Align

Align

to bring into line or alignment

to array on the side of or against a party or cause

to get or fall into line

to be in or come into precise adjustment or correct relative position

Rain

“Colors shone with exceptional clarity in the rain.

The ground was a deep black,

the pine branches a brilliant green,

the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits

that were allowed to wander over the earth

on rainy mornings only.”

Norwegian Wood, Murakami

 

Ojai

Bouillabasse and Cookies

Christmas Dinner

Christmas Eve Stroll

Rain.

Big fat droplets of rain falling from the sky for hours,

and lower than average temperatures

make for holiday weather.

Cleansing.

Rinsing deplorable rhetoric and behavior from the outer layer of my skin.

But the work is just beginning.

The deeper dive for information will continue in the New Year,

as will the resistance to policy and behavior which

threatens our democracy.

It's impossible for me to put politics aside this holiday season.

I'm awake.

Shiny presents and sugar laden cookies do not alter my reality.

Let There Be Light

Fiery Sunset

Chanticleer

Chanticleer, the award winning men's chorus,

sang Christmas songs

and transformed The Disney Concert Hall

into a 16th century cathedral in France.

To Be Needed

“When we look at the world around us 

— our immediate world and the bigger world beyond —

 we see a lot of difficulty and dysfunction.

 The news we hear is mostly bad news, and that makes us afraid.

 It can be quite discouraging.

Yet we could actually derive inspiration for our warriorship, for our bodhisattva path,

 from these dire circumstances.

 We could recognize the fact, and proclaim the fact, that we are needed.”

Pema Chodron

 

Born to Run

I was a child of the Vietnam-era America,

of the Kennedy, King and Malcolm X assassinations.

The country no longer felt like the innocent place it was said to be

in the Eisenhower fifties.

Political murder, economic injustice, and institutionalized racism

were all powerfully and beautifully present.

These were issues that had previously been relegated to the margins of American life.

Dread, the sense that things might not work out,

that the moral high ground had been swept out from underneath us, 

that the dream we had of ourselves had somehow been tainted,

and the future would forever be uninsured, was in the air.

This was the new lay of the land,

and if I was going to put my characters out on that highway,

I was going to have to put all of those things in the car with them.

That's what was due, what the times demanded.

Bruce Springsteen

Trombone Christmas

My favorite holiday tradition.

20 brass trombones, cold December night, mulled wine, friends,

Christmas arrangements laced with soul, whimsy and heart.

A truly joyful event,

 one that I walked to with the glowing orb of the moon,

 hanging low on the ridge next to The Observatory,

as my flashlight.

Dust and Holiday Cheer

Amidst the dust and dirt from a much needed mini-renovation,

a tree has been selected and firmly screwed into the stand.

After noisy days of construction, and a house full of workmen 

stillness returns at night illuminated by the glow of Christmas lights. 

Lauren

Mr. Monkey

Book group pick.

Interconnected characters, associated with, some tangentially,

a cheesy children's musical about a monkey who is adopted by an American family.

Prose's writing is insightful and  thoughtful, but in the end the narrative fell apart.

English Rose

Nutshell

Let the scripts collect dust.

The holiday weekend, especially a blustery one, is for reading for pure pleasure.

Ian McEwan is one of my favorite authors so his short new novel, Nutshell,

told from the perspective of a fetus who overhears a plot for murder,

was the perfect long weekend companion.

“o here I am, upside down in a woman.

Arms patiently crossed, waiting, waiting and wondering who I'm in, what I'm in for.

My eyes close nostalgically when I remember how I once drifted in my translucent body bag, floated dreamily in the bubble of my thoughts

through my private ocean in slow-motion somersaults,

colliding gently against the transparent bounds of my confinement,

the confiding membrane that vibrated with, even as it muffled,

the voices of conspirators in a vile enterprise.

That was in my careless youth.

Now, fully inverted, not an inch of space to myself,

knees crammed against my belly, my thoughts as well as my head are fully engaged.

I've no choice, my ear is pressed all day and night against the bloody walls.

I listen, make mental notes, and I'm troubled.

I'm hearing pillow talk of deadly intent and I'm terrified by what awaits me,

by what might draw me in.”

Saturday

“He's feeling a pull, like gravity, of the approaching TV news.

It's a condition of the times,

this compulsion to hear how it stands with the world,

and be joined to the generality, to a community of anxiety.

The habit's grown stronger these past two years;

a different scale of news value has been set by monstrous and spectacular scenes. Everyone fears it, but there's also a darker longing in the collective mind,

a sickening for self-punishment and a blasphemous curiosity.

Just as the hospitals have their crisis plans,

so the television networks stand ready to deliver, and their audiences wait.

Bigger, grosser next time.

Please don't let it happen.

But let me see it all the same, as it's happening and from every angle,

and let me be among the first to know.”

Ian McEwan - SATURDAY

Thanksgiving Reflections

Pausing to give thanks, and join friends around an abundant table 

did not lessen the fact that we have entered very dark political times in the US.

Through out the day, conversations turned political, the air thick with a sense of foreboding.

Life as we know it has changed.

Luckily, I live in California

where the majority of my friends are not willing to be silent as this dictator

moves into the White House, figuratively speaking of course.

To be politically activated is to be alive,

and for that I am very grateful.

  

Election Blues

As we inched closer to the election,

I allowed myself to acknowledge the possibility that he could win.

This altered reality consumed me with terror, and resulted in a week of sleepless nights.

Friends told me to relax, it wasn't going to happened,

but the fear expanded inside me like air stretching a balloon beyond it's capacity. 

I hoped the pop would be the release that came with Hillary's victory.

On election day, I enjoyed a tranquil morning, walking to the polling station in the canyon, and

connecting with neighbors during the hour wait.

I posted the obligatory "I Voted" selfie.

#Imwithher

Fingers dusted with flour, I juggled back to back conference calls with peeling apples.

What was more American than bringing a home baked pie to an election party?

In the afternoon I put on a pantsuit and drove to a network pitch.

All day I couldn't shake the unease lodged in my stomach.

I could barely get down a green juice.

I told myself it was just excitement, my physical being acknowledging this momentous historic event.

By early evening the foreboding swelled like a growing malignant tumor.

A tension headache hugged my skull like a helmet.

The night was young, returns just starting to come in, Hillary was ahead,

but the mood at my friend's party was already gloomy. 

The odds of HRC winning on the New York Times home page, and fivethirtyeight

started to change, in Trump's favor.

States that should have been blue were turning red.

Canada's immigration website crashed from panicked American's searching for a last minute plan B.

The futures market was dumping.

WFT was happening?

How did all of those statisticians get it wrong?

My phone hummed with texts from friends across the country.

We shared strategic info; if she loses WI it's over, and heart emojis.

I tried to find comfort in a glass of wine, but my stomach only churned more.

If we didn't cut into the Hillary victory cake, could we pretend this wasn't happening?

I left abruptly, craving solitude, and the capacity to understand this outcome.

At 2am EST, Podesta told the despondent supporters at the Javits Center to go home.

Not long after, powering down my laptop in bed, the headline flashed that he had won.

Liberty Weeps

Tomorrow - I'm With Her

I don't want to have a defeatist attitude, 

but I also know if Trump wins, I don't want to live in this country.

It's that simple.  

I will seek opportunities to leave.

I will put those thoughts behind me and go to bed feeling optimistic

that good will outweigh evil.

Love trumps hate

and it's damn time a smart woman who has her worked her way up in a biased system

determined to take her down,

will preside over these United States.

Darkness

It was a dark week after FBI Director James Comey tampered with the election

by sending Congress a vague letter about more Clinton emails,

this time discovered on Huma Abedin's computer.

To see the ugly gender bias against HRC

has literally made me lose sleep.

For days I was nauseous, as new headlines incorrectly claimed the case against Hillary was reopened.

The lies spread like wildfire as did a new round of vitriol against her.

What upsets me the most is that people don't take the time to find out the truth.

It's a few keystrokes away.  

The whole email debacle boils down to two basic issues:

Clinton is a technophobe, and The State Department's technology is antiquated.

How the facts have gotten spun out of control is the true crime.

Of course, tonight Comey comes out with a new announcement;

after reviewing the new emails Hillary won't face charges.

Much ado about nothing,

but has the intended damage already been done? 

Rose