If Laverne the Cat were a bird …

Ah, Laverne the Cat … you little minx, you small screaming thing, you …. you ….

To continue with the story of what we are now calling the Year of the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Cat, perhaps I should provide a recap:

About a year ago, because of the more-than unfavorable real estate climate in Phoenix, Dan and I inadvertently, unexpectedly and much to our displeasure became the owners of two homes — one of which is totally so underwater, we need to put on scuba gear to just drive down its street.  We call it the cutsey house, not because it’s small (it is), but rather, because it’s just a cute little house with a teensy swimming pool in the back yard and a darling little floor plan in a nice little neighborhood.  Rather than referring to it as the “little house” which doesn’t accurately describe its redeeming qualities, we call it the “cutsey house.”

Since we can’t possibly sell the cutsey house, we decided to rent it — at a HUGE monthly loss, I might add — and voila! we became instant landlords with a very nice female tenant and her teenage daughter.  Eight months into our new tenant’s lease, she lost her job and could no longer pay rent.  Kindly, we let her slide for a couple of months while she found another place to live.  A couple of days after she moved out, Dan went over to start the clean-up and painting to spruce it up and restore the house to its original cutseyness.

That’s when we found Laverne.  Inside the house.  Without food.  Without water.  Without her dignity in a very dirty litterbox.

What could we do?  Poor Laverne was such a pitiful sight to behold.  Of course, we ran out and bought a cat carrier, food, fresh litter and, bribing Scarlett the Retriever and Wilson the Labradoodle to be extra nice, we took in Laverne the Cat.

She took one look at the two dogs and, acting very much like the little red bird in the above picture, loudly hissed her total displeasure into their startled faces.   She then took over the entire upstairs and marked her new territory by vomiting a HUGE hairball smack in the middle of the guest bed.  Hairballs soon became a daily occurrence.  Under the bed.  On my special cowhide rug.  On the WHITE couch.  At the top of the landing.  Everywhere!  The Hurt Locker could have been filmed in our upstairs and no one would have noticed the difference.  Hairball IEDs were a clear danger — everywhere.

Then, there was Laverne’s propensity for BITING.  Twice a day, I ventured upstairs to clean the litterbox, make certain her food and water bowls were always freshly filled  … but not before donning some serious protective gear.  She was sweet as pie while I tended to her bowls and tidied her space …  cleaned up her ubiquitous hairballs.  But the moment I was done, she would rush me — teeth bared, leaping, clutching, grabbing, BITING.  Medic!  Medic!

So, here we are today.  Yesterday, Laverne was taken in by a lovely woman who just LOVES cats.  I told her that Laverne bites and the woman merely smiled that her two other cats would take care of that.  Not a problem.  This morning — for the first time in quite a while — my body is unmarked from a fresh bite.  In spite of my guilt for giving Laverne away, I slept well and drank my morning coffee in peace.  I removed all traces of ever having a cat and was able to feel good that Laverne has the chance for companionship and comfort in her new home.

Of course, I called Laverne’s new owner this morning to see how she was getting on.  She’s doing well, the woman said, although the other cats are terrified of her … but boy, no wonder she was grumpy — she coughed up a HUGE hairball.

Perhaps I should offer to give this kind woman my protective gear?

Laverne the Cat, caught like a criminal in the act

Yes, of course … the moment I talk with a lovely woman about how Laverne the Cat won’t come downstairs because there are YUCKY dogs who live downstairs … and the moment the woman says she would LOVE to meet Laverne the Cat … and the moment she adds that she would be VERY interested in providing a dogless home for Laverne … because oh, poor Laverne …..

is the very puzzling moment when Laverne decides to come down from her parapet and join the world, dogs and all.

How do they do that?  How do cats KNOW?

I’m now puzzled and baffled and flummoxed and mostly crazy in the head, even more so than normal.  How in the world do cats KNOW?  This horrid, no good, very awful furball-urping, foot-biting, arm-grabbing, crazy-making cat has decided to become a now and then, semi-functioning member of this no-nonsense, no drama family.

That … that … that Laverne the Cat person found my heart string and now she’s playing it like a moaning violin.  My head is filled with every churchy song I’ve ever sung about kindness and compassion and love-thy-neighborness.  Just for that, I’m going to dress her in doll clothes and make her drink tea out of a plastic teacup.

Oh, how dare … how dare … but then — of course — what else would someone named Laverne do?  Shlameel … Shlamazel …..

I’m often asked how I chose the name, Dancing Birds, for my blog. My standard answer has always been because I recognize that we’re all like little birds, dancing through our days, and hopefully doing so with a song on our lips and life in our hearts.

That’s the short version.

The longer version would include an explanation of my passion for brain science (following my own brain tumor) and how I came to write an award-winning work of fiction (entitled, All the Dancing Birds — yeah, go figure). The story was carefully researched and loosely based on personal observations of family members and friends whose bravery in dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease compelled me to tell about this baffling and terrifying disease … and to tell it from their side. I hope one day to see the story published and in the hands of every person who might someday serve as a caregiver for someone who suffers from brain illness or injury.

Right now, let’s just say I’m fascinated with the elegance of thought … even those of the little birds who come now and then to dance on my patio for what seems the sheer and simple joy of it.

Today, I found this video that demonstrates better than I could ever articulate what it is to be a Dancing Bird. Thank you, Bobby McFerrin, for pointing out the power of the pentatonic scale in the context of neuroscience.

P.S. For my friends who can’t view this video, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk

Hindu devotees played with color yesterday during celebrations of Holi, the festival of colors, in the streets near the Bankey Bihari Temple in Vrindavan, India. The festival is meant to welcome spring and win the blessings of gods for good harvests and fertility of the land.

The tradition of playing with colors on Holi draws its roots from a legend of Radha and the Hindu god Krishna. It is believed that young Krishna was jealous of Radha’s fair complexion. Krishna questioned his mother Yashoda on the darkness of his own complexion. Yashoda teasingly asked him to color Radha’s face in whichever color he wanted. The tradition of applying color on one’s beloved is being religiously followed to this date.

That now begs the question — What color would you like to be?  Let me know and I’ll think of you today as your favorite color.  You could even be several colors if you’d like.  There are no limits to the imagination.  Make your choice.  Ready?  Go!

I love how when someone mentions something about themselves that is honestly a little weird and ridiculous and, before I can stop myself, I blurt out, usually with a silly grin, “Hey, me too!”  I’d so much rather stay private and mysterious, always with a savagely serious Sylvia Plath look occupying my face … but still, in that tiny nanosecond of connection, something lovely and wonderful nevertheless occurs.  I fall in love with how I’m connected to another person, even if it is only a connection to some mutual weirdness like two people both loving footie pajamas or sharing some obscure little illness or both a little gaga over the brilliance of Johnny Depp.  In those moments, the world seems just a little kinder, a little less disconnected.

Yesterday, it was a brief conversation in the grocery line … with a total stranger … about how we both adore those little foil-wrapped wedges of Laughing Cow cheese.  In that moment, I flashed on all the little weird things in which we are really not so different from one another.

So, here are ten things about me that are most likely ridiculous, but nevertheless, quite conceivably shared by at least one other person in the world:

1. The footie pajama thing.  I miss them.  I miss living in weather cool enough where they are both reasonable AND obtainable.  Phoenix is simply not footie pajama country and I see that little factoid as one of the cruelest abnormalities of living in a desert climate.  We simply don’t wear anything with attached foot coverings, no matter how charming they might appear.
2. Speaking of feet, I don’t like flip flops.  I’ve never enjoyed having an unforgiving piece of pleather rubbing away every cell of tender skin between my toes.  By the time I grow the necessary callouses it takes to wear those implements of footal torture, my husband, the dogs AND the cat are all begging me to wear real shoes. Of course, womens’ footwear in general is mysterious and mostly disliked by me.
3. I do love Laughing Cow cheese.  More than I love broccoli … and I really love broccoli.  And red cabbage.  And Fudgsicles.  And salmon.  I love salmon, but not at the same time on my plate with the Laughing Cow or the Fudgsicle.  I don’t care if my food items are touching on my plate, but I don’t want different sauces to touch.  Nope.  Don’t let the sauces touch.
4. When I was a kid, other kids called me Wienie Arms.  Now after years of sitting on my bum in front of a computer, no one can possibly call me wienie anything.  Hah!
5. I’m pathologically afraid to deface books.  As much as I want, I’m unable to dog-ear a page or write in the margins or underline a particularly gifted passage.   I always use a book marker, even if it’s a torn piece from a newspaper.  I obviously don’t mind defacing newspapers, which makes me wonder what kind of a person that makes me.
6. I’m a news junkie.  And a Facebook junkie.  And now moving into Twitter junkie territory.  I check email with the repetitive manner of one beset with OCD.  Sadly, I can’t claim the Twinkie defense, especially since I stopped eating sugar.
7. I’m sad about my hair and how it used to be on my head, but now is disappeared like some tragic victim never to be seen or heard from again.  Remember the movie entitled, Gone, Baby, Gone?  That could have been about my hair.  I call it a day well lived if I can manage to get through the daylight hours without staring into the mirror for twenty minutes and lamenting over another widening hair hole on my head.
8. I have nine really nifty surgery scars.  No, I mean REALLY nifty.  I love it when someone has a flicker of curiosity about one of my visible scars.  “Arrrgh … Pirates,” I say and then walk away grinning.
9. My favorite book of ALL time is the Oxford English Dictionary on CD.  Hands down, best.
10. I’ve most recently become uncharacteristically fierce about Olympic curling, without understanding one single thing about the game except it involves ice, brooms and very heavy rocks.  I’ll get over it.

Okay, your turn.  Validate me or repudiate me as you would like … or tell me an oddity of which you’re either particularly proud or  horribly ashamed.  I promise to keep your secret.

I cannot get these two words out of my head.  Two small, very simple words. 

Take care.

That’s what a cashier said to me a couple days ago as I completed my transaction and started to push my grocery cart away from the counter.

“Take care,” she said.

She could have said, “See ya.”  It could have been, “Thank you.”  Or, “Come back soon.”  It could have even been nothing at all as she turned to the next person in line.  No.  She had to say …

Take care.

I walked out wondering just specifically what I should take care of.  Did she know something I didn’t?   The tone of her voice gave me no clue.  It was neither bright and chipper nor dark and twisty.  Just a monotone, “Take care.”  Now, what in the world did THAT mean?

You see how my mind works?  Two little words uttered in passing and I’m flipped out for days!  I drove home in my Toyota Avalon with its itsy bitsy little, screaming-down-the-road-at-100-miles-an-hour acceleration issue, all the time with this chant running through my head like some New Age mantra.  Take Care!  Take Care!

As I eased into the garage, I decided I’d better really examine what some casual admonition from a stranger for me to “take care” actually meant and why it had such an impact.  Mostly, I wanted to sort through the issue because words matter and who would know that little factoid better than someone who claims to be a writer?  The selection of one word over another can create an entirely different meaning to a reader.  So, I had to ask, of what was I taking care?  Of myself?  Of others?  Of things?  What?  What?

Furthermore, on which word should I place the emphasis in that two-word thought?  Is it on the word, Take, as in to grab hold of … or on the word, Care, as in to watch over?  Good grief!  That woman’s little  See ya comment was going to make me drag out the dictionary AND the thesaurus and then spend hours analyzing word choice, meaning, and the gravitas of every little good-bye ever uttered by strangers over a cash register.  I didn’t know if I should go back to the store and thank that woman for giving me endless hours of research and thought … or if I should craft a voodoo doll in her likeness for giving me endless hours of research and thought.

Yet, isn’t that what a writer does?  Doesn’t she Take Care over her words?  Her characters?  Her stories?

At last, I’ve decided that I love that woman behind the register.  I love her more than I love anyone now in this small and fragile moment.  I love her because she reminded me that words DO matter.  She gave me a moment of dialogue, followed by hours of excruciating examination, which, just in that aspect, is so poignant and human that I’ll surely use it somewhere in a story.  She gave me pause and caused me to think — endlessly.   She caused me to question and worry, to sort through and discard, to be bothered enough to really dig into the meaning and intent of one person’s offhand remark.  In the end, she helped me to intimately understand two very simple, yet complex words  … Take.  Care.

And that’s precisely why I’m never going shopping there again!

The phone call came late afternoon. Unexpected. Urgent. Dan’s niece had been involved in a horrid car accident and she wasn’t expected to make it. Could we come? Now?

We packed quickly, gravely, weighing whether we should fly or drive the distance from Sacramento to Portland. We decided to drive through the night. We arrived at the hospital to find the family gathered in an austere little waiting room with gray chairs and dull walls. Everyone was holding everyone else tightly just to keep from unraveling, from drowning. Dan’s niece was on life support and the doctors were just waiting for the last of the family to arrive and a few more test results before posing their dire prognosis.

Twenty three and gorgeous, she had been with her boyfriend, unbuckled in the back seat with their three year-old boy for a short drive in their small town just north of Portland. Inexplicably, he ran through a stop sign, crashing wildly into another vehicle. Their car rolled over and over, ejecting her part way out the window, resulting in massive head injury and the hardest decision any parents could ever be asked to make — to unplug or to hold on for dear life.

For dear life.

Prayerfully approaching the tubes and lines keeping their daughter alive, two frightened parents stood over her crushed and broken body and decided they HAD to hold on. Regardless the outcome, they insisted that every measure possible was to be employed to save their daughter. They would take whatever came — they just wanted to keep her alive … in whatever condition she emerged and for as long as possible. With their marching orders in place, a staff of doctors and nurses began a very long and arduous fight to keep Dan’s beautiful niece alive. Amazingly, she lived. One by one, lines and tubes were removed and day by day, an inspirational woman took shape.

It’s been several years now since the carefree life of a beautiful young mother was instantly deconstructed and then rebuilt into one of special beds, wheelchairs, medical devices and daily care. For her, a quick happy-go-lucky decision to ride just a short distance unbuckled in a car … turned into a forever life of being buckled into a wheelchair.

That’s why, when I saw this video — this elegant supplication — I knew I had to share it and ask you to pass it on. Please share this with others if you have the means.

Please.

And then decide yourselves to buckle up before you turn on your car’s ignition.

Please.

I’ve been quiet lately, these last days of winter.  Now, mid-February and, with its 78F degree days, Phoenix is rapidly moving toward another long and endless summer.  Our few winter days seem to number less and less each year.  It’s getting harder and harder to  comfortably wear sweaters or wrap a woolen scarf decoratively around our shoulders.  I guess our beautiful weather is why people flock here each winter — we call these winter residents, of course, snowbirds.  I don’t know what they call us who live here year-round.  Crazy, maybe.

This year I never could seem to settle into the enjoyment of winter in Phoenix with its sunny, warm outdoorsy days.  Instead, I continually whined about it being so nice, sounding like a fussing 7th-grader because I couldn’t wear sweaters like all the other girls.   In all reality, I did get to wear a sweater — ONCE.  Nevertheless, I grouched and grumped my way through another short, yet delightful winter.  Yes I did!

Until this past Monday.

What changed?  I spent the day with my sister.

I don’t think I’ve ever before mentioned my sister.  So, everyone, meet Sis.  Sis, everyone.  My sister, 5 years older than I, often got saddled with my tagging along.  I was a sickly child, so tagging often meant she had to keep me occupied and down in bed.  Since I was often confined to bed for months at a time, she got the worst of the bargain.  I was a BAD patient!  I was terrible to my poor sister, in spite of all the games of Go Fish! and hours of paper dolls and coloring meant to keep me quiet and in any position other than my preferred one of jumping on the bed and flying across the room.  Eventually, I got through my fragile childhood years and we grew up.   We married and had our babies and lived our lives.  We grew a little older.

Then my sister got sick.

Illness didn’t strike her body, but rather, tragically, it claimed her beautiful mind.  Hit with incapacitating mental illness, my brave sister fought through years of illness deep within her brain.  It took a very long time to find just the right cocktail of medication to keep her even-keeled.  Before finding the right help,  she lost her home, her mobility and most of her dignity.  It took a long time for her to find even a small patch of comfort.  A very long time … and there was nothing I could do.  She had no bedside for me to sit beside.  She wouldn’t let me hold her hand.  Her battle was so very inward, there was no part of her to touch that made a difference.

She’s better now.   We’re both better now.

Now, every week or so, I drive the hour to my sister’s tiny apartment.  I take her to appointments with her doctor or to the store or to the post office.  We go to lunch at her favorite place … it’s always the same, because she’s most comfortable with routine and sameness.  Changes feel abrupt and frightening to her.  So each time, we eat at her favorite place where we try to sit at the same table and eat the same things.

That’s when it hit me — on Monday — in my sister’s favorite restaurant,  mid-dip of my tortilla chip into a scoop of same-o, same-o guacamole.  Right in that moment, I realized that I wouldn’t give up all the miserable, melt-the-skin-off-my-face days of a Phoenix summer, or the sorrow of never seeing a winter snowflake, or watching kids catch fireflies in jars because it’s too hot here for fireflies, or wearing sweaters and scarves because it’s too hot here for ME.   I would NEVER give it up, because in that moment, this past Monday, my sister was smiling because she had just managed to remember a joke she had heard and because we were laughing and laughing and because we were dipping chips into guacamole and it was all just so darned good!

And now my hands are breaking.
Fitting that they should
Change,
Each little finger looking a different way,
bending awkwardly toward a
Future …

Of different, but not less.

~ Auburn McCanta

This just to mention that my little fingers are each beginning to bend in ways I never expected — the right hand in what is medically called, Dupuytren’s Contracture … the left hand beset with simple Arthritis. Like many other parts of my body, my hands are turning different from their former shape … but they are not less. No. They will never be less.

I’ve been quiet lately.  Have you noticed?  Since the birthday marking the start of my Purple Years, as I shall call them, I’ve been especially inward.  Thoughtful.  Within my innards, I’ve shuddered and clanked and reeled and pondered about what it might mean to enter one’s Purple Years.

As it turns out, it’s really not much different from the day before I suddenly became an ancient Purple woman.

Perhaps there’s some extra cautiousness in my conduct (I’m supposed to stay off ladders now) … some spitting in the wind  (I climbed a ladder yesterday just because I’m not supposed to).  Certainly, there’s been a lot of wondering when all that wisdom I’m now supposed to contain is going kick in.  Within this ancient vessel of a body I suddenly inhabit, I’m finding it hard to pry loose any threads of what might be considered “wisdom.”  The best I could muster was getting an osteoporosis bone scan.

I have good bones.

During all this quiet thinking, I remembered an afternoon a few years ago when I dropped in at a rally at the State Capitol.  A group of Chinese drummers were on stage and I was pulled in by the sheer wildness of the drumming.  In the far back corner, I noticed a woman — an older woman, maybe in her 70s, although it was hard to tell from the way she appeared.  She danced and whirled and beat away at a drum so large, it nearly swallowed her up.  I couldn’t take my eyes from her.  In spite of her obvious age, her lined face, her gray hair … she glowed!  She beat that drum with her entire body.  Her feet came off the ground with every stroke.

In that moment, I loved her as I’ve loved no one else.

With nothing but a giant drum and a stick, that tiny woman beat out a path for every other woman to follow.  Her body became the word and the word was … “Joy!”

She was what I shall become — a woman immersed in her craft, sharing her life and her passion to anyone who happens by, beating her drum for sheer pleasure.  There was not a whisper of apology anywhere for the grand noise she made.  She flung her entire body at that drum …  BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM! … and she was magnificent.

So, if I’ve been quiet for a number of days, it’s only because I’ve been making plans to build my drum, to whittle my stick, to walk onto my stage, to make my own grand sounds.

BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM!

Of course, one drum is lonely, but a stage filled with all sorts and manners of drums, beating like noisy hearts, is glorious.  It is life, this drumming together of bodies and thoughts and souls until a story is formed and told.

Yesterday, I was asked if I could have a particular manuscript ready by this weekend to present to someone “in the biz.”  I’m months from completion, but I need to have it ready in four days!  Like a fool, I said yes.   Rather than being wise and cautious, I’m going to spend the next four days with a stick in my hand, beating on a giant story-drum … with joy and reverence and total spit-in-the-wind foolishness.  In the end, I’ll have a completed book … or I won’t.  That doesn’t matter.

It’s simply about the Joy!  The unmitigated, crazy, wild, stand-on-a-stage-and-beat-a-drum joy of doing what I love and doing it as loudly as I possibly can.  I’ll have a ready story or not … but in the meantime, I’ll be the little woman pounding a stick at her keyboard ……

BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM!