Summer

My son is home for summer
He is young and strong
My sun is shining

Barbaro

(photo copyright Los Angeles Times online/Associated Press)

Yesterday afternoon, on a whim, I flipped on the television and by chance caught the Preakness. The horses were being loaded into the starting gate. Barbaro, the favorite, who recently won the Derby, was frisky and feeling his oats. With a burst of energy he thrust his great chest at his gate, powering his way through in a false start. He was quickly steadied by his jockey and the outriders, and brought back to his place in line.

“They’re off!”

Nine thoroughbreds thundered ahead onto the wide open track, heads straining forward, jockeys working the reins, guiding them forward. Within moments Barbaro was behind, his jockey Edgar Prado fighting to pull him up. Then the diminutive Prado was off and on the turf, calming the great horse with his hands. Barbaro was kicking out his right hind leg, plainly in pain. Later, other jockeys would say they heard the crack of his bone breaking. The cameras focused on the trainer and his wife in the stands, who clapped her hand to her mouth and reached for husband’s arm. Michael Matz spun and strode away, and the cameras lingered on his wife, alone and in tears.

The rest of the race was run in seconds, but the great drama was still going on, as those most closely involved with the horse clustered around him, soothing, stroking. The equine ambulance approached. Prado was in tears. Matz held him.

Within a very short time the news was bad. He had broken his leg both above and below the ankle. Because there is very little muscle in that area, there was a good chance that the blood supply was irreparably compromised. “We’ll know more in the coming days.” If there is no hope, he will have to be killed.

Me? I was sobbing.

Thoroughbred horses are probably my favorite of all animals. In those silly games of “if you could be any animal, what would you be?” I always say racehorse. The powerful, rippling muscles, the speed and beauty are breathtaking. Their command of their environment is palpable. I would love to have that beauty, that presence, that knowledge of the speed I possess and could demonstrate at any moment, as I dance around the paddock. I rode a lot when I was young, and have always loved these creatures. But still, why such emotion for an animal I have never met? Had never even heard of, to be honest, before I flipped on the television moments before the terrible event? For a horse that ran the risk that every racehorse faces, so delicate are those long legs that carry them around the track?

I think I was weeping for the fragility in us all. I think I was reminded of our own vulnerability, of the unexpected that lurks in even the most uplifting of moments. And I was weeping at the distress I saw in the faces of those who loved this magnificent animal. I was weeping for lost hopes and dreams. I was weeping at the physical pain. Even the loneliness of the trainer’s wife, who of course must have understood her husband’s need to leave immediately, but who was left alone in her fear and sadness.

And I was weeping in the knowledge that the horse might die. As we all must. But he is young and strong and proud and beautiful, and had so much still ahead of him. So much.

Makes me think of human beings who are young and strong, and have so much still ahead of them. Who may die.

But that is a topic for another time.

N*W*C

I don't often go out on Fridays. After a long week at work, I like to come home, pour a large glass of red wine (or mix a cocktail!) and settle down to write, or read, or pop in a DVD. So when my friend reminded me I had promised to accompany her to a play last night, I groaned. Especially since it was being performed 20 miles from my home in the opposite direction from work. Still, she is my very dear friend, and walks my dog for me once a week when I have to be late home from work. So I went. And how glad I am that I did - it was awesome!!

N*W*C stands for Nigger*Wetback*Chink. Written and performed by three powerfully energetic and talented men in their twenties, it thrusts racism into your face with vigor, comedy, anger, and pathos. I laughed hard and often. I wept inside for them as they told their individual stories. Miles is black, raised in a white neighborhood. Rafael is a Latino from Ecuador, who arrived in the US with his family when he was about 11, on a vacation visa. He was "illegal" for many years. Allan is Filipino, and also immigrated to the US as a youngster. All three, who first met in community college and then transferred to UCLA together, have won international awards variously for acting, speech, and poetry slams. They are very close friends, and the love they share is palpable as they stride around the stage, confronting stereotypes, describing their lives, and ultimately pleading for the concept of the human race.

What a fabulous thing they have done. They take on the underbelly of racism and stare it in the face. Their words are profound, their acting compelling, their comedy hilarious. They are on tour, and if they ever make it to your neighborhood, I urge you to see this.

My only concern is this: that their audiences are most likely to be those who are already on the way to being "enlightened" on the subject of race. What bigot is likely to buy a ticket for a show such as this? There is apparently some talk of TV or a movie, but it would be hard to match the vibrance and power of a live performance. My wish: to have our politicians see this, to have the heads of corporate America see this, to have the religious right see this, to have our educators and our students see this, to have all of America see this. It's important.

Their website: http://www.speaktheaterarts.com/speak.html

FRUIT

I used to think that bananas
Were my favorite fruit
Firm and sweet and thick-tasting on my tongue
Turning from sour to delectable in a ripening heartbeat
They satisfy me at breakfast

And I love a crisp sweet apple
Fujis are the best
Round and hard
Splitting cleanly at pressure from my incisors
Virgin cider running down my palm as I bite into one at lunch

But now I know
My favorite fruit is
The MANGO
Sensuous, flowing with golden juices
Fleshy and perfumed
Clinging stubbornly to the rough unyielding pit at its core
Playing hard to get
But ultimately sliding into my open mouth
Lodging tenacious fibers between my tightly set teeth
After dinner
A woman’s fruit for sure

I think maybe Eve could have done better

Exhilarating

The comments have been wonderful - thank you!

And yes, writing these pieces has been an exhilarating experience. The words have come rushing out and onto the screen, and then I have pulled back, and revised and re-written. I am re-discovering the joy of writing, and see these as my stepping stones, like the woman in the entries. But for me, they are surely leading me to something positive. At least, that's the plan. I am thinking of working more closely and more inwardly now, and of not sharing yet what comes next. Too personal? To close to home? Maybe. But also I think that it is important for me to write more cohesively, rather than succumbing to the temptation of just dashing off little bits. The summer is coming, and with it, oodles and oceans of time to work on all of this. Ooooh. I'm excited.

Tiny Fish

But she just couldn’t hold onto them. Elusive and darting as tiny fish in a warm pond, they slipped away and became suddenly no more than glints of silver in the corner of her eye. And the pond would cool, and the clouds would roll in, and her body became heavy once more. The stifling shroud settled around her like the winding sheet that it was, and she withdrew inside the shelter that was no haven.

She realized there was a flow to her life. Sometimes it stopped and eddied and played, but the water kept running, running downhill, to some great ocean of oblivion. Sometimes she even looked forward to joining that great body of water. At least it would be constant, even, and part of a rolling oneness that she grasped at but couldn’t reach as she trickled and ran across rocks in her narrow lonely stream bed.

These were her moments. Stepping stone to stepping stone.

I Want to Tell You about Her Bursts of Happiness

I want to tell you about her bursts of happiness. They sprang up inside her like flowers after a spring rain, eager and hopeful in the warming sun. She would suddenly find herself singing along with a pounding rock song in the car, hammering her hand against the steering wheel as she wove her shoulders back and forth to the beat. Her blood would accelerate around her body, and she would feel at home inside her flesh. Her smile lifted and softened, and her eyes regained the sparkle that drew so many to her in her good days.

“LIFE IS GOOD,” she would pronounce as she danced around her little house. A grin at the dog, a flip of her hair, a flowing of her juices.

She felt excited and optimistic. Her darkness was behind her. As she stepped outside, she would exchange smiles and pleasantries with her neighbors. Heading for the hillsides she loved, she would feel a welling happiness ready to burst from her chest. She would stride along mountain pathways, greeting the tiny blue flowers that clung tenaciously to the rocks alongside. She winked at the scurrying lizards, marveled at the red-tailed hawks wheeling above her. The trail stretched before her, open and wide and inviting her forward.

Burqa

She knew what she wanted, she thought. And what she didn’t want. What she didn’t know was if she could settle for in-between. It was the in-between that hung around her like a shroud, a burqa, a barrier between her and all that was real. Too dense and clingy to fight through most of the time, but if she didn’t want to settle for it, shouldn’t she at least try to wrestle her way out of it? Despite the effort it took?

Frequently, in pursuit of daily necessities, she was able to ignore the folds of fabric that were choking her consumption of her life. But then as night drew in, and time grew quiet, the shroud began to make its creeping presence known. It began to feel more like what she didn’t want than the in-between of neither state. So what was the difference? It became a blur, and what she didn’t want became more of a probability for her life ahead.

One day there arrived a glimpse of what could be, what she wanted. She went with it. She rolled in it, reveled in it, and her smile enveloped her body. She knew too, when applying rationality to the moment, that it was no more than a fleeting glance, yet still she knew that it was right to seize it and be there, laughing in the now. In the then. For fleeting it was. And then it was gone.

Until the next time.

It's What She Did

She was a woman of habit. And one of the most pervasive of her habits was to cry at the slightest provocation. Tears sprang readily to her eyes on the most benign of occasions, but in reality, it was the stimuli piquing her vulnerability that provoked the strongest flow. Often she was unable to explain readily the cause of the welling in her eyes. It was just there, along with the catch in her throat, and the sense of loss and being lost. It was only after a good deal of practice that she was able to apply any kind of analysis to a situation and thereby attempt a rough understanding. The gradual comprehension of why she was crying would bring a cognitive relief, but the emotion usually remained, and tears would often continue to seep unstaunched from her reluctant eyes.

“Why am I crying? It’s what I do,” she would offer as a flip explanation. An attempt at a throwaway laugh would be followed by a sob.

It’s what she did. It’s what she was.