Lessons from a Little Boy

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I’d like to tell you everything I know about love is in the right hand drawer of that
table from India book-ending my living room.
~ Maya Stein (from Still & Always)
*

WaterWings

The little family (my son, grandson, daughter-in-law) spent the last days of their trip in the States not far from me. I pulled out the big pad of paper and crayons. Lined up the kid’s books I got from the library. Pulled out the bowl a potter glazed with happy faces. I wore the earrings they sent for Mother’s Day my son said they all chose together. Imagined how tickled little boy would be when he saw pictures he painted and shells he gave me around the house. But he didn’t come, as promised. Two days in a row didn’t come. I did little else but wait in the waiting. Their silence and my wondering like screams.

When the call came saying he could’ve gone to the beach, but he wanted the day and night with us, I drove over immediately. That night I woke from an unplanned nap on the sofa to him in a chair beside me. ‘I’m watching you,’ he said. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I know he watches and notes everything. Even cheese, if it matters. Because I asked, ‘how did you know,’ when he picked it up at the market without hesitation. The spice on the side, he said, rubbing his finger over the pepper. I glanced at the other differently herbed cheeses on display. No mistake he knew.

I also know he lives within tight lines. I tried to widen them a bit for him. I think I did. He now knows why broken shells are gems. That he can color like artists, make things any shade he wants. And if he’s asked what goes in the blank space on his drawing, his idea is the right one.

Walking this morning, I thought how much he loves a pool. How when I warned of deep water he said ‘it’s okay, I got my water wings.’ And he kicked off free. With total trust in those wings. I could use wings like that, I thought. Ones I can count on to hold me up. Let me break seeming boundaries, experience adventure. My husband Art wondered at his lack of self-consciousness wearing two giant clown fish. I thought I could use some of that, too.

You know how you can see where the rain falls in the near or far distance? The gray striated sheet that drapes down from a cloud? Today, from a pink-lit cloud that looked like a giant misshapen heart, tatters of pink sheets. The bottoms wisping to shreds where they fell out of the dawn-sun’s reflection, turned to gray. I watched as the pink faded, thinking the whole scene – weeping bruised heart to gray mist finish – a picture of my insides.

But I’ll be okay. They’re soon back in Taiwan, my week’s a busy one, and Thursday I fly to Canada. On adventure with a enthusiastic Canadian writer, scoping venues for my workshops there next spring at her invitation. She tells me night is pitch black where she lives. I’ll see the stars if the fog doesn’t roll in from the sea. Even with the full moon. I’ve longed to see stars in a dark sky, again. The trajectory’s still going up.

*
WaterWings2
Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what do you trust to hold you up, carry you thru seeming boundaries?

I’ll tell you a secret. . . what I know for sure. We’re all learning from each other, if we pay attention.

I’m writing a book, The Writer’s Block Myth.
The creative life for people living in the real world.

Whole Lifetimes of Changes, in My Hand

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Heloise Jones

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work,
who felt their own creative power restive and uprising,
and gave it neither power nor time.
~ Mary Oliver
*

dead-sea-swim_13603_990x742

I feel I should start with a postscript to last week’s blog. I considered not writing it. I’m glad I did. Because five women wrote private notes, said same for them. This painful estrangement by daughters-in-law. My postscript leaves me soothed, tho. I had a last afternoon with my son and grandson at the rehab aquarium. Looking at big sea turtles and sea horses that change colors. Little boy excited over the cases with seashells. Look! broken ones! he said, pointing to the shells sliced in half to show their inside magic. Pleasing me beyond all get-out he remembered what I told him. I decided I could definitely be a ray petting guide. Don’t splash. Let them come close, then gently put your hand in. I scored 10 good pets across their whole backs. They feel so silky, I love it. The little family comes back a few nights before they’re off to Taiwan. I have hope for more hugs.

But the whole experience wound into a low-grade anxiety two days later. Under the surface of my skin. Like I may be missing something. Or falling behind. Won’t get it all. Get it right. Time passing, passing. Strangely, not like I won’t be okay. I knew I’d be okay. A friend said Uranus went retrograde.

I turned to two tubs of pictures with a goal to reduce by half. I flipped thru without lingering. Duplicates tossed. Flowers, buildings, scenery, photo experiments passed to my husband to decide. Short piles for family members, including oldies of parents & grandparents. More short piles for my son, organized by people and his age. Short piles organized by people and events for me. One of my father set aside for little boy. Because he draws dragons, loved his temporary tattoos. Was fascinated when I told him dad had mother & baby dragons covering his forearm. Those dragons not so sweet.

Since starting my blog, I’ve noticed stories repeat themselves. How my mother rarely shows up, but my father does. How I never say ‘when we moved to FL’ without adding ‘over 4-1/2 yrs. ago.’ So telling of this time I’m still counting. Same thing happened as I flipped thru pictures.

There’s none of me in Florida. Not even digitally. I found a shot of a Dad story that arrested me. The story how he sailed around the world x4 by the time he was 17. The note says “on the high seas, 18 yrs. old.” He stands beside another, shorter seaman. Both alike. Legs planted apart. Arms behind erect backs. Gaze direct, face serious. And most interesting, a shine to my dad’s boots. I remember he always shined his shoes. I put it on my desk. Look at his face, the turn of his mouth, often. Not sure what I’m looking for.

I noticed how emotions passed thru as fleeting as the images I flipped past. A spark of happiness, expansion in my chest at the sight of the arroyo behind one of our Santa Fe homes. The way the light captured how it feels on a warmish winter day in the high desert. The affection I felt in those early years with my husband. A strong dislike for the way I looked at times. Confusion I didn’t recognize myself in two retrieved from the trash for a double take. Relief I have images of friends I’ve loved, and some, still love.

I noticed I’m attached to particular images of my son and parents. One, my mother pregnant. She and my dad out on the town. Others. My baby boy under dappled light in a baby carrier, looking up at a leaf. Tiny boy with a big smile, all in red, half standing on the cheap sofa. His arms wide open. A teen leaning against his first car. A young man, his fair hair long, face looking down as if we eavesdrop. The shot atmospheric, like a foggy wood. Something about the faces.

The favorites of me were mostly in times I felt a surety within myself, if not my life. Most stunning, the contrast between the shy, sweet, innocent me barely in my twenties. And those decades later showing me strong, present, solid. As if somehow I filled in not with flesh, but with some kind of stuffing that made me real. I put those in an album next to one another. Two me’s, so different.

Only one shot I lingered over. I stand beside a young woman after a ceremony at NC State where I received an award for my activism for women’s issues on campus. I’d worked with her. She was president for all the sororities. Someone I admired for her clarity, intelligence, clear offers in service. I lingered because one clear early summer day, standing beside a lamp post, outside Bruegger’s Bagels on Hillsborough St. across from the university, she looked up at me and said, ‘I want to be just like you.’ I was so sure the work I’d do next, then. And seeing her face now, I don’t know if I let her down. Think perhaps if there’s a second chance, this work I’m creating to help writers live and love their best creative lives may be it. Because writing is power to enliven people’s hearts and minds, help them see things thru new lens. I need to sit with it.

I’m glad I have the hard copies. Like a book, even faded they feel more real in my hand. And I can place them anywhere. Look any time. I left the piles of me, Art, and us as a couple scrambled, without a timeline. As if all that time ran simultaneously. Whole lifetimes of changes I can flip thru. As if I gave it the power and time for no regrets.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what stories do you return to?

I’ll tell you a secret. . .Always. I wanted the creative life. And to do something good for the world. And that day on Hillsborough St. I planned to go on for a phD.

How to Hold a Jar of Stars

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I’m looking for that place now, the kind of place
that puts clocks to rest because something must
come forth to reset everything. . .

Reason doesn’t have roots that run deep enough
to tap the place that I am longing for, that place 
where obvious things cannot be explained.
~ Jamie K. Reaser (from ‘It Will Be in the Silence’)
*

jar of stars

I’m honestly grateful I was ‘forced’ into renting a condo close to home. I say forced because the little family from Taiwan (son et al) rented a place 40 ugly-drive minutes away. And it was those min.x2 each day or a staycation to see them. I say grateful because I’ve never done a staycation, and it worked wonders for me.

I stepped away from work. Didn’t go back to the computer for two hours before bed like I usually do. Opened it 2 hours later than usual each morning. Like a real vacation. Who knew? No frets with forgotten items, either. My husband the shuttle. And I discovered I’ve not lost the ability to relax, spend hours (!) sleeping or doing nothing (read, daydreaming) without guilt.

I shared my countdown to the little family’s arrival on Facebook with five exclamation points: Blog published. fb ‘briefly’ perused. Perishable items for their breakfast care package. Hair cut. First project discussion with my publisher. Stuff gathered for the beach. Finally, counting the hours, watching the clock for late arrival.

The first three days were pure joy. My heart filled to overflowing. Little boy stayed over, told me so many times he was happy.

I got a jar of stars from him. He showed me how he made them. I want a turquoise one, I said. And pink. So he filled the rest of the jar with pink & turquoise. And I learned we both love stars. And he learned we were born the exact same hour and minute. He 5:47pm, me 5:47am. The exact same ’cause we live exactly 12 hrs. apart.

I let him apply a colorful tattoo on my arm. It surprised me how much I liked the little nautilus, its pretty colors, on my skin. That it stayed for days tho they said it’d wash off that night.

He was a whirlwind of activity. You have so much energy, I said. Where does it come from? My heart, he replied. He’s so sweet, I knew it truer than true. Even when he reduced it, said his heart pumps blood all over his body.

I was so happy, I didn’t even mind the mosquitoes and sweat to sit in the yard at the place they rented. Eat under a dried palm leaf covered umbrella (think tiki), linger an hour longer to talk.

I was grateful. Even to see the moon lift from the horizon. Turning a corner one night just as the clouds moved aside, revealing her fullness SO, so, so huge, otherworldly, like another world hanging off to the side in the sky. Like a companion. Took my breath away.

I walked on the beach for the first time in ages. Watched a bank of white, white clouds billowed over the water in the distance. One above the rest like a funny too-small hat, billowing pink. Watched as the whole bank turned deep pink, lit translucent with light inside as if it was a giant rose-quartz crystal. Noticed each time I turned my gaze down to my feet, a fine shell stood amongst the millions of tiny pieces.

Each time I looked at the water, a solitary bird in view. Egret. Pelican. Skimmer. Heron. Piper. Even the two seagulls were singular. One with a solid black head, one common white. I watched the clouds go golden, rainbows appear in two hollows. As day hit full on, the tops of the billows melted, and one of the rainbows stretched to the heavens. I thought how lucky I am.

And when a heron slowly walked up, stood in front of me five feet away. Eyed me this way and that for long minutes. I thought I gotta look up messages from heron. When it turned its back, stood looking to sea before flying to land a distance away, I thought myself special. Then I saw it far down the beach. Planted smack next to the man fishing. Waiting for a treat. I thought I’d bring little boy the next day. ‘Cause I knew he’d love seeing it up close, how big it is.

Little boy asked why the broken ones when I laid out the seashells. Well, look at this perfect shell, I said. Can you see what’s inside? No, well, look here at the broken one. See, another shell just like it inside. And here, a shell within a shell within a shell. And here, windows. ‘Ooooh. That’s cool.’ He got it. Loving all sorts of perfection.

And here’s where it turns. That night at dinner, something thought healed blindsided without warning. Judgements, assumptions, assignations of motives. Of me. Of everything offered. Perceptions projected. No questions or room for illumination. My daughter-in-law. Artistically gifted, beautiful. Who can be bright like a sunflower. Who remembers I love the sausage lettuce wraps she makes. Who gave me Taiwanese pearl rice in lovely packaging for abundance. Chopsticks chosen for their length & good fortune.

I’d missed the clues. Forgot irrational fear & anger don’t dissolve. Even if it only simmered, didn’t boil, their last visit two yrs. before. Even if I followed all their rules. Because I forgot how mean it was. How the face, words, body, and energy feels & looks like unadulterated hatred. Even tho I know it’s pain. Lies in her history, separate from me.

And finally, after six years of turning the other cheek. Responding with kindness, love, forgiveness. I’m done. I’m committed to compassion and understanding. Hold gratitude for many things in the midst. Will cherish my grandson when allowed. Continue to mend what I can with my son. But I won’t allow myself abused any more. I can live with rejection. My grief, once desperate, then sad, has evolved into acceptance.

The entire next day I was numb. The day after that I cried, letting my emotions, including anger, flow. Flow like a swollen river. Full, but not raging. I decided to focus on the Pure Joy of those three days still in my cells. And perhaps hope for more one day. Because it’s never over ‘til it’s over. And it’s always a choice. + I know she’s sorry.

Tattoo Smiles

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what hard things have you held with compassion?

I’ll tell you a secret: I always dreamed of a close daughter from a daughter-in-law. And it wasn’t meant to be with either of the women my son married.

A favorite: Little boy is a lot like me. Curious about nature, and an artist.

Good Stuff Coming

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Heloise Jones

This. So friggin’ lovely. The space. The books.
The impetus to do such a thing. Preserve a theatre by transforming it into a bookstore.
The interest and support to keep it open.
Humanity. So friggin’ beautiful.

bookstor.theatre.1

I’m losing track of time. My clue. Sunday I thought it midweek. Yesterday, Monday, I thought it Friday. Because whew, what a month. A lot of grief and sadness. I imagine you’re feeling it, too. So, I thought I’d share good stuff this time. Because when I asked, my husband said I mostly write about my awe and wonder with the world. Nice he gets that in the midst of my shares how I move thru the hard stuff in life. Nice he reminds me that, my goodness, a bunch of good stuff’s happening.

Last Wed. I signed a contract with a publisher for my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Block Myth. I’ll begin writing this week, and publish in January. Right when we all remember we have real lives awaiting after the holidays, and want to make them better than ever.

On the other spectrum. . .completion. Within weeks I’ll launch two accessible offerings that’ve been great fun (!!!) to create. An audio subscription of blogs I chose from archives, and my signature program – The Creative Life for People Living in the Real World. A package of audio recordings and printed guides speaking to writers, but really for all of us. Because it’s really about Life, and we’re all creative.

The thing is, this work to support us living and loving our best lives, is a call from the Universe I resisted for years. Even turned my back when I heard a roomful of angels scream in my head two years ago in Santa Fe.

And now, here I am. Running 6 deadlines simultaneously, personal and professional. Believing it all good. Including my son, grandson, and daughter-in-law, who I call the little family, arriving tonight from Taiwan. Four years ago I was on a countdown to their arrival. Hours, minutes, and when I knew the plane flew close, watching the second-hand sweep the clock face. But it was not the visit I anticipated. It was the kind that can happen with family sometimes. The kind that blindsides. I spun into nearly unbearable grief. And have never repeated the words said to me.

Because the lines we knew, the boundaries of love, the ways of being with the one you love most in all the world were broken. And it was impossible to mend thru emails. Time and love all to hold a heart together. And acceptance for what may (may, the key word) evolve.

They came, again, two years later. We found a peaceable kingdom between us. And messages have come after. We’re healing.

Tonight I pick up them up, two years since our last hug. We still don’t talk much on Skype. And the beach where they’re staying requires a drive too unpleasant to repeat daily, so I rented a condo close. But I’m counting hours, again. And making a breakfast care package. And my grandson, now half past 6 yrs. old, regularly writes me postcards. Lettered in pencil. The pretty girl who likes him. The teacher he likes a lot who’s also beautiful. How he cried at his kindergarten graduation, it was so beautiful. The markets of handmade goods he likes, and fun with best friends. How he loves flowers. Writing this, I notice how much he uses the words likes and beautiful. He notices how much I talk about birds. You probably do, too.

So much good stuff. And there’s more. Messages from the Universe! One morning at the bay for silence. Not bad humid. My bra soaked but not my shirt. I rounded a curve bayside, a large deep pink semi-circle appeared beside me in the water. Reflection of a cloud that accompanied me, kept me enfolded in visions of pink. On the way back, a bird called from above. Clear, three notes, in cycles that felt like the rotations from a lighthouse. I expected a small bird. But it was an osprey on the tall lamp post. I listened with it after each call. And indeed heard an echo. A response from a mate, I thought.

And a few days after that, two blocks thru the neighborhood, I hear the same call. Tip-top branch of a tree to my left. Like the other. Looking not my way, but out to sea. Again, 30 min. later. Bayside. All silent ’til I get close, Osprey in the tree right ahead. In three years of bayside walks, two yrs. nearly every day, this is the first I’ve heard osprey. Now 3 call, just as I approach, fall silent once I see. Say what you like. I thought them letting me know something good’s coming.

To make sure I got the message, these fell from a plastic bag in a box
I don’t usually riffle. Face down.

Keys-Pebble

Look, the voice said. I turned the keys over first.

I saw a man softly hop-jogging beside a short tree stump of a woman. Her face focused on pavement before her. 30‘s, clearly fit, he gently encouraged her each step. ‘Come on, mama, doing good.’ I think, good son. When they come back by, I tell him so. He grins. She stops, looks up, smiles broadly. ‘He workin’ me hard.’ And she laughs, deep from her chest, her belly shaking. ‘Keep moving, mama,’ he says. I hear the love in his voice. The next morning, my wonderful Sound Man tells me about his father’s major heart surgery. Every detail of action and emotion inside him thru the ordeal. His eyes misting. Good son, I think.

Believe, the pebble says.

Now, tell me. . .what good stuff can you share?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: I’m learning to share secrets. The warmth I get back helps me be brave.
A favorite: How all of us love flowers.

All Under the Same Sun

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
~ Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
*

freaky big sun Just peeking up it’s taller than one of the multi-story mansions on the island.
*

I finally ordered Patti Digh’s book, the Geography of Loss. It’s been on my list since 2014. I’d shared the intro paragraph from Amazon with hurting friends as comforts. Read some of the pieces, knew it was gorgeous. But after I ordered it, I wondered why I felt moved just now. I thought perhaps because my son’s due for a visit in July, 2 yrs. after the last time we hugged. My desperate grief in the loss of his moving to Taiwan renewed. The incredible sadness still lingering after a fissure that changed our relationship in ways we haven’t had a chance to fully revision, yet. I thought how community’s on my mind. That for days I’ve missed my friends. My tribe. Connection with people I don’t have here where I currently live.

By the time I unwrapped Patti’s book Monday, I was thinking Father stuff. Because my dad, dead since 1993, had drifted thru my thoughts for days. Always coming back to that aha moment I found him reading a fat book on the siege of Leningrad. His reply to my question why, ‘because it’s interesting.’ How that moment defined his character to me. I realize now it was probably the first time I thought books a person read revelatory about them. And like magic, an article on the siege popped up on Facebook. Story about a seed bank there. How scientists locked themselves in the vault to protect the treasure from starving citizens. Chose to die of starvation themselves rather than eat, rob the future. Treasure collected by one of the first scientists to ask traditional peasant farmers around the world why they felt seed diversity was important in their fields. The next morning I heard a dear friend’s father died Monday. 6 days later, heard another friend’s father had brain surgery Monday. Last week’s blog was about noticing. I noticed. Father stuff.

By Wed. night I noticed two back-to-back stories about tribal fabrics made from natural materials. Hawaiian kapa, barkcloth. I watched people in the documentary strip and scrape and pound. Gather nuts and roots and leaves, make dye. Carve delicate stamps for intricate patterns. Each family’s watermark only seen in certain light. Western ideology that superior Europeans introduced sewing cracked open. A couple days later a series of stunning shots of Indonesian women preparing palm and ramie fibers. Weaving fabric that will adorn windows here and abroad.

Noticed in the midst that out of the blue, four friends from afar sent personal notes about how I show up, what I mean to them. One in response to my fb profile pic posted several years ago (!) that placed it back into status feeds. Four Likes for this image people see every day followed. Imagine.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the stories I could tell. Loss, change, identity, home, abuse, validation, craft, persistence, courage, survival, courage, persistence. I hold so many under any of these headings. And how every week I wonder what story will emerge here. This week it’s a fill-in-the-blank from author Mary Anne Radmacher. ‘I live in service to the _______HEART.’ Meaning Essence. Soul. All encompassing. You-Me, where we connect.

Mary Anne repeated words she once said to me,’I love it when you write about the sky,’ and sent a meme. Which took me to remember a shot taken Aug. 2014 on the last flight out of Honolulu before an impending hurricane. The plane empty but for me, the crew, and one other passenger. Along the way I flew over rainbow after rainbow. And not until I chose a shot to share did I see the swatch of blue behind the clouds was in the perfect shape of a heart, a rainbow shooting from it’s center. And I noticed how her fill-in-the-blank showed up the very day I was thinking about the guy I rented my condo in Kona from. How he lived in Santa Fe when I did. Our many overlaps without us knowing.

Comforts for my grief are everywhere. Telling me that even in my solitude, I’m linked. Woven like the natural cloth. Protected like the seeds. Sharing, though not knowing, the heartache of friends for their fathers. That I’m indeed seen, even appreciated. We are tribal animals. Not meant to be alone. Not even when we love solitude as I do.

Last night I stepped from the Chinese take-out to a man riffling the trash, a dirty Chic-fil-A fries carton in his hand. I felt the weight of my bag filled with my hot dinner. He didn’t ask for money when I said ‘are you hungry.’ He wanted to know if there was a church nearby serving food. As I turned to leave, having paid for his shrimp fried rice, he looked me in the eyes, said ‘it’ll come back to you.’ In a flash my whole being softened. I smiled, said ‘it always does.’ I can’t figure that one out. But I think I must know in my Heart it’s true. After all, we’re all under that big freaky sun.

How do you feel connected to others?

MaryAnne meme clouds

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: I imagined these two lines as a way you’d get to know me.
A favorite: A friend said she looks forward to reading what’s here, in these two lines.