The Yellow Azalea in Bloom.

Yellow is—

is golden.

Is the color insects like best.

Yellow is sexy happy.

Is glory, wisdom, and harmony.

Yellow is noble,

is fun,

is brilliance.

Yellow is—

is the angel’s hair.

Is the breeze of the new baby’s breath.

Yellow is—

wine, glistening,

cooled to creek water temperature.

Yellow is my daughter’s favorite color,

my son’s truck love days.

Yellow is—

friendship,

and patience.

Yellow is memory’s concert hall

sun-flowered,

and sun-shined.

Yellow is

the azalea’s fragrance

Coloring my world in long swallows through my nose,

gold, dusting my eyelashes.

Yellow is—

Alchemy.

Heaven’s songs,

performed in peace,

on Earth.

For My Children, after Mother’s Day.

Now the early mornings are warm and the grass is soft again.

I wear every leaf on the garden paths, woven together with all the others, for garden slippers.

No pair is perfectly matched. All are left behind with every step.

Earthy dew zaps my feet, washes them, startles the heart and composes a hymn.

*****

The sun rose a long distance east of the pear tree,

warming the Earth and waking up the air

which took flight from the still night

like invisible wings, gliding out of sync on unmapped airways.

The breathless sighs blew soft as fluttering eyelashes on sleepy schoolchildren

who wished to be out of doors on this day

out of classrooms.

The kingdom should set children free on such a day as today

when invisible magic carpets will steal them away

when the petals of the pear tree blossoms will fly into their ears and onto their tongues

and leave stars on the tree.

When the children will run

or gather into tribes around the lilacs

and look down to find ants,

look up to the bee, with pollen stored into travel packs on minuscule legs.

When everywhere, the breeze says nothing

and the robin stands next to my cup of tea showing off a beak filled with nest-building materials

all foraged from Earth.

It is all fiction when we talk about it in the classroom.

*****

Remember when you were unafraid of your dreams!

Remember climbing into the tree and watching how the twig grew a flower

and the flower grew a fruit

and the bee made honey!

Remember spending all day building nests, using your mouths

how you stood at the edge of the nest

and I watched you fall

my tears concealed underneath the stars on the pear tree, ripe.

And when you returned, eyes bigger, bellies full,

brains buzzing, chirping, and brave–

I fed you pear bread, with a dollop of pear jam.

All the things I made,

from the tree I grew,

because your father was once a little boy who lived on Pear Tree Drive

And after I loved him,

I had you.

That Recurring Nightmare About Final Exams.

Everyone has their own, unique “worst nightmares.” Here’s one:

“I meet Rock Star Hunk on a romantic beach in the South Pacific. He talks to me. I smile. He says, ‘You have a leaf of lettuce dangling from the tip of your tongue and a poppyseed stuck between your two front teeth.’ He reaches into my mouth and plucks away the lettuce, then goes after the poppyseed, loosening the caps on my two front teeth. Drool drips from my tongue. Rock Star Hunk cleans his hand in the surf and while he’s not looking, I rearrange the caps I bought at the Dollar Store onto my teeth. There’s a shark. It strikes, taking off Rock Star Hunk’s hand in one chomp. Rock Star Hunk bleeds to death and when the shark smiles, there are poppyseeds stuck between every blood-stained tooth.”

Here’s some more worst nightmares, but these ones are not unique. If you attended college or university, chances are these bad dreams have revisited you through the years that have come to pass since those halcyon days of your youthful education. The nightmares are souvenirs of stress. They remind us that higher education wasn’t always idyllic. It was often frantic:

“I dreamed I showed up for my final exam and it was the wrong exam because I never attended the class.”

“I dreamed I slept through my final exam because I was taking speed the night before to study.”

“I dreamed I never got my college degree because I forgot my name, my social security number, and my purpose in life and I was so hungry, (because I’d been chewing on coffee grounds for days and days), that I ate my exam blue book and my #2 pencil, which I forgot to sharpen.”

*****

It’s final exam season again. It’s also springtime. America’s best and brightest students are under the guillotine. The blade is menacing—reflecting cruel combinations of warm sunshine mixed up with disheartening distress. This ritual of brain growth—study, pass, or hand over your head—has been happening for a long time. But every generation is convinced the pressure has never been so intense, so unreasonable, and so unmanageable.

Stress can lead to some serious mental breakdowns. Most of us can laugh–now–at the recurring final exam nightmares that harass us. But hopefully we haven’t forgotten how it felt to believe we were about to ruin our entire lives, because we weren’t prepared mentally and physically to endure the pressure of finals. For a lot of students, stress must be managed in tandem with other mental, physical, and social challenges.

It has never been easy to be a college or university student.

*****

Our daughter, who is midway through the brain and body torture of final exams, needed a lifeline. So we visited and brought a picnic.

She attends a land-grant university. Few places are more perfectly set up to offer the stressed-out coed some au natural comforts.

*****

Land grant universities evolved in America around the 1850’s, when a social movement that supported higher education for the public began to gain attention. America’s education system, at that time, copied European models. Those models largely served to educate elite members of society within a class system that groomed students to become sedentary members of the government, or the palace, or the private schools.

American thinkers appealed for a system of higher education that would be more accessible to all and serve the people. It would be funded through the sale of government land and it would focus on agriculture and the mechanic arts, as well as classical studies. In other words, the education would serve the people and the country by promoting knowledge of the sciences, industry, and home economics. This model for education for the working class is all the rage now. Though we think curriculums are shifting in response to the perceived brilliance of kids in Singapore, (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), I believe the core fundamentals for these kinds of studies were established at land-grand universities in America.

Every state in the union has at least one land-grant university. We are all beneficiaries of their existence.

Furthermore, the existence of schools throughout America—both public and private—that honor broad ranges of academic studies makes this country, by far, a land of dynamic educational opportunity and choice.

*****

The perfect break from the pressure of final exams should include exercise, sunshine, healthy food, a caring community of family and friends, restful peace, and

ANIMALS.

Many land grant universities are blessed with the natural resources to settle an out-of-control mind. Tapestries of agricultural fields and pastures roll away and up to the sky. Airy cow barns at my daughter’s university remain open to the public for delightful visits. Horses await visitors and will nod their heads over the fence. Sheep stand around acting bored. Dairy cows take a break from pumping out cartons of legendary ice creams. These are some of the original therapy pets of humankind and we never stop marveling at how big the animals can be, yet how gentle their dispositions are. The animals trigger memories of storybooks and childhood visits to farms all across America.

There might also be some gentle walking paths over hillsides leading to relaxing vistas where fresh-air breezes, tainted with the scents of newborn animals and freshly-planted flower beds, brush through your hair and keep the bugs away. Clouds and kites fly in unobstructed airspaces, sharing the sky with hidden stars waiting their turn to sparkle and ease tension after the sun sets.

*****

Getting close to family, friends, and animals, in a separate place of peace during times of stress, increases the output of happiness hormones.

Animals are the true rock stars—they never fail to lift our spirits and transport all of us back to the realities of what’s most important in life.

So here we are again. It’s springtime. It’s final exam season.

It’s also the time of year to start keeping a couple of chairs and a picnic blanket in the car.

I hope these pictures make you smile, because that was our goal when we visited our stressed-out daughter in the middle of her final exams. According to a study by psychologists at the University of Kansas, the nation’s first land grant university to be established under the Morrill Act of 1862, smiling lowers the heart rate, reduces stress, and increases well being.

Genuine smiles, that include using the eye muscles, are the best. The cows made our daughter smile the most, putting a nice twinkle back into her weary eyes.

Maybe there’s a land grant university near you. Consider taking a picnic over there the next time you need a dose of au natural therapy.

*****

The fresh, clean, open-air cow barn.

*****

Newborns!

*****

Rock star cows.

A tribute to our son who always loved the old tractors at farms and whose final exam days have become, probably,

recurring nightmares.

*****

Friendly horses.

*****

Good luck to all the students, (and their parents who worry about them), during this year’s

spring season of final exams!

Ordinary Goddess.

HAPPY MAY DAY.

I propose a revolution. Our leader will be the goddess of flowers from Roman mythology, Flora, whose name is still used today to describe plants indigenous to a specific region of Earth.

Through the flora and fauna of a region, we discover Earth’s most diverse and defining differences. People are the same all over. But an ancient saguaro cactus thriving in the desert is quite unlike the primrose growing near a woodland stream.

We shall kick off the revolution with a revival of Flora’s Festival of Floralia.

Homes, temples, and hairdos will be adorned in flowers.

Any ordinary person will become a queen or a king or a princess or a prince. Or a forest spirit. Or a fortune teller.

There will be milk, honey, and flowers.

With vegetables, fruits, and fertility.

Everyone will wear brightly colored clothing. Or no clothing at all, just flowers.

The festival should not be isolated to a hot and remote corner in the northlands of Nevada.

Like all good revolutions, the restoration of the Festival of Floralia will be about the ordinary people.

Us commoners. The usuals.

I had an ordinary great grandmother who grew an ordinary garden and lived an ordinary life.

All my life I’ve been ordinary, too.

And now arrives the month of May, in the year 2015, on the continent of North America in the region of New England.

The sun that shined upon the Goddess Flora, shines upon me.

And from my May-seasoned Earth springs daffodils, heathers and heaths, hyacinth, hellebores, magnolia blossoms, tulips, grape hyacinth, herbs, andromeda blossoms, peach tree blossoms, pear tree blossoms, skunk cabbage blossoms, and the Bethlehem sage, in pink and blue.

and other flowers I planted as bulbs, but forgot to label.

The leaves of grass grow in congregations of sun worshippers. They wave their green tips to the sky, occasionally taking a break to comb through the red feathers of a hungry Robin’s breast.

May. These ordinary days of outdoor work.

Of standing next to the magnolia tree, staring into the blossom.

Of sniffing every flower. Touching all the petals.

Of stomping on anthills and slapping mosquitos.

Of tracing the flights of butterflies.

And awakening to birdsong.

The festival is upon us. The seasons of dopey drunken outdoor joys are here. Leaves and flowers and seeds and fruits will take over our pathways, drop onto our heads, infiltrate our sinuses,

and overflow from the plates on our dinner tables.

We shall write poetry, draw pictures, and make music.

We shall paint rainbows on broken stones, following the instructions of the children.

We shall ride bicycles.

Hike trails.

Paddle waterways.

Pitch tents.

Cultivate gardens.

And harvest goodness.

We shall not fret over our innocence, our incompetence, or our unabashed ecstasy.

This will be a good revolution

A festival of ever-blooming celebrations

When we find flowers in the compost pile

And make castles

Out of molehills.

Where is God?

*****

God did not make the earthquake happen.

He does not hand out suffering.

He does not answer prayers.

He doesn’t choose individual people to be the recipients of good fortune.

He doesn’t single out or mark groups of people to become victims of prejudice, racism, sexism, genocide, slavery, oppression, murder, poverty, illness, misfortune, personal tragedy, accidents, natural disasters.

God does not test us.

He doesn’t give the strongest people the most difficult challenges.

God does not talk to us.

What is God? Is God real?

*****

Intro to Philosophy. College. Up on the chalkboard:

Words exists. God is a word. God exists.

Teacher to class: “So. After reading this. What do you think? Have I proven the existence of God? Does God exist?”

Classroom entirely silent.

I raised my hand: “Yes. You have proven the existence of God. As a word.”

*****

Nun, years ago, at local Catholic school, in a conversation with me about whether or not I should enroll my young son: “You must ask God. He will give you an answer.”

I didn’t bother to tell her God doesn’t talk to me.

I decided I didn’t want to send my son to a school that might teach him to believe that if you asked God for something, you would get your answer, or your wish, or your great accomplishment, or your magical miracle, or what you’ve always been waiting for.

Life is not wonderful in that kind of way.

*****

The afore-written godstuff is only what I think, for now.

*****

The God I believe in…would never…

The God I believe in…is kind and loving…

The God I believe in…is joyful when we are joyful and suffers when we suffer…

The God I believe in…

*****

On this day in the history of my own life’s sufferings, my husband and I lost our second son. He was stillborn, full term.

The hospital gave me some things to keep. Pictures. A lock of his hair. The little knit cap they put on his head. The blanket he was wrapped in.

They also gave me a piece of paper, made to resemble something official. It was bordered with a stylized, document-type graphic and titled, “Certificate of Birth.” The rest of the paper read, “This is to acknowledge the life of — (Our second son’s name) — Born on 4/27/93 — Time 10:30 AM — Weight 7lbs. 3oz. — Length 21 inches.” At the bottom of the paper: “Unto us a child is born, a special child for a special reason. We don’t pretend to understand, only to accept.” Onto the paper were stamped, in black ink, our son’s footprints and handprints.

We didn’t understand what our son was and neither did our culture. The baby wasn’t really born—there was no birth certificate. And, officially, he didn’t really die, there was no death certificate. A holy person at the hospital blessed him. But the church wouldn’t hold a funeral.

*****

It wasn’t the first tragic thing that ever happened to me. But it was the experience that, as my husband says every year when we visit our son’s grave, “fucked us up.” It used to bother me when my husband would use that word at our baby’s grave.

“This is so fucked up. We were too young. This fucked us up.”

He was right. The suffering did fuck us up.

*****

The instant I understood that our son was dead, a terrifying doom strangled the life out of me. I knew my heart was so broken, it might not ever be healed. In the days, weeks, months, and years to follow, I would find myself balanced over crevasses descending into pits of desired surrender—the caves of Hell that promise to end all pain. When I fell in, sometimes I didn’t care if I ever climbed out.

I never looked at a homeless person the same way again. Many of them were me. Not everyone is able to survive the trials and tribulations of adversity.

I hated war more than ever. Each person killed in a war is someone else’s baby.

I feared the powers of natural disasters. Random, massive sufferings.

I snubbed my nose at people who believed they could entice the favors of the universe through carefully concocted thoughts, behaviors, and choices, or those that believed it was our fate to ride the waves of the universe no matter how they came crashing through our lives.

I had to teach myself to believe in a new kind of God, or accept that perhaps there was no God at all.

*****

I started to read a lot of books. Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, spiritual, self-help.

We had a friend in those days, someone my husband worked with, who gave us a book that helped me. The friend was a small, peaceful gentleman. He dressed impeccably and kept himself cheerful. He was an intellect, had attended Deerfield Academy and Dartmouth, and he appreciated antiques, classical music, history, and the coastlines of New England. My husband was very fond of him and so was I.

He gave us the book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, with a note that read, “This book helped me at a time of similar need. I hope it will help you.”

The book was a good turning point for me. Though written in simple language about something so complex it will never be understood, I found the writings by Harold S. Kushner to be useful.

I especially liked these ideas from the book: That the primary purpose of religion and belief in God is not so much to put people in touch with a God they can talk to, but to put them in touch with each other. That the purpose of prayer is not to make a request and desperately hope that God will grant what we want, but to become a part of a community of others willing to pray with us, so that we won’t feel isolated or abandoned—“prayer doesn’t help us find God, (because it is easy to find God everywhere); prayer helps us find each other.”

One passage from the book: “That wonderful storyteller Harry Golden makes this point in one of his stories. When he was young, he once asked his father, ‘If you don’t believe in God, why do you go to synagogue so regularly?’ His father answered, ‘Jews go to synagogue for all sorts of reasons. My friend Garfinkle, who is Orthodox, goes to talk to God. I go to talk to Garfinkle.'”

I am like Harry Golden’s father when it comes to showing up at a church.

Kushner’s book emphasizes that it is love, in this life, here and now—genuine, imperfect love—not God’s generosity in answered prayers, which heals human suffering.

He describes a contemporary play, J.B., written by Archibald MacLeish, which re-tells the story of Job—the world’s most classic biblical tale of suffering. At the end of the play, the search for fairness and reasoning and a just God in a world of random heartache is abandoned. The last lines of the play read:

The candles in churches are out,

The stars have gone out in the sky.

Blow on the coal of the heart

And we’ll see by and by…

The main character, whose life has been an unending stream of personal tragedy, stops looking to God to save him and chooses, instead, to look inward and work hard on cultivating the available powers and healing resources of love.

*****

The good friend, and colleague of my husband, who gave us the book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, did not escape more suffering in his life. In spite of the intentionally kind-hearted life he lived and the hard-work ethics he espoused, an unthinkable tragedy came to pass in the last years of his life. One of his sons, who had served in the Israeli Army, had been trained as a sniper. After his service, he went on to attend medical school. One day, he got into an argument with another man. A few days later, he killed the man.

I won’t ever forget the holiday season when our friend was enduring the anguish of his son’s criminal trial. He called to let us know that we would be unable to reach him for a couple of weeks. He knew his son was guilty and he also knew there was enough evidence to convict him. Our friend believed the law would hand over a just decision, and so, he could not bear to testify against his son whom he knew was already bound, most likely, to spend the rest of his life in jail. When called to the witness stand, our friend stood silent, in contempt of court. He was ordered to jail. His son went on to be punished with life in prison, no parole.

*****

There are so many beautiful people suffering in Nepal because of the random occurrence of a devastating earthquake. They don’t deserve this kind of suffering and for many of them, their lives have already been filled with more than anyone’s fair share of suffering. As soon as the earthquake stopped shifting and shearing the Earth to shreds, rain poured from the sky over the exposed survivors.

Why?

Where is God?

I am praying, not for God to stop the suffering, but for all of humanity to blow on the coals of their hearts.

It is easiest for me to believe that God created the heart and it’s the muscle we have, here and now, with big power.

As imperfect as we are, as imperfect as the world is, the miracle is always that we choose to live in spite of wanting to die. We choose to do the hard work.

We do it because we sense there is love, somewhere, to give and to receive.

I want to believe love is that powerful.

*****

While I was pregnant with our second son, so long ago, I prepared several packages of zinnia seeds to send out as birth announcements. After he died, I planted all of the seeds in a huge bed of soil in front of an old chicken coop on the property where we lived at the time.

I have kept the tradition of planting zinnias every year.

And every year, I photograph them as though I think they are more beautiful than they’ve ever been.

*****

Where is God?

God is everywhere.

Why do earthquakes happen?

Because Earth is an imperfect part of an imperfect universe.

So if God created Earth, God is not perfect?

Maybe He isn’t. Maybe none of us are, nor will any of us ever be, perfect.

God didn’t make everything perfect.

*****

The question becomes, as Harold Kushner leads us to consider:

Do we love God enough to forgive Him for not making everything perfect?

Or, maybe it is more comforting to choose to accept what we can’t understand about creation. Maybe there is no one God. We are on our own.

A sobering thought, but think of it. We have each other.

*****

“The ability to forgive and the ability to love are the weapons God has given us to enable us to live fully, bravely, and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world.” Harold. S. Kushner

*****

Excursions

The Gypsy Apprentice

Category Archives: The Meaning of Life

The Yellow Azalea in Bloom.

For My Children, after Mother’s Day.

That Recurring Nightmare About Final Exams.

Ordinary Goddess.

Where is God?