I suppose I am really beginning to believe that I have a life growing inside me. So many miracles happening in our lives. This one is such a gift, I am humbled beyond words, but hope that in the months to come I’ll be able to express this experience in detail and with eloquence. Baby deserves that. Thank you baby, for coming into our lives just when you did.
I am preparing to leave the Valley of the Moon for the East Bay.
My love affair with Jack London continues as I am currently inhaling a wonderful biography of the writer, which fills in many holes for me. I now know that his Beauty Ranch in Glen Ellen (just five minutes from where I currently live) was meant to be an escape from San Francisco, Oakland, all of industrialization, and his painful past.
I moved here with a kindred desire to get away from the din and the negative voices in my own head, to become closer to Nature, and to my own voice. In the two years I’ve lived here, I have been somewhat successful: there is never a shortage of animal life to encounter – the squirrels in our redwood trees talk to me, sounds I’ve never heard from squirrels elsewhere. When I go for a walk I am met by at least half a dozen cats, and I always take time to stand under the eucalyptus tree that is home to four hawks, who flirt and fight with each from the highest branches. There are so many animals that have talked with me, I have begun writing a song about them. I am researching ways to record this new song on Jack London’s property.
But in a week, I will be moving all my belongings to a new home with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, just a few miles from where Jack sweated, fought, struggled and starved in his early days. I hope the industrial life will be kinder to me than it was to him. I would have liked to have been more prolific in my time in the Valley of the Moon, but I find that I need more stimulus and more conversation than the animals alone can provide.
I know that I will continue to visit Sonoma Valley and find inspiration from it. I also hope to find more peace inside my mind than Jack was able to find in his short lifetime. He died in 1916 on November 22, and I was born 55 years later to the day. I feel there is still much work to be done with Jack – this incredibly flawed, ego-fed, fatherless writer who was never afraid of making a reality of his dreams, whatever the cost.
Jack, I will be back.
Jack London and his piggery
I was lucky enough to see Sarah Jones’ show ‘Bridge and Tunnel’ a few years ago in NYC. Truth be told, I became morbidly depressed after the show, because I was so jealous and somehow felt like it should have been me up there! I guess that’s the highest compliment, right?
My issues aside, Sarah Jones is an incredible performer, writer and activist. If you get the chance to see her live, jump at it. Here’s a taste.
Venus, brighter than all other planets and stars, will dangle just below the thin crescent moon in the southwestern sky tonight. It’ll be visible — impossible to miss, in fact — just as the sun goes down, assuming skies are cloud-free.
Happy stargazing, and get ready to make a beautiful new year wish.
Last year at this time I made a big fat noble resolution to ENJOY 2008, to be in the NOW (thank you, Eckhart Tolle), and to be GRATEFUL for all that I have.
I’m giving myself a C+ for that effort. No, maybe just a C. A year later, I feel more anxiety than ever. I wish I would have spent more time this year with friends and loved ones, embarking on new adventures, and just sitting and feeling PEACE. But….. But. But!
To begin with, there’s my laptop, and what a needy little bitch she is! Sure, it’s fantastic (and necessary nowadays) to be connected, to have this blog to express myself, to find so many long lost friends as well as new ones on Facebook, and to have been able to check CNN.com every two minutes from my work computer on election day. But this growing need to find connection with the world through this little glowing box…..it is a dangerous thing. Am I using this power for good? I must admit there are many moments when I am NOT using the Force – but rather allowing myself to be led by outside reports, updates, and warnings aplenty. It becomes more difficult to remember that the source of everything comes from INSIDE ME, and not from the four or five browser windows I have open at any given time. HOW I EVER WIPED MY REAR WITHOUT THE INTERNET, I CANNOT REMEMBER.
Also, my sun-shiny optimism is giving me skin damage. Too bright! Bright light, bright light! Annie was my hero at age ten – she had nothing, but she could sing and make everything and everyone feel better. But whenever I sang Tomorrow to myself, which I did very religiously, truth be told, I would stick to the lyric, ‘You’re ONLY a day away‘, and leave out ‘You’re ALWAYS a day away‘. I mean, come on, everybody, everything may look pretty shitty right now, but tomorrow there’ll be ice cream/a trip to the pool/dinner at McDonald’s/so-and-so’s birthday party/Fantasy Island/a shopping mall excursion with mom/a matinee/a shiny new clarinet/my period/a boy who likes me!
Fast forward twenty five years and it’s something like this – tomorrow there’ll be another paycheck/a day off/a walk in the woods/a steak dinner and a bottle of wine/piano lessons/new strings for my guitar/time to sit on my meditation pillow/an email from so-and-so/a call from you-know-who/time to lay in bed all day with my man/a baby/an invitation from the Grammys, Tonys, Oscars and the Pulitzer prize people/perfect health/an end to war/freedom for all/FORGIVENESS/enlightenment!
But.
This year, my country’s financial system came crashing down, and all the bad choices that were made finally came to light. We’re leveraged to our eyeballs! We bet everything on a pile of nothing! This house of cards will stand no longer! Now we see so clearly how living for tomorrow robs us of today. While I am pretty clueless about money matters, and have never really invested a dime of my money in the markets, I have been living in my own special world of denial. I was unsuccessful at following through on my 2008 resolution, to appreciate what I have, because deep down I believe that today is never good enough! I could be better! My life, my state of affairs, my work ethic, my dedication to my art, my relationships….they could all be so much better! I am a loser, and I am scared and worried all the time, so I will be like Scarlett O’Hara and ‘think about that tomorrow‘. Look how shiny and perfect tomorrow is! I will finally get what I deserve! It’s just around the corner! Only a day away!
But wait. Shit. Tomorrow IS always a day away.
So here’s what I CAN bank on: I am grateful to you for reading this, and for this need I have to connect with you, even if I can’t see or hear you out there in internet-land. It feels good be honest with you, as refreshing as a walk in with woods on a cloudy, misty day. A day like today. My galoshes are calling me. I better answer the call, before the sun comes out. Happy New Year.
I will be in wolf heaven tonight, here in the Valley of the Moon. I just hope the fog will take the night off. Prepare for the howling.
La Luna
Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest in 15 years, lying almost overhead at midnight. Also guest starring tonight: the annual Geminid meteor shower, one of the year’s best displays of shooting stars. Up to 100 meteors an hour can fly across the sky. The meteors, which are easy to spot with the naked eye, appear to shoot out from the constellation Gemini, hence their name, but they can be seen all over the sky. However, with a full moon so bright, the best place to look is away from the Moon.
Just a few days before election day, and things are heating up. Everyone’s opinions are coming out of the woodwork. We are seeing each other so clearly right now, for better or worse.
I have recently reunited with some high school friends on Facebook, and my latest post, which encourages folks to watch this video (thanks for sharing, Goodegg), if they are still undecided on who to vote for, has stirred up some controversy.
I’ve received some passionate responses from one lady in particular, who is a conservative Catholic with 3 children, who had her first at a very young age, before she was ‘ready’. She has posted comments all over our friends’ pages that explain her pro-life beliefs, and of course, she supports McCain.
This lady and I shall never agree on the issue of abortion. We could not be more different, it turns out. I see her as a young woman who had motherhood thrust upon her too soon, and who has dedicated her life so far to raising her kids, and whose venom and righteousness on the subject are a product of the regret she feels for never having been able to do this and that, because she had to care for her babies. I imagine she sees me as a faith-less sinner who has no respect for nature and our ‘God-given’ gifts, and who is going Downstairs when it’s all over.
I am truly grateful that birth control has never failed me. I have made conscious choices in my life so far to NOT get pregnant, because I have not felt ready – I wanted to travel, explore, make mistakes, enjoy victories all my own, find the right man, make more money, discover the ideal circumstances. I have always feared that I would regret my child, if I did not do these other things first. While I know there is no ‘perfect’ time to have a child, I feel very grateful that I’ve had so many years in my adult life that are mine and mine alone. Time to find out what I like, what I don’t like, to be a free agent, a wanderer, an adventurer.
I am also grateful for the freedom that has allowed some of my dearest friends to have abortions – for many different reasons – because they were not ready, equipped, old enough, healthy enough……. I am tremendously respectful of the difficult, heartbreaking choices they had to make, and will always live with. I am also in total awe of anyone who can carry, birth and raise a child – one of the greatest gifts we have.
My path is no better or more noble than this old schoolmate of mine with her 3 children. But hearing her perspective makes me feel truly privileged to be a grown woman who has had the freedom and good fortune to go where she pleases, when she wants to. I do plan to have children of my own, but in the meantime, I am grateful for the opportunity to have had so much time to get to know myself, good and bad.
I wish my old high school friend all happiness and peace with her family. I also wish all women in this world the CHOICE to do what they will with their lives, in their own time. THAT is freedom, in my book.
Today I discovered another reason why the artwork on my latest CD, ‘Lucky Penny’, of a penny, is so cool!
The significance of Abe Lincoln just hit me over the head after watching this feature on the news tonight. Next year marks his 200th birthday, and they’re making some new penny B-sides to celebrate him. 146 years ago today, President Lincoln presented his Emancipation Proclamation.
Honest Abe has been popping up everywhere lately. I particularly liked hearing about him when Obama announced the exciting August news in Springfield, Illinois.
I like the ghosts that have been hovering near us lately. They are good ghosts.
Ladies in Kenwood, July 2007
LADIES – I raise my glass to us. And to my Aunt Cindy, who has always been my number one role model for what it means to be a woman who can take care of herself.
From Garrison Keillor:
It was on this day in 1920 that the 19th Amendment was formally incorporated into the U.S. Constitution.
Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the proclamation that morning at 8 a.m. at his home. There was no ceremony of any kind, and no photographers to capture the moment. And none of the leaders of the woman suffrage movement were present to see him do it. Colby just finished his cup of coffee and signed the document with a regular, steel pen. Then he said, “I turn to the women of America and say: ‘You may now fire when you are ready. You have been enfranchised.’
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