The Pine Reel

One Sierra mountain night,

just a few hours before dawn,

(after I had bid the dance hall adieu and

started the slow walk up the trail toward sleep)

there was this moment...

(how do you 
say, “silhouette” in your language?)

when the sky glowed as silver as smooth abalone, and

a solstice moon, through pale gauze clouds,

became back-light to four ancient pine trees.

I was stopped by the beauty of it all:

the perfect relief of form from darkness, and

the Milky Way’s delicate swath high overhead,

stretching across indigo velvet.

I was stopped and so awed that I held my breath

for fear that even the smallest
 disturbance
might wrinkle the night air around me.

And in that moment of reverence,

that one breathless point in time,

I heard an audible sigh from the evergreen quartet.

Mountain air pushed aside the wine,

poured across my face and stung my eyes

as, I stared willfully

into the shadows, and gained clarity just in time

to watch long lacy lower boughs of

those four ancient folk, lift and tremble

in the pearly light.

Back down the hill, music continued filling pockets of night.

Dreams wrapped themselves on blissful pipes,

strokes of bow against strings and laughing drums,

carried more songs of weary but willing revelers.

While out inside the silhouette,

out in the fierce breathe of dawn and miracle,

the trees had joined the reel!

Each strong branch began to bend and bow in rhythm.

What once was rigid, became supple.

What once lived rooted, was set free,
and with silent grace, 
their needled-skirt hems rose over the ground
and four solid trunks were revealed -

shaking off earth and swaying into a motion

that none upon the dance floor would witness,

yet was happening before my eyes with the surety of the sun’s arrival.

Life’s sharp joy pressed against my heart like a prayer,

like a song, and like one trembling, breathless dance
at the glowing edge of moonlight and dawn -

where all things are possible.

2010 © martha lee phelps

What's Left

I used to wait for the flowers,
my pleasure reposed on them.
Now I like plants before they get to the blossom.
Leafy ones – foxgloves, comfrey, delphiniums –

fleshy tiers of strong leaves pushing up
into air grown daily lighter and more sheened
with bright dust like the eyeshadow
that tall young woman in the bookshop wears,
its shimmer and crumble on her white lids.

The washing sways on the line, the sparrows pull
at the heaps of drying weeds that I’ve left around.
Perhaps this is middle age.  Untidy, unfinished,
knowing there’ll never be time now to finish,
liking the plants – their strong lives –
not caring about flowers, sitting in weeds
to write things down, look at things,
watching the sway of shirts on the line,
the cloth filtering light.

I know more or less
how to live through my life now.
But I want to know how to live what’s left
with my eyes open and my hands open;
I want to stand at the door in the rain
listening, sniffing, gaping.
Fearful and joyous,
like an idiot before God.

by Kerrie Hardie

Summertime Checklist

For many of us, having something to look forward to can make the "stuff of life" a little easier to handle when the going gets tough. Here's a short list of what I love about summer in Ashland and what, at this rainy point in the late spring, I turn my hopeful heart toward. Drop a comment and add to the list....

1. Rarely setting alarms and moving to the rhythm of a more natural inner clock.
2. The sound of cicadas singing.
3. Falling asleep to the rhythmic click of the ceiling fan.
4 . Eating every meal on the back porch.
5. Walking barefoot through newly watered grass.
6. The sound of rotating sprinklers on a wide lawn.
7. The smell of Peter Buckley’s barbeque being lit up - night after night.
8. Sitting directly in front of a floor fan.
9. Weeding the garden early in the morning.
10. Long meandering hikes through dusty quiet wood.
11. The familiarity of a Sousa march being played in the band shell in the park.
12. Wading in an icy cold creek, to the point of bright red numbed toes and legs.
13. Bare skin.
14. Looking out from under the brim of a straw hat.
15. Potluck dinners under shady arbors.
16. Raspberries.
17. Crispy, drip down your chin, wet red watermelon.
19. The sound of neighbors laughing through their open screen doors.

20. Candlelight.

21. Ginny reading in the hammock.
22. Going to into an air conditioned movie house and walking back out into a sauna two hours later.
23. Picking and eating - straight from the garden: snap peas, pole beans, warm rip tomatoes.
24. Cotton dresses.
25. Marveling at the 4th of July territorial parade watching shenanigans.
26. Dancing under the moon.
27. Sneaking around the neighborhood after dark, playing hide and seek.
28. The thrill of the lemonade stand.
29. Driving with the windows down.

30. Cold beer - in quantity - combined with an equal share of good friends.

31. Putting away the lawn mower - job well done.
32. The first thunderstorm - it’s electrical charge and that delicious smell of wet, hot pavement.
33. Popsicles consumed in a good people watching place.
34. Outdoor concerts with starlight and half moon rising by the fourth song.

35. Driving to the coast - and the way the air temp drops 30 degrees on the other side of the tunnel!
36. The purple vetch that covers the foothills until mid July.
37. Campfires - story telling, poking sticks into the coals, the way the flames make faces glow.
38. Picking blackberries..eating blackberries...picking - eating - picking - eating.
39. The sheer voluptuousness and bounty of the stalls at the Growers Market.

40. Painting in my bikini.

41. Sprinkler games.
42. Gracie playing fiddle tunes outdoors at dusk.
43. Fresh Basil...armfuls of it...
44. Sinking - more fully - into the warm, full, ripe, inviting moments of each day.

Ode to Common Things
by Pablo Neruda

I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love
cups,
rings,
and bowls -
not to speak, or course,
of hats.
I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the
infinite-
ly
small -
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.
Oh yes,
the planet
is sublime!
It’s full of pipes
weaving
hand-held
through tobacco smoke,
and keys
and salt shakers -
everything,
I mean,
that is made
by the hand of man, every little thing:
shapely shoes,
and fabric,
and each new
bloodless birth
of gold,
eyeglasses
carpenter’s nails,
brushes,
clocks, compasses,
coins, and the so-soft
softness of chairs.
Mankind has
built
oh so many
perfect
things!
Built them of wool
and of wood,
of glass and
of rope:
remarkable
tables,
ships, and stairways.
I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don’t know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine;
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms
glasses, knives and
scissors -
all bear
the trace
of someone’s fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.
I pause in houses,
streets and
elevators
touching things,
identifying objects
that I secretly covet;
this one because it rings,
that one because
it’s as soft
as the softness of a woman’s hip,
that one there for its deep-sea color,
and that one for its velvet feel.
O irrevocable
river
of things:
no one can say
that I loved
only
fish,
or the plants of the jungle and the field,
that I loved
only
those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.
It’s not true:
many things conspired
to tell me the whole story.
Not only did they touch me,
or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death.

Red Pushpins

Twenty-seven years ago tomorrow, I witnessed the birth of my nephew, Jarrett.

It wasn’t pre-planned that I should have the honor of being a part of his arrival. I was home from college for mother’s day weekend, merely doing the dutiful May visit, when my sister went into labor. Like a red pushpin in a map of significant places one has visited, I can point back to that Sunday afternoon and say, “That was a defining moment of my life.”

It was one part - seeing courage in my beloved sister that I’d never seen before; it was one part the wonder of generations squeezed into a very warm, very small bedroom for a birth in the home I had grown up in; it was one part the gift of observing love’s commitment between my sister and her husband, and it was one part the miraculous itself: a perfect, dark-haired, squirming-with-life baby boy.

I returned to college in a state of pure joy and huge desire to tell friends back at school what I had seen, how it felt and why I was changed. Sadly but truly, I was greeted by people who either listened for two minutes before shrugging and turning back to their accounting 301 textbook - or worse, those who said, “Oh yeah, I saw a movie in high school health.” I knew it was alright. I mean, I understood that I really couldn’t expect someone who has never eaten an apple to understand it’s taste and texture, but I also knew that my change was going to create ripples. Namely, I now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could never ever have children with the young man I was engaged to. And if I could never ever have children with him, I knew that I could not marry him.

That moment of birth became the first of nearly three decades of decisions I have made wherein my “mother self,” out of the many selves that reside within me, took charge of casting the final vote for all major life decisions. My “mother self” has been strong, resilient, determined, fiercely protective, very loving - and has always (sometimes to a fault) put her children first. While my other personae have occasionally disagreed with her choices over the years, they’ve let her drive the ship -- until recently.

With Mother’s Day upon us, the day that I do not consider a Hallmark-induced experience, rather - the day of my nephew's birth and the beginning of how motherhood would define my life, there are changes underway. Worn by joy as well as grief, my “mother self” has resigned - not her duty - but her post, and while she remains diligent she has definitely passed the baton. Someone else is at the helm. Now, if ever I didn’t quite fit before, I will surely shatter any June Clever mold in which I might be expected to conform.

As my wise friend Katie said to me last spring, “I know that you still have mothering to do, but the tide has shifted. You get to look forward and envision what’s next in your life - with work, artistry, in finding a partner, where you go next and why. Now, you can choose what’s best for Martha. It may be scary, but it’s also exciting.” Damn straight, Katie.

So, in honor of the ever-changing continuum of motherhood and the strong women who embrace it, and in celebration of my children whom I love more than any single thing in the world, I’m placing a new red pushpin on the map and changing course. And last, but not least, happy birthday, Jarrett. I love you very much.

 

(to my children)

I do not doubt you would have liked

one of those pretty mothers in the ads:

complete with adoring husband and happy children.

She's always smiling, and if she cries at all

it is absent of lights and camera,

makeup washed from her face.

But since you were born of my womb, I should tell you:

ever since I was small like you

I wanted to be myself -- and for a woman that's hard --

(even my Guardian Angel refused to watch over me

when she heard).

I cannot tell you that I know the road.

Often I lose my way

and my life has been a painful crossing

navigating reefs, in and out of storms,

refusing to listen to the ghostly sirens

who invite me into the past,

neither compass nor binnacle to show me the way.

But I advance,

go forward holding to the hope

of some distant port

where you, my children -- I'm sure --

will pull in one day

after I've been lost at sea.

by Daisy Zamora ~

A Lifetime Love Affair (Part III)

 
(In the form of a letter to my middle child, this is the final portion of a three part blog started on April 28, 2010 about expression of self and that which feeds our souls. The links will take you to some of my favorite pieces of poetry written by the highlighted poet. May you be "found" by something extraordinary in this offering. ~ mlp)

So, for years I’ve been telling you that one of the truly unique aspects of you playing the violin well -- will be that your violin will always be a friend to you. You can play it in joy; you can play it in sorrow. Through your fingers and abilities, your instrument may be an extension of your heart; it could be your only solace at times when lonely - and it might express love at times when words fail you. That’s been poetry for me, Sarah, both in the reading and the writing of it.
 
There’s been Rumi, Kabir and Whyte for honest prayer; Piercy, Hirschfield and Stafford for grounded awakening; Collins, Rilke, Merwin and Whitman for learning and reflection; Neruda and Kinnell for toe-curling passion, and my beloved Oliver for purpose, joy and deep humility.
 
There have been moments in my life when words failed me - whether in celebration, despair or even complete and utter boredom with living itself -  and I felt momentarily lost...until the arrival of a poem: my life’s version of a well-played violin.
 
Last fall when your brother was diagnosed with cancer, poetry from unexpected places and unknown poets arrived for me like small life rings from the universe. It was as if, in the absence of an answer to my pleading “why?” - God tossed out vessels of comfort -- in a form that would reach my heart -- to say, “There is no answer that will suffice, but let these words of reflection remind you that all will be well.”
 
"September Meditation" by Burton D. Carley
I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.
I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars.
I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall's gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow.
I do not know if the air remembers September
 or if the night remembers the moon.
I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so.
Perhaps that is the reason for our births -- to be the memory for creation.
Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.
Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer:
"What can you tell me about September?"

Praying

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

~ Mary Oliver ~

So, Sarah Grace, this whole rambling post started as the result of an argument we had about...a poem. It was or rather, is, a poem written by the other of my all time favorites, e e cummings. I thought I knew which cummings piece was my most beloved. I was certain for over twenty years, that “i carry your heart” was THE one. But then a few months ago quite by accident, I found the very poem that I offered you to take to your English class on Wednesday morning. 

You didn't want to.

Thank you for reminding me how much I love this art form and why; thanks too for giving me a chance to recall my dearest friends and their wisdom, and for inspiring me to tell you a story that might come in handy some day. Lastly, my love, thank you for reminding me that it is the poem that finds us, and only when the time is right...

~ I love you, Mom

"let it go"


let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love

~ e. e. cummings ~

A Lifetime Love Affair (Part II)

(This is the second installment of a lengthy post. Part I was published on April 28.)

If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air,
if you were not an amber week,

not the yellow moment
when autumn climbs up through the vines;
if you were not that bread the fragrant moon
kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky,

oh, my dearest, I would not love you so!
But when I hold you I hold everything that is--
sand, time, the tree of the rain,

everything is alive so that I can be alive:
without moving I can see it all:
in your life I see everything that lives.         ~Pablo Neruda


My first book of Pablo Neruda's poems were given to me on my eighteenth birthday. I had little life experience to filter his exquisite writing through. Roger Housden says in the opening of his book, Ten Poems to Change Your Life, that good poetry has the power to start a fire in your life, and I think that’s what happened for me with Neruda. I mean, I had already been exposed to good poetry. But it had all come to me at someone else’s behest. With the arrival of Neruda’s love sonnets and odes, I now began seeking new poems and their writers on my own accord. A fire had been lit within me that felt so marvelously untamed and warm, I wanted to stoke the flame with more fuel.

Fortunately, an English major in college is in the perfect spot for foraging. Barbara Clark-Mossberg gave me an education in the fireside poets and the likes of Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville and Thoreau that had my mind and senses overflowing. Ed Coleman, my beloved adviser, baptized me in the African American poets: Gwendolyn Brooks, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni and others found their way into my marrow. Gloria Johnson stood, with her open Riverside collection of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, and read aloud in class in lilting iambic pentameter that made perfect sense - nearly all the time! I read, listened to and wrote prose and poetry in an environment that inspired more exploration and discovery than I had previously known. This is, of course, one of the beautiful aspects of going to college and studying what you are passionate about. There is plenty of encouraging support around you.

When I graduated, with a bachelor’s degree in English and minors in creative writing and folklore and ethnic studies, I began to make my way toward being a teacher. I hadn’t forgotten that my ten-year old self had a different career goal, but I figured that instilling a love for literature, poetry and writing in children would be a worthy way to make a difference in the world. And it did. Poetry study in my LA classes were NOTHING like what I had encountered in high school. We learned the language, read contemporary works, listened to rock, pop and rap music, threw out the rule books, wrote constantly, shared daily - and had fun. Imagine that?

At home, in my carefree life before motherhood, poetry was present daily. Your dad wooed me in fairly romantic fashion with a piece called “A Late Aubade” by Richard Wilbur, not long after I met him - 

You could be sitting now in a carrel

Turning some liver-spotted page,

Or rising in an elevator-cage

Toward Ladies' Apparel.

You could be planting a raucous bed

Of salvia, in rubber gloves,

Or lunching through a screed of someone's loves

With pitying head.

Or making some unhappy setter

Heel, or listening to a bleak

Lecture on Schoenberg's serial technique.

Isn't this better?

Think of all the time you are not

Wasting, and would not care to waste,

Such things, thank God, not being to your taste.

Think what a lot

Of time, by woman's reckoning,

You've saved, and so may spend on this,

You who had rather lie in bed and kiss

Than anything.

It's almost noon, you say? 
If so,
Time flies, and I need not rehearse

The rosebuds-theme of centuries of verse.

If you mustgo,

Wait for a while, then slip downstairs

And bring us up some chilled white wine,

And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine

Ruddy-skinned pears.


...and perhaps this poem even had something to do with why I fell in love with him? I certainly remember the sound of his voice as he read to me, as well as the light in the room and the texture of the ripe pear he had placed gently in my hand.

You see, Sarah, the right poem can change not only the way you see yourself, but it can change the way you see the world. At the least, it entertains us with images and rhythm, at the most though -- it gives us permission, welcomes forgiveness, dares us to push pass the edges of the safety net that we live so much of life within and sustains us when the of life territory feels new, scary, raw and wild.

By the time your older brother had arrived, a decade after Neruda was born into my heart, I had come to realize that one of the biggest reasons I loved poetry so very very much, was because the truly gifted poets - somehow, some -inexplicable- how, seemed to be able to put into words my exact feelings about certain things and experiences - when even I could not. How was this possible? I couldn’t explain it, but felt it deeply and truly. 



(End of Part II)

Tissue and Laptops

Illness sucks.
There’s just no question about it.
Illness - big, small, temporary, long term - in all it’s manifestations - is a drag.
Circumstances around illness can make the situation much more tolerable or completely inhumane. For the record, let me acknowledge how blessed my life has been and say very clearly - I am deeply grateful for the fact that I have not dealt, ever, with completely inhumane circumstances.

See, I’ve been down with a pretty sore throat, fever and general malaise for the past twenty-four hours. It’s been quite uncomfortable, actually. And those who know me well, know that for me to take to my bed - and actually stay in it - usually means that I feel really, really crummy.

But here’s the deal - I’m snug in my home, the roof is solid, there’s sunlight shining through the curtained windows that I can look through from my comfortable bed, and I have not one - but three pillows propping me up. I’m pausing to sneeze and wipe my nose (yes, on tissue), and then I’m pondering how I’ll need to sterilize this laptop when I feel better.

Tissue and laptops? Yeah right. I’d say that having a nasty virus in my world is easy-peasy compared to what folks in other places, under more difficult circumstances have to deal with. I’d hate to have a head cold just after an earthquake or tsunami, for example - just after having my home reduced to rubble or losing someone I love. I’d hate to have a fever in a little tin roofed shack that is shared by five other people and getting clean water involves a long walk to a well or a river.

It’s important to count blessings every day, even if one is counting in between nose blows. It’s vital to look around notice not only what makes life “tolerable“ but what - when put in the proper perspective - makes it pretty damned extraordinary and miraculous.

With gratitude ~ mlp

Squeak (Part II)

(A continuation from yesterday's post...
Death Valley, California
Monday, March 22, 2010)

Badwater Basin and the Salt Flats were incredibly beautiful. 

With Telescope Peak rising to its full 11,000 feet on the west and Dante's Pass behind us, we tip-toed around honeycombed basins of salt water. The rims of delicate crystal and mineral deposits, encircling each pool like lace-work and hand-hewn tatting, stretched for miles around us. The whole white scene was blinding to the eye and compelling to the soul. We simply HAD to look.

The girls picked carefully at the salt deposits. Mindful of the strength of their human hands on this hardy yet tender ecosystem, they touched with tenderness and marveled at the wet glistening gems on their palms and the sensation of soft chalk that it left on their skin. None of us could resist putting out tongues against our fingertips, as though our palates were the final authority of whether or not this was, in fact, a salt basin.

Heading back toward Furnace Creek, we detoured along the Artists Palate Drive to see an amazing crayola box of natural hues stacked upon each other throughout the surrounding cliffs and hills. 

This particular spot is a six mile stretch of tribute of the planet's age and ever-changing form - the layers of color showed us where glaciers, volcanoes, water, ice and heat have all conspired over time to geologically blend and separate varying colors and textures. It was powerful to acknowledge that whole mountains have uplifted and laid themselves upon one another, like great stone sweaters on a shelf. Moving mountains...now there's a concept.

Rich dark browns, tans, reds, black, beautiful swaths of palest blue, washed-out green and even an occasional stripe of lavender showed up for us as we roller coaster-ed through the looping narrow road of the scenic drive. 

 

The squeak had retired, both literally and metaphorically, as we made our way along in the Beckinator with mid day desert heat rising around us. 

Virginia's biggest concern was the number of images her wee Nikon would hold. Sarah was momentarily beyond concerns, as she was on an internal hike deep into a John Muir-ian state of being. I was just hanging out in a willingly suspended state of awe - for the day, the planet and the miracle known as "right now." 

Presence

presence -
is about holding
true, beautiful,
strong and vibrant no matter
who is
or is not
watching.

it is a way,
a manner and a spirit
brought to each moment —

without self importance,
without self recrimination,
yet with
the truest of one's Self

it is the all-at-once recognition
that
we are both essential and non
essential,
and always
we are able
to choose
presence

in grace and love.

Words & Art

“Every now and again take a good look at something 

not made with hands:

a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. 

There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and,

above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world.” 

~Sidney Lovett

"Bird" monotype-collage by Martha Lee Phelps

Available for purchase

Tardy Due to Detour

I’m running a tad bit behind this morning, but what the heck. It’s Friday, after all, and the sun is shining in truly glorious ‘queen of the heavens’ fashion, and I’m my own boss-lady; so hey, what’s a few extra minutes? See, this is one of the perks of having a home studio.

Having been a public schools teacher for sixteen years and then an “in the office - in the field” park manager for another decade, I think I have a thorough understanding of the schedule many working parents keep. I know about early (and late) staff meetings, punching in by a certain clock time, being unreachable all day long, sprinting to do my banking between work’s end and the bank’s close, squeezing the household and garden chores into evenings and weekends, that panicky feeling one gets in their gut when the alarm clock doesn’t go off, showing up even when ill, giving my kids every spare moment and giving my friends the meager leftovers. Of course, I also remember the regular paycheck, the decent benefits, the community of co-workers, the measured successes that could be seen and appreciated, the uninterrupted flow of the days, the clear boundaries between work and home, the clear boundaries between “on” time and “off” time, and the rhythm of the calendar that gave me a sense of balance and calm.

I remember both sides of that particular and very special coin.

Now, I have a different coin in my pocket. It’s a little foreign to me, so I’m still learning it’s value. On the one hand, I can work any time of the day or night. If it’s a beautiful morning like this, I can opt to take a walk right now - and work on my client’s website after sundown. But of course, if I choose to work in the evenings, then my children get a little less of me when they need my time and attention. So when interesting weather beckons, I choose carefully.

Scheduling my days requires a precise, mildly uncomfortable-at-times discipline known as “keeping on track,” wherein there are constant neon sign-like distractions winking and flashing at me. Friends and family know exactly where to find me and in loving, uninhibited fashion sometimes drop by to say “howdy.” Those who do it too often or stay too long have suffered my impatience, as I truly don’t like being interrupted when I’m “in the zone.” Neither do I always answer the home phone, even though it’s ringing only a few feet away from my desk. After all - if I were “at work,” I couldn’t answer it there, so why should I do so here - “at work?”

But the wonderful flip side is that there are many occasions when someone will call first (what a concept!), and I’ll be able to take a coffee break with them down the street at the Roasting Company, or we’ll go for a quick power walk, or I’ll sit on the stoop with them for fifteen minutes and hear the latest news. It can be lovely and rejuvenating, and often helps stimulate fresh ideas for my next wave of industriousness.

The importance of keeping the place tidy is greater now, for client visits, so I’ve learned to juggle some of my chores at the same time I’m operating in my office. Starting the washer or dryer is a walk down the hall, taking out the recycle is three minutes of fresh air, and sweeping the kitchen gets tacked onto lunchtime (which I also get to share with my fourteen year old most days, when she walks home from school for a quick bite).
The home-based cubicle offers multitasking at it’s best, which says a lot - since I personally think multitasking with anything other than domestic chores is a bad idea, but that’s a topic for another day!

I absolutely miss my professional community and the sense of being a part of a greater good that one can sometimes attain in a cooperative environment. I definitely miss the regular salary and benefits, but have learned a lot about faith, hard work and creating abundance. I sometimes miss the respect and understanding that others have for more easily defined careers, but I have huge gratitude for those who take the time to acknowledge and encourage me to continue pursuing work that I love.

So this morning after dropping off my youngest at school, as I drove through town, I saw an elderly man in a bright tropical shirt standing in the very very brisk 30 degree morning sunlight with his thumb out for a ride. I pulled over. My hitchhiker climbed into the warm car, smiled broadly at me and introduced himself. “Walter” had just missed the bus and was on his was to an AA meeting on the opposite end of town. I asked him if there weren’t closer meetings to his home, and he replied that there are, but he just loved the community of friends he has at the further location. I drove him all the way to the meeting while we talked about Ashland, her people, about how times change and how grateful we both felt to be where we are on such a fine day. He was kind and hopeful and reflective. The drive was simple to make. As I dropped him off and shook his hand, I said a little prayer of thanks for many many things.

This too, is one of the perks being the CEO of Martha Phelps Studio: on my way to work, I can choose to make a slight detour, and it can make a little difference.

May you all have a wonderful weekend, and may your schedules afford you an opportunity for a detour or two. ~ mlp

P.S. Thanks for the tardy pass, AJ! See, I wasn't just putting on my lipstick!

March 10, 1929

Today, Like Every Other Day

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Rumi

Happy 81st Birthday,
to the woman who has not only taught but also shown me,
that there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
I love you.

Jeanette Alden Bennett Phelps!

Los Angeles, California 1935
Six years old with her elder brother Norman
and younger brother Charles

1946 - Top of her class at LA High

June 19, 1948 Mr. and Mrs. Dean Phelps

1962 - Baby #5

1966-ish

1977 Dancing with her younger brother, Chuck

Late 70's

1990 (Baby Reid)

 60th wedding anniversary

Taken this last August 09 with Reid

Behind The Door

I love this small hometown of mine. I truly do. I love my childhood memories, the comfort of belonging, the safety of well known places and sensations, the lifelong friends as well as the recent. I love the deep abiding sense of community. This place and its people have taken care of me and mine, and I feel honored to do the same for those around us. Perhaps, because of the depth of my familiarity, I am equally aware of the degree to which none of us can every really know one another completely.

None of us really knows or understands all of what unfolds behind the doors of other people’s homes. How can we? Even with friends and family we’ve known for years, sharing the heights of celebrations and the depths of challenges, there are always dimensions in other’s lives that we simply cannot be privy to unless we reside together. Frankly, even those with whom I have the deepest affection, I don’t spend much time wondering about the unseen aspects of my friends and neighbors’ lives. I trust that what they choose to share will be right for them, that it’s up to me to care, learn and pay attention, and that together we decide whether to be in relationship - and to what degree. As for what others know of my “behind the door” life, I am as honest as there is interest and sincerity. Since I’m a fairly average person, I don’t imagine that too many folks apart from my close friends could care less about the innards of my household, so it’s always a surprise to me to discover that my life has been the topic of a conversation among people who hardly know me. Wow, I think. Someone must be either really bored or really confused (as in, you think there’s a more interesting story here than there actually is). So - for those of you who fall into one of these categories, here’s a little bit of sharing about what happens behind my door on a typical day. Hope it scratches your itch, and let me just say up front, sorry to disappoint you.

We like pie in our family, so I’ll use a pie chart to explain a 24 hour cycle in my world. My three children have effectively divided their mother (that would be me) and my time into three portions. Here’s how is goes, more or less:

The littlest one (a nine year old), gets the night-into-morning portion. After her dad moved out last spring, my youngest daughter moved into the master bedroom. One night of needing a place to recover from a bad dream became a second night, and then a third....and now every night she lays on “my side” of the bed sighing deeply in her dreams and occasionally allowing me to curl into her small warm body. When I am lonely, I am tremendously grateful for the radiance of her small spirit next to me. When I am exhausted, I fall into the blankets hoping that neither of us will disturb the other.

She is a relentless morning person. I am not. She bolts upright and looks eagerly at the clock. I do not. She has a plan; right now. I simply wish to continue sleeping. Her plan always includes speaking to me; right now. She is learning to start off softly and gently (my grumpy threats about the necessity of being nicer to mom in the morning seem to be paying off); thank goodness. Each day, we take turns making the bed - comforter up, pillows in place, and the creatures (Chestnut the lion, Alice the elephant, Dexter the mouse, and Tommy and Dixie - the pigs) all assume their lounging atop the smoothed blankets. Yesterday morning, as I placed the menagerie against the pillows and surveyed the stack of children’s books on the headboard, I felt very cranky. Where is my adulthood? I gnashed. Where is the privacy of MY bedroom? I grumbled. It was a frivolous moment - some would say a “typical American mother moment” - of wanting “my space.” For now though, this is her major third of my pie - which I willingly give (while sometimes fearfully wondering if she’ll be there until she’s eighteen? Yikes!).

My eldest, my son - claims the banker’s hours (or these days, doctor’s office hours) of each day. This is the nineteen year old whom I thought had been successfully launched into his own life. Hugged, kissed and sent off to college a year ago, he was off like a rocket! Well, Houston, we have a problem. Launch delayed due to cancer. Most days we move in parallel. He has his routine (sleeping, healing, labs, doctors appointments, girlfriend, eating, more sleeping, distractions from leukemia - like video games, buddies, books and movies) and I have mine (waking him, making sure he’s eating, taking him to the appointments, watching-listening-questioning-advocating with the docs and nurses, arguing with him about the hours he keeps, worrying about him, feeding him - and his girlfriend, learning more about leukemia than I ever would have imagined in two million years. When his blood counts are dangerously low...and they are each month in between rounds of chemo, we really don’t know from one day to the next if he might be required to stay longer at the clinic for a hemoglobin, or red cell, or white cell infusion. He is vulnerable, and his body’s responses are unpredictable. These days we’ve found that making plans is a luxury we don’t get to enjoy since the best laid plans of cancer families are often dashed. We’re not in control. Period.

I was laid off from my job not too long ago, which is what makes it possible for me to devote myself to being my boy’s primary caregiver while he weathers the chemotherapy storm he’s been in since September and will be until February. This is my new job. I feel privileged to be here for him, to witness, love, hold tender and be fierce for him. I also feel scared, for him and his life, for his sisters and their lives, for our precarious financial situation, of all of the unknowns and this feeling that everything is out of control. On days that he feels well and strong, he ventures out to act “normal” in the light of day, and I do small freelance jobs from my office here at home. It’s quiet then and a little bit lonely, but peaceful.

My middle kid, gets the afternoons and evenings. This sassy high school freshman is my soccer player, swimmer, violin playing, youth symphony girl with nearly unflagging optimism and a nearly regular smile. Back before her older brother’s cancer, her intense schedule had us all panting to keep up. Now, she manages - mostly - to navigate it on her own, except for the times she needs a ride, or an audience, or her own special witness to the passions that fill her heart. She doesn’t ask for much, which makes me want to offer her that little something extra, and she’s more helpful than not, which makes me want to hold her closely - even when the day has been longer than usual. When she arrives home I want to take more than just a moment to hear about her friendships, inquire about the school day, listen to the radio songs she’s singing along with and watch the rhythmic way she moves around the house.

Dinner comes, and my son’s sweetheart is usually with us, and we all take our places around the table. This is it. Me - with four kids and a dog - at the end of the day. I sigh. It is a grateful sigh, a tired sigh, a “this isn’t what I thought my life was going to look like” sigh, a single mom sigh, and a blessing sigh. I actually wish I could give them each a larger slice, but I’m only one pie - no matter how hard I try to be more.

This is not a horrible life. This is a blessed and beautifully complex life. This is not an idle life. This is a full and multi-faceted life. This is not a life of mystery and mischief-making. This is pretty damned straight forward and honest to the point of discomfort life. This is a life infused with love between children and mother, as well as between family and friends. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t missing being more then a mother some days. At times, I’m hungry for the unique woman I am apart from the “mother-me,” and then my kids tell me that they love me, and I figure “pie be damned.”

If you see me out without my kids in this wonderful small town of ours - alone or with a friend - then you’ve witnessed a unique and fleeting moment in my present life. And if after reading this lengthy snapshot of the ordinary life behind my front door, you still think there’s some more thrilling version that’s not being shared - go ahead and ask me whatever it is you’re curious about, or better yet - come on over and trade places with me for a couple of days. I’d appreciate the short vacation - and I can promise you - you won’t be bored.