A Small Thing

                  March 21 • 2022

It was a small thing, a moment. 

A red light, the car next to me. 

The man had his car window open. 

I rolled down my window. 

"Hi, just wishing you a good day, a nice day, I mean with the world being so nutty."

He smiled, surprised that someone was talking to him, then wished me the same. 

Light turned green. We drove off. 

That was it. 

A small thing. 

Praying for peace.

XO B 🐝

What's Here Now?

 

October 27 • 2021

This question came up in a short, simple meditation I was listening to ~ 

What's here now? 

Rather than feeling like this isn't it, isn't what you want or imagined life to be today, isn't what you're trying to make happen, maybe there's something already in your (our) experience right now that's:

peaceful

simple 

lovely 

gentle

relaxing

beautiful ...

Today I woke with a calm mind. I felt deeply at ease in my body too, which is not always the case for me. Making my tea I thought of Stephen, a small blonde-haired kid in one of my second grade classes from many years ago. I have never, ever and will hopefully, never forget Stephen and what he wrote in his journal one morning. Here he was - a little kid, tongue sticking out ever so slightly, head down,  concentrating on holding his pencil and the words he was writing. 

He wrote:

Today I am happy. I don't know why. 

Now that's a what's here now state of mind, body, spirit.  🍁

Can you stop right now and see what's already here for you? 

Notice the breeze

the bird

the sky

your strong body  

the tea

the plants

a loved one

a warm blanket

afternoon light

a beloved dog beneath your feet...

A friend said, 

I'm noticing the blessings flowing through me and to me. 

Me too.

xo b 🐝

What's Your Word?

    July 1 • 2021

The first day of a new month always feels like an opportunity to begin again, 

a fresh start. 🪴

Choose a word for yourself and take it with you into this new month. 

Or check in.  What word(s) are coming up for you. 

• Trust what arises. 

• Say it out loud. 

• Write it down. 

• Put it where you can see it.

• Let it be your mantra today, tomorrow, all month.

Maybe take your word and write about it. What I mean by ___________. 

flow, freedom, healing energy, gratitude, I'm enough, lighten up, self-care...

• Let yourself write (maybe ten minutes? More?) 

• Stay curious.

• Notice if anything surprises you.

Writing is a way into, and out of, the Self. 

Ah.

XO 🐝

And I love the rain

 

                         

 June 7 • 2021

It's raining today and I can't stop smiling.

I took Chewy for a walk this morning in the spritzing rain. He pinned his ears back to keep the rain out but it wasn't raining hard so I don't know what he was playing at. It wasn't raining that hard, but I used an umbrella anyway - funny since I have a thing for getting soaked in the rain.

It's not quite the kind of rain that I remember when Claire was five. We lived in Pennsylvania. The sky had been dark and threatening, then it burst open, yes like a bucket had been tilted, and we tore outside in our bare feet and ran screaming around the big green grassy yard. Puddles forming in the dips in the grass, we jumped and crashed in the water, big trees all around, so much green.

It's not quite the kind of rain storm that hit in an earlier house in Pennsylvania, on another June day. Michael and I had our friend, Penny over to the house. Her beloved husband, David, had died the week before and there were no words to hold the grief we all felt. Especially for Penny. That summer evening the rain clouds moved in quickly. Thunder claps rattled the house. There was lightning. And then, the rain came down, yes, in sheets. And the three of us ran out the back door, yelling and screaming down the sloping back yard, tall pine trees swaying in the wind, rain soaking us through our clothes. 

Oh, so many rain stories:

• Out on the Sunfish with Dad in a scary rain storm in Little Neck Bay, me thinking we were going to die. Yes, a tad dramatic, but it was a helluva storm to be in a tiny sailboat. 

• Camping with Claire and my brother, Rob, in a torrential rain storm out in Montauk, tent walls crashing on us in the middle of the night. 

• With our friend, Bill Paden, at the Jazz Festival in Delaware Water Gap, the rain hit so fast and hard, our jeans were soaked as if we'd stepped out of a shower.

• Jesse with her red wagon and a big umbrella out on the sidewalk - a kind of rain fort

... + so many more

When it rains, I hurry to bring my inside plants, outside.

May it rain all week, easy and gently, so the parched earth out here in California can lap it up.

It's June, and not April, but I love this poem and today made me think of it.

🐟

April Rain

Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid

drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain.

- Langston Hughes

XO B 

I'll Start With Bear

 

                     June 1 • 2021

I'll start with the Bear.

Bear came walking out of the woods just as my brother Rob turned off the highway onto a country road in Pennsylvania. I've always loved bears. A favorite memory is seeing one in our back yard (we lived on two acres in Pennsylvania) scratching on the maple tree. As soon as my daughters spotted it, I flew outside in my bare feet and followed it from a good distance. It meandered through the yard, the tall trees, across the road into a more wooded place. My daughters thought I'd lost my mind. I needed the bear vibe.

Living in in Southern California, we don't have bears walking through the tiny back yard. But there's all kinds of other wildlife. At the ocean, whales, dolphins, seals. Out my desk window: lizards, birds, rabbits, squirrels, hawks, hummingbirds, chihuahaus in colorful vests,

 + the coyotes wandering the neighborhood at night. 

I saw one recently while walking Chewy, the big-eared dog around nine at night. They often travel in packs, but this one was standing under the street light. Seemingly alone.  Once Chewy got a sniff/look of Coyote, he started barking. Coyote stared, then took off. 

                  this is not a coyote

Today I went to my beloved library, recently opened after fourteen months with its doors shut. My return a few weeks ago to shelves of books is another conversation. But today's magic was when I saw Turtle staring at the wall outside the doors. Totally get that, Turtle. Later as I was leaving, Turtle was quietly on its way back to the pond where all the other turtles hang out. 

There's the May story about the mourning doves who built a nest on my friend's garage light. How Pink (that's the dove's name) sat and sat until two hungry chicks hatched. How I came to my desk every morning and watched her. 

sit.

See Pink (during her first nest-in) behind this napping squirrel? 

Mary Oliver wrote in her poem, When Death Comes:

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world in my arms." 

            the babies

        xo b 🐝

we don't make leprechaun traps

 

           March 16 . 2021

1. I saw Keith Richards in the Ralph's Market the other day. It's hard with the masks and everything, and it probably wasn't him because he lives in London or somewhere else, but there were his eyes, the hair wildly sticking up above the bandana around his head, the craggy face. Thin legs. Keith was carrying a red basket. Keith wouldn't push a cart around. He doesn't eat enough for a cart. I saw a flash of yellow before he headed to the register. I couldn't really see what was in the basket, maybe bananas. 

I'm no portrait artist but you can kind of see it, right?

__________________________________________________________________________

2. My friend, Monica sent a picture of her daughter's leprechaun trap. 

Claire said, I never made one of those when I was a kid. 

I said, That's because we don't catch leprechauns.

Claire said, Oh, my 70's Mom!

Because people who grew up in the 70's left leprechauns alone to live their lives.

Anyway, I said, I'm pretty sure my Dad was one.

Two things. 

BIG LOVE.

XO

B

DON'T PANIC

                             

Wednesday, was the day I planned to write here. Wednesday is my designated day to post since this new year started. Once a week. Be consistent. Even if it's a little something to share with the lovelies. Write something. If you're not sure - today is Thursday.

But yesterday slipped by watching the SECOND IMPEACHMENT hearings of the current inciter/insurrectionist in the Oval Office, taking a walk, rearranging my potted plants like a Queen's Gambit chess board, making rice and beans for dinner. I never made it here.

Last Wednesday, five people died, a police officer's head bashed in by a fire extinguisher, windows smashed, the rioters were looking to hang someone. Mike Pence? Nancy Pelosi? 

Maybe a trial and execution on the Senate floor by Q-Anoners? some have been voted into Congress

The rioters stormed (and meandered) through the Capitol Building as if on a self-tour. Trashing things, peeing on carpets, taking selfies, some with Capitol Hill police! It's now appearing that people working inside the halls of Congress, maybe Republican Senators/Congresspeople might have aided in this domestic terrorist attack. AOC was in hiding with Republicans during the attack. She was terrified they might "give up her location." 

Not a take-your-daughter to work kind of day in the good, old USA.

After all the violence, 

147 Republicans STILL challenged the counting of the electoral votes. 

After all the violence, Still, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley pushed The Big Lie. They should be expelled from the Senate. Even after a SECOND IMPEACHMENT for inciting violent insurrection, Trump still sits in the Oval Office, blowing kisses to his violent marauding militia, with his finger on the nuclear codes? 

But hey, 

Our free and fair election was finally certified in the small hours of the morning.

All kinds of investigations are underway. People have been arrested. Black and brown people spend years in jail for a couple of joints in their glove box, for taking a right-on-red in the wrong place. Sometimes they get shot. And killed. Everyone knows if this had been people of color in a peaceful protest, buckets of blood would have been shed. 

So,What about these treasonous fuckers, their ugly, bulging, sometimes smiling faces burned into our psyches? What about the people who left the riot, flew home, refusing to mask up, chanting on the planes? These people must be jailed for a very long time. Feed them gruel for all I care. Unlike the born-again Republicans who want to put this behind them, feel it's best for us to move on and heal the country, I want to see the head of the beast and the rest of it, chopped into a gazillion tiny pieces. My cup of anger is refilling daily, like the Professor's bottle of port in the Cary Grant/Loretta Young classic, The Bishop's Wife.

This is going to reverberate for a very long time. The desecration and violence on video for all of us to watch, threats of more to come as we prepare for the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris + there's still Covid, thousands of people dying a day. 

But hey, 

There are thousands of National Guard troops sleeping on the marble floors of the Capitol. An ordinary day. All is well in America. None of this surprises me. It does, however, sicken me. I've had a painful sciatica that seems to have come out of nowhere, you think? That morning anxiety/panic in my chest upon waking, which plagued me for years, is back. 

The behavior of Trump and all these other crazy, delusional people is that of an abuser. 

Let me scare you, dominate you, gaslight you until you shiver like a mouse.Watch me smash windows, carry Confederate flags 

Do you quiver when the assholes in their trucks with all the flags flying drive by? 

The abuser loves that the best. None of this is normal. 

No. But I do feel vomit in my mouth.

Like the eloquent guest on the news said, "These people are Vanilla Isis." ☑️

_________________________________________________________________

Things blew up. WE have blown up. I'm feeling the anger that my black and brown brothers and sisters have always felt. It's not new to me. The painful, racist, crushing, big lie world has always pained me, especially as a little girl. Sometimes, anger is healing. Sometimes, fighting back is the only way forward. I don't know what to do. Be extra kind to my cashier friends @ the market dealing with the crazies who bitch and argue about everything (including masks), speak my truth, speak up when this kind of evil has become normalized. What a four years, five years, 400 hundred years.

Speak up. 

Speak up. 

Speak up. 

Be kind. 

Be kind. 

Be kind.

How to end this Thursday check-in? Like last week, I was all about updating you on The Vivies. Maybe sharing something on planting bulbs and writing. You know, self-care and sending peace, and being the peace you send. I'm still for these things. I still need to plant my bulbs, and plan for my upcoming classes and send more New Year's cards. Regular stuff. 

But wow.

I'll end with this message found among my email this morning:

Noticing that everything is interconnected,

that love and light exist amid the 

darkness, and that not all is lost can

nourish us on our paths.

- Rose Zonetti

love and peace from The Vivies 

+ me. xoxo