Thanksgiving and Stealing - the Holidays

Many mixed feelings of this past holiday - wonderful and wistful. I ended up with a migraine headache yesterday- guess I should've followed the prescription orders; the anti-anxiety meds I take now are know to cause SEVERE reactions if mixed with alcohol, and I drank a Fat Tire beer Saturday night after going on a 2 mile run at 10 pm, don't ask, I have odd habits when alone.

That's me, reading the warning labels after I mix things up. Angry, sad, lonely and frustrated on the couch Sunday, after family visits and departures, because a planned trip to get together for a little getaway with a friend got botched up - and no escape yesterday to maybe visit a different friend out of town, because the I-10 freeway was jammed all day with ORV weekenders pouring back into the I.E., the O.C., L.A., from the way-overrun Glamis Sand Dunes south of the Salton Sea. I admit I was on the couch, crying, and unable to sleep last night, feeling so lonely and wanting to be with my friends, yet having been unable to connect. Whiner? Overworked stressaholic? A woman ready to sell the house, keep the books and laptop, and go back to the cabin-life I led before I became a career woman and mom? You bet! Overwhelmed and pissing people off left and right because I'm always so busy, have such a hard time of "stealing time" to get away, to go on a hike, to enjoy the desert in the short nice weather span we have - now - and put people first for a change - not to mention taking better care of myself (massage, hot spring rejuvenation days, more sessions with the therapist, how about sleep?)

And worried about Shasta, who went in for a kidney stone operation this morning - she must've sensed it, because at 3 a.m., she started going apeshit and woke me up. I admit I even texted the friend I had planned to getaway with Friday-Sunday and who I think is now ignoring me because I had to cancel, he's been phone AWOL since Saturday a.m. and I admit I texted him several times in the middle of the night with desperate and lonely messages like "call me! I need you!" (still haven't heard back, but the hell with it.) Bottom line is, this Thanksgiving has to be marked as a weekend of healing and renewal and appreciation. Family came first - it was grounding and healing to see everyone, and I only hope they feel the same about me!

Alex and Tarah

picture taken by proud mom 11.27.08 in Apple Valley

In a nutshell - could that be walnuts, perhaps? A picture of my daughter Tarah (20) and her boyfriend Alex (22), who is a student at UC Berkeley, relaxing at the house of Tarah's grandmother, father's mother, the martriarch of my "other" family, some of who live in Apple Valley. The clan up there, who I've known since I was 23 years old and just starting to mix it up with Tarah's dad - who is long in exile from my daughter and his family, sadly, in Colorado, but who did call just as we started to eat - include: Grandma Barbara, and my brother-in-law Jim, a sociology/Native American professor and scholar who teaches at Cal State San Bernardino, his wife, my sister-in-law Sandra, and my two awesome nephews, Mikhael and James; also, Uncle Mike, who has been a saint in training by giving so much support and love to Tarah and I while my girl was growing up. It was so interesting to realize that Tarah and Alex are about the same age I was when I met Tarah's dad, while working as a BLM firefighter - and that I was just a few years older than Tarah the first time I sat around the Fenelon dinner table. Wow. The next generation, and off to a splendid start, the two of them!

On Friday, I whiled the day away with my family in Palm Desert - my parents Beverly and Joe, and three brothers, John and Patrick, who both live in the Bay Area, and Jerry, who lives in Silver Lake. My brother John, a high school teacher, gave me great advice for handling a few problems I'm having in my own teaching work; Patrick, a technical writer, gave my insights for the formidable and ongoing desert literature anthology I've dedicated thousands of hours to completing just since this past summer, alone (not to mention the two years of research, and much more, previous to that!), and Jerry, a DJ who gave me some ideas on updating my music savvy!


And now, I wait for Shasta, my lovely dog, to recuperate from this morning's kidney stone operation. I had a bit of an emotional breakdownwhen I dropped her off at the vet's office today. They removed a stone the size of a half-dollar, and she's not a large dog. My sweet pup, who's been a great companion for 7 years, on so many hikes, and always giving everyone so much love - the office just called and said she's recuperating nicely. She should be ready for more hiking in a month or so. Brindle, the big goofball mastiff-shepard, is a little off today, knowing something's not right and his big/little sister is gone - so I give him extra treats!


Thanksgiving or Stealing - trying to steal time to spend with family, so rare - this year, for the first ever, I think, I realize just how lonely I feel that my brothers all live far away, and that we only really meet up a few times a year. So many of us fill our lives now with endless work, routines, and we get sidetracked from focusing on our basic connection that grounds and heals us, for those of us fortunate enough to have a stable and loving family - as am I - not only one but two families. Sure, I felt like I was stealing time from my workload - fun stuff as well as drudge stuff, writing, poetry things, readings, student papers to grade, etc etc - but realize that the time has to be carved out, a balance maintained. How about the things we steal from others, in ways large and small, how we get so easily reduced to looking out for #1? At the heartstem of controversial and mixed assessments of our "founding fathers" holiday (and the mothers?)


And the irony, for Tarah's father's side of the family, of celebrating a holiday that commemorates in some ways a dark side of our cultural history - the genocide and oppression of Native Americans, including Tarah's Sioux ancestors; many family members still live in North and South Dakota, and I've met many of them. In fact, Tarah traces her family roots back to some very important players in U.S. history - a great-great uncle, an anglo, who was the agent at the Standing Rock Agency when Sitting Bull was infamously shot; his wife, her great-great-grandmother (the man married one sister, then another), who is an important SiouxFrench author who wrote "Legends of the Sioux," archived with University of Virginia.

And maybe that is the prime reason for the holiday - the hope to bridge the cultures. My own daughter's background reflects that divide, and also that bridge. The pain of the Indian wars and conflicts was and still is that so many of us are on "both" sides - in Tarah's case, the mixed blood of Sioux and French ancestry - how do you reconcile that? I have the generic image in mind, of Pilgrims and Indians, making peace, eating together, sharing resources - is this a real story, or one carved out of hope that one day, one day, or perhaps in a previous day, we all did get along. More than being thankful for what we have, which is in itself a generous and necessary act, and damnit, we need to do that ALL THE TIME - it's a vision of togetherness, abundance and sharing, of community and peace, and celebration. Let us be so wise.


A tragic and fatal Toys 'R Us shooting the day after T-Giving here in tony and sheltered Palm Desert, just a few miles from my home and a great shock to everyone in the community, a sad endnote to the previous day of gratitude - was apparantly a type of showdown, a fight between two groups of people, perhaps gang-related. A gun-fight on a beautiful morning in a gentle town filled mostly with retirees and the elderly who are hoping to enjoy their final years in the sun, in a children's toy store? What conflict, rage, and wrecklessness caused this? Everywhere, boiling tempers, emotional radiators are spilling over. I, myself, blew up, from sheer exhaustion and stress overload, at a good friend a month ago, instantly regretting my outburst but knowing I'd been damaging, nonetheless. Stealing a moment of peace. My bad. Tears, apologies, horror over my little blowup - damage had been done, and it's since been reconciled, but words do hurt.


The threshold of how each of us, in these trying times, expresses our frustrations is different. What for me was a rude verbal explosion with a few hurtful and instantly regretable words will be another person's hand on the trigger, and someone is dead, dozens traumatized, many worlds permanently interrupted. A shocking reminder of how necessary for us all to be and remain committed to endlessly striving to build harmony, on every level of every day. And a call to those of us who have the abundance and vision to share this possibility to keep putting it out there, every day. No matter what violence, darkness, anger, stress we are faced with. And that is precisely why we need each other, to reach out to each other, with compassion, love, face to face.


In a true Native American sensibility, "healing" is not just something to do when you're sick. It is an ongoing process - the continual effort of putting things into "right balance," and giving thanks, and remembering the tenuous connections we all have to that which sustains us, every day. Read Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony," one of my all-time favorite and cosmic books. This is also a basic premise of building sustainability - in our social interactions as well as in maintaining balance and renewability in the natural world. Respect - a giving of thanks - and acknowledgement that we're all vulnerable. We all need every saving grace available to us, individually and collectively - and we have to sustain that grace in all that we do.


Migraine headache, somewhat relieved this morning, but still, my irritation and frustration over not seeing certain friends I told I'd visit, worries and pressures like so many other Americans today over finances, investments, money, bills, mortgages, cutbacks in pay - these are my woes to experience. And so this morning, after dropping the dog off, giving her extra encouragement hugs, then breaking down in tears well into the parking lot and a nearby Starbucks - I drove to an area of some of the area's last remaining dunes - sat still for awhile, and looked to powerful Mt. San Jacinto and Tahquitz Peak for inspiration and renewal, as I've done so many times before.


It's a view I had when I bought my house in 2002, and the main reason I bought the house: I had a straightaway view of amazing sand dunes and the mountains - a view that was slowly but fully wiped out as Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells went in next door over a period of several years. I needed to get back to that view, and I had to drive a little way to see it, but there it was - the dunes in the Coachella Valley Preserve not quite as grand, but fenced off, protected, and so necessary. I walked around a bit, absorbing the power of the morning, the desert's healing. And I gave many thanks.


And beyond my own regrets and bullshit and temporary and fleeting inconveniences, I must give so much thanks for the grace of my enduring family, all good, hardworking and caring people; for my "other" family; for my wonderful daughter; and for so many luxuries I enjoy, like owning my own home and having a stable job. Thank you universe, and my apologies to the friends I let down this past four days. I did a bit of "stealing" from my own preoccupations and obligations, and remembered from where it was that I came. And whispered :thanks: I'll remember to have more respect for not mixing beer and designer drugs, and to forgive myself for letting down my friend, even if he can't forgive me (would be nice if you'd call!), and put a few words and pretty pictures out into the world to cheer everyone up. Ya, ya, we had a great trip LAST weekend to a great petroglyph/rock art site, so - let's be grateful and reflect on that one to get us through this week, and try again another soon day. So here you go! Let's all forgive one another.

Ruth at Sheephole Oasis Petroglyphs, Mojave Desert 11.22.08

picture taken by Phil