The Purrell of Peace

It's Sunday. I'm at St. Gym. I'm giving the sign of peace to the people around me. Some of them get hugs, some of them get handshakes, and some little ones get little kisses. Their are even some across the church from me who get secret signs and winks because they are so special to me. We're going merrily along. We get back into our little pew places and as I look forward I notice the woman in front of me is squirting some hand sanitizer on and rubbing it in. I am completly aghast. Yes, that's really the only word for it,"aghast". Oh, say what you will about germs and bird flu, but c'mon, it's the sign of peace for goodness sakes. I mean, what's next? The Archbishop washing our feet on Holy Thursday with latex gloves on? Or, maybe auto-fonts for the holy water. You'll just wave your finger in front of it and it'll spritz a little water on your hand so you can make the sign of the Cross. No mess. No fuss. No more wondering, did I use too much or not enough?

Ok, ok - it's just that it really irked me, but live and let live. However, I do wonder what she thinks when she hears the Gospel when Jesus cures the blind man with mud made out of his spit? Would she rather be blind? And, then it occurs to me - in some ways she is and I pray for God's great love to fill us all.

Selling Paradise

Selling Paradise

And so, you are selling paradise.
The land of my childhood mystics;
I am scared of the cattle in the field.
We sit Indian style in the grass and they gather around us.
A huge game of Duck, Duck, Goose; and we are in the mush pot.
Each of their movement’s deliberate in my mind, tentative in theirs’.
I feel your hand around mine,
And take refuge in knowing I am safe.
Then we stand up; Sharp and straight.
At our movement they scatter,
Calling to each other “retreat, retreat.”
I am no longer afraid of the cattle,
And run down to the creek,
Where the pink lady slippers call to me,
As the prince did to Cinderella.

R. A. Heade, 9 May 2005

Creative Spin Head or is that Heade?

Ok, so it's 2:01 a.m. PST, which as I figure it, is the exact time where regardless of your location in the USA it is really too late or too early to be up. And, why am I up you ask? Well, I've have finally learned, the hard way, (I've not really figured out too many other ways of learning yet) that if you have a head like mine and you start a blog, and then put off posting because you get really involved in a bunch of stuff (like say, your real job and all the other crap that is really your "you can't do it" voice which we sometimes call responsibility) you will end up with a train wreck of thoughts, ideas, stuff you saw that cracked you up, or made you think, or better yet made you think differently all in your head screaming "me first". You will also write an incredibly long run-on sentence which would make Mrs. Jackson draw a huge parrot in the margin of your paper that was saying "Awk" or some other quaint but equally disparaging remark about your writing ability.

Ah, so here we are one long run-on sentence and poorly constructed paragraph in , and there it is the crux of the matter - insecurity. Man, do I really think that I live in this world where everyone else is totally confident all the time, never has to write a draft, and takes their "blog" so seriously that they envision the strictest English teacher they ever had as correcting it. (Crap, another run-on sentence.) There is really such a fine balance between perfectionism and perfection. Imagine all the flowers that would never bloom if they tried to blossom perfectly. Gosh, it's kind of like all the ideas that could slam around your head at 2:00 a.m. while you tried to figure out the perfect order to write them in. Well, amazingly a huge light bulb has just exploded over my head and all of a sudden I'm sleepy.

This is too much...Excuse me what was that? Oh, yes I'll write about you tomorrow. Yes, you are a very good idea. Yes, much better than all the other ideas. Yes, you're right, it is tomorrow, but I mean the tomorrow when the sun is up and it's normal for me to be awake. I promise. Now, let's you and I get some shut eye.

Blog Interrupted

Well, there I was on Sunday just about to genuflect to the tabernacle (that’s where we Catholics keep the body of Christ) on my way to my seat before Mass when my friend and blog mentor walks up to me. She leans in to give me a very Jackie O greeting peck on the cheek and says softly “If you don’t post something new to your blog soon I’m going to remove the link from my page.” Now, I want to be very clear that this was not a case of blog bullying in any way. It was a good swift kick in the pants which is something we all need from time to time. Even if it’s just before Mass. So, there I sat swiftly kicked in Church contemplating why I had been neglecting my writing. Somewhere between the homily and transubstantiation it occurred to me that my life had been full of the kinds of events that trigger activity on my personal Richter scale.

You know, the type of events that you eat a lot of ice cream over, shed tears, eat more ice cream and then ultimately take into your head and then into your heart. The kinds of events which are the catalyst for the most personal prose a writer can create. The type of writing that prods, pushes, and touches the reader (even when the reader and writer are one in the same). Events that once written down become indelible and irreversible. They take up less space in your head and move into your world where you bump into them in the night when you stumble to the bathroom half asleep.

I’m not sure I am ready…No, I know I'm not ready to move these events into this next phase of development. They will have to stay with me a little longer. So, in the meantime, I will dig through my other essay and story ideas and get back to this amazing outlet I have called a blog.

Haiku Set No. 1

The periwinkle
Blue of sparkling cosmic dust
Oh, summer twilight
R. Heade, 4 March 2006

Cocoon like birch bark
Shudders and disrobes its queen
Her palace, a rose
R. Heade, 4 March 2006

White wisteria
Laden blossoms beckoning
Seductress of bees
R. Heade, 4 March 2006

The Big "O" No!

Well, this has just been a stellar week for my feminine ego. It all started on Tuesday morning when I was getting ready for work. There is no dress code where I work, except that you should wear something. However, there are only so many days in a row that I can wear jeans and a nice t-shirt. So, on Tuesday morning I pulled out a cute pair of tweedy trousers and an orange sweater I’d not worn before. I put the items on and went into the dressing area of the bathroom to behold myself in the mirror. As I looked at myself in the mirror I realized there was something I didn’t like about the sweater. My sweetheart, a.k.a. the Piper, was brushing his teeth and as he finished he noted the one- eyed squinchy look I was making and said “I think that top might be a little too young for you.” It was if all of a sudden my core female question had changed. As far as I know I went to bed on Monday night in the “Does this make me look fat?” stage of my life, and woke up on Tuesday morning in the “Am I too old for this?” stage. I probably should have seen this coming, as just a few months ago I was informed by a Christian Dior sales lady that I had moved from “preventive” to “corrective” products. You know, more emollient for those tiny dry lines.

Now, I’m not one of those gals whose youth obsessed, and I realize that I’m rounding the curve toward 50 but I don’t need to get there ahead of schedule. Anyway, I switched tops and off to work I went. I handed off the offending sweater to a young colleague and moved on. Or so I thought.

On Wednesday I went to see the dermatologist about my rosacea which is flaring up this winter. Things are going fine with her. She looks at my skin as I try and determine if she gets botox injections or is her forehead really that smooth. She steps back and says “Well, you do seem to be having quite a lot of redness. Of course, you’re a little prematurely gray….” I never even heard why it mattered because inside my head I’m yelling “Hey, I’m 46 and I have nearly all white hair what do you mean a “little premature”? My Mom didn’t have this kind of white hair until her sixties.” As I leave prescription in hand I’m sure she gets botox and I hope that next time I see her she can’t move her lips.

However, the final blow came on Thursday night as I dutifully opened my mail: Nordstrom’s; The Bon (I mean Macy’s); Val-Pak; AARP. Stop. What? AARP? Grrr. Letter opener in hand I slip and rip it open. The form letter advises me that I’m missing out on all the benefits of being over 50 and an AARP member. By the end as I screech past the proffered temporary card I’m advising the letter that I was born in 1959 and that they can just have their letter back and resend it in 3 ½ years.

Friday morning I put on a classy pair of pale plaid pants a cute chocolate “V” neck sweater and some very sassy pointed toe brown shoes with tassels. I brush my white hair put on my very Jackie-O sunglasses, collect my carpool partner, get in my bright lime green turbo bug (a.k.a. Millie), grab a non-fat latte and head straight back into my mid-forties where I’ll be until late August of 2009.

The Spider Closet

I don’t like spiders. They move too fast. They can walk on the ceiling. They have too many legs and no charm whatsoever. However, unlike many other spider-despisers I have a very valid reason for my loathing. Back in 1962 I was pushing the limits of an adult who was caring for me. I’m not totally clear on who it was, but they said something to me which forever changed my life. It was this - “If you’re not good, I’ll put you in the spider closet.” Ok, it’s been 43 years and I’m sure the CPS statutes of limitations have run its course, but I still feel compelled to stop and ask “who says stuff like that to a three year old?” I mean, after that please don’t try and tell me that they have a good side. While it’s clear that I’m never going to have a symbiotic relationship with them I have come a long way over the past four decades.

The pinnacle of this growth is that I now understand that they do have a good side. It’s called “outside”. If they are outside they are at least contributing to the downfall of the aphid which is something to note. However, if they get inside, well, that’s where I start drawing the line. I should probably have some type of size chart posted at each window and door like they do at the carnival saying “you must be at least this small to come inside.” Of course, I’d have to make sure they understood the circumference of reference includes the legs. But, I don’t have a sign like this posted anywhere and so in they come from time-to-time. I now refer to them as infiltrators. Point them out to my husband, who is in spider-despiser recovery. I then go get the standard two Bounty paper towels required for clean-up. He is a tidy executioner, usually lining up the flat end of his bagpipe chanter with the spider and then a quick flat smack. The tiny carcass is then removed into the paper towels and deposited in the trash.

However, just the other evening I thought I’d taken a giant leap forward in my willingness to share the planet with the likes of the spider. A rather large infiltrator had found its way into our dining room and was scurrying along the wall where it joins the ceiling. I pointed him out, grabbed the paper towels and stood watching as my husband scoped out the situation. And then quite remarkably, he got the spider on the paper towels and asked me to open the door to the patio which I did. And there he came with the spider balancing on the paper towels toward me, toward the outside. I started to think; well you’ve really grown up. No more spider closet worries. My husband drew nearer and we sort of smiled at each other, acknowledging our bravery and benevolence. As he passed by me I tip-toed up to his ear and whispered “Throw it over the side.” And, this he did, paper towels and all.

Such Stuff Dreams are Made Of

My cat went with me to Costco and sat in one of the refrigerator cases and no one noticed. He sat with full feline poise. Dignified posture. Head held high. Black fur glistening, set off by the bright red of the wax of the tiny Bon Bel cheeses in which he sat. This is the only thought and image I had upon waking from a recent dream. Now, I am not one to sit and ponder dreams and try to find meaning or answers. I did have a therapist for a time who would have asked me, if I had told her about this dream, “Who do you, think you are in this dream?” While I’d like to think I’m the cat, I am actually probably the tiny cheeses. If I follow this out, that means the wax casings symbolize the oppression of my trapped inner child. See, this is why I don’t go in for dream analysis. I would just rather believe I’m the cat.

Of course, I’ve had just enough therapy to think that since I wrote this dream image down perhaps it has the underpinnings of truth in it. Could it be that at 46 years of age my subconscious sees me as a tiny cheese encased in red wax? And what of this wax, is it really my oppressor? And how do I get out of it? I guess I could find the little end of the string on the outside and pull on it and then ease myself out like you do with a real piece of Bon Bel cheese. But that seems too easy, and I have spent a lot of time and money getting really comfortable with the idea that self discovery is grueling and exhausting.

This belief is compounded by the fact that I did have a very grueling and exhausting phase that was also cheese related. I refer to it as the Blue Cheese phase. You see, there was a time in the early 90’s when I was doing some intensive therapy and described myself as being like blue cheese with the parts I didn’t like about myself being the moldy blue stuff. I hate blue cheese. What a more loathsome thing I could have compared myself too, I do not know.

Ah, but the progress is that I love Bon Bel cheese. So, while I still seem to think of myself as cheese at least I’m now a cheese I like. So, maybe this new phase, the “Bon Bel” phase, will be an easier gentler phase of self discovery.

The Last Gift

The Last Gift
By Rachael Heade

When I was about five years old I met my Aunt Nettie. She came all the way from New York (which was mentioned to all the adults several times each day). I gathered from these snatches of conversation that it was a long way away, and not an easy trip for a woman to make to see her sister. Her sister was my grandmother. In all there were four sisters, but I think it was against the law in California to have more than three of them in the state at the same time. So, on this occasion it was Nettie who had come to visit.

I’m not sure how it was that we came to be sitting together on the red cement steps that led to the terrace that was over the garage of our house. But there we sat, and she introduced me to the pistachio nut. She showed me how to split the shell with my thumbs and pull the nut out. I marveled at the way our finger tips turned red as we ate the sweet green nuts. I can’t remember much of what she said, but I remember her voice as something like I’d never heard before (and I’d heard quite a bit by the time I was five). If I were making a recipe for it, it would call for five parts Bronx accent and five parts Camel cigarettes and so much love that it became a warm and immediately comforting sound. She was one of those people who always followed your name with the word “darling”, and she meant it. You just knew she did even if she were chiding you for something.

We always kept in touch. Through all the years of my going from little girl to young woman. I always sent her birthday cards. Eventually the cards became bouquets of flowers as I moved into the working world and could afford to splurge on this tiny redheaded firecracker who still lived in the Bronx. And she would call me and thank me by telling me that “They’re so huge it looks like they should be in the lobby of the Ritz.” One year they were so huge she had to move them into the outer hallway of her apartment (personally, I think this was to impress the daughter-in-law). So, one year I opted for a potted bulb garden thinking it would at least be smaller. Of course, this created other difficulties which included having to water it and find a place to plant it. Didn’t I know that the daughter-in-law had paved Nettie’s garden area for her car?

Then a few year’s ago I decided to go back to my Jewish roots and send her something useful. So, I drove out to the mall and poked around in the lingerie department looking for a “house coat”. Unfortunately, finding a house coat is not as difficult as one would hope. I bought one in pink with some smocking at the neck and lace at the hem and cuffs. It had a zipper so she wouldn’t have to deal with buttons and I picked out a matching pair of house slippers. Feeling quite satisfied with myself, and my clever approach to evading the ever evolving problems with flowers I left the store. I sent the package off with a perfect card and waited for my thank you call. It came about four days later. “Rachael, darling, I got the robe and slippers. “Oh great, I said” my voice cheerful and thinking “Yeah, I did it.” And then, “Rachael, darling, who did you get this for, a giant? The robe is huge (at this point I’m beginning to think that anything I send to New York doubles in size automatically). I tell her it’s no problem that the store I bought it at is affiliated with Macy’s and she can take it back and get what she wants. I hang up believing all is right with the world.

Three days later I get a phone call. “Rachael, darling, it’s Aunt Nettie. “Hi, I say”. And then it comes. After two cabs, three trains and one snotty salesgirl my Aunt Nettie is still in possession of the giant’s robe. I can’t tell if I’m more upset that they didn’t take it back, or that the salesgirl told my Aunt Nettie that she was crazy for thinking they would. I ask her if she wants to send it back to me and I’ll get her another one, but she tells me that is too much trouble, maybe she can use it as a slipcover for her ottoman.

Not to be outsmarted by some little New York salesgirl I ring up the department store affiliate here in Seattle where I originally bought the robe. I explain the story to the Manager and as unbelievable as it sounds he agrees that it is indeed too difficult to ask an eighty-nine year old woman to pack up a robe and send it to them for a refund. And so he says to me, “We’ll just send her a check so she can buy whatever she wants.” Not a gift certificate, but a check. I am stunned. I think to myself he is the first person in the history of the world to actually solve a problem involving a poorly chosen gift and an eighty-nine year old Jewish woman. I call my Aunt Nettie and tell her the good news. She says she’ll believe it when the check arrives. Silently, I wonder if the check will double when it gets to New York.

A few days later I call my Aunt Nettie to see if the check arrived. She tells me it has and that she was able to buy some new burners for her stove with the money, and interestingly enough she was able to get the woman down the street to make some alterations to the robe so she can use it after all.

This was the last gift I bought for my Aunt Nettie as she died the following year, but she continues to give to me through my memories of her. And, whenever I think of her my love doubles in size.

The Lure of The Big TV

My husband is a gentle and wondrous soul who, most of the time, is not easily seduced by the testosterone laden advertising and chest beating that is the easy lure for some men. But, there is one thing that will glaze him over and produce a longing look that I really feel should be reserved for me, say, in the bedroom when the TV is off. It is the most amazing thing to watch. There we'll be in one of the cavernous warehouse stores talking about something we need for our home, and then the siren song of the electronics department sweeps him away. In an enchanted daze he wanders away toward his electronic siren. Who is this technological temptress? The giant TV. There is no screen big enough or flat enough. And now “hi-definition” has added its allure to the siren song.

I’ve often wondered what it is about the giant TV that is so captivating. I mean, let's be real, "flat" and "big" are not the attributes usually assoictaed with male transfixtion. After much pondering I have come to the following hypothesis: It is a result of too much Star Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. Why? Because the way I calculate it my husband has seen hours and hours of men (my apologies to Captain Janeway, but really a few seasons can’t make up for two plus decades of Kirks, Picards, Ciscoes, and Archers) sit in a virtual throne and utter the words “on screen”. Whereupon the entire universe, arch enemy, new nemesis, or scantily clad galactic temptress appears in front of them on a huge screen while a crew eagerly awaits his orders. I also see a clear link here to the origin of the need to command the remote control. In fact, the really smart giant TV maker would create a voice command system the turned the TV on by saying things such as “make it so” or “engage”. Of course, the super smart TV maker would make it respond to the words “computer end program” or “belay that order” when said by a wife or child or unfed cat.

I’m not totally sure what snaps him out of it, but I am grateful to whatever force it is that finally releases him from the edge of this electronic worm hole. I don’t know if he’ll ever fully succumb and go where most men have gone before. But if he ever does I’ll be sure I’m not wearing a red shirt when I say “Look Jim, I’m your wife not a waitress” when he asks me to get him something cool to drink from the kitchen.

Post Anything!

"Post anything!" These are the last words my dear friend Lorraine said to me as I left her house Monday evening. After a fine meal with her family we headed out to the back porch for some "real conversation". It was cold sitting on the cement steps which lead to the kitchen garden's plant beds. But it was the first really clear, dry night Seattle had seen in a long time so, sit there we did. Besides, the moon, mist and stars really are a great visual combo. I told her that I had set up a Blog, but had yet to post to it. She smiled knowingly, reached out, and plucked my Circa Joan & David shoe from my foot and placed it on her own. Perfect fit. It's amazing how a real friend can do something like that without your thinking "She's more interested in my shoes then my creative soul?" As we looked at my shoe on her foot I continued my lamentation, telling her that I was dying on the inside because I wasn't writing. (Honestly, if this were a scene in a film the director would yell "cut" and walk over and clobber the screenwriter for such dreadful dialogue.) She looked over, kind of cocked her head to one side, and told me of the wonderful community she's found through her Blog (Here's The Thing, which is truly delightful). I regained possession of my shoe while she continued on about how affirming it is to know people are reading what you write, and how much it's sparked her creativity. We rose and went inside so I could collect my things to go. And that's when she said it "Post Anything!" So, here I am about to post "anything". But I realize that it's not really "anything". It's really the manifestation of one friend's encouragement of another, and that's not just "anything". That's something.