Person, Place, Thing

I’ve been in Palm Springs since Saturday night, I flew down to work with a couple of clients who winter in the California desert, effectively escaping the dismal, dank, drizzly and dark Seattle winters.  As I write this, I'm on an Alaska Air flight back to Seattle.

I happen to love Seattle winters but most people don’t.  Not only do we boast the highest suicide rate in the country, the bridge right by my house has the second most jumpers (after Golden Gate) and Seattle also has the distinction of being the coffee consumption capitol of the world.  This is all related to the rain.

It doesn’t help matters that when I’m asked why the weather doesn’t bother me, I respond “it’s always sunny on the inside.”  If they ask, I tell the truth and it never goes over well.

My 17 Year Man, John, suffered mightily with the winter doldrums.  He works a legit job where he has to be there early every morning and he has to stay until late every night; he goes months without seeing the daylight, or the graylight, as I call our Seattle winter skies. 

I do not have a legit job.  I’ve never really had a legit job.  With my job, which feels as much a part of me as my lungs, my hair, my feet, I get to do whatever I want.  I get to show up when I want.  I leave when I want.  I can spend the middle of the day in Pike Place Market buying and eating those tiny donuts that the vendor covers in cinnamon and sugar.  I can run errands.  Make doctor and dentist and hair cut appointments whenever I want.  I am the master of my domain.  I can enjoy hours of our graylight and I think that’s the biggest contributing factor to why the Seattle winters have never bothered me.

In contrast, I lived in Bend, Oregon, at the 4,000 foot level for 10 years and in Bend, it’s sunny all the time.  More than Florida.  And hot.  Dry and hot.  I was unmoved by the weather in Bend just like I am unmoved by the weather in Seattle.  I’m just hard to move, I guess. 

I do miss St. Pete storms and although we just flew through 2 thunder storms, they’re not the kind I miss.  I miss the kind that I’m on the ground to enjoy, not the ones I’m flying through.

I’m going to fish out the picture Mom took of me when I was in third or fourth grade, during a huge storm, when she agreed as easily as if it were the most logical thing to do that we would drive down to Bayfront Center and I could walk on the sidewalk and watch the waves.  Once we got down there, I turned inside out with glee to see that the waves were not only huge but they were breaking over the sidewalk after crashing violently into the seawall with a crack.  I talked Mom into – again, this wasn’t hard, she was nothing if not game for adventure as long as she could watch it, not do it – letting me sit on the pipe railing, with my feet hooked through the lower rungs, in hopes the waves would drench me.  Well, I not only got my wish but Mom, with her handy 110 instamatic, captured the moment for all time.  This is yet another example of an event that I’m sure, had we a nosy neighbor with a malicious streak, Mom could have been charged with child endangerment, child neglect or wishful child abandonment should there be such a thing.   I digress.

I think about Mom all the time.  My thoughts of her are not driven by grief, they’re driven by the fact that my life is continuing and hers isn’t and I want to talk to her and I want to see her and I want to email pictures to her and I just basically want her to still be alive.  So, as I dash through every day, she’s with me but not in an ominous way, she's with me in a “I wish Mom could see this” way.  In a “Mom would love this” way.  In a “Mom would know what I should do” way. 

Back to Palm Springs.

My host, a dear soul opened her gorgeous home to me, shared her family with me, included me in the many activities of the holiday weekend (I don’t seem to recognize President’s Day, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do, I don’t know how to observe it – do we think about past Presidents?  Do we have Parades in their honor?  I am just not committed to this as a concept and I’m this close to ignoring it all together).  It was a beautiful weekend.

As Mom was dying, my host not only sent emails of gorgeous poems that helped settled my soul, she bought me books, she checked in, she held my hands and sat quietly with me, she unflinchingly listened to the long detailed horror stories of how Mom’s body fell apart, she graciously put my needs above hers in coping with my schedule of being with Mom every other week or so and me not being in Seattle to work with her. 

My host has recently had foot surgery and she’s still in a boot so our activities this weekend were Pilates, I massaged her feet, I worked with other clients, we had beautiful meals with her big family (when I left, I told her, one down, TWELVE to go! – it’s a big family!). 

Indian Canyon is in her backyard and she loves hiking there.  We knew she couldn’t even walk normally, let alone hike, so I wasn’t expecting to get out and about but today, we finished at the studio in time for us to take a trip into the Canyons in the car. 

Palm Springs is the high desert.  Bend is the high desert.  All high deserts look alike.  All high deserts are beautiful. 

This was only the 3^rd time I’ve been in Palm Springs and I really like it.  If I were the type of person who bought time shares, I’d buy one and go to Palm Springs every year.

Mom would love Palm Springs.

Frank, Dino, Dinah, Sonny.  All the stars.  Frank and Sonny are buried there.  Mom loved Frank and although she didn’t love Sonny, she did love that one wooly vest he used to wear in the 1960s. 

In addition to the terrain and the weather, another thing I love about Palm Springs is the architecture. 

When I’m really rich I’ll have two things.  I’ll have an ice machine like they do at bowling alleys, the kind where it makes an endless supply of crushed ice, and I’ll have a Frank Neutra (sp?) house.  There are Neutra houses in Palm Springs.  There are also lots of other mid-century masterpieces, all strewn about, nestled high and low in the hills. 

When I have an ice machine in a Neutra house, I’ll be the happiest person in the world.

As we drove into the Canyon today, my host said that when her Mom died, she would hike into the Canyons and sit on her favorite rock and talk to her Mom.

I’d just read a short piece in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine about a man in Seattle on a short job assignment who had daily phone conversations with his father who was ill back in his home state of Texas.  The essence of the piece was how the son would sit on Harbor Steps every day and call his Dad on his lunch hour and he’d describe the sights, the smells, he even told his Dad about our famous Lusty Lady strip club where they always have a cute saying with a strip club slur on the marquee: The Chronicles of Nudia.

I don’t have a place-centric Mom connection.  Mom is everywhere for me.  I access her all over.  If there’s a portal where there’s more of her, I haven’t found it yet.  And come to think of it, I don’t have a special place.  I love my airplane seat.  I love my bed.  I love love love my Pilates studio.  But I don’t have a quiet place.  I don’t have a holy place.  I don’t have a serious place.  I only have every place.  I have everywhere.  I feel like I have the world and I feel like Mom’s everywhere.

I’ve finally placed her ashes, Daddy’s too, in the new house; they’re on the 4^th floor (I live in a “tall skinny,” an infill house) in a big window facing South where they will be bathed in gray light, sun light, moon light and star light. 

Indian Canyon is gorgeous and, timeshare notwithstanding, I will go back when my host and I can hike and she can take me to her rock and I will see if I feel a stronger Mom than the one who is on my shoulder, in my heart and whose voice constantly fills my ears.  How could she be more there than here.  In 14E.  On the way home to Seattle.

Love and Prayers From Here to There.