Is This Thing On?

Having not written in months, I sit here somewhat shy and tentative. There are changes afoot. Great changes.

I am poised to reenter the working world, five and a half years after leaving to raise my daughter. I had my first legal job at age 15, a job I kept for three years. I moved out of my mother's house at 17 and had been supporting myself ever since. The transition from working, independent woman to stay-at-home-mom was not a smooth one. I don't think I ever really adjusted to it. I'm not very good at letting others "take care of me." My partner is an unsung saint.

On Friday I had my first "official" interview in 16 years. It felt huge. I walked out excited and slightly manic, bristling with energy that felt almost electric. I am excited and also fearful, that after so many years, I have gotten out of the habit of daily work, but also eager to feel like I am making an impact in the world.

Here I am, intending to write about something else and this topic snakes its way in, while I have no time to really explore it and so much more to ruminate and write on. So I set it aside, for an unnamed later date, that hopefully I will be able to revisit and explore more thoroughly.

“When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity -- but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.” ~ Joyce Carol Oates

This quote was passed on by my friend Sylvia and it resonates for me today. While I am not yet 50, it rings true on the eve of 45 just as much.

Today I am going to a memorial for an amazing man who lost a battle to cancer. Another friend battles leukemia nearby. My sister has just had surgery with unforeseen complications in another state and I feel helpless here. I am recovering from pneumonia and the weeks I have been ill and the slow recuperation have only succeeded in mirroring my own mortality.

Our bodies are one-use-only units. Life is precious and we take it for granted.

In forty minutes I leave for Tomales and the memorial. A shower beckons. More soon...I hope.

Memory

Day four of NaBloPoMo and it is literally the eleventh hour.

I am sitting here in front of the computer trying to update my materials and do a class outline for the new Advanced Cockney class I am teaching to participants of the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco. I am failing miserably.

Instead I think about my cousin, Punky, who I just found out tonight lost her battle with cancer. I am think about family and memory and the stories we pass on. I wonder about memory and how it becomes compromised, specifically how my memory has become compromised. The memories change when they are transmuted into story. They change with the telling. And as years pass and the tales become ingrained they are almost more vivid then the actual memory. They also become clouded with others stories, especially as they overlap.

It's day four at the eleventh hour and I am lost in memory. My daughter sleeps quietly beside me and I think about the stories I will tell her of the people she never knew. Those who came before. I wonder what stories she will tell in time and how our memories shape the future.


The best memory is that which forgets nothing but injuries. Write kindness in marble and injuries in dust. ~ Persian proverb

Dia de los Muertos

The list grows:

Rose Rushdoony Deovlet (Grandma Rosie)
Phil Deovlet (Grandpa)
Robert H. Deovlet (Uncle Bob)
Gloria Deovlet (Auntie Gloria)
Rose (Vartoohi) Mahdesian Deovlet (Grandma Darling)
Benjamin Deovlet (Grandpa Darling)
Richard Deovlet -(Uncle Ricky)
Rose (Vartanoush) Rushdoony (Grandma Rushdoony)
Y.K. Rushdoony (Grandpa Rushdoony)
Mary Movsesian (Auntie Mim)
Spurgeon Avakian (Uncle Sparky)
Ruth Avakian (Auntie Ruthie)
Evelyn Cooper Smith (Grandma Evelyn)
Haywood Smith (Grandpa Haywood)
Joy Deane Wagner
Auntie Margie
Auntie Posie
Mullah Don Brown
Dave Coker
Fred Cone
Brian Dall'Armi
Maxina Danner (Snookie)
Jorge Luis Farias-Martinez
Ronnie Geoffrion
Mary Jo Goss
Tony Guzman
Mace Hanley
Bill Harris
Michael Hefflin
Jerry Josephs
Jennifer Lee
Patrick Lee
Ruth Leggett
Wally Lockwood
Amethyst Mariani
Evan McCaskey
Don Mills
Shelly Munge
Dan O'Brien
Theryl O'Ryan
Timur Otus
Ricky Paul
Dave Ricker
Phil Robledo
Barbara Rose
Sally Schneider
Andrew Small
Manny Suarez
Sully (Gordon Sullivan)
Bob Thomas
Marilyn Tutunjian (Punky)
Linda Underhill
Robin Wadsworth
Bob Wright
Margie Wright
Wolfie, the Maine Coon of my heart

As every year, I pause. I read the names aloud and hear the echo in my heart. I wrack my brain fearing, knowing, I left someone out. I cry. I remember. I love.

No more words of my own. Take these in their place:

Song
by Christina Rossetti

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain;

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

Dia de los Muertos

This is always a bittersweet post for me and I've sat reminiscing before the blank screen now for longer than I care to admit. Last year many in my circles bemoaned the loss of more friends and relatives than we were prepared for (not that one really can prepare for death, despite its inevitability). We cursed 2007 and boasted that 2008 could never be as bad.

It wasn't. It was worse. Too many gone.

I know I've inadvertently omitted names, but I'm lost in the flood of memories.


Rose Rushdoony Deovlet (Grandma Rosie)
Phil Deovlet (Grandpa)
Robert H. Deovlet (Uncle Bob)
Rose (Vartoohi) Mahdesian Deovlet (Grandma Darling)
Benjamin Deovlet (Grandpa Darling)
Richard Deovlet -(Uncle Ricky)
Rose (Vartanoush) Rushdoony (Grandma Rushdoony)
Y.K. Rushdoony (Grandpa Rushdoony)
Mary Movsesian (Auntie Mim)
Spurgeon Avakian (Uncle Sparky)
Ruth Avakian (Auntie Ruthie)
Evelyn Cooper Smith (Grandma Evelyn)
Haywood Smith (Grandpa Haywood)
Joy Deane Wagner
Auntie Margie
Bob Thomas
Dave Ricker
Robin Wadsworth
Michael Hefflin
Maxina Danner (Snookie)
Jennifer Lee
Patrick Lee
Mace Hanley
Shelly Munge
Dan O'Brien
Ricky Paul
Barbara Rose
Ronnie Geoffrion
Dave Coker
Don Mills
Wally Lockwood
Sally Schneider
Linda Underhill
Manny Suarez
Mary Jo Goss
Andrew Small
Phil Robledo
Amethyst Mariani
Theryl O'Ryan
Timur Otus
Brian Dall'Armi
Auntie Posie
Sully (Gordon Sullivan)
Ruth Leggett
Jorge Luis Farias-Martinez
Bill Harris

Not not known personally by me, but deaths that affected me nonetheless:

Tasha Tudor
U. Utah Phillips
Maila Nurmi (aka "Vampira")
Benazir Bhutto


"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due."

~ Neil Gaiman

Four Years

Maxina Danner

Born: 25 March 1987
Murdered: 27 September 2004

You are loved and missed, Snookie. You are forever in our hearts.
You are remembered.

Arabis and I are meeting Lee at the cemetery to visit Maxie and spend the afternoon. The day is lovely and warm, bittersweet and beautiful.

Brian Dall'Armi

I wanted to get out a public post for any of our lost and scattered Tribe who may google Brian's name in search of information.

Photo by Peter Overstreet of Brian and Cat Taylor, February 2007

Brian Dall'Armi
5 August 1946 - 9 August 2008

Brian died last night a few minutes before midnight. Nell was at his side.

I spoke to Nell for almost an hour today and here is what she wanted me to tell all of you:

"Brian got away in time to make the 12 o'clock show. There won't be any arguing over who will drive (the band) because Ricker will take over as he always did, and Bob Thomas and Brian will be goofing off in the background. Most likely, they'll both be kicked off the stage at some point.

I can hear Ricker yelling at them now: 'No Middle Eastern hootchie-coo on my stage!'

Bob and Brian will sneak off to the coffee house in the sky and sit around the table telling stories and laughing. No one else will be able to get a word in edgewise!"


The Brian Dall'Armi Memorial Tour will include stops in Vallejo, the Northern California Renaissance Faire at Casa de Fruta and the Great Dickens Christmas Fair. Exact dates have not been set at this time, but expect the Vallejo memorial to be anywhere from two to four weeks away, perhaps the beginning of September. Once plans have been solidified, I will update everyone.

Nell thanks you all for the visits and the emails she has received. She read the emails aloud to Brian in batches and is awed and blessed by the love that is coming from our community, our family. Many stories made her cry, more made her laugh and a few she hadn't even heard before.

She also wants to thank everyone for their offers of help. She has more than enough food in the refrigerator and even more in the freezer, and asks that everyone save their food and beer offerings for the memorial. She did mention most emphatically: NO CASSEROLES!

Please feel free to contact Nell by email but to refrain from calling as she still has many details to iron out and needs to keep the phone relatively open. If anyone would like her email, please comment here with an address I can reach you at privately and I will send you that information.

I was able to spend the afternoon with Brian and Nell yesterday. Many of the Brunos and other friends have been coming by in the last five days to sit by Brian's side and play music for him.

Brian was loved and respected for his many talents and he will be sorely missed. Another fiddler has joined that amazing band in the afterworld.

Veterans of War

Yesterday would've been my grandmother's 90th birthday.

Yesterday my great-uncle Bob died at age 91. I just found out.

Can't write like I want to right now. Memories flood and drown me. The are a blessing though they overwhelm.

Dia de los Muertos

Today is Dia de los Muertos. I have always remembered and honored those who have passed before, whose presence in my life helped shape who I am. In the past I have built ofrendas for my ancestors and fallen contemporaries. I place photos, small keepsakes, flowers, water, salt, candles, bread and anything else that strikes me as being appropriate. The house is cleaned and incense is lit. It is a welcoming, refreshing feeling, the building and cleaning, the tears and joy that come with memory.

For the second year I have made no ofrenda. For the second year this post is my ofrenda.

There are people missing from my list. There is too much in my head...or too little, I can't remember which. I write their names and bring them to me for a moment in time. And send them on their way:

Rose Rushdoony Deovlet (Grandma Rosie)
Phil Deovlet (Grandpa)
Rose (Vartoohi) Mahdesian Deovlet (Grandma Darling)
Benjamin Deovlet (Grandpa Darling)
Rose (Vartanoush) Rushdoony (Grandma Rushdoony)
Y.K. Rushdoony (Grandpa Rushdoony)
Mary Movsesian (Auntie Mim)
Spurgeon Avakian (Uncle Sparky)
Ruth Avakian (Auntie Ruthie)
Evelyn Cooper Smith (Grandma Evelyn)
Haywood Smith (Grandpa Haywood)
Auntie Margie
Bob Thomas
Dave Ricker
Robin Wadsworth
Michael Hefflin
Maxina Danner (Snookie)
Jennifer Lee
Patrick Lee
Mace Hanley
Shelly Munge
Dan O'Brien
Ricky Paul
Barbara Rose
Ronnie Geoffrion
Dave Coker
Don Mills
Wally Lockwood
Sally Schneider
Linda Underhill
Manny Suarez
Mary Jo Goss
Andrew Small
Phil Robledo
Amethyst Mariani
Theryl O'Ryan


Gratitude: Today I am grateful for my family and friends who have gone on and for those who are with me still. I am blessed by your presence in my life, your belief in me and your love.



"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due."

Neil Gaiman

In Memorium

Maxina Danner

Born: 25 March 1987
Murdered: 27 September 2004

You are loved and missed, Snookie. You are forever in our hearts.
You are remembered.

In Which Our Author Crumbles

At last. I have been desperate to write all week and the time to do it has eluded me. Arabis has hit a new high in teething misery and hasn't been sleeping at night. Therefore, neither have I. She's been napping during the day, thank the gods, and though that is an opportune time to write I find myself joining her in the land of dreamy dreams instead.

So now I sit here and stare at the screen with my lids getting heavier and heavier. It's cold and rainy. Has been all week. I've got bread dough attempting to rise in the kitchen and I am praying it will do so though I am beginning to have my doubts. It's too damn chilly in this loft.

I have stopped counting the deaths that have occurred this year. I can't keep track. On Friday I learned of the death of another close friend by drowning. His name was Jorge and I worked with him for many years teaching sea kayaking. He was killed in a kayaking accident in Mexico and his body was never recovered.

Learning of Jorge's death stripped me of any last vestige of "strength in the face of adversity" that I had left. I broke down over the weekend. Called my director at the Dickens Fair on Saturday morning and said I would be unable to make it this weekend (something I have never, ever done {i.e.: not honor a theatrical commitment}). I spent the weekend with my little warped family, cuddling with Arabis and Mojo, watching telly, eating soup, regaling Mojo with stories of kayaking exploits we (Jorge and I) had shared and crying. But it was what I needed. The world had suddenly become sharp and painful and I needed to retreat to a place of greater safety.

Come Monday morning I felt almost human again.

And the irony of this all? All week I have been frantically searching the time to sit and pour my little dark soul out into the ether. So here I am, having achieved my goal of the time to write, and all the words that I had been forming in my head are gone. All the witty stories and pithy sayings I have been mentally composing to get me through the lack of sleep and frustration of being unable to provide long-term relief to my miserable toddler: gone. I have nothing left.

I guess sleep it is for me.

Dia de los Muertos

A grey, rainy day. I used to love this weather and would find an excuse to bundle up and venture out into the world. I loved the smell that comes with the first rain, the deserted streets, the windswept trees.

Today my mood has been as grey as the day. I've wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with my Dickens and tea, the cats cuddled up around me, to alternately read and doze. Life with a baby means those lazy days are long gone. Though the cats thought it a capital idea, Arabis would have none of it.

So we played with the blocks on the floor and had races between the kitchen and living area. She emptied out her dirty clothes hamper and put all the soiled sleepers and shirts and pants back into a drawer with her clean clothes. She wore the colander on her head and beat on the pots and pans while sitting in a big plastic tub. Good times.

There was a long and luxurious nap in the middle of the day. Both cats and the baby huddled in a pile on the day bed for three hours. I napped with them for the last hour, which was bliss but the two baby-dozing hours leading up to it were restless.

Today is Dia de los Muertos and for the first year in many, I have made no ofrendas for my ancestors or fallen contemporaries. I have lost so many people over the years that this ritual has become an important way of remembrance and honoring those I loved. I place photos, small keepsakes, flowers, water, salt, candles, bread and anything else that strikes me as being appropriate. The house is cleaned and incense is lit. It is a welcoming, refreshing feeling, the building and cleaning, the tears and joy that come with memory.

This year there has been much death and no time to ritually mourn. I cleaned today. Not as extensively as I once would have, but cleaned nonetheless. Arabis helped me with her little broom that my mother bought. I told her stories of our past and her ancestors, who were a beloved and integral part of my childhood but will be only tales to her.

I have been making a list through out the day, in my head, on scraps of paper. I will think of a person and remember a moment in time that once we shared. As I sit here I am trying to remember them all and I am forgetting. There are people missing from my list. There is too much in my head...or too little, I can't remember which. I write their names and bring them to me for a moment in time. And send them on their way.

Bob Thomas
Dave Ricker
Robin Wadsworth
Michael Hefflin
Mary Movsesian (Auntie Mim)
Maxina Danner (Snookie)
Jennifer Lee
Patrick Lee
Jerry Lucey
Mace Hanley
Rose Rushdoony Deovlet (Grandma Rosie)
Rose (Vartoohi) Mahdesian Deovlet (Grandma Darling)
Benjamin Deovlet (Grandpa Darling)
Rose (Vartanoush) Rushdoony (Grandma Rushdoony)
Y.K. Rushdoony (Grandpa Rushdoony)
Shelly Munge
Dan O'Brien
Ricky Paul
Skot Travis
Spurgeon Avakian (Uncle Sparky)
Ruth Avakian (Auntie Ruthie)
Barbara Rose
Ronnie Geoffrion
Auntie Margie
Evelyn Cooper Smith (Grandma Evelyn)

Taiko

I just sent an email to a local Taiko Dojo. They have their new student orientation in October. Just...a feeling I had today...don't know if I'm going to follow through...don't know if I can...don't know if I can't...

So much has been mulling about my tired and foggy excuse for a brain and between Mojo's feeling unwell and the normal baby wrangling, I've not had time to sit and write. There is much I need to write about Robin, memories that pop up at unexpected times. At Robbie's memorial last Sunday, the Taiko drumming gave me something and I need to transcribe the cathartic scribbles of that experience.

The drums filled my chest. It was an amazing experience. If I sit quietly they rise again through my body like the beating of my heart. They took me to a place that I had forgotten about and never wrote of and the words came pouring out like a flood. But I'm not sure I'm ready to reread and transcribe that yet. It's really very raw. And I am starting to feel somewhat human again.

I got an email from his mother that is sweet and searching and I've wanted to write her for days but have been unable to. There is something in the way and I don't know what it is. The lack of time to grieve, to rememeber, to laugh.

Being a mother now, I can't imagine what she must be going through. I can only hope to raise my daughter to be as present, as gentle and as aware as Robbie was.

Shit. That was hard to write. That was. The tense is just wrong. So now I'm crying and my daredevil daughter is trying to climb atop the refrigerator.

Perhaps tonight I will have the solitude and space to really write.



Photo sent by Robin to Eelia Goldsmith-Henderscheid. Photographer unknown.

The River is Wide, The River is Deep

I spent a long time sitting on the floor with Arabis just watching her. The pants which were last week too long and required rolling up a few times now fall just where they should at her ankle. Her hair seems to have had another growth spurt as well and is beginning to wave slightly away from her head and behind her ears, like a strangely winged bird. She looks like a little miniature human now (not that she didn't before).

She is her own person, my daredevil daughter; climbing up the dining room chairs to stomp on the table. Other milestones include:

• Opening the bottom storage compartment on the oven to play with the pots and lids.
• Getting into the bread crumbs and spilling them on the concrete floor where she proceeded to make snow angels.
• Climbed out of the restraint system of her high chair, then climbed the rest of the way down while I was doing the dishes. I admit, I stopped to watch her do it, only intervening at the last minute to prevent her plummeting to the concrete floor.
• Has completely rearranged my tupperware drawers. I found a rubber penguin bathtub toy in amongst the lids this morning.
• Once again got into the croutons and fed them to the cat.
• Walked to the refrigerator, opened the door, took a sip from her bottle, put it back, closed the door and walked away.
  

The weasel's getting clever. We're doomed.

Today has been a strange, quiet day. I am tired and feeling anti-social. Not that I don't want company, but walking out amongst the people is a feat too daunting for me.

Mojo also woke on the wrong side of the world this morning. He was visited by strange dreams. He said I tried to push him in front of a car. I'm not even going to hazard an analysis.

My forehead aches. I have a piece of brain stuck there. And it hurts.

Ari came over for dinner last night and we looked through her photo albums. Memories of a shared past, people we both knew, others who I didn't but were central to her life, we all had such a wonderful upbringing at the Faire. And then, in amongst the myriad of faces, Robin's would appear; here as a teenager, there as a man. And we would be quiet for a moment in grief.

My daughter kept turning back to one page in Ari's book, with a particularly striking photo of him. Over and over she would turn back and there he would be.

Sigh. No point to this post, other than grief. Also joy. A strange dichotomy.

The Trees, They Grow High

Got to meet with a fellow out of town blogger yesterday for hot chocolate but the day was clouded with the news of the morning: that an old friend whom I'd known for 26 years died. I will write about the enjoyable parts of the day in greater detail later. For right now I just want to share a photo sent to me by Eelia Goldsmith of Robin.

Meanwhile, I spent last night lying in bed, hearing Robbie's voice singing to me, songs he sang when we were young. Other people have had this same experience, of hearing his voice singing in the night.


Photo sent to Eelia by Robin. Photographer unknown. Companion unknown.

Robin Wadsworth (drummer, taiko drummer, morris dancer, singer, musician, truly Renaissance man) died in a swimming accident while on vacation out of the country.