Güd wrtr

You know how you wake up some mornings, the bad dream running laps in your brain, telling yourself it’s not real, but you carry the hangover of free-floating anxiety in your satchel of woes, which, most days, you can set in a corner, say, There, there, to the worries that do you no good to fret over?

For whatever reason you’ve shouldered them today, along with the persistent headache that points to something blooming outside that’s bugging you, so you go back to bed for a while, hoping that it will ease, that you might doze, awaken again feeling better, but no soap, so you lie there thinking, This is dumb.

You rise with a groan and make the bed so the cat can assume his usual place in your spot—or, more accurately, his spot that you’ve borrowed overnight—and while there is much to do—always much to do—you think, Start with easy, pulling on shorts and a lightweight T-shirt, adding your shades and, slipping into the flip-flops by the back door you keep there, tugging on the somewhat stuck door that swells in summer.

When you step into the sunshine, you feel a bit like Dorothy walking into Oz, blinking behind your shades, and because it’s a watering day, you pick up the magic wand, turn the spigot and presto! There’s the delicate shower of water that you aim at the leafy arms of the tomato overgrowing her wire cage like a too-small bra, a simile that makes you smile because the plant variety is, after all, named Juliet.

As you set aside the squirter and gently touch one of the reddest ovals, low to the ground, the first cluster to bud, it comes off easily in your hand, which lifts you somehow. And you cup another little gem, and another, and now you hold a trio of tomatoes, as if they were just waiting for you to show up, which you deposit in a small cardboard square box and take some photos, which you think is a bit silly—just tomatoes, for heaven’s sake.

But that’s the point: Holding a bit of heaven in hand that you grew from a sprout, even as you chuckle, thinking, All I did was plant her and water her, knowing that forces far greater than you shaped and continue to nurture Juliet—and you, for that matter—an everyday miracle that softens your old heart into once again loving this loveable life.

If you believe that you were not born to sing,
then you must allow the birds to tutor you,

sitting in places where they do, allowing them
to feel comfortable enough to vocalize near

you in your scary human suit. You will think,
at first, that they are all brilliant sopranos,

with their warbling trills, and, if you are
fortunate to study with an owl, you may

want to imitate its throaty hoo-hoo.
And you should, for allowing your throat

to open and sound to emerge is what you do
every day. Singing is just sustained talking,

after all. And the point is not to be good
or to necessarily harmonize with others.

The point is to sing out on a deep breath
a note of meaning—perhaps a joyful one,

but ones of sorrow and despair, too—
a long note. Do not worry if it wavers

or your voice breaks. Listen. The birds
falter, too. Join them. Let them remind

you that you are of a species that is born
in song. Sing your own tra-la to the wingéd

ones in trees, especially to those in cages.
In fact, open the cage and slowly climb in.

Do not mind the feather ruffling; settle in
on any available perch. Leave the door open.

Open your mouth. Let a note take wing.
See what happens.

•••

(For singers everywhere—

like my friend Lilly Ganly, a rock ‘n’ roll singer
who turns 17 today—

and Martha Kight, my high school friend,
still singing, still acting her heart out,

and my friend Katie O’Rourke, music teacher,
opera singer and chorus member, who, with
members of Chanteuses, a Sacramento women’s
chorus, recently performed at Carnegie Hall in
New York with dozens of singers from around
the country.)

Let this be a sign unto you,
amazing one:

You are enough.
You are magic.

And yes, embrace your mistakes.
And look for the signs because,

it turns out, they’re everywhere,
if we only have the eyes to see them,

messages from the unseen ones
cheering you on.

You’ll think they’re not,
But they’re for you.

Like this. Right here.
Right now.

•••

(With thanks to poet Molly Fisk for sharing
this photo that inspired the poem!)

Six-year-old Lane calls across the pool,
“Mom, watch!”
His 11-year-old sister Grace echoes,
“Watch ME, Mom!”

And at the shaded end of my niece’s
pool, their Mom watches—this woman
who styles my niece’s hair—along
with her mother, as my sister and I,

old enough to be these kids’ grandmas,
work one-on-one with each child,
seeing what they can do in water
sparkling under a July morning sky.

Every time one of the kids calls, “Mom!”
I think, You watchin’, Ma?
Your girls are back in the pool
givin’ swimmin’ lessons a good

half century after we spent our
summers doing so—first as water
safety aides, then as full-fledged
instructors, working with all manner

of humanity, from babies to toddlers,
adolescents to teens, girls on the synchro
team, even with sweet-faced adults
with Down syndrome.

It’s been a minute, I realize, taking
a deep breath before tucking
into a surface dive to head for
the bottom of the pool,

feeling my fingers connect with
a weighted purple plastic ring
that our beginner swimmers are
not quite ready to retrieve.

But look at these two on kickboards,
gaining strength and confidence
with every lap across the pool,
Grace remembering not to plug

her nose but blow out bubbles
upon dunking herself, Lane doing
his version of a cannonball, feet
first, an easy touch, bouncing up,

as we instructors look on, near
enough to help, but far enough for
them to learn to trust the support
of water, of their people,

as we hear far-away echoes of ours,
the parents who put us in pools,
who urged us through swimming
lessons that we later taught,

who put us on water skis in a big
lake, who volunteered at our swim
meets—Mom with her referee’s
whistle on the side of the pool—

their “atta girl”s filling my ears as
my little sister-now-grandma swims
alongside a boy kicking his way across
the pool, as I dive again for the bottom,

as I push off, looking up into the blue.

•••

In memory of our mother, Darlene Haag,
on what would have been her 95th birthday.
Thanks for everything, Ma.

And thanks to my sister, Donna Just, and her daughter
Lauren Just Giel (along with husband Gerald Giel
and children Henry and Rosie) for hosting
the swimmin’ lessons. So much fun!

Not now, deeply into the future,
preferably when I don’t know
that it’s coming,

lying on the yoga mat in, appropriately,
corpse pose after a gentle backyard session
on a summer day much like this one,

Delta breeze susurrating through the sycamore,
the distant call of crows, traffic sounds
transformed into surf shooshing into shore,

then, face to the sky, wearing the merest smile,
let me be lifted into mystery with no fuss or agony,
the simplest departure

among the tiny English daisies that sprout weekly
after mowing, even when I worry that they have
all been taken. There they are.

And there I was.

(On the 250th anniversary of the adoption
of the Declaration of Independence
of the United States of America)

1. First, there’s no perfect. Just working toward it,
a willingness to improve, to strive for better,
for what truly matters.

2. There have always been those in this experiment
in democracy who see themselves as perfect,
those who seem to strive for what most benefits them.

3. Many of us, however, strive for what truly matters:
equality for all in a land where each voice matters,
thinking matters, ideas and books and discussion matter,
where all shades of skin, all languages and accents,
all genders and non-, believers and non-
matter, where there’s more than enough for all
in this nation of plenty, this land of the allegedly free,
home of the unbelievably brave.

4. Far from perfect when 10,000 people—who seem
to matter only as a problem to those in charge,
who must be sent away—are arrested days before
the country’s 250th anniversary of its founding,
the one promising liberty and justice for all.

5. Far from perfect when one thinks he matters most,
knows best, who starts wars because he commands
the firepower to do so.

6. Here’s what matters: Your tired, your poor,
certainly as much as your healthy and wealthy.
For it is on the backs of the least of us that have,
since humanity began, been broken on behalf
of those who were:
—richer
—whiter
—straight and gender-conforming
—educated
—privileged in every way

7. We have learned many things in two-and-a-half
centuries, among them: There is no perfect union.
But there is, in the hearts of so, so many, the continued
willingness to treat all—and that means all—
with kindness, with generosity of heart,

all of you reaching out to all of me, me reaching
back, saying, “How can I be of service?” and
“Thank you for yours,” and
“There is no them. We are all us.”

8. Our worst is not the best of us.
The best is the best of us, which still exists.
In you and you and you. And me. In us.

9. This heartbreaking moment is not how it ends.

10. It cannot be how it ends. Amen.

•••

With gratitude to Brandi Carlile and Sista Strings (Chantee Ross
on violin and Monique Ross on cello) for their beautiful rendition of
“America the Beautiful” at the Statue of Liberty.

Watching the enthusiastic lady
ferns spread their wings like
green swans against the fence,

I am aware that, with their
seasonal emergence that I do
nothing to prompt,

they have swallowed the rose
bush that lives beneath them,
I trust that they are sheltering

it, rather than killing it. Every
fall, when the ferns die and I
cut their brown stalks

to the ground, there’s the rose.
I try to remember her
promise:

“I’m under here. I’m fine.
Patience, dear one.
You’ll see me again.”

“Crazy bastards,” my father used to say when
he saw young people doing dangerous things—

like riding motorcycles or hot-rodding motorboats
on the lake on hot summer days—this from a guy

who had famously water skied barefoot in his 20s.
“Probably drunk,” he’d say, no stranger to a Manhattan,

though, as a responsible grown-up all about safety,
he did not drink and drive—boats or cars.

My father’s condemnation swept through my head
like a Delta breeze on the first day of July when

I read that two people in their early 30s on
the actual island of Manhattan had needle-climbed

the Empire State Building’s 200-foot spire,
unfurling a black flag that read:

When the power of love beats the love of power
the world knows peace.

Even with the forgotten comma after the introductory
clause (like this one—give your self-editor a rest, Jan),

my old heart softened, turning to moosh when I read
that Ivan Beerkus had proposed to Angela Nikolau as they

stood atop the off-limits-to-the-public landing (duh!)
before climbing down and being arrested (double duh!).

But what a story to tell their kids, huh? Or anyone, really.
“We climbed 1,454 feet in a rebellious act of devotion,”

they can boast. The power of love, indeed.
Crazy bastards, for sure. But oh, how I’m applauding

those two lovebirds, flying in their own way to
a spot most of us mere mortals can only (thankfully)

imagine—all, yes, all—in the name of peace.

•••

If you’re up for a literal birds’ eye perspective, you can watch the video
of Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau’s Empire State Building
spire-topping view here.

If you’d like to read The New York Times story, you can do so here.

(for the original BFF, Dr. Susan Lester, upon her
retirement as a veterinarian, Nevada City, California)

1. At age 9, sit in a circle on the floor with your
best friend next door and her younger sister
along with a cardboard box of month-old kittens.

2. Outside the biggish box, have a smaller box
of fresh kitty litter waiting.

3. Lift one kitten gently from one box
into the other.

4. Gently lift one of kitten’s front legs
and direct it to paw the gritty surface.

Note: Some kittens will resist this.
OK, most kittens. They will sniff.
Some may, as babies do, try to eat
the sandy stuff. Discourage this
by picking up kitten and gently
distracting it.

5. Return kitten to litter box. Try again.

6. Watch as kitten, quite on its own,
figures out, scratching sand or not,
that this is a place to go.

7. You and your de facto sisters heartily
congratulate kitten—and selves—
for a “job” well done.

All these years later, you recall that these
kitties, along with every pet you met,
were the ones who began to train you,

quite unaware, that you’d be spending
much of your adult life with kitties
and doggies, caring for thousands

of four-leggeds who, along with
their two-leggeds, are beyond
grateful to and for you.

Job well done, Dr. Sue.

Rising early, for me, to see
lamby clouds frolicking across
a field of soft blue overhead,
barely 70 degrees, and, stepping
outside to retrieve and refill water
and food bowls for those who stop by
for drinks and nibbles.

I am stunned to see this pleasantness
post-solstice, late June, when
the rays of Hades often hammer us
in northland of the great Central Valley
of this golden state.

All signs point to a perfect day,
and, before I can sink into gratitude,
I wade in the mucky pool of what’s
coming—the infernal heat and days
when the famous Delta breeze
has taken herself off to other parts.

But standing in the sunshine,
empty bowls in hand, looking east
over the tops of lanky sycamores
with more decades on them than mine,
I smile into the bright.

Soak it in, something in me whispers.
This day with writers gathered
around a table, with time later
to stand in the yard, hose in hand,
watering and marveling over
what’s growing. Maybe I’ll even
pluck one of the pearls of reddening
tomatoes strung from lacy strands.

This day, perfect, truly, of many
this summer to admire and cherish—
as I’m reminding myself to do—
with you, my beloved, at the end of it.

•••

(for Dickie)