Sunday, February 28, 2010

Healing baths

Driving back to the Yosemite Bug Hostel to our “barn” house in the driving sleet. I’m not driving but alert—aware of the windows alternately fogging up, my husband’s hands steady on the wheel, aware of the water rushing across the road, the Merced River flowing to the right under the grand rocks. But we have low visibility—found out later that one of our front lights was out, made this driving home so much harder.

I think of a warm bath, my solace, my obsession during the period when I had panic attacks and even now(though I’m more aware of the water waste) and try to fill the tub “half way.”

Baths: I think of the Russian Jewish women on the Lower East Side, my sister I and going together—the fleshy bodies of the older women like the body of the Jewish grandmother I never knew who died suddenly when my older sister was in my mother’s womb, my sister’s cells multiplying towards life while Lena Zevin’s cells slowly died out like Tinker Bell’s light from Peter Pan—here and then gone.

Baths: cradling, amniotic floating baths. “Mommy’s taking a bath,” the children would say sometimes 2 X a day. Sometimes we would bathe together when they were little and make “ice cream bubble bath sodas” passed down from childhood with my sister.

Ah baths. We’ve made it through the sleet by the side of the river up the driveway and in to the barn.

I turn on the water and soak. My husband turns up the thermostat, pours himself a glass of Sake. Outside the rain pours, and the river swirls.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Unpredictable

I’m looking at an abstract painting in my writing room(I’m so lucky to have a space to write). The painting, a deep pink with midnight blue stripes, some dots and a brush of deep red through the middle, reminds me that there are so many things we don’t know. That life is mysterious. I don’t know what exactly lives inside the middle of that painting, or what has lived in the mind of the nun, Sister Mary Corita, who painted it. I know she wanted world peace. I know she loved poetry. In my class today when we talked about “round” characters, the first phrase in the text we use by my friend, Abdul Jabbar, is that round characters are unpredictable.

I’ve been thinking about my book coming out and what will be the “unpredictable” nature of the experience. And that, I can’t predict. Refreshing, mysterious, annoying, out of my control and ultimately delectable.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Getting closer to publication--My book and the Bhudda

It's now the end of February, and I'm getting closer to cradling the final copy of my book in my hands. Sometimes, in the rush of trying to get readings, podcasting, doing blogs, etc. etc. I lose sight of the incredibly long journey that has taken me to this very place. Of course it's a memoir, so I can thank my family for being the "characters"--which is why the adjective"long" for the journey is apt--delving into the past, reshaping it.

At the end of my hallway is a beautiful wood and steel table my older daughter made in High School. There is a wooden Bhudda sitting there. Lately, I have put the book(galley copy!) behind the Bhudda to help me take the "product" part out of the book and remember the years of writing/searching/feeling that got me to that very place.

A couple of times I've removed the book from behind the Bhudda and then the Bhudda looked lonely, so I've put the book back like a candle behind a statue of a great person. An analogy: my book is like a candle? A bit overdone as a thought, but maybe not. So as I will check amazon numbers in the future, wonder about "sales" put my podcast out to try and get an audience, I will take a deep breath knowing my book is behind the Bhudda and somehow they are intertwined.