Remembering Georgia

Remembering today. Not sure why, but the memory of a woman I met in my traveling days has settled in my mind today, a friend of a few days only, but a person with enough mystery and originality in her chosen way of life to occupy any writer for many pages indeed. Her name is lost to me – it has been 36 years – but I will name her Georgia, since the name would suit her. I don’t doubt she is gone from this world by now, or about to leave it. She was in her late fifties or early sixties when I met her, wrinkled from eyes to knees, with fine lines everywhere as if her body had shrunk and left her skin to do what it wished to make up the difference, draped over a well made structure of bird-like bones. Indeed that is one of the things that HAD happened to her that I know of. She showed me pictures of herself as she had been 10 years or so before I met her – in Texas, married to a businessman, dressed robustly in the wifely uniform of the middle class fifties, dotted blouse, long skirt fortified with petticoats, her hair in a teased blond buffont. And she was plump, even alarmingly so. Her blue eyes looked out from under a stiff thatch of mascara. Her lips were ruby bright, smiling falsely in the glare of the camera flash. She had just won a contest held by the Ladies Orchid Society of Houston or some such organization dedicated to virtue and flowers and middle class behavior control. She was surrounded by a coterie of similar women, sealed into a life different in every way imaginable from the one she lived now.

There was irony in her smile as she gazed down on the photo, self-bemusement that she clearly wanted to share. We sat in her small house some 12 feet off the ground in a tree, among a village of such casually constructed dwellings at the base the cliff that fronts the Timor Sea in front of Darwin Australia. Langtang village, it was called then, a hippie rest stop for traveling backpackers bound to Asia just to the north, or returning from it. One could live for almost nothing there in the early 1970’s – just get off the bus and settle into any recently vacated treehouse, or create one of your own. Join communal dinners at a nightly fire where a pot of rice and beans simmered and everyone was welcomed in to help chop vegetables and make music, to smoke hashish and linger in the slow Australian twilight, telling stories of where they had been or where they were going.

Georgia had one of the nicest houses in Langtang, high enough to require a ladder. It had been cleverly constructed by a series of previous occupants, bright and sunny with an ocean view and with a real double bed mattress well shielded by tarps from the daily afternoon thunderstorms we all endured, replete with menacing black walls of rain and driving winds. A basin tied into the roots of her aerial kitchen held her plates and cups. A water container and foodstuffs were neatly stacked on shelves, and the pictures, of that other life in an utterly different place, were tacked to branches above us.

In the year she had been there, Georgia had shared this dwelling with a series of lovers, mostly merchant marine sailors who came and went as their vessels allowed them. Currently the man in question was a burly black haired Frenchman she favored with real affection, though I glimpsed him only once. When he was gone, she even sent him letters, dressing for the occasion of going up the cliff to the Darwin post office in a long hand embroidered dress of brilliant saffire blue and then carefully cinching it at the waist with a bright yellow and orange Nepalese sash she had been given. On days when she did not leave the village in the trees, she wore nothing at all, as we were all free to do (though I was shy enough to wear at least a sarong). Her greying yellow hair danced in curls about her always smiling face, and she moved as gracefully as a dancer. I met her one morning as we both went for water at a spigot on the side of a giant city cistern some half mile down the beach. When the long slow tide pulled out, the way was opened, though rocky, and we made our way carefully, laughing and telling our stories, water jugs carried on shoulder or head, feeling graceful and connected to the place. Natives out of time, warmed by sun and freedom, eager for the gifts of each novel day.

I was 26 that year, a natural time in life for adventures, for trying things out with all the daring one can muster. But Georgia? In years she was closing on elderly. In spirit, she seemed to have gone beyond all time. In my memory she lived at the edge of the world, wide open to joy, accepting the changes of each day, and never calling them loss.
Looking back now, less sanguine in my own early sixties, I wonder what extraordinary earthquake of the soul could have taken her so far. Was she mentally ill? She did not seem so. She bubbled, but she did not babble. It was a spiritual sea change that had moved her. And a fearlessness I had not ever seen before.

I remember her now perhaps because I have at last arrived at her time of life – in a far different place and state of mind. It seems to me sometimes that all my daring was spent in those years of traveling. Now I sit like a barnacle, locked into routine that has staled my mind almost into unconsciousness, too timid - so far - to let go of prudence even a little. In a year I face a decision, to retire with a meager monthly check and dare to try new things again - or stay on, cautious and fading, to a healthier income. The world calls to me again. Georgia laughs at me out of her bright eyed, wrinkled, ageless face. Love, she whispers. Live. Don’t be afraid.
I’m trying.

Ah Jarvenpa, and you non-commital millions following my (nearly non-existent) blog, you are quite right that i need to bestir myself. What a lazy blogger i turned out to be. First overwhelmed by the events in Palestine. Then lost again in the vast, yet compelling trivia of daily life. Yet writing should be nearly as easy as thinking shouldn't it? And I surely do that. So here goes. I shall try a new mode. More often, but short. And perhaps someday aspire to the the essays and profound observations Jarvenpa herself regularly creates with such easy grace.

The white pit bull - Zeus is his name - now lives downstairs, his owner and I having had a falling out. But he has left behind his sidekick, Gigantor, a minute female cat, barely out of kittenhood, who was raised with this Chenghiz Khan of a dog and lies there lazily as a mouth bigger than her entire body looms over her and a tongue longer than her length swashes over her. Gigantor is befuddled. She had only just gotten used to living in my apartment and is quite astonished that all "her people" have now vacated to the apartment below. Or maybe its mostly that i serve up Fancy Feast to any one who might like some about 9am every morning. And she has discovered, after a short life of nibbling Zeus's kibble remnants, that she does indeed like Fancy Feast. And several quiet hidden sleeping spots not subject to the sound of video game machine guns.
in fact I am quite appreciative of all the new found silence of my apartment myself - though i do miss Zeus. It all started one night when his owner - my former housemate's boyfriend, who had come with her when she returned to live in my spare room as the solution to a temporary housing crisis, returned from outside and encountered a skunk on my deck. The cornered skunk let loose, as cornered skunks do, and the boyfriend, after roaring by me to the shower with reeking dog in tow, was so put out that he couldn't stop roaring for hours - and would accept no apologies or explanations at all for the kibble i had left out that had drawn the skunks.
Sigh.
It was not violent in the end. But it was a glimpse of violence - of living with a man who is capable of such out of control emotion and it taught me a lot - mostly profound sympathy for the SO many who are trapped in such situations. We made up eventually. Mutual apologies passed by letter, and then grudging courtesies. But i asked him to leave and he gladly went. Fortunately the room below me opened up and made it easy for him to take girlfriend and dog and simply move out of my sight with no great hardship (he is unemployed and making him - and Zeus and Gigantor - homeless - was not a burden of conscience i wanted). The rent below is even less - since they are renting out the living room as well. The world's belt tightening all around me - but that is a topic for another blog.
Til soon, or sooner at least, i promise,
Ocean Lady

Its spring and I'm trying out a new blog post with my class.

More then 500 Gazans killed now. 111 children. Ambulances targeted. Families taking refuge in UN school wiped out. The Israelis' indignantly accuse Hamas of taking refuge among civilians and say they must attack these buildings in order to root them out. Where else are they supposed to go in this tiny state? And who are they "rooting out" - sons and fathers and brothers of the families inside? Whoever could imagine that bombing a whole apartment building to punish a single man is a justifiable, reasonable moral idea? And where is it even remotely safe for anyone in Gaza right now? Two images stay with me, a 10 year old girl, her beautiful dark eyes wide with utter terror, looking from side to side at the horrors surrounding her in a hospital waiting room, her lips shaking so much she cannot speak. And another, the face of a very young unconscious boy, tender as a flower, the curve of a tiny ear, the long lashes resting on his cheek. A neighbor had brought him into hospital when his family was blown up, left him there without a friend, or even a name to wake to, or any memory but fire and pain when those soft brown eyes, too soon, open again.

"We had to give an answer," Israeli's say. "We had to stop the shelling." And surely they have given an answer. And surely the result will be more of what they have experienced in the past decades of hellish interactions: a bitter, despairing, wounded, captive people living among them. "We are doing everything we can to avoid civilian casualties." one Israeli official says stonefaced. "Israel knows nothing about any civilian casualties." says another. "I would like to kill them all," a man in the street is quoted as saying. "Well, actually, most Israelis don't think much about the welfare of Palestinians," an experienced observer remarks. "Its deeply regrettable, but we simply have to do it," say many more. And their plan? To take out all the rocket launchers and the "militants" firing them and, one gathers, and then leave behind the smoking bloody ruins of Gaza with again little or no thought at all for the welfare of those who remain. Let the UN fix it.

And Hamas? What level of insanity lead them to believe that firing hundreds of rockets would lead to the end of Israel's blockade? What rage-induced blindness leads them to continue firing in the face of the invasion?

A sign of insanity, if I paraphrase correctly, is continuining to expect a different result from something that has repeatedly not worked in the past. Surely both Hamas and Israelis are suffering from the same grinding painful obsession - that by hurting the other so much, the other will stop hurting them.

Imagine, just imagine, an hour when everyone that quivering country stopped hating or fearing. When leaders on both side opened themselves to concern for the well-being not just of their own population, but of the others, their close neighbors and distant cousins, who live so near, who truly, share so much. When plans were made to enhance the lives of both. When Palestinians were given something to live for, and encountered Israelis as friends and co-workers on government sponsored projects together. When those who continued to fire rockets, or make insulting statements, or harrass others were treated simply as criminals and arrested by the combined efforts of both governments. Hard to get there from here no doubt. But surely a direction worth trying with as much energy as the insanity now unfolding?

One Road Only

Over 200 dead in Gaza my newspaper reports today. A military strike on "Hamas compounds". Violent reactions and demonstrations beginning all over the Middle East. Yet what moves me most is the account of a father weeping in the street for a son he had just sent out for cigarettes, beating his head with his hands in surrender to complete despair. It is hard for me to imagine the weight of suffering that is being borne now in so many places and most especially in Gaza.

I live in easy California, yet I found myself in a grinding circle of dark thoughts yesterday simply because a small feral cat that i feed was missing, and new, somewhat combative neighbors had spoken of having two raccoons i also feed trapped and removed. Had she been caught in their trap? Was she even now terrorized in a facility somewhere, scheduled to die. I have fed this cat for 15 years, worried over her well-being, tried vainly to bring her in from the cold, and been rewarded only by her willingness now, not to run as i stand 5 feet from her, sweet-talking away. The thought of her suffering brought grief that i could not shake. And even worse the thought of others causing her grief brought unaccustomed anger. A whole drama of surging possiblities and dark emotions over the welfare of this little cat took me over. Lying in bed at night my thoughts raced uncontrollably, a tortuous energy that no amount of self talk turned off. For the first time in my life i took a sleeping pill. The cat reappeared the next day. The neighbors had done nothing.

What oh what then do those whose children or parents or beloved husbands or wives are destroyed in front of them feel? What can life be like for those whose houses and whole neighborhoods are destroyed as a "lesson" in revenge. What black racing thoughts wrack their dreams? What repeating loops of internal agony haunt their days - their years?

I think sometimes that much of mankind is now suffering from a kind of mental illness - a plague of anger so intense it blocks all light and reason for months at a time. Surely many in the middle east must now live in this maelstrom of unease. And those who take action, take revenge, always see only the imperative of their own need to get even, never the similarity of their own actions to what was done to them. Worse, too many don't seem to mind at all that the main damage of their revenge falls more often than not on those who have done them no wrong.

I'm not sure why so many, myself included, generally expect the Israelis not to fall into this cycle of back and forth revenge so easily. And yet they do, and have, repeatedly, and did again yesterday. Hamas sent 60 rockets over several days into Israel border communities, mostly missing, but in the end killing several people and reawakening self righteous fury in the whole nation. The old justification - if we don't respond in kind they will never stop, "they will drive us into the sea" was again the mantra. And so, again, they brought the full weight of a military assault against residential neighborhoods in Gaza, a tiny captive nation they have cut off from food and medicine and energy for months already, a nation with no army, a people so damaged and scarred from conflict and hopelessness i am continually amazed they function at all. Hundreds of tons of bombs fell and "over 200" is the acknowledged casualty list. Clearly the number of savaged lives is far more. Many of them are HAMAS, men and youths dedicated to "getting even"for past assaults. Many many more surely were just men women and children trying to live in that desperate place, now wounded or dead or grieving. This way of responding to terrorism IS terrorism just as clearly as the rockets that went in the other direction. It is a blind assault on a group you want to get even with, never mind who pays the price. The price must be paid. Because.... that will make Israel feel better??

I guess what astonishes me most is the sheer inability of most Israelis and Palestinians to see, after decades of repeated demonstration, what comes next after such expressions of blind hatred. Everything gets worse, much worse, for many months. Hundreds more will likely die, with a ratio, if this back and forth of getting even follows previous patterns, of about 1:8 Israeli to Palestinian casualities. And the mental anguish they all live within will worsen. And nothing at all will be solved until once again total horror at the level of violence may bring outside mediators and force a cease fire. Its like watching Siamese twins fight. And in one of these mini-wars, in all the mutual madness, someone may at last set off an atom bomb and then..?

I do not judge either side for this. I know it is human. I know if i lived within it, on either side, that my own mind would be constantly anquished and whipped by angry thoughts. Nevertheless, it is a fruitless war, fought immorally on both sides, and above all futile, futile, futile. There is one road that leads out of this hell realm and ONE ROAD ONLY - to learn how to see life from the group's point of view. And little by little to find a way love those others - and consider their needs as important as one's own. The final negotiation of a permanent ceasefire must allow both groups a full and free and hopeful way of life - EVEN IF more blows fall in the interim - as they surely will. Terrorist acts will continue - with so many made mentally ill by anger over so many decades - but they must be treated appropriately as police matters, NOT part of a war against a whole population.

First thoughts

Strange, now that i am faced with writing my thoughts so publicly for the first time, I find myself almost too shy to say anything. Commentators surge all around, these days, dissecting every development, on radio, flipping news and their opinions of it like linguistic flapjacks, energized with their wit and all the music breaks on public radio. Entertaining almost to hear the details of the end of civilization as i have known it laid out and dissected in such high spirited detail. An oboe plays in the background when the stock market descends. Dixieland plays when it rises. Millions are losing housing and jobs, politicians look out into TV camera lenses with a stunned expression, clearly having no idea how to stop the slide. Terrified of what is coming and more terrified to articulate it openly, for fear of bringing it to pass all that more quickly. The world is so vastly interconnected now, so immense, so complex. It is all happening so rapidly, with startling new developments no one had thought of coming by the hour. I think no one understands it all anymore, if any ever did. The enormity of all of us is now far beyond the imagination of any of us. And so we focus on the minutiae, the bond salesman who lost $50 billion of his investors money. The three big car companies in free fall. Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and their cities of lost dreams. It all seemed far away at first. Though i knew the consequences must be coming. Like distant undersea earthquakes that one knows must generate tsunamis.

And so they have, shuddering through businesses all across the country and now beginning to touch the lives of those all around me. My landlord, a real estate developer, lost his job and my rent was raised $250 a month. Two leeks i bought at the store today, thinking to make my own soup, cost $1.99. Still working 30 hours weekly as a teacher, i am finding groceries ever harder to pay for - what of those who have already lost their jobs? The two California schools i work for now face huge deficits, with a state government in disarray in the face of a budget that will run out, apparently, months before more taxes come in. School administrators whisper to secretaries of terrible damaging changes that may be coming. Secretaries confide in teachers. Whole sections of education may be eliminated, perhaps hundreds of jobs to be lost locally. Impossible situations developing everywhere. Local projects are grinding to a halt. A local pool and many museums may close. Two favorite bookstores may close. Neighbors all around speak in hushed conversations when they meet, of spending less, holding on to what they have, of this person or that person who is being evicted. Where will they go all these evictees?