Where the Heart Is Home

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“. . .I find that my home is my church. 
and my heaven,
a chair by the hearth.

In the dearness of it, 
I find the sacred at work.

In partaking of it
 —belonging to it— 
my heart swells 
with a joy not to be conveyed.”
~ L. M. Browning (from My Religion is New England)
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roadbig_bend1024x768 *

Talking to the guy sampling alkaline water in the market, he mentions his friend opened a store in Asheville where I lived for 15 years before moving to Florida. I know that store, I say. Seeing the front desk, the wall of clothing, the cafe in my mind’s eye. It used to be the old Alfalfa’s, I say. And catch myself. The store I envision is in Santa Fe, not Asheville. Santa Fe, where I first saw the Milky Way. Held a hawk on my arm. Felt earth, sky, vistas, and dirt like my own blood, kindling a comfort in my skin I’d never felt before. The place and I so aligned, a friend once remarked ‘Santa Fe loves you.’

Home has been up for me for a very long while. I wrote about it here, here, and here. I think how we miss things in a place. As much as I wanted out of Jacksonville, a city difficult on so many levels for me, I miss the taste of burgers from Harpoon Louie’s. Just right, med-rare without being runny red. The perfect grilled flavor, buns the perfect size & sweetness. I miss the real Belgium chocolate ganache frosting made by a gal with Italian blood who stirs and reduces it, lets it set for hours. So rich she sees people scrape it off. My love so appreciated she always scrolled an extra layer on my cupcake. But I don’t miss the mile-broad river I know saved me those 2 yrs. The sight and sound of dolphins there. The rhythms of pelicans and other seabirds I tracked and noted. The sky canyons on the water’s surface. Foggy mornings that looked like an impressionist painting out my windows. They were of that place, a salve, a memory, not like a taste on my tongue. Or feeling in my bones.

The other morning I heard my husband whisper ‘sky watcher’ as I looked over the rooftops. The trees whipped, so I knew a strong wind blew at the bay. Gotta get in a car to see it, I said. And I did something I’ve not done since we moved in January. I pulled a housedress over my jammies, stepped out into the middle of the street, rocked my head back. Watched the clouds spread in a pattern like leopard spots on the rich blue wall of the sky. Walked to the corner, looked down to the warm rose & peach blush that says Sun Rises Here. The sky and birds, the color reflected on water my saviors in this place.

A friend asked why I’ve been so stressed. I gave her a short version of the big reasons. Stunned, she said, ‘you did not show it.’ I can hold both, I told her. The difficult, and the good of connection with new people, places, and sights. Can understand how this that feels so hard is important. Because I found what I needed to move forward in it. Isn’t that really the dance of life for so many of us lucky ones?

Today a beautiful adolescent black snake stretched along the low ground cover close to our door. It’s head lifted above the greenery, tongue tasting air. I delighted in how quickly it arched and dived to disappear under shelter as I stepped out. I have family members who warn of evil hearts in snakes, venomous or not, but I see them as signs, like the woman in my novel does. That snake today made me think how something big has happened in my life every time I saw a black snake. Only once a bad omen. With my husband and I both at a crossroads on several fronts of work and life, I choose to think today’s a good omen.

What I know. . .the page has already turned. Tho I don’t know how it reads, yet, I see the destination. The place looks like the two photos on this page. Mountains. Nature that consumes more of my sight than roads and buildings. Greets me without my trying. Is the source of the only sounds breaking silence. Places where my heart swells. I feel expansive, connected. And the work’s created in the sacredness of it. I’m very happy about that.

What calls to a place have you heard?

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
~ James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)

BlueRidge

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

A secret: Faith, intuition, and gratitude have pulled me from the floor more than once.
A favorite: Appalachian springtime. New Mexico fall.

Photos:
New Mexico – unknown
Blue Ridge – Kathryn Magendie

How to Tune & Patina

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Heloise Jones

They know when they’re been parked
for the last time, despite the promises of a new
transmission or bumper or fuel pump
The tires somehow know too and slowly
begin to sink into the land
and the land rises to embrace them, and gather
the car back to her
trees and leaves know too, and try to help
they shower the car with branches and fallen leaves
and slowly it becomes their own
becoming much more organic than when it was on the hiway
humans are now shut out of the picture
and the plants and animals
now have the title to the car.
~ Rachel Ballentine (Old Cars)
*

cloudy-skies-7 *

I admit I feel chosen by the great blue heron that lights down in front of our sliding glass doors, hunts little fish from the strip pond. That as I watched it sink low into the water the other day, its neck curved, folded down like when it flies so it looked like a strange giant duck floating there… and watched it dip its head, fluff & flutter it’s feathers, take a bird-bath (!) before wading to a small concrete slab where it sat in the sun with it’s wings splayed and bent, tips touching in prayer like some bird buddha…I knew I was.

I even felt my discovery of 5 tiny ducklings swimming fast & furious in a bunch along the seawall. In and out, picking bugs from the bricks above the shells stuck at waters edge. Mama behind them, watching, as a moment I was chosen to witness.

Author Patti Digh in a piece about Prince says he’s like a piano she has that can’t be tuned to a prescribed note, only to itself. Making beautiful music all the same. I believe that’s what’s happening to me. I’m relearning how to tune to myself. That it’s my innate nature reclaiming me like nature reclaims old cars in New Mexico. Rising to entwine and embrace me. Pull me closer so I hear my intuition clearly, follow it. Experience the world in remembered ways. That I’m revealing layers of rust, gorgeous color and texture of myself like what happens to old cars in the desert. Mold impotent on me like it is in dry air. And that like old cars in the desert I’ll one day patina, be seemingly as lovely as old buildings in Italy and Morocco, my own way.

I’ve been talking to writers as research for a book I’m writing that’ll support us moving thru stuck-ness so we can work, live, and create at our best. I say to them, tell me your dreams, the big ones. Often they need encouragement. But when they finally speak, I hear their shoulders drop, their breath exhale. Their voices fill out, grow round. Then they tell me how the pressures of their life push their dreams to the sidelines to wait. Reminds me I’ve put my own dreams aside. Time spent writing stories about characters you can’t see until you read my words. Moving back to Santa Fe where life organically embraces me, and I meet hitchhiking angels all the time. I asked one writer how his frustration felt in his body, and he described hearing a voice between his heart and his collar bone that he ignored for years. And one morning he woke knowing that day he’d ignore it no more. And the yellow brick road appeared to a mentor, community, publication, and a fulltime writer’s life with purpose for greater change in the world. I hear that voice, too. Have ignored it, too.

Patti Smith wrote in her book M Train about meeting one of her heroes, chess great Bobby Fischer. How he was bizarre, paranoid, almost childlike. She concluded that “…without a doubt we sometimes eclipse our own dreams with reality.” It reminded me I eclipse moments of wonder and magic all the time. Like the morning I stepped out my door, looked up to a sky like the painting of clouds by Georgia O’Keeffe. The clouds over my head glowing with lights inside them (not white) in an ethereal moonlit (not blue) sky. How I ignored that dreamscape, jumped in my car for the reality I knew at the bay. Where the wind blew so hard, not a magical cloud remained.

But then, there’s the time a tall, big-framed older man stepped up, parked at the monitor displaying my purchases as I bagged my groceries. The one slap next to the credit card machine. I noted the space behind him, and when ready to pay, said in a nice voice, I’m not done checking out, sir. And he didn’t move. So I moved up, squeezed my elbow to my side, dug in my purse. ‘I’m not looking at what you’re buying,’ he gruffed as I slid my card. It’s not about that, but about space, I said. At which he took a step sideways, turned away. ‘They’re everywhere.’ The checker leaned in to hear him better. He’s talking about me, I told her. A big smile on my face because strange as it seems, he didn’t bother me a bit. Not even when he moved further back, turned and looked straight in my face, said in a not nice voice, ‘Yes, I am. You’re a lot of trouble.’

I tell you the truth. I stood smiling as the checker struggled with the tape machine, as she handed me the receipt. Smiled as I replied to the man with utter sincerity, Why, thank you, I appreciate that. I even stood smiling when it was all done, before going outside, wondering if I was nuts. Hoping *we* were indeed everywhere. A friend later said I put into the world what I wanted back. And that’s not crazy, at all.

Perhaps it’s simply all part of my innate nature saying look here, and here, and here, spend time with Joy. And my thanks and appreciation in the market, so sincere, making no sense, were for a chance to experience joy in a moment that looked rough.

What do you think?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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A secret: The past four years have been really hard. I guess I needed it.
A favorite: Rachel Ballentine’s poetry. I shared a wonderful day with her in NM.

Image: painting by Georgia O’Keeffe

Tell Me About the Sky, What Matters

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“A man told me there was nothing he would rather keep noticing — and he pointed to the spaces between palm fronds, chinks of turquoise and a few clouds. Just now, into this recollection, wanders an egg on a green dish.”
~ Karen Brennan (from Five Stories)
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Bird Island.1 *

I love Facebook. I get so much from it. Good stuff far beyond the constant yammer of politics and war flying every day from the radio. Shores me up, helps me remember the Chesapeake Bay was once dead and now thrives. Exciting stuff like this fabulous archive of 2500 pigments collected in the first decades of this century by billionaire Forbes, sparked by a damaged old-world painting he wanted restored. COLOR gathered from around the world. That came from things like beetles off a certain cactus, resin from mummies, dried urine from cow’s fed only mango leaves. I love that bright red dragon’s blood really exists. Is found in rattan leaves. Medicine to my artist’s soul that elicits yearning for the list of names and origins.

I love that I’ve stayed in the homes of peeps in New Zealand who I first met on fb. That an entire church in far-off Chicago prayed for us when my husband was run down by a car, because a woman saw it in a comment. (I never made a post) Asked if she could add us to their prayer list. I love I connect with those holding opposite political views, or come from diff cultures, meet in the spaces we share as humans – heart, family, fun, pain, desires, passions, works.

From fb I learn about other writers and works, add to my knowledge of craft and industry. I love I have a forum to encourage & promote brilliant artists and writers, too. Can see my encouragement blossom into works in the world. That fb gave me conversations for a book I’m writing to help carry creatives through the snarlies and frustrations of life, navigate through stuckness so we stay on our feet, live, work and create at our highest level.

Conversations personal and heartfelt about the difficulty creating & expressing stories, thoughts, words in a world that doesn’t understand what it means to have that sort of thing inside you. How you’re challenged with why’s and labels. You’re not a writer, you’re…’. How this solitary pursuit can look selfish when other people want/need your time. That you’re not real because you haven’t hit that magic validation button, publication. Even knowing as we do that stories and words nourish the world. That writers are executed in some places for the power they wield.

So, I asked on fb, ‘What would you like to hear me talk about in my blog?’ Two replied (good in a writer’s world with a staggering level of rejection). One, whatever works for me. The other, I like it when you talk about what matters to you. I like it when you describe the colors of the sky, which was perfect.

Because when I first joined fb (after 2 yrs.! prompting by a writing partner) I decided how I’d show up authentically me, intentional. I cared about so much, I chose how I’d stand, not add to the noise. In time, it evolved into a writing practice creating poetic pictures of what I see and feel, saying my Truth the best I can. Editing as I would any poetic stanza. It got down to this:

I care we see our common humanity. The trolls and nasties are out there, and so are beauty and compassion. I love what Doris Lessing says about existence and forgetting. Deep down love it –  ”No one knows what has existed and has vanished beyond recovery, evidence for the number of times Man has understood and has forgotten again that his mind and flesh and life and movements are made of star stuff, sun stuff, planet stuff; …” – because I see life-lines as spirals. We spiral up (or down, whichever ‘toward wisdom’ means to you). Revisit our stuff. Get a chance to see things differently. Do *it* differently. And it spirals out. Each of us a microcosm of culture and humanity.

I care we see ourselves empowered. That we’re inspired to show up, put our drop in the bucket to create a kinder, gentler world for all of us. Like my friend Sweetie Berry says, “….To see small droplets of water <rain> repeatedly fall to make differences in all it touches…no single drop doing the work but incrementally changing the landscape and the garden. Small things matter…” Because I know our drops matter. That it’s the We together that causes incremental change in landscapes, just like the rain.

I care about the realities of the human world. Because I am not neutral. They push me to speak up unequivocally strong sometimes. As with the recent NC bill, because I love my friends. Wept with joy when equal marriage became law of the land. Love is love, the way I see it. And I vehemently oppose everything in that bill, including the silencing of any voice who wishes to protest (yep, you/us, LGBT or not). And the only way I see to fight it is to support the peeps fighting it. Hate and discrimination are myopic, are not hurt by us stepping away.

The over-arching thing I care about is inspiring people to see more than the hard stuff, even when we’re over-run. Pull myself up in the process. Last week I heard a famous comedian on Fresh Air say as a black man he’s hyper-aware the min. he steps out the door that he’s a target of suspicion and possible violence. I heard how desperate refugees pressed against the new thick-thick wall between Turkey and Syria are shot at, forced away, back into devastation, starvation, and horrific violence. Heard, yet again, commentators analyze Donald Trump. And as I drove down the road the next morning, I thought ‘I am so safe and lucky. So many of us here, so safe and lucky.’

And I care, care, care we see our beautiful planet for the gift she is. How she shows us, gives us, COLOR we can hold in our hands. Every medicine for body and soul. That though it’s not May, yet, so I can’t declare Spring here to stay, daffodils & tulips crowd each other in Asheville and points up the east coast. Trees drip with flowers, the streets sport puddles of petals. The squirrels and ducks are making babies. In fact, so incredibly gorgeous, I can see nature simply doesn’t care. She’s sprung. While the snow falls in Colorado.

And finally, for you Mary Anne Radmacher. Last night as I closed the blinds, the moon, not yet full, reflected twice, like twins in my window so brightly I couldn’t shut her out. I left the blinds open. Went outside to gaze up. Feel the breeze. I heard her say it’s okay I only caught a glimpse of the giant hawk flying low with something large in its talons, a murder of crows chasing it. Because it caused me to ask a man if he saw it so close over his head. Learn he lost his vision, is just now seeing again after multiple surgeries. After complete blackness. (imagine!) And that he’s from the Brazilian Amazon, where they live close to nature and animals, so it was natural his son rescued a baby crow on the edge of death, loved it to adulthood. The hawk brought me to a fellow human I would never have spoken to, otherwise.

I have not been down to the bay in days. Have not sat in silence with nature, noticed things like the chinks of turquoise and a few clouds in the spaces between palm fronds. I must do that now.

Tell me. What matters to you?

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

A favorite: Palm trees. Absolutely fascinating when you really see their differences and how they flower.
A secret: I’ve glimpsed the sky through oak and maple leaves. Now looking thru the spaces amongst palms.

Casting Ripples

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Heloise Jones

Driving in the car, I put my cup of hot chocolate in the short plastic to-go glass with meter change, like I always do. But when I lifted my drink, the plastic glass lifted, too.
Money dumped into my lap, slid to the seat beneath me.
I like to think it a metaphor.
*

Purple Eye Holi – day of the Hindu spring festival of colors –
celebrates the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘bad.’
2016, Thursday before Good Friday.
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I watched a man go table to table in the sunshine. He hit, moved on, quick like a hummingbird. I noted him not young, not old, but bent. Wrinkled, rumpled, not dirty. Focused. Under the portico where I sat he asked the folks beside me for a dollar, left without asking me. ‘I’ll give you a dollar,’ I called. He sat at my table, lingered with God Bless You’s before we fist bumped and he left. I thought, I gave him what he asked for. What if he’d asked for more. It was three blocks before I found him on a side road curb counting a puny wad of crumbled bills. My only thought came out of my mouth. ‘Not enough, is it?’

36 hours later, early before stores open, a man asked for a dollar as I ate a sandwich, enjoyed the fresh air. Added the bus is really $2 when I gave him the money he asked for. I said no. But ten steps away, I called, gave him the second dollar. What he really asked for. It’s then I saw the park 1/2 block down. Where the homeless spend their hours, where the buses come & go. The next man never got to ask. He hesitated, spoke in that small voice like they do, started his standard apology. I stopped him. He’d called himself a bum. I was so surprised I asked if I heard right. ‘I do not see a bum,’ I told him. ‘I see a human being.’ But, but…, he argued. ‘You are a human being,’ I said, and gave him $2. His name is Bama, after Alabama. And he walked away a bit taller, a little perk to his step. So evident I questioned for a nano-second if his former slump was real before I thought I may have lifted him up.

Alright, I admit it. I get disheartened by what I read and see. Think perhaps I should look into moving to San Miguel like I considered three years ago. Then it comes to me. If I’m thinking about moving, I’ve lost the possibility for my Vision of the society I want to live in, right here in the U.S. The one where people are valued, healthy, educated. The Vision that today is NOT tomorrow. That we have the power to counter the ascension and assumption of Hate, Bigotry, Violence, and War. That millions who vote for this have limited sights, and there’s more to this world than that. I don’t have to acquiesce, accept their view. I can follow others before me who stood up, said enough is enough. We all can. How we see people is a moral issue. How we treat people is a political one. The personal is political, and moral. I’m speaking up.

I am not neutral.

There is no room in this world for hatred, separatism, racism, any -ism. No room for homophobia, islamophobia, xenophobia, phobia of nature. I am for the rights of women, LGBT, homeless, immigrants, refugees, the disenfranchised, all people to live healthy, prosperous lives. Everyone deserves that. I am for Love, any way it shows up. For giving people opportunity to be their best self. I am for respecting nature. Not only because nature’s wondrous and beautiful, but because our survival as a species is intricately linked to her.

I advocate a kinder world.

I post good news moments on facebook. Because good stuff exists beside the ugly stuff we read about that seems so rampant. Because if we don’t see the Better Angels of ourselves reflected, we think terror, horror, and hatred are all there is, and despair settles in. We need the full view.

If you believe change can’t happen, you’re wrong. We don’t have to settle. We can see each other, listen to each other, endeavor to understand those who are different than ourselves. We can see our humanity reflected back. Can celebrate any step toward the world we want to live in because big change is rarely a leap. Believe the power of even small steps because they add up, still take us where we’re headed. We have the power to choose how we show up. Let our fights be smart. If we don’t decide where we put our energy, someone else’ll decide for us.

I had one more chance to do something good that day. A boy, looked to be 14, knocked on my door. Talked so fast I said slow down, tell me why you’re here. I saw the boxes of candy I’d never eat, knew I’d donate, anyway. But I wanted to know why. Going to Universal Studios. Never been. All the kids working hard to raise the money. (his words) Then he added, I talk fast ‘cause people close the door. I got it. Darn, I don’t eat candy, I said. He perked up, offered candles. Got anything my little grandson would like? In three minutes the washable mats were here, brought by his ‘boss.’ Dinosaurs. Perfect. I got what I asked for. And a grinning kid walked away. Going to Universal the only way he could. After he left I googled the org I made the check to. OMG, they do good work. Energy and action, like ripples in a pond.

How do we show up?

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

A secret: They seem like tests, these experiences.
A favorite: This photo of the purple eye. I love it. Beautiful, like I see people.

Photographer unknown

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Choosing to Do It Differently

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Heloise Jones

This was a day when nothing happened. . .
The chicken’s diminished to skin and skeleton,
the moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
but this has been a day of grace
in the dead of winter,
the hard cold knuckle of the year,
a day that unwrapped itself
like an unexpected gift,
and the stars turn on,
order themselves
into the winter night.
~ from Ordinary Life by Barbara Crooker
*
Spring
*

I’ve changed my path walking by water since moving from the historic neighborhood bordering the bay. Sometimes it’s 12 blocks along the wide bayou that bleeds off the ocean, the far border a large small island with large homes and expansive green lawns. I often miss the sunrise because I can’t bear the quiet between night and the beginning of day shattered by a car. But I’m seeing life in a new landscape. Like two pelicans in the top flimsy branches of live oaks, balancing their heavy bodies as they bob and work those long bills made for fishing to break off a twig (a twig!) for their nests. The pickings so small for how long it took to get it.

The other day I chose to walk a longer path up to the point on the bay. I stopped at the sound of a splattered puff. A dolphin’s breath. The next morning, in a dawn nearly black under heavy overcast clouds, I crossed the grass in time to see a sleek back curve up, then down again. And discovered something extraordinary. Thick rolls of waves like a wake moving in a line. Realized it was a dolphin swimming, the water pushed, not broken. I watched the rolls change direction, come back toward me. My heart beat fast. And then, the white belly beneath the still, silken surface as the dolphin sailed by on its side, six feet below the ledge where I stood, its eye looking up. I was stunned at the discovery of those rolls, watching a dolphin’s clear path below the surface.

In a way, seeing below the surface is the theme of my life since moving to Florida 4-1/2 yrs. ago. I’ve felt alone with no close community of friends. Lunch or dinner with others random occasions. Sunrise at the bay conversations, but no people populating my days. Something new for me. Relationships and community always grew quickly, organically, wherever I lived. Alive and growing after decades, even with distance between us. Recently I marvel at the grand, divine design, tho. How I’ve been thrown to conversations with the Universe for answers to my questions, revelations to challenges. Left to see without distractions our everyday world in ways I can only call magical. I’ve been pushed to step out online. Been pushed to trust my strong intuition, trust myself, even when my humanness blazes first. Been pushed to ask what I really want. Because my outward life as it is ain’t it. And the only way to know is to honestly answer what my part is. The past two weeks seriously tested what I’ve learned. A triple whammy – friendship hitting rocks, crossing trenches and moguls with my beloved son who lives in Taiwan, and facing a decision that requires super scary commitment. The brain cramps and heart cramps tremendous.

I have this friend in NM, Rachel Ballentine, who often ponders aspects of the interconnectedness of our everyday world. She recently wrote she wonders “what did they bring to Ellis Island? how would you decide? what teapot? what embroidery? a child’s tooth? what kettle? what would be in the trunk? what recipes? what pots and pans? what would you bring from your village? what was in the suitcases? what was left behind? what lace? what shoes? and who was left behind? who got to go? who got sent back?” She spoke to me in that pondering.

At 21, I watched my in-laws house burn. My own home once caught fire. I wrote about that sort of loss in my second novel. A girl grabs one thing of personal significance for herself and each of her parents as their hard-built dream home burns to cinders. I’ve wondered as I read holocaust stories. Now as I read about refugees. Wonder as I watch friends move every year, sometimes twice a year, for years in a row. What’s their journey of letting go. And I wonder weekly as I scan my belongings, envision my 4th move in 5 yrs. this December. The one I’ll take across many states that I look forward to. I’ve already shed 1/3, then another 1/4, and another 1/4+. As my eyes rest on an item, I search inside for a feeling that might tell me something. Nothing in my home is just there. Everything once chosen by me for the pleasure or meaning in it. Holding more than the thing-ness.

And that’s what happened with each of the whammies. What do I leave behind. Compassionate honesty? Choosing silence, adjusting expectations, depriving a deeper understanding or opportunity to transcend/fix the disconnects, misread intentions, mis-spoken messages as I’ve done. Distance? Depriving the opportunity to be different with the challenges of family history. Myself? Carrying stuff inside that feeds my insecurities, keeps me small. I don’t need to be right or understood. I just need to see below the surface of myself, see myself moving forward like I saw that dolphin pushing water who had no intention but to see the other. Answer what I want, realize it’s what we all want. Connection and Love, to be seen for ourselves, with compassion in the seeing.

I chose the friendship, if it can be saved. Chose to figure how to swim the trenches so the moguls don’t seem so high with my son, feel expectation of joy holding my grandson in a big hug. And I’m hiring the help I need, tho it costs a bundle. Will face my fears of failure, success, being not good enough, stranded. I choose doing it differently. Because below the surface, I trust I’m gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay.

What do you take, and leave behind?

“A white explorer in Africa, anxious to press ahead with his journey, paid his porters for a series of forced marches. But they, almost within reach of their destination, set down their bundles and refused to budge. No amount of extra payment would convince them otherwise. They said they had to wait for their souls to catch up.”
~ Bruce Chatwin, from THE SONGLINES

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

A secret: It’s not easy being human.
A favorite: Dolphins under water

Photo: free share by Ales Krivec