Güd wrtr

Us at Burr’s Fountain, July 28, 2017

Wearing the new, cute mask a local writing friend made—deep violet pansies on a black background—my glasses were already steaming up before I hit the produce aisle. I was almost able to walk right in to my favorite grocery store, but a store employee (whose face I’m sure I’d recognize if the bottom half wasn’t swathed in black) stopped me before I hit the door and guided a red cart toward me. I never use carts. I held up the reusable bags Trader Joe’s taught me to use when this store opened in my neighborhood years ago.

“I know that I have to pack up my own groceries,” I said because I’d done so a week ago.

He shook his head. “Can’t use those now,” he said kindly. “We’ll give you paper bags.” Pause. “For free.”

I didn’t say I pride myself on not having to use your bags and save a tree, or a small part of one. I didn’t say I don’t know how to judge the amount of purchases in a cart. I can carry two of my bags when full, which is how I know when I’ve bought enough. I didn’t say this is all I can carry to the parking lot next store behind Burr’s Fountain, my favorite ice cream/sandwich joint that closed 18 months ago, the place where many of you employees park now.

I started to put my bags in the red cart, thinking I’d fill them up there, but he stopped me. “Maybe you can just carry them on your arm.”

He was polite and trying to be helpful, but I got the message: My bags and I are dangerous now. Even though I was one of the harmless-looking oldsters in the store in the 8–9 a.m. shopping hour—never my usual time to be in any store, much less out and about, if I can help it. Age has its privileges, but only a few.

I held up my new mask in a plastic bag and smiled at him. “Should I…?”

“About 80% of our customers are wearing them,” he said. “And we all have to now.”

Why that did it, I’m not sure, but tears sprang to my eyes as I slung my empty, poisonous bags over one arm and awkwardly affixed my mask, which promptly began to fog up my glasses even though I affixed the little metal strip over my nose.

And so I entered my favorite store unable to see and in tears.

A week ago on a weekday afternoon I stood in the long line running down the outside of the building where customers also stood six feet apart. The line moved surprisingly quickly, and I was in the store in about 15 minutes. Then they allowed me to fill my own bags at the checkout stand where the employees wore gloves but not masks.

“We can’t touch them,” the young woman said about my bags, the ones they persuaded customers to bring when the store opened years ago by having a contest. If you brought your own bags, you’d fill out a ticket, and at the end of the week, they’d do a drawing for a bag of food. You couldn’t choose the food—they did it for you—but it was good stuff. I won once and felt like I’d hit the lottery.

This morning I pushed the red cart around the relatively empty store, and sure enough, everyone I saw was wearing a mask—mostly the ineffective-for-germs cloth kind. One customer, a man, was wearing an N95 mask, but he was the only one. I wondered if he had them in his garage or wore them for work since, like toilet paper, they’re impossible to get.

I hung onto my cart for dear life, like the other older women in the store, feeling as if I was walking through thick sludge in a bad dream, one in which I’d gone to my favorite store and everyone was wearing masks, avoiding each other like, well, the plague, and there was no toilet paper to be had, even at 8:35 on a Monday morning. (Fortunately, I didn’t need TP.) I got what I needed as quickly as I could as always, periodically taking off my glasses to let them defog. The man at the door had said that some of the young women employees had some anti-fog goop, and I thought, oh, yeah, so do we—with the masks and snorkels Dick and I take to Hawaii. What might that do to coated plastic lenses, though?

Crackers, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots. Persian cucumbers for snacking. Three big gala apples. Two boxes of almond cluster cereal for Dick. Chicken pesto wraps for lunch and rosemary chicken and rice for dinner. Peanut-butter filled pretzels. Didn’t need hummus or Monterey Jack cheese sticks for the writing groups, though I did get chocolate-topped shortbread cookies because Dick likes them, too.

I pushed the red cart to the checkout stand area. Stood at a taped yellow X on the floor more than six feet away from the man in front of me who was at the counter paying for his groceries.  When it was my turn, a young checker whose smile I could not see pulled my cart toward her and put out a hand. “Wait there,” she said, and I did as she unloaded my cart with gloved hands and ran each item over the reader. Another young woman standing a decent distance away arranged my purchases into three paper bags. I wondered how I’d carry them to the parking lot next door—all those veggies are heavy.

When the bagger finished, she backed away from the counter all the way to the checkout stand behind her, as did the checker, who beckoned me forward. I stepped up to the little machine that takes the card and inserted it as usual. But I had to think about my pin number, which I ordinarily punch in without having to pause. I looked around for a second to get my bearings. I noted the other oldsters like me (surely I’m the youngest of them here, I thought, at my whopping 61 years and 7 months). Then, somehow, the pin number arrived at my fingertips. I juggled the card back into my wallet, shifting my useless, germ-y bags again, and then I was free to push the red cart outside into the morning.

I had to leave it there, of course, as two red-coated employees with the TJ’s logo in masks and gloves stood ready to wipe down my tainted cart. I managed two paper bags in one hand (thank goodness for their sturdy handles), one in the other and began the trek to the car.

As I walked past the large plate glass windows in the front of the former Burr’s, I stopped and looked in, as I often do. I sighed at the sight of the now dusty, deserted place where Dick and I and so many friends and loved ones had gone for fresh turkey sandwiches that Jim Burr sliced off Brannigan’s turkeys raised in Woodland. Where Dick had taken his mother before she died for those turkey sandwiches. Where his favorite sandwich was the hot dog, sliced vertically in half and laid on sourdough with lettuce and mustard. Where I’d happily eaten the tuna mix on sourdough that Jim Burr cut into three pieces—the ladies’ cut—sometimes as I graded papers solo at a four-person table. Where I’d consumed who knew how many gallons of Jik Jak ice cream in frosts—shakes with soda water and ice cream.

This global disaster has been hard on us all. We are all suffering together, though alone, some more than others. Neither I nor my loved ones are or have been sick. We have the trappings of privilege—good jobs or retirement; nice, secure homes; our own cars and the ability to go to the store, if we wish; friends we connect with by phone or online, and access to far too much information. I am working at home, trying to get 120 community college writing students through the last month of their curtailed semester. I am beyond fortunate in weathering this storm, and I am grateful.

Still. When one lives long enough, the accumulated losses pile up, the unshed tears flow, and the heart breaks a little more. We are in a time of enormous global change, of cosmic transformation, a moment after which nothing will ever be the same again. The old ways are dying; new ones have yet to be born. And in this liminal space we are floundering.

I set down the bags and yanked off the pretty mask, stuffing it into the pocket of my pullover sweatshirt. I looked again at the booths where we used to eat and drink and laugh.

Then I picked up three paper bags, made my way to the car and drove myself and my groceries home. All by 9 a.m. on the 25^th day of Sacramento County’s shelter-in-place order.

Photo by Christopher Gallello — sfgate.com

Our four slender legs walk this place
now that the two-leggeds have disappeared.
Where have they gone?
Their long faces peer through clear squares in their dens.
What is keeping them in?

Occasionally one of them ventures outside,
looking furtively over a shoulder, walking fast,
their two huge paws clomping over hard pathways.

We are free to populate this space again.
We have long dwelled in this land by the sea
before any two-leggeds arrived to take it from us,
to cover the earth with hard surfaces,
to chase us away or string us up on fences.

Of course, we never left. Of course, it is still ours, too,
though we share it with those who think it is not.
It is our way.

We recognize all beings—the winged ones in tree and sky,
the ones who crawl with many legs or scurry, their long tails
whipping behind them, as well as the other four-leggeds
not so different than us—possum, deer, squirrel, skunk,
prey, friend, even those who mew and bark.

Why have they gone?

We sit now and watch those long faces stare out at us.
We cannot hear them, their loud voices silenced.
It is so much quieter now, their four-wheeled movers stilled.

We have emerged from our hidden places;
we patrol the immortal ground, startled to hear
our own paws as we stride or frolic or run,
easily detecting the chatter of the winged ones,
catching a whiff of each other in the wind.

We glance over our shoulders, note presence and absence.
We make room for all, even for those in hiding.

Pink dogwood blossoms (photo by Dick Schmidt)

After what has felt like nonstop work since my college and so many others stopped seeing students, shut down and converted to online teaching, I finally got outside on a lovely spring day. I took a lovely 2-mile walk around the park-like grounds of the Woodside condo complex in Sacramento this afternoon with my sweetie, who has lived there since the early 1970s.

Dick has been struggling with leg pain, but thanks to a lower back brace recommended by my sister, the PT (yay, Donna Just!), he’s feeling so good that we were able to do our usual 2-mile walk at about two-thirds speed as usual… the two of us, out in nature in T-shirts (not jackets), stopping to admire and shoot flowers on our iPhones (as we do).

We are aware of our great privilege with one of us retired and not unhappy to mostly stay inside as the other one works from home. (I am a Zooming fool now, people, and I ran five writing groups this week from my home office and laptop.)

We’re supporting small, local restaurants we love by getting takeout food (thank you, Evan’s Kitchen for the yummy meatloaf sandwiches today and Nopalito’s for the always-tasty taco plate and burrito yesterday—not to mention Joe Thompson’s Crisp Catering for fine dinners.) We ache for people who are sick, for people who have lost loved ones to complications from the coronavirus, for those who are scared and sad, who have been forced out of their regular routines and, like many of my students, lost their jobs. We have friends who work in the medical field, and we pray that they stay safe and healthy.

While we keep those who are struggling in our hearts, neither of us is sick or in pain today, and we call that a big win—along with the pretty pink dogwoods bloomin’ their fool heads off.

Woodside dogwood tree and residents (photo by Dick Schmidt)

#lifeisgood #ontherightsideofthedirt

(for Joe Thompson and the Crisp Catering crew)

The man who delivers my dinner docks at my house
at 11:30 a.m., steps out of his land vessel with
two aluminum-foiled containers, wearing
a tired smile and his chef’s trousers enflamed
with images of carrots, tomatoes, squash
and the new sweatshirt his wife just had made for him:

Jan Haag
(after W.S. Merwin)

You caregivers hand-holders hospice people, people who comfort
You cooks chefs servers sandwich makers pizza tossers, who feed us
You delivery people truck loaders postal workers sorters drivers, people who bring us things
You doctors nurses medical workers pharmacists front-line providers caretakers attendants, who risk all to care for us at our worst
You cashiers shelf-stockers grocery store workers bankers, who wait on us
You salespeople retail workers, who sell us what we need
You first responders EMTs police fire protectors security people, who protect and serve
You custodians janitors housekeepers, who clean up after us
You teachers principals counselors professors aides, who teach us now at a distance
You receptionists assistants go-fers, without whom so many could not do their jobs
You techies computer geniuses electronic fix-it folks, people who keep us connected
You farmworkers pulling crops from fields, you who pile those crops into pallets for truckers
You truckers who bring those pallets to distribution points; you unseen people who bring food
You who pick up our garbage recycling green waste, who dispose of our detritus
You mass transit workers who move us around on land on sea in sky
You Army Navy National Guard Coast Guard Air Force people, who give your lives for us
You linemen pole climbers petroleum workers dam workers, who deliver energy
You ministers priests rabbis nuns monks imams pujaris, people who remind us of the holy, the mystery of spirit
You instrumentalists singers dancers songwriters, people who bring music
You artists photographers painters sculptors movie makers ceramicists, who make images that lodge in our hearts
You writers poets journalists novelists memoirists authors broadcasters editors publishers bloggers communicators, who give us words that feed us, sustain us in times when we cannot touch or offer the comfort of a hug

All essential you, the essence of us

We see you. We are grateful.
We are saying thank you, the poet* wrote,
thank you in the waning light,
thank you as darkness falls.
We thank you as we wait for day
to break again.

*W.S. Merwin, “Thanks,” from Migration: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)

I have cut this man’s hair for years… decades, actually… and just because I’ve got the sniffles (allergies? cold? something we don’t want to think about?) doesn’t mean I can’t take up scissors and comb in my backyard for the first spring haircut of the year.

My back yard really is the best place to cut hair—the hair jibbers, as we call them, float like white feathers to the green grass. One cat finds leaves to bat around under the big sycamore tree that shades most of the yard; the other cat takes up a watchful spot on the deck. It’s a lovely place to be on a spring afternoon.

Once we haul out one of the tall chairs and the good haircutting scissors, I go to the task of making Dick look younger, which he does after every haircut. And you never know when one of us might decide to go topless.

I feel fine—just sniffly, despite all the vitamin C and other good immune-boosting stuff I’m putting into me a few times a day—but when the client shows up with face masks, you gotta wear the face masks. (He eventually took his mask off so I could cut his hair in the back.)

I have cut Dick’s hair in literally dozens of outdoor locations over many years, particularly when we travel. We’ve left his hair jibbers in Yosemite, on two sides of the Pacific Ocean, on an island in Canada, to name a few. Last year, after he came out of the hospital in Honolulu, I cut his hair in a carport in Pearl City as rain poured before I flew home. He stayed for another two weeks with his dear friends Cora and Connie caring for him.

But cutting hair while wearing a mask is a first for us both. These are far from typical times for all of us, and many of us will not be able to see our hair people for some time. (Shout-out to my excellent hair wizard Susan Stewart, who has cut Dick’s hair, too, when I was incapacitated… and, not surprisingly, far better than I!) I am no pro. There are times when I utter an “oh, shit,” while cutting Dick’s hair, which, he likes to remind me, is not something you should say in front of a client. But he has the most forgiving hair that, even after my scissors have gotten to it, makes him look younger and tidier.

You may have heard of the fine novel by Colombian Nobel prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez, “Love in the Time of Cholera.” Now we have “Haircut in the Time of COVID-19.” I’m sure we’ll have more new experiences as we shelter in place in the days and weeks to come.

Be well!

First day of spring
I step onto the front porch
to greet the stranger who has come
to retrieve my old sofa. Free,
I’d said on social media, resisting
the urge to add, to a good home.

When I ask if he’ll use the sofa
in his house, he hesitates.
“For a friend,” he says in an
inflection that prickles my brain
with stereotypes about people
with such accents.

I may be giving my longtime
furniture friend to someone out
to make a buck, my brain jabbers,
rather than to, say, a woman who’d
also asked for it online—
a woman, I imagine, who might
have settled the sofa into her life,
put her children on it, maybe a pet
or two, watched TV programs
in languages both familiar and new.

But I chose the first person who said
he’d come get it, thinking that was fair—
he’d asked first—before I remembered
that nothing this week is fair, especially
an indiscriminate virus seeking hosts
anywhere it can.

But then, I thought, maybe the man
with the accent needs the money.
Maybe selling my castoff will help
feed his family. Maybe he will
give it to a friend.

I wanted to ask, but instead,
at my urging, he climbed into the bed
of the pickup so I could take a picture
of him and the younger man who came, too—
the one with more facility in the language
I think of as mine—the two of them,
sitting on what had been my sofa,
smiling.

And as the truck rolled away a distant
era of my life, I turned to go back
in the house, looking up at the trellis
over the driveway. There, just today,
the first bursts of purple—baby wisteria
making its way into the world.

In two weeks,
the blossoms will disappear,
the trellis awash in bright green leaves
that will last, I hope, all the way
to the end of summer.

(For Dick)

Go ahead—it’s the one day in four years
when we can, the extra day tacked on
to February when seemingly impossible
things are possible: when ladies can propose
to gentlemen, when any man who refuses her
must buy her a dozen pairs of gloves so
the spurned maiden can hide the embarrassing
lack of a wedding ring—or enough fabric
to make a skirt. Just like St. Patrick refusing
St. Brigid’s proposal, offering her a silk dress
and a kiss of consolation.

It’s the day in 1940 when Hattie McDaniel won
her Oscar for her performance in “Gone With the Wind.”
The day we could, if we were in France, read
a newspaper published only once every four years.

The day the founder of U-Haul was born,
a man who has moved millions—literally.
The only day we could possibly down a
Leap Year martini at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Though the Scots think it unlucky to be born
on this largely invisible day, in Anthony, Texas,
Leaplings born on Feb. 29 gather to celebrate.
As do the northern Italians, who commemorate
l’ann d’la baleina, the whale’s year, when
the behemoths were thought to give birth.

In Taiwan, grown daughters return home with
pig trotter noodles to ensure their parents’
good health and fortune.

Let’s take a running leap into the next four years,
holding hands as we thank the previous ones
for delivering us to this place of grace and good
fortune, as we jump into the next adventure
of this lucky, lovely lifetime together.

for Dickie

I watched you walk through
windward-leaning cypress,
head toward the edge of a seacliff
into the light, a familiar silhouette
angling away from me, the long shadow
of life extending behind you,

and I thought again, no, not yet,
just as I did last year when you
made an unplanned departure,
felled by something you couldn’t
see coming, only to be returned—
kicked back to our side—to finish
what you started.

So this year, on the anniversary
of your homecoming, at a beloved
spot overlooking waves that travel
from horizon to shore, you headed
into the light through slender poles
of trees, then paused at the edge,
looked back over your shoulder
and gestured to me.

C’mon, you said without words.
Come see this.

And I followed you.

The Sea Ranch, Feb. 15, 2020

Shootin’ the sunset on his 77th birthday, Feb. 13, 2020.

We are delighted to spend Presidents’ Day weekend at The Sea Ranch, as we do most years. Last year, of course, Dick was recuperating in Honolulu after his cardiac arrest and subsequent triple bypass surgery. He spent his 76th birthday there with two of his longtime friends, Connie Raub and Cora Johnson, who arrived from their homes in Colorado and Nevada, respectively, to care for him when I had to come home to teach.

Now, on his 77th birthday, he is stronger and feeling better than he has in years, and we’re once again in one of our happiest places on our side of the Pacific Ocean (though, of course, we love the Hawaii side of the Pacific, too). We celebrated Dick’s day on the drive to The Sea Ranch with crab sandwiches and good clam chowder at Fisherman’s Cove in Bodega Bay. And as we drove north on Highway 1 toward Casa Pacis, the sweet cottage on the coast where we’ve been fortunate to stay many times, we were tickled to celebrate another birthday together. It’s another marker in this journey back to wellness for Dick, this birthday. And we are so grateful for it.

We were also tickled that one of my journalism students, Express editor-in-chief Rose Vega, wanted to do a story about Dick’s Great Heart Adventure, as I’ve called it. (The Express only does stories with ties to Sacramento City College.) It turns out, of course, that Dick’s two rescuers do (as followers of this blog know)—Salesi Maumau, who performed CPR on Dick at the airport, is a former City College Panthers football player and student, and Claudio Alvarado, the RN who tended to Dick at the airport, now teaches nursing at City College.

That the Express editors decided to post the story on Dick’s birthday today tickles us. (Great job, Rose! And yes, I’m a wee bit biased in more than one way.) It is the cherry on top of our already bountiful sundae of a year, following the first anniversaries of his rebirth (Jan. 15) and triple bypass (Jan. 24). The good stuff just keeps coming!

Happy birthday to you, dear Dickie. And as the song often ends… and many more!