No Bloody Nose

I know I'm trying to keep my mind on the environment, but the latest news has got the hair at the back of my neck standing on end, on and off for hours now. All you twitter people are not helping.

If Trump does a preemptive strike against North Korea, he will be dead wrong. Isn't it against international law to attack without provocation?

This 'bloody nose' that they keep talking about could easily escalate into a nuclear response. I live in range. It would be a colossal waste of life, environment, time, money, and resources to start this fight where only posturing had been evident in North Korea's actions. Hell, they're uniting with South Korea for the Olympics! How cool is that?

Does anyone else think Trump is so desperate to throw suspicion off himself in Mueller's Russia investigation that he's willing to throw the west half of the nation under the bus?

Scratch that. Of course he'd throw us all under the bus. We voted against him, against racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and intolerance on this coast. So if our half of the country is at risk of cracking off at about Idaho south to Arizona after a nuclear hit, then 2020 might be a go for Trump after all, right?

I'm beginning to understand why so many of my friends stopped watching the news and reading social media. At least they'll be able to live their lives in relative comfort until the moment their shadows are permanently thrown against the brick walls they'd been standing near at ground zero.

It's worse than denying climate change and cutting off Bears Ears. We may all be fucked, immediately fucked.

Thank you for listening, jules

Standing Naked on the Page

So, I hadn't intended to take a break from telling you about cat and dog antics, but last night I lived up to my usual dorky self. It was awful.

Normally, I don't write about being a writer. Oh, it's a fourth wall kind of thing, you know, when Jim Carey looks straight into the camera and says, "Kids today, so desensitized by movies and television." I like to respect that fourth wall. I like to pretend I'm an ordinary woman who doesn't plan on writing four pages every time something awful happens to her.

"It makes life easier, you know," she says, looking directly into the camera. "Whenever bad things happen, we can turn it into art."

When I said there was an open mic in Redmond last night, Mike said I should go. I think he looks forward to having the living room alone sometimes, without me bouncing off the walls and trying to talk to him in the middle of a great video game mission with his friends.

So, I headed off into Redmond even though my new cataract makes night driving a little more challenging and I felt a cold coming on. I was just looking for excuses, my inner critic whispered in my ear. I was a wimp, a chickenshit, a pussy.

My inner critic is a bastard. In one breath, he tells me I'll never write a decent word and in another he says I'm a chickenshit for being afraid to stand up in front of people to speak or sing. He doesn't even care if he's inconsistent. He just keeps up the hateful language.

Sometimes, I mentally shrink him and put him under a bell jar so I can suck out all the oxygen. Silence. Silence is a wonderful thing for an artist. Over time, my inner critic's influence has been reduced but now and then, he pries up a corner of the bell jar and begins to whisper in my ear.

"Chickenshit. Nobody's going to be there anyway. You can't even stand up and read a bad poem in front of twelve other writers. Pathetic."

I hate being called pathetic. So I gathered a couple of my spare books in case magic happened and someone wanted to buy my book and I headed off into the dark night.

I got lost finding the place, VALA at Redmond Towne Center.

I pressed and held the button on my phone as I drove.

"Get directions for VALA," I said realizing before I was finished that I'd have to be more specific.

"Allah," my phone typed where my words were supposed to appear.

"I'm not prepared to talk about such deep topics," Siri said in the male Australian accent I set for it. The woman's voice grated on my nerves. Annoyed, I clicked the button on top of my phone and tried again. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone you could talk to about Allah?

"No. Get. Directions. For. VALA, at Redmond Towne Center," I repeated doggedly, fixing my error.

"Right. Directions for Bella," he said. Dumber than a doorknob. I clicked the button and tried again.

This cannot be what the police had in mind when they clarified that I could press one button to answer a call and after that I could get a ticket.

"DIRECTIONS. FOR. VALA. AT. REDMOND. TOWNE. CENTER!"

"Getting directions for Fairfax, Virginia," he said not reacting to my tone.

"Fuck!"

"Is there something else I can help you with?"

"Fuck, you stupid fuck!" And I switched him off before he had a chance to respond. The nice thing about AI is that you can end the conversation without having to be polite.

I pulled off the road and typed VALA into the map app that came with my phone. It said it knew just where I was going. I'd be there just as the party started.

"Drive 1.7 miles and your destination is on your left."

I started to breathe a little easier. I parked at the old REI lot and continued following directions on foot.

"Proceed to the route," it said.

Suddenly, VALA had skipped a half mile down the road. I returned to my car and prepared to drive. The location of VALA shifted to somewhere by the underground parking. Okay, so I drove into the parking garage.

"Proceed to the route. Drive 18 miles west on Redmond Way. Your destination is on your left."

I knew this wasn't true. I'd seen the words Redmond Towne Center on the website. The Universe was trying to keep me from going to this event. I knew it was fucking with me.

Still, I wasn't late yet, so I got back into my car and drove around the outside of the parking garage where VALA was supposed to have been. There is upstairs, downstairs, and upstairs off the parking garage. I finally parked my car on the west side of the garage and got out. It looked like VALA sat where Eddie Bauer used to be. I walked upstairs and then back down. Nope. I went past the new bookstore where they make me feel stupid for being an author who self-publishes. When I looked in the window, I felt stupid for a moment. VALA had shifted to the east side of the block. I got to the center of the Center and looked at the directory. Nothing. I took the elevator upstairs. Too tired to take the stairs. Nothing there. I went toward the parking garage and looked at the businesses there. VALA could sit on the east side of the block and be there. Nothing. Then, I walked east and looked at the businesses directly across the street from Macy's. Clothes to the right. I walked back down the steps. Subway.

I was about to give up when my eye was drawn to a nice open space with art on the walls. People were in there. A signup desk sat near the door. VALA. Finally.

Before I could reconsider, I went in, signed up for the fourth or fifth spot, and found a seat. This was not so hard, I thought. I didn't even have butterflies the way I usually did before I read at an open mic.

The featured speaker was Mary Dispenza, an activist for equal rights and the protection of children. She read from her book, Split: A Child, A Priest, and the Catholic Church. I wondered how much Mike would give me grief if I bought her book. He's always saying that I'm supposed to sell my books instead of buying everyone else's. I know that, but I also get interested. I love new books. Plus, I feel an obligation to support other writers who may be in the same position I am in, trying to market their work.

When she was done speaking and the moderator, Emily, announced a break, I walked around looking at the art on the walls. It seemed to emphasize that I didn't know a soul in the room. So, I sat back down and surreptitiously reconsidered the poems I was going to read. I'd selected one about a sailboat. That was good, had a nice rhythm. It was sensual, but not overtly so. Then, on a whim, I switched my bookmark to a MeToo poem that would suit the tenor of Ms. Dispenza's talk. I could do that. I wrote that poem over eighteen years ago. Piece of cake.

Other readers stood and read their work. They were good writers. Why hadn't I joined them before? Some of them stuck with a MeToo theme, something I felt a great deal of passion about since I have more MeToo stories than you can throw a stick at. I felt even more certain of my choice in my old poem.

My turn was coming. Between readers, I reached into my bag and looked at it one more time. Yes, it was the right thing to read, a little bit brave, parallel with the experiences of other readers.

I felt a single zing of nerves before my gut settled back into listening. I was here to listen too.

Then, Emily announced me. I was up with my book in my hand. I hoped people could see the title on the cover. I hoped I might see a single spike on Amazon in the next day or two where someone liked what they heard enough to buy a copy. Only $4.99 for a paperback, $2.99 for kindle, a good deal, right?

"Hi," I said. "I'm going to read the easy one first."

And then I read about the sailboat with the red sails, hearing my voice fill the room, feeling the reverb, something I lived for when I was in front of people.

I had learned to feel for that reverb when I sang in church. It always made the butterflies settle in my stomach, especially when I put my hands on the piano and could feel the vibration there.

My hands weren't on a piano, but this space was great for reading aloud to people. You couldn't set a mixer on a better vibe. The first poem came to an end. There is a quarter-second when you're about to read a difficult poem when you could possibly make another choice.

No, I barrelled on. I turned to the MeToo poem I had inadvertently written more than eighteen years ago and resurrected in this moment with all these strangers in front of me.

I began to read. This was good. I got past the hard part and the part where I said "she balled him good."

And then, the veil dropped. Suddenly, I knew with certainty that no one would be fooled that I wrote in third person.

She was me. I was her.

And like the nightmare dream everyone has before the first day of school, I stood naked, figuratively, in front of a crowd of strangers.

Tears welled into my eyes. I couldn't speak. I looked up at Ms. Dispenza, down at words I could not read, and up at another person in the crowd.

I was the child who stops playing piano at her recital in the middle of a piece.

Emily, the moderator stood up and came to where I stood. She leaned her shoulder into mine. It helped. I blurted out two more lines.

Then it came. Ugly crying, sobbing, the moment when a person has her mouth open and nothing comes out. I lifted my shaking hand and pointed to where I had stopped. With my eyes, I asked if she could finish.

With a quiet voice, she finished reading my poem while I stood in front of a room full of strangers and sobbed.

When it was over, she hugged me in that way that my grandma used to do, long and comfortable and done when I needed to be done and not before. It made my breath catch in my throat again to feel my grandma's spirit in that room with me. Emily has a gift. If she ever hugs you, you will feel the blessing of it.

Then, I made my way back to my seat, mortified still that I had made such a spectacle of myself. People on all sides patted my shoulder. They caught my eyes and nodded to me when I found the courage to look up from my knees.

When the readings were over, a woman passed a note into my hands and quickly left. It was a note of encouragement, to keep reading, to keep writing. It helped. Ms. Dispenza came and talked to me. I don't remember what she said except it was a message of continued work to untangle the mess of the MeToo movement, to 'write it into right.' That helped too.

I had hoped I could slip out the door and never show my face to these people again. But as she and I talked other people wandered into the conversation. I was not alone. They shared their stories, their struggles. It all helped. We talked of our daughters, of our sons and the awful legacy, of breaking the chain of abuse. It was wonderful, but I still felt awfully exposed. Most of my friends hadn't even known this much about my history, perhaps hadn't wanted to know.

And before I left, Emily hugged me again. With it, I knew I'd be able to show up to this group again. I'd be able to read again, maybe something funny next time, something not so incredibly awful. With those hugs, and the woman's note, and all the conversation afterward, I knew I could come here again.

This is how you walk into a room full of strangers and leave a room full of friends. I don't recommend it.

Thank you for listening, jb

The Adventures of Omega Dog

Life must be a bitch when you have to ask the kitten for permission to eat your own food.

Teddy is patient. After much pacing and generally standing in front of the sink where I need to be most often, I fill his dish with kibbles. Then he stands there, about three feet from his bowl, while Seth saunters over and takes a couple of bites. It's a demonstration of power. I can tell that Seth doesn't relish the taste. Teddy sighs when Seth walks away but Blitz steps in front of him, rubs against his ankles, and grabs a kibble from the bowl and begins to bat it back and forth, staying between Teddy and his bowl.

"Ha, ha! You can't eat until I let you," Blitz seems to say. He is that kid on the playground, playing keep-away.

It's bad when you can't eat your own food because someone else wants to play with it.

"Go on, Blitzie. Let Teddy eat his food."

Blitzie has learned what that means. It really means, 'Get the hell away from that dog dish or the squirt bottle comes out and remember that I aim for the butt.'

He strolls away, batting his stolen kibble as he goes. I am positive that nonchalance is a term that can be applied to animals. I've seen it.

"There you go, Teddy. Eat your food."

He stands there. He looks back and forth between me and his bowl. Maybe I want his food first. I've been grousing about it.

"Go eat your food, Teddy."

Teddy is learning what that means. It means, "Do you need an engraved invitation? I'm tired of begging you to eat your own food. If you're hungry, you'll eat that shit or I'll put it out of reach for the next four hours so the kitten batting kibbles under the stove won't drive me bat-shit crazy. And somehow, if I go bat-shit crazy, it will be your fault.'

Too late. I'm already bat-shit crazy. I'm trying to understand the nuance of Omega Dog, the lowest guy on the ladder of dominance. Poor Omega Dog. He's on his blanket on the couch now, recovering.

Thank you for listening, jb

Losing Light

I'm just now beginning to feel more cheerful so I can come here to be chatty.

I'm typing with a cat, Seth, standing on my lap and watching the mouse. I'm a touch typist, and when I type too long, he looks at the mouse and then at my face so I'll go back to making that little arrow fly around in circles and sneak off the screen.

Blitz is at my feet. I like to take a slipper off and reach out with my foot and wiggle my toes in his belly fur again. The only thing is that this is his nap time and if I disturb him too much, he'll get up and leave. When he was settling in, I did it a couple of times and he put his paw on top of my foot.

Was he trying to tell me to leave his belly fur alone so he could sleep?

Or was he snuggling up with my smelly love-foot teddy bear? Did I ever tell you that he holds my hand sometimes at night?

I'm not sure which since he didn't use claws.  I should put a cat bed there where he can snuggle up, but I'm leery of buying any more cat beds since the last one was such an epic fail.

It still sits on the bottom shelf of the end table, forlorn. I still wish I could crawl into it and cocoon with a book. Doesn't that sound nice?

No, it's raining out again, and I have to take Teddy for a run in the mud with his friends before going over to a friend's house. I should really get going. It's getting late.

It's 1:35 and already we're beginning to lose light.

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest.

Thank you for listening, jb

Singing into the Void

What does a mommy blogger do when her kids get a little older and tell her they don't want her to write their story, any story about them anymore?

Some of them get a day job. The rest of us write about our cats or go a little crazy or both.

But what do you do when you lose your voice? What do you do when you think you might go the rest of your life without anyone listening to you?

I was the youngest of three children. My worst fear, my biggest complaint about being the third was that no one listened to me. No one believed what I told them. It has been a residual fear through my adulthood. Somehow I got louder and more insistent at first. Then, when people interrupted me, when they looked at their phones while I was talking, when they cut off my conversation mid-story, when they put on the headphones so they could join their friends in videoland even though I was in the room talking to them, I realized I needed to go off to write.

But what then?

What if I've been writing here for seven years and all of those little blips on my stats are just corporate robots checking to see if I've mentioned their products again?

It helps that a few of you told me that you read this here. Thank you for that.

But am I mostly talking in a void?

I'm still trying to get back onto my feet after being fired from volunteering at the school. Did I tell you about that?

Probably. It's run through my head so many times, I forget where I've mentioned it. I'm like that girl whose crummy boyfriend broke up with her on Valentine's Day by texting her then ghosting her when she asked him to explain. None of her friends liked him anyway, but they have to listen to the story over and over until she gets it all worked out in her head, until she figures out a way to move forward instead of looking back. That's me, going over and over what I think was my mistake until I figure the whole thing out, until I can get closure on something none of the people involved have explained to me. Except I haven't quite figured it out without those missing pieces.

Yesterday, I stood in line at the grocery store and looked at Oprah's newest magazine cover. She looked fabulous, with wild hair flying out from her head like electricity. And there was an article about being your most authentic you. It's what Oprah is best at conveying, to be your most true self.

"You are not your looks," it said. "You are not your job. Find your essence."

I wanted to find my essence. Last month, I lost that job before I even earned any money, the job I'd been volunteering to do for two and a half years, the place where I'd volunteered for eleven years. I keep telling you about that, don't I?

I do. Sorry.

I'm having trouble getting through it, separating myself from that identity I had as a volunteer for children. Maybe I was too proud of that role. Maybe it was time that it ended so I could find my own true essence.

The problem is that I haven't found it yet.

The country may be in a Constitutional crisis, but I'm in a crisis of consciousness. Who am I? What is the meaning of my life?

Who am I without that crummy boyfriend? That contentious job?

See what I mean?

But that time after an awful boyfriend abandons us or after we're fired from a job where some people were dismissive of us, it is an important time, a time for introspection, a time to reset our own internals.

Did you ever notice that when you're at a job or in a relationship where there is animosity, you start to change, you become more like the people who bother you?

I'm afraid I was feeling rather superior, sort of entitled to that attention that I expected from being a dedicated volunteer. I was feeling irritated that some of these people had never bothered to get to know me in the eleven years I was there, had acted like I wasn't worth their time. Maybe I took up too much of that energy into my soul. Maybe I can get to be a better person by having lost this particular job, even if I did love trying to help those kids that I worked with. I can give up that pride and irritation.

The problem with eating this humble pie is that I've begun to question why anyone would want to listen to my story here. I've lost my voice and though I'm trying to get it back, I'm wondering at the futility of writing into the void.

And yet.

The bird sings. The sun shines. The fog leaves a sweet taste in the air.

I have always written. I have notebooks that go back to when I was thirteen.  Before I could write, I used to scribble words on a piece of paper in little rows, talking out my stories as I wrote, until my brother laughed at what I was trying so desperately to do. I hated when people laughed at me. I still do.

So I will keep writing because that is what I do. It helps me figure out what I have to say. It might or might not be read. It might or might not touch someone's heart. Today, I'm not writing about my sweet son or about my cute cats.

Today, I'm just singing into the void, trying to hear my own voice.

Thank you for listening, jb

A Cozy Cat Bed

I still feel as though I've lost my voice, but I'm going to try to say something nice here anyway.

I'm waiting for something to occur to me. I'm waiting... Waiting... waiting...

Nothing.

So, Blitz decided it's a hazard to sit under my chair. I liked having him within reach, but it was awful getting up and realizing that when I moved the chair, I inadvertently whacked the kitten who'd been sitting under there waiting for me to be done. I also worried the chair would collapse some day and all I'd have left is a furry pancake of a kitty.

Now, he's sitting about five feet away on the floor. He's safe from evil chair legs, but I can't reach him to pet him when I'm thinking. The ideal workspace would have a warmed platform to the left of the keyboard where a cat could lie within reach of much needed petting.

Petting is good for a human. It makes us live longer, reduces the potential of a heart attack. (That was in some study I read recently. I love studies like that.) It's also good for a person who feels like she's lost her voice.

For Christmas, I got the cats one of those snuggly cat beds. When Nick put it on his head, he reminded me of Johnny Carson in the turban doing Carnac the Magnificent. I know that makes me old, but I still miss Johnny Carson.

Did you watch it? Did you remember the originals? I know, the references are out of date, but did you see that thing on his head? It was a cat bed with bling. That's the kind of cat bed I bought the cats for Christmas, all plushy and cozy. Without the bling, though.

I wanted to crawl into it. I did. It wasn't big enough.

I wanted a hat like that. It wasn't small enough.

The cats won't have a thing to do with it. When we put Seth down into it, he snuggled in for about five minutes then got out and shook himself as if we'd asked him to sit in an iron box for an hour. What an inconvenience, he seemed to say. Then, when I put the thing in my lap as I sat on the couch, he chose Mike's lap instead, even if Mike had a laptop hogging most of it.

The thing got a little attention after Nick put it on his head, then took it off and sat on it for a while, but only a cursory sniff. Seth likes how his teenage boy smells. Then, he sat down on one of the flattened pillows instead, you know, one of the pillows that smells like wet dog.

Blitz?

Blitz claws his way out immediately if I set him down onto it. It's as if he's trying to escape an iron box full of nails.

What the hell?

I should put it on the couch under the furry blankets for a month. Then, maybe it will stink enough like wet dog that someone will snuggle up with it. Or maybe I should do some alterations and wear it on my head.

Thank you for listening, jb

Fog and Peace

Yesterday, I hiked with my nephew and his friend up Mt. Si.

I take that back. I didn't hike with my nephew and his friend. I hiked by myself three-quarters of the way up Mt. Si. I walked slowly. I stopped three times to eat lunch to take care of my blood sugar when I felt it drop. I took pictures of those little holes burrowed under the trunks of trees where animals lived. I talked to lots of people. I was silent in between.

It was great.

I've gotten so slow that I hate hiking with people and trying to keep up. If I need to keep up, I hike myself into a state of dizziness. If I have to keep up and can't, I feel bad the whole way, as if I'm doing something to the person who has the miserable job of staying behind with me.

When I let them go on, assure them that I'm fine, I'll come along at my own pace, I let myself feel the joy of hiking again. Oh, I love the endorphins.

Within two-tenths of a mile, I told my nephew and his friend to take the dogs and head on up at their own pace. I wanted Teddy to get to the snow if he could. He loves snow. I wanted to stay on the wet side and look at stuff, dawdle.

Just past seven-tenths of a mile, I began to get shaky and I stopped to eat. I felt ridiculous, but I needed to stop. I had a beautiful salad of spinach, ham, and strawberries. I should try ham and pineapple sometime, a Hawaiian salad. That would be good. I laid my rain pants on a rock and looked out through the trees.

A woman stopped to say what a nice picnic I was having. We talked for a while. She was slow like I was. She told me she was recovering from an injury. This was a woman I'd have been good friends with if she lived anywhere near me.

"No two people share the same hike," she said.

Heraclitus said, "No man steps in the same river twice for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

I wanted to talk about that more, but the conversation tripped along ahead of me. I like thinking about that line, how many times I've gone back to the same spot by the river. And then she was gone, off on her own adventure. It was quiet again.

I petted every dog that came up to me on the trail. I'm pretty sure they were drawn by the smell of ham on my fingers. Along came a black and white border collie asking to be petted. He'd been leaping up the trail. The person with him was a lithe and cheerful woman. I liked her on sight.

She was a person with a calm and cheerfulness that floated around her like a cloud. I wanted to breathe in that air. I'm not the most calm and cheerful person most of the time. I wonder if I'll ever let go of the rush and ease into an easier mode of being. Will it be a conscious choice or will I be a crabby old woman for the rest of my life?

This morning after good exercise outside yesterday, I feel calm, relaxed. I should get good exercise every day. Teddy would like that too.

On that trail, each person who stopped to talk to me gave me their own tiny gift. One man told me about hiking Mt. Everest. Oh I could feel his passion for the quest. After his guide had said they must turn back, he'd met a man who was hypothermic and helped him, gave him his spare coat, called on his radio for help. It was a story full of generosity and heartbreak. I was awed by his persistence.

There's a trend on Instagram - the unlikely hiker.

This man fell into that category, shorter, Asian, different than your usual lean adrenaline junkie. I asked him to write the book about his mountains. He told me there were plenty of those books. But at least he spent the time and told me some of his stories, amazing stories. I breathed in those stories like a child at bedtime.

And then it was quiet in the forest again. A fog crept between the trees. A yellow-bellied sapsucker tapped at a dead tree at eye level. He didn't even move to the back of the tree out of sight like they usually do.

I felt a calm creep between the cracks in my soul.

This.

This was what I had needed when my nephew asked me to hike and I had said yes knowing full well I could never keep up with them.

I met up with them again near the trailhead. Dusk had arrived and I'd turned back downhill because I didn't want to trip down that steep trail in the dark. Fewer people stopped to talk now. Fewer people passed my way. Dogs coming back down were worn out, wet, and muddy, ready for a good meal at home and the comfort of their beds.

At seven-tenths of a mile, at the marker for the Talus loop, my stiff knee began to be finished, my toenails were tired of bouncing off the toes of my boots. I slowed way down and kept tension on my knees as I stepped down each of the the steep steps. I made a point of alternating feet. I'm left-footed. Usually, it's my right knee that takes most of the stress of the downhill climb. I needed to spread it out.

The fog and the dripping became a steadier rain. It flattened my hair and dripped down the back of my neck.

When Teddy and the rest of them caught up with me, he nuzzled his head into my legs and groaned. I could dry him off. I could find him his cozy place to lie down. I could get him home to a good meal and time on the couch.

My nephew, his friend, and I came off the mountain alternating stories of snow, the summit, and people on the trail.

I didn't tell them about the yellow-bellied sapsucker and how the bird was relaxed enough with me to let me watch him eat his dinner. I could never have conveyed the calm of that moment, a forest quietly dripping, the hollow tap of the bird finding bugs to eat, the fog making a safe place for both of us.

The peace.

Thank you for listening, jb