Waiting for the Moon

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I’d like to tell you that everything I know about love is in the right hand drawer of that table from India book-ending my living room. . .
I’d like to tell you my heart will outlast every other organ in my body.
~ Maya Stein (from Still and Always)
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Tulips in Snow *

Yesterday evening, so exhausted, I simply wanted to close my computer, lie down. I got up, looked out the window. My only thought, I’m waiting for the moon. It’s been a long day, and I still have much to do. Waiting for the moon seems appropriate.

I’m in a hip season. You know what I mean. The season between the crowds. The one when winter’s not quite over and spring’s not quite here. The time sprinkled with moments feeling good, inviting to the bones like an Indian Summer day, but not necessarily fully defined. A time perhaps where you can tend to things undone without distractions, but you’ve got a hump to get over. In between time. I typically travel in the hip season. Feel sparked with anticipation. And in a weird way, that’s what’s happening now. I’m traveling fast toward the next chapter of my life – work, home, community – and not quite there, yet.

I love solitude, but my life’s felt isolated since moving to Florida 4-1/2 yrs. ago. Being friendly and talkative, I have wonderful encounters with shopkeeps and random strangers. Have a tiny group I gather with for dawn at the bay on occasion. But there’s no one for lunch or afternoon fun. That click bumping acquaintance to friend not happened, organically or otherwise. + my husband and I are so so so different, it’s often difficult despite love and caring. Community’s key for me, so it feels hard. But this week I crossed some energetic line to where I see what’s ahead more than what’s been. Can appreciate how my intuition’s refined. That I learned to share my vulnerabilities, take off my clothes for you. Be grateful the difficulties pushed me to think differently about myself, and my place in the world. Sorta like getting a charge from the Universe. I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt that, but it’s a learning curve for me.

Yesterday I was in the recording studio. My goal, audios of these blogs, and something I wrote to help creatives get past stuck. I’d googled, found page after page of fancy websites of fancy spaces with rates double-triple my budget. I talked to a friend who created her own audios. The time and patience required too counter-productive to my larger goals. Asked another for a referral from her son who studies production. All I need is a room, professional equipment, someone who knows what they’re doing, I said. The next morning, head in my hands (I knew I was supposed to do this) I googled once more. Top of Page One: Rock Garden Recording. Simple website. Rates exactly what I can pay. I looked for reviews. Found a newspaper blurb, “St. Pete’s best kept secret…in business over ten years.” He answered when I called (a rarity, I learned later). Practice, we’ll work thru it, I can help with music, schedule two hours for now, he advised. I felt lucky.

This was one of those things we think will be easy, until we do it. Jeepers, I’ve read on stage in front of hundreds of people, presented to small and large groups. I’m an expert reader of stories to young kids. And it was not easy. Pacing, consistency, breath in the middle of sentences. My voice naturally between hypnotherapist and actor, the right modulation. Not too much or I sound cartoony, too little or I sound flat. Striving for intimacy, on the edge of a conversation tho we know I’m reading. The right inflection for intent. Such as I don’t mean it as a sigh, I mean it’s difficult but good. And no flat fades at the end. The re-records right tone to be woven in. My two hours wiped me out. He says I’m a natural. I have 61 blogs to go. He’s my guy.

Because he‘s my perfect coach. He took care of me with the right kind of head-heart nurturing, and honesty when I said, ‘Hey, I’m older, what does the young dude think.’ Answered he got into it because he couldn’t find someone with their heart in their work when he wanted to record his own music. + (I LOVE this) he volunteers odd jobs, even scrubs toilets, just to sit in, listen as the Florida symphony practices in the best auditoriums. And he’s the guy who records them. He’s like-hearted.

I posted my waiting for the moon on facebook. Someone responded, ‘It’s not like you’re asking for the moon.’ I hadn’t meant it that way. But now, I think perhaps I am. Because I sure fired the rockets. I say, let’s all shoot for the moon. Imagine that.

Have you ever gone for something that felt really big?
Was it a good ride?

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

A secret: I’m big on editing. Expect 4 today.
A favorite: Yellow tulips. Just like the ones in the picture.

Photo: Tamara Linse

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.

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.

Vision to Launch

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“More than a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and master teachers will share the most reliable secrets of their craft. . .in a free-flowing sequence of lessons. Participants will experience an inspirational and instructive writing workshop.”
Description from a workshop, Voices of Social Justice & Equality
Poynter Institute
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Launching Prayers – Chinese Lantern Festival
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We sat on the front row, where I like to sit. My curiosity only slightly peaked. I’m not a journalist. Each lesson only ten minutes. I clearly forgot TED. I got tons. Insights and tips for writing. Tears from stories, like from from a lesson on observation, the description of the trembling blood splattered shoulders of a man who murdered the mother of his child with a machete. Or schools turned into failure factories from a lesson on the power of simplicity, even in stories born from thousands of hours and documentation. Stuff I can use to write novels and essays, like who we are, really. And where we connect. How this lies in the defining moments of decision and action, the external context that influences our thoughts, emotions, choices – forgotten in our introductions so full of what happened & when. Halfway thru I thought, I want to do this. Can I become a journalist. It was the same feeling I had at Stony Brook Southampton Writers Conference learning from the best, watching performances by the best, when I thought I need to move to New York. And watching an ancillary short for the movie ‘Across the Universe,’ the one where they talk about gathering a team stellar in their field to CREATE, feeling a longing and recognition for that experience of co-creation in collaboration with genius. And like when I saw the images of the retreat center on Maui where author Cheryl Strayed led a writing retreat, uttered the words this is how I want to do my work. Like rarified air I want to breathe. Two days later I was shown more.

Every Tuesday and Thursday night for eight weeks my husband Art went to the Church of Christ fellowship hall. Attended a professional and personal development program called Jobs for Life. His teachers all volunteer members of the congregation. Sunday was Graduation. He asked me to go. They talk a lot about the bible, are pretty regular sorts of folks, he said. They indeed quoted scripture. Had three prayers. Sang three hymns, every stanza. Most dressed like we used to expect one dresses for church. A nice change to my thought. Each person on the team – teachers, coordinators, counselors, volunteers and champions – welcomed me, told me how much they appreciated my husband. We sat with the woman who coordinated the outreach program. Who took the course at another church, learned how to do it. Bought it home. We looked at programs for homeless, battered families, she said. In the end decided the jobs program. Because it’s something that can be built upon, carried forward. That gives participants tools for continued growth on their own. That can enrich whole communities. What I heard. . .they wanted to help people be their better and best selves. And they know we’re not islands.

Out of 30 who registered, eight showed up and finished. I teared up as participants shared what they got from the experience. The painfully shy young gal who’s now considering toastmasters. Her mother, dressed in a white lace dress, a brilliant turban of aquas and ocean, black slippers and socks, walking with crutches, who took the class to support her daughter, found something for herself in the process. The young man with professional athletes for parents who broke his back, was forced down a different path and found mentors. The former drug addict who’ll teach her kids principles she learned. My husband speaking up as a leader. I felt my heart vibrate with the chords of a dozen harmonized a cappella Amens from one of our earlier songs.

Someone recently said I ask a lot of the Universe. Her words shocked me so much I didn’t ask what she meant. When I sat with it, I saw the message as either step up, be bigger, earn what I ask for. Or I expect too much, step down, be smaller. The latter is not an option. Earning is not in anything I’ve read or studied about prayer, spirit, the Universe, or asking. Action is.

We start where we’re at. Hold the vision we’re able.

Those people I met Sunday are as genius to me as the Greats I aspire to. They put in the hours. gather the pages, define themselves toward their vision of their best selves in action. It’s the same path I’m walking.

What vision are you walking toward?

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

A secret: Look for those defining moments and outside influences on my About Heloise page in the coming weeks.
A favorite: A capella voices

photo: unknown

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.
*

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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