, to ensure safety for the instructor wearing it and the student striking it. Each suit costs about $1,500.00 dollars and has been carefully engineered so that the women can use full-impact strikes, and the instructor can remain safe.

To become a “suit” requires some training, even if you already have a martial arts background. That is because the education offered by Impact is emotional as well as physical. The model muggings are scary for the women students and that is by design. Their aim is to teach the skills while the student is in an adrenalized state, so that in the event of a real assault, the body memory and muscle memory will come flooding back.

Some of the women who take classes at Impact have already experienced some degree of assault, ranging from verbal harassment to full-on rape. There are also survivors of childhood sexual abuse who show up in class. Often, they are triggered by the just the sight of the mugger in his full suit. Sometimes women students have flashbacks while they are fighting. The female whistle instructor and the two assistants are there to help the women through those emotional speed bumps.

Impact also helps women learn to set verbal boundaries, and then to recognize when those boundaries are being ignored or crossed. The “suit” is also called upon to be an improviser, playing a variety of obnoxious characters, some of them dangerous, others simply misguided. Learning to create characters and enter into scenarios is part of the work. Another part is having the maturity to have good psychic and emotional boundaries, to make a separation between the bad guy you play when the helmet is on and the good guy instructor that you really are..

A suited instructor should also have some notion of bio-mechanics, be comfortable in his body, be reasonably fit, and perhaps have some kind of background in a physical discipline, whether dance or yoga or martial arts or sports. (They do not need to be a professional in any of these disciplines, and they don’t have to be Superman.)

The Basics class for women takes 25 hours. When I took it, the class was spread over four consecutive Sunday afternoons, six hours each time. That felt intense. Last weekend, I volunteer-assisted at a class where they taught the whole thing in one weekend, a long Friday afternoon and all-day Saturday and Sunday. That was incredibly intense! By the end everyone was exhausted, but the transformations of the women in the class in just three days were astounding. One woman, a survivor of rape said, “I’ve been a victim all my life. Now, for the first time, I see what it might be like to live as a fighter.”

The job of being a male suited instructor at Impact is a paid one, not volunteer. I don’t know how much the pay is. I believe the training is free, but I am not 100% sure of that. I have also heard that there is a self-defense class for men who want to learn how to protect themselves from muggers on the street—one of the male instructors in my Basics class had come into the work that way.

The shortest time anyone has completed all the training and become certified to become a suited instructor is four months. It is not a full-time gig. The training takes place in such a way that you keep your day job. It is exhausting, sweaty, satisfying work. Many of the men enter into it because a close friend or relative has been assaulted and they felt helpless at the time. This is their way of preventing future assaults on other women. It is both a vocation and a labor of love.

The web site is www.impactbayarea.org. They are in need of more suited instructors.

Thanks for passing this on,

Alison

I spent all last weekend with an incredible group of women who were taking the Basics course from Impact Bay Area. It was my first time assisting an adult class. There were several women in the class who had survived rape, and I was stunned by their courage to confront their fears so directly.

The work for me and the other assistant was to keep paying attention, keep paying attention, for twenty-five hours over the course of three days. Sixteen women, four instructors, and us. I feel like their faces and stories are burned into my brain, stories I can't repeat here because of confidentiality agreements but which I can never forget.

As always, there was diversity in the class. The youngest woman was a teenager, the oldest was in her sixties. Some women were in excellent physical condition, others were working with injuries, weight issues, and health problems. Some were self-described "bad-ass" types who had had a lot of dating and street experiences with men and took responsibility for their own weak boundaries which had sometimes led them into bad situations. Others had led relatively sheltered lives, married at a young age, not much experience of the outside world--and they were shocked at the language the muggers used, and the situations the other women described.

It's amazing how much work it is just to pay attention.

The whistle instructor's work is more physical. She's on the mat the whole time, demonstrating, coaching, whistling, teaching, correcting, leading. We assistants anchor the line, one on each end. We notice who has jammed her finger or torqued her knee and we run to the freezer for ice packs.

We notice who is crying and we get tissues and sometimes follow the student out of the room and comfort them. We get cups of water for people. We make the name tags, help people tape up their weak ankles, cheer them on when they are fighting. We turn the video camera on and off (that was my most challenging thing. I can handle heavy emotions any day, just don't give me a job where you have to push buttons.) We empty the trash and clean up the space.

It was a kind of review for me, to watch the class without having to be in it. I got to learn or relearn some of the things that I missed the first time because I was so focussed on trying to get my kicks and strikes right. I paid special attention during the boundary setting part. Like many women, I don't have strong boundaries (this is where the Oscar/Felix analogy falls apart in my relationship with C as well. Oscar doesn't give a shit what Felix thinks or feels. I do care how my behavior affects other people, and I feel terrible when my insensitivity hurts someone.)

I can act like I have good boundaries, and at those times I channel my mother and the way she used to talk to vacuum cleaner salesman. "And don't call me honey!" I remember her saying, as she hung up the phone. I can access her voice within me, clarion, confident, and it comes in handy when I'm trying to keep a rowdy class in order, or ward off a hustler who approaches me on the street. But I don't think it's really me. It's hard to set my boundaries from my own core, and hardest of all to do it from a place of self-love.

In many ways I think what C and I have been doing in our relationship lately has been a dance of the boundaries. Sometimes he sets his boundaries with me. Sometimes I set mine with him. Sometimes we transgress each other's boundaries and then there are hurt feelings. Maybe we are also testing each other's boundaries. "You say it's here, but can you move it at all? is there any wiggle room?" I don't know if there is a way to do this phase of a relationship without stepping on some toes sometimes. Because it involves both of us changing, perhaps opening up a boundary we had previously thought was inviolate, perhaps refining our definition of what our boundaries mean to us.

The fear, of course, is that if we really say what our boundaries are, the other person will abandon us. But we've both already done the thing where we don't say anything, and then resentment builds like poison, and the relationship implodes under the weight of unspoken violations. So neither of us want to do that anymore.

I remember when we were first dating, how impressed I was with C's courage. I could tell he was not a forward person at all, and yet he took the risks to reach out to me, to tell me the truth, to make himself vulnerable. So many times in my dating experience, the men who never pushed my boundaries were the ones who weren't that into me in the first place. There's this delicate balancing place when you're with someone who actually loves you, wants you, and you're asking them to also respect you, to put that third leg into place. And then you have to do that for them. respect them after you have become each other's family, the place where, historically, the most disrespect happens.

Hopefully, if we do this thing right, we'll be letting the other person in on deeper and deeper levels. But every step of the way feels fraught sometimes.

Since my boundaries were trampled when I was a child and his too, when the other person starts leaning over the line and testing the boundary, it hurts, it's scary, it feels like the childhood violation might happen again.

During the sweet times in between the testing moments, we have comfort and pleasure, cuddled up with good food and a good movie. Each evening after class I came home to to C, who made me salad and a glass of wine. We sat together and watched The Wire, a nice relaxing show about drug wars in Baltimore.

Still, on Monday morning I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. I was so exhausted and my shoulders were hunched up around my ears and hard as rocks. I have been having deep, distrubing, colorful dreams with about 17 story lines going on at once, involving death, resurrection, police, murder, and a thousand other things.

We are counting down the days to C's Christmas break. Meanwhile, I am trying to find a way to write about woemn's self defense in an essay (I've already rewritten it multiple times but it's still not right. Doesn't convey the full power of the experience.)

And I'm revising the first act of the new play.

First of all, thank you Marian N. for sending us the copy of Lilith in which your essay appeared. It was great--and I devoured the whole magazine.

Next, I have received permission from my beloved to write about the Great Turkey Hotline Debacle, which I had discreetly edited out of last week's Thanksgiving post. Not that I lied. We did have a great, warm, musical, friend-filled Thanksgiving. It's just that it was preceded by the sturm und drang that comes from two people who have each developed their own style of doing things that has worked for them just fine lo these many years, and who now find themselves yoked to a person who does things completely differently.

To wit: holiday prep. I've been making turkeys for Thanksgiving for years now, big dinners that feed at least a dozen people, and everything has been fine. I pride myself on my ability to feed people. I can throw something together for any number of guests with hardly any warning and it will be tasty and plentiful. If C was in the habit of bringing home unexpected company for dinner he would appreciate this trait in me.

But C doesn't bring home guests with no warning. C makes plans in advance. And C sees dirt. I mean, he literally can perceive dust and dirt where I don't. In this, he is in the majority, and I am in the minority (especially for a female.) Usually, the man is the one who leaves the toilet seat up and his dirty socks on the floor. With us, it's the opposite. I am Oscar, he's Felix. Not that I leave the toilet seat up. But you get the idea. I just run my eye over the room, note that there are no dead bodies on the floor, no pools of blood, no piles of excrement, and that last week's New York Sunday Times has been put in the recycling. Great! I think, and turn back to the food.

So C is the one who vacuums, dusts and mops, and gets me to put away all my products and make-up so he can clean the bathroom. Okay, fine. I'm a hell of a lucky wo,man and many many women would love to have this problem, this man. I'm so sorry he's taken. And also that it's part of God's cosmic joke that most women would be all-too-grateful for a man who cleans and cares about details and many men might appreciate a woman who was relaxed and would gladly entertain their friends at a drop of a hat, but that's not how it works. I'm sure that that's not even how it's supposed to work.

Anyway, a clean house is not my beef. (And, turth to tell, my friends have complimented me on the newfound brightness and shininess of our house and I have been mpore than glaqd to accept those compliments although I always do give credit where credit is due.) My beef is that all this is done accompanied by teeth-gnashing anxiety about whether the turkey will turn out alright, whether everything will be done on time and simultaneously, etc.

This is where I know I'm in the wrong: I take C's anxiety as a personal affront. What, you don't trust me? You don't think I'm a good hostess? Because he was anxious that I hadn't checked the minutes of cooking time per pound ratio on the turkey--I think it's 20 minutes a pound and anyway it's always come out before, and anyway we can check it as it goes along--I put it in the oven early, on 425, a much higher setting than what I usually use. Result: the turkey was well-done--on the verge of being overdone--three hours early.

Then C had a new anxiety: what if the turkey meat breeds bacteria if it just sits around for three or four hours? So he called The Turkey Hotline (I did not even know such an organization existed,) to ask them what to do. The lady told him to put the cooked turkey in the fridge, which he did. I was convinced that this would ruin the flavor/texture etc of my turkey and started crying. Yes, I admit, I was crying over refrigerated turkey. (I was also having a bit of a hormonal meltdown, which I didn't realize at the time. One of the things about being 50 is that these things can no longer be clocked with the same predictability as in earlier years.)

I think I was also crying for Thanksgivings past, for making the dinner with a bunch of women roommates and friends in the kitchen, giggling and laughing and wrestling with the brine and the stuffing and not worrying, just enjoying the time together, the anticipation, the holiday build-up. I was missing the warmth and disorganiization of shtetl life, the way Bethie came over before my birthday party and helped me get ready and how fun that was, and how C said afterwards that we should have had everything ready by ourselves by the time the guests came.

I don't really think of my guests as "guests." I think of them as extended family. I was crying for the stupidest of reasonbs, because it wasn't fun, "This isn't fun!" I cried--all the hile I know only a child needs everything to be fun. But another, stubborn child part of me was thinking this could be fun, this should be fun, why isn't this fun? I was scared of being swallowed up in a grim sterile atmosphere of good housekeeping with gritted teeth. I was missing the presence of children underfoot, Marci coming by with a shopping bag full of bowls and spoons the way she did for one party when I ran out of cutlery and dishware. I wanted it to be okay to improvise, not a sign of not caring, not something that we had to fix.

This is a primal struggle between me and C; his very strong need for order, cleanliness, peace and privacy pitted against my equally intense need for improvisation, family, foolishness and transparency. On bad days I don't know how we will work this out. On good days I think we can learn and grow from each other's differences.

I admit, there is unfinished business from childhood behind my need for imperfection and my violent resistance to being corrected in the kitchen. It makes me feel dirty and ashamed when my cooking is criticized, and I know C never intends to do that.

We took a long walk in the woods the next day and talked about our different ways of handling anxiety. I often don't even know when I feel anxious. I tend to block that emotion, or numb out around it. My mother had M.S. and I had depression from about the age of eight, so I developed the attitude that the worst had already happened. I was most scared that evil lurked within me. I thought nothing outside myself could compare with that fear.

C is much more present to and in touch with his anxieties about the world. He is anxious about averting disaster. He wants to protect and take care of all beings under his care, from his cat to his students to me. He notices all the things that could go terribly wrong in any given situation, scenarios I don't even think of, and does his best to ward them off.

Paradoxically, we trigger each other's worst fears. My fear is of being criticized, and C's acute sensitivity sometimes makes him critical. His worst fear is of having the security of his home broached, or letting people down and my open-door policy and casual attitudes sometimes exasperate him. I think this is normal, and part of the divine plan for marriage--that you marry your worst fear in order to become intimate with it, and learn to love it. To wrestle with the angel until it yields up its blessing. He was attracted to me because of my spontanaeity, my warmth and hospitality. I loved his caring and thoughtfulness and conscientiousness and integrity. But all of our good qualities also have a shadow side. And dancing with each other's shadows is painful.

I admit that the turkey turned out declicious, despite being refrigerated and then reheated. And I am going to get the book The Gift of Fear by Gavin deBecker, which comes highly recommended from my IMPACT Bay Area teachers. I want to learn when it's appropriate to be anxious and when it's not. To stop worrying my one big fear, that I am incompetent and shameful and a Bad Person, and begin to channel that fear in a healthy way, to put it where it belongs.

The night before Thanksgiving I went with G and my friend Phil to hear Carla sing at Yoshi's one last time. She was magnificent, in a pair of killer red shoes with platform heels which made her (and me) very happy. She sang a new song--new for her repertoire, "Smile" which was written by Charlie Chaplin, and a bunch of standards, plus one of my favorite of her originals, "What is Love?"

After she sang it she said, "The great thing is, I don't have to ask that question anymore. I know what love is. It's here tonight," and she looked at the audience and around her onstage. She was surrounded by some very fine musicians and the room was bursting with love. Love carried her on and off stage, and I'm sure love kept her going as she worked her hardest to stay on that tightrope between joy in the singing and the musicianship and cameraderie of her Nice Shirts For Nuthin'; group--John R Burr, Jon Evans and David Rokeach (and she also had some wonderful horn players up there, and a great sax) and the great overwhelming grief that this too is ending.

She went out with It's a Wonderful World, one of my favorite songs ever, and she introduced it by saying simply, "This is the truest song ever written." Cue the tears. I didn't get a chance to hang out with her, as there were too many people and she was completely drained after doing the show--she had given 1000%--but I bought two more of her CDs to give as Chanukah presents.

Thanksgiving at our house was very musical and sweet. We had a 96-year-old guest (I incorrectly told G in her hearing that she was 94, whereupon she drew herself up to her full height and corrected me, "I'm ninety-six!") She didn't look a day over eighty, I swear. She'd had polio as a four-year-old and had to do all kinds of painful physical stretches and exercises when she got out of the hospital, but she said her mother stood over her and never let her give up and she's had a long productive life, married, had children, worked, and last week led her retirement home's book club discussion on Obama's autobiography, Dreams of My father.

We had turkey and all the other stuff, plus the piano, organ, the mic set up for singing. Shazam came and played her harmonica and sang, and took a turn at the keyboards. Leslie was there with her electric guitar, C played piano and bass, and Amar and Sahib-Amar played, Sahib-Amar on viola, Amar on everything, piano, organ, flute... We sang a bunch of oldies, Beatles' tunes, and Motown. I want to learn how to sing Etta james' version of "At Last." I'm thinking that should play at our wedding reception, as it took us so long to find each other.

It was lovely and sunny and warm all weekend, and C studied for this big odious test he has to take, while I wrote the play about military recruitment. We took breaks for hikes and a tennis game and to varnish the drawers and shelves of the in-law's cabinets. I was feeling very confident and excited about the play; today, after getting Ruth's comments I feel a little insecure. But the important thing is to finish and then show it to people. Everything else has always needed a revision, why not this?

This morning I pruned. Cut back the incredibly aggressive Mexican sage with its velvety purple flowers, the fig tree that started as a tiny twig and has now grown into a towering presence in the front yard, stretching its branches out into the street. I even pruned the jasmine, which I remember planting in tentative wet little clumps years ago and then praying it would come up. It now grasps the railing of the fence firmly, and its greeny tendrils snake out, grasping for something to hold onto. Sometimes it only meets itself; then it twines and grasps and twists around itself. Life. Tenacious, persistent, unconcerned with protocol.