nature

“I will not write sales copy about the death of my mother.”

Writing, even under the best of circumstances can be an excruciating endeavor.

Authors, like most wizards, are supernatural in their ability to create something from nothing. Memoirists are a special breed altogether. I don’t know how they do it, how they manage to let us inside their lives, warts and all, literally turning themselves inside out— (I’ve seen it up close…it’s messy) and in the process wringing every emotion from their raw and ragged guts, and then managing to translate all of that pain, joy, grief, and love into words that live on the page long enough for our eyes to devour them.

It gets me all verklempt when I even try to imagine it, the tears running brown from the emotional-support chocolate that’s smeared all over my face.

Anyhow, my best friend, Steph Jagger, her life a seemingly endless series of Heroines Journeys (which comes in handy because nobody, except you guys, wants to read about a person’s mundane life) writes memoirs. Tales of courage and triumph, love and loss. Her latest,
Everything Left To Remember — My Mother, Our Memories, And a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains 
centers on her mother’s slow decline into early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and how that profound loss effects Steph and her family. Here, her editor describes it better than I ever could:

“An inspirational mother-daughter memoir that follows two women on a poignant journey through a landscape of generational loss. As they road-trip through the national parks of the American West, they explore the ever-changing terrain of Alzheimer’s, deep remembrance, and motherhood.

A staggeringly beautiful examination of how stories are passed down through generations and from Mother Nature, Everything Left to Remember brings us the wisdom of remembrance under the constellations of the vast Montana sky.”

I mean…come on!

And this is where you all come in. I love my blog community so much, wickedly loyal, you have been with me since 2012 so you know I love writing, connection, and passing along all the things I adore—And I adore my friend, and LOVE this book!

Here’s the deal, since the advent of social media, authors are expected to build an audience, publicize their own books, and endlessly pitch their stories to the various mediums. It can be soul-sucking, especially when your story starts living a life outside in the world while still inhabiting all your exposed nerve endings. There comes a breaking point. A boundary that begs to be set. I’ll just let Steph explain in her own words:

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to be able to write about my mother, to put our story into words. I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude about the opportunity I have to share that story. And I am terribly excited about the idea of those words being in your hands.

I’m also looking forward to being on podcasts, to visiting book clubs, to talking with you about your mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and friends who have been, or are on, a similar journey.

I cannot wait to weave my mother’s aliveness, all the things she has left to give, into the world at large.

I am committed to doing that by way of words, shared in as many ways and in as many places as I can.

And . . . I will not write sales copy, for my mother and I are not things to be sold, but precious beings to have and to hold.” 

So, I suppose as an author you leave that to your council of writers, right?
Your friends.
Your sisters of the pen.
You let them be your hallelujah chorus and shout your name from the rooftops, “Come, pre-order and read Steph’s book, you will be the richer for it!” 

You guys, when have I ever steered you wrong?

Carry on, xox

Pre-order made simple: Amazon link 

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Left-Remember-Memories-Mountains/dp/125026183X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Hate Amazon? Here’s a link for Indie Bound —and Eagle Harbor Books, Steph’s local bookstore, where you can get yourself a signed copy!

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250261830

https://www.eagleharborbooks.com/signed-everything-left-remember-steph-jagger

More Steph: https://www.stephjagger.com

The tree surgeon paused out in front of our house for a long time. Too long.

He’d been called to do a “health assessment” on our two large trees.
The one in the front is a behemoth. Big-boned, magnificent in her splendor, she’s an almost two-hundred-year-old ash tree we call Grandmother. She’s a legend in our neighborhood. Cars stop and stare. People visit her on purpose. Once, when I was watering, a man took out a tiny flute and played a song he’d written just for her. I swear to god.

The one you’re looking at now is Mother.

Mother is a Chinese elm that was planted so close to the house I cannot squeeze between them without losing a boob. But that was over eighty years ago and we’ve appreciated the shade she so generously provides our courtyard, that although advised otherwise, we’ve ignored any suggestion that she’s compromised the foundation.

Anyway, one of Mother’s roots had started to crack and lift the tile and seemed to be headed toward the house, prompting concern.

I talked with her. Everyday. “Don’t do this,” I warned, “Don’t force us to make a decision like this.”

Just to be clear, I know my role. I am just the latest custodian of these beauties. There have been several before me, and there will be more when I leave. “I know, I got a little house with my trees,” is what I tell anyone who visits us after they close their mouths.

The surgeon’s mouth wasn’t agape, he was too cool for such an overt display of awe, I mean, caring for trees is his job.
But you could see it in his eyes as he stepped back, taking in Grandmother’s canopy. He was impressed.

“She’s a beauty,” he finally said. “And she’s so happy!”

Raphael’s face broke into a broad grin, I exhale for the first time in months.
You see, California has been suffering through a sustained drought and I’ve been so worried about our trees and all the stress they’ve been under. If anything happened to Grandmother I’d just die, but not before we were run out of town by an angry mob led by a dude with a flute.

“Seriously, are they okay?” I asked.

I really wanted to know. Or did I?

If he came back with a grim diagnosis, what would we do? Cut them down? Cut them down? CUT THEM DOWN?!!!  See, I cannot even write the words. What kind of a sick Sophie’s choice was the universe handing us? Kill the tree to save the house? It was unthinkable!

“I’m not cutting this tree down!” I announced defiantly. My arms were wrapped around Mother as far as they could reach as our tree surgeon inspected the cracked tiles.
“Oh god no!” he responded in shock. I just about died of happiness. “It’s an easy fix,” he said and then went on to explain in  tree-surgeony speak, what sounded like a very complex series of steps we had to take to keep everybody alive and well.

“She hugs these trees,” Raphael told him as he wrapped up his visit.
“See, I told you. You’re gonna be okay,” I assured Mother while caressing her bark.
“And she talks to them too.” He was making that she’s so crazy face he makes when I do stuff like that in front of strangers.

“So do I,” the surgeon admitted. Of course he did.
I wanted to tell him I loved him, instead, I told him he had a good face. He took it well.

Carry on,
xox J

                                                                                          GRANDMOTHER

This morning while I was in my courtyard, obsessively planting flowers in pots, with every door and window wide open,  letting the cool, late morning springiness inside, Little Miss Hummingbird flew into the house.

I only know this because on one of my way-too-many visits to the bathroom (coffee) she buzzed thisclose to my head on her way to the ceiling. Panting frantically at the staggering altitude of nine feet, she tried her best to find the sky by repeatedly banging her wee head into the drywall. Meanwhile, I attempted to calm her by pointing out all FIVE available exits, in my best flight attendant voice——and then sat patiently in a chair nearby waiting for her to figure it out.

Throughout my time on planet earth you guys, hummingbirds have brought out the best in me. They reinforce my belief in magic and tiny birds with neon feathers who zip around powered by wings that beat a gazillion times a second yet seem chill and wise and speak a lyrically chirpy little language that I’ve only recently forgotten. Dr. Seussical in all the best ways, when they deem me worthy of any visitation——I want to scream with glee and grab a frilly pink skirt and my best party shoes.

As an aside, she’s the first visitor I’ve had in eight weeks, so…yeah…

Anyway, in between desperately searching for her freedom, Miss Hummingbird rested on a pussywillow branch in a vase by the window and clearly channeled my mother by finding every cobweb in every freaking corner of the living room ceiling (in our family that is called cob-shaming you guys!) Circumnavigating my living room wearing the webs on her head like some kind of Quinceanera veil, she eventually found one of the five doors while I had my back turned making her a cup of tea.

As happy for her as I was, I couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed.

Number one, she didn’t even say goodbye. Number two, I selfishly wanted to spend more time with her, you know, so she could impart some of her hummingbird juju and tell me what the energy was like out there in quarantine-land, and number three, I was curious about her inability to see her way out. I mean, how do I say this in the least judgie-Mcjudgerson way possible?

All she had to do was look around.

Which she did eventually, but in the meantime she got visibly overwrought by fixating on the ceiling.

Uh…WE do that, you guys!
I totally do!

As hard as I try, and as much practice as I’ve had at advocating doing THE EXACT OPPOSITE, sometimes often, I am completely incapable of turning my head that three inches to the left where the flashing red, EXIT is beckoning me home.

Why? Why do we do that sweet Lord?

Fear? Inability to focus? Laziness? Wanting things to be where we want them to be (ie) where they’ve always been?

I was about to say human nature, but maybe it’s just…nature.

I wonder how Ms. Hummings (how I imagine she refers to herself) tells the story of her morning adventure? Is it framed around her chance encounter with a woman in sweats and dirty hair but a nice smile—or is it a horror story centered around a room with no way out? I’d be curious to know.

As I’m writing this you guys, there’s some kind of giant fly or winged insect circling my tiny she-shed, totally mistaking my right ear as their way to blessed freedom while completely bypassing the WIDE OPEN DOOR less than a foot away. Trying hard not to kill it but thinking maybe natural selection is in order.

Carry on,
xox

“Tread lightly and do no harm. Approach the problem from a passive direction and everything will simply come together.”-Skunk

“Oh, F*uck, Ruby!!!”

Our boxer-pup Ruby has been skunked three times in past nine months, the last time being Saturday night. I know what you’re thinking: What a glamourous life you lead!

Everything we own has the lingering aroma of skunk woven into its cellular structure. I say aroma instead of odor because the inhabitants of my home react to it like it’s a new scented spray from GLADE, or a particularly cloying potpourri because well—we’ve all gone nose-blind.

We don’t smell the residual skunk in our shower, on our blankets, or in our clothing until we leave the house and come back.
And you know what? I have to say, it’s really not that bad!

Human beings are mysterious creatures. We are so incredibly adaptable and as if to prove that fact my entire family has adapted to the stench.

The first time, it caused my eyes to water profusely and I drooled like a cartoon wolf eyeing a pork chop.

The second time I gagged. Loudly.

This time the smell barely made me flinch.

Even the little brown dog seemed unfazed and her sense of smell is ten hundred billion times more sensitive than mine.

Here’s the thing, if you visit me three times…you’re a totem. I don’t care what you are. Grasshopper. Praying mantis. A Girl Scout selling Thin Mints. And since I am not one to miss an opportunity to ask “why?” I looked up “skunk totem.”

“If Skunk is your Animal Totem;
You are the ultimate pacifist, always preferring to avoid conflict and turmoil. You walk a very fine line between being a people “pleaser” and balancing your own self-respect and always maintain a “do no harm” attitude. You know how to be assertive without ego. You know how to attract others and are very charismatic. You have a good understanding of energy and how to use energy flows to get what you want.”

This makes no sense. It fits absolutely NO ONE in my house! Not one word of it. The three of us bicker like an angry pack of honey badgers. Ego is our middle name, and if charisma smells like skunk, well then okay. Otherwise…

My husband insists that this only goes to show that sometimes a “cigar is just a cigar, Janet—and a skunk is just a nuisance.” This all makes me mad because it proves that he is right yet again. 

And so…this bleeding heart has agreed to catch and release—the trap has been set and the skunk-scented potpourri is about to leave the building.

Geesh.

Happy Humpday y’all!

Carry on,
xox Janet

Get a house in the suburbs, they said. An ivy-covered cottage with mature trees just north of the hills.
That way you’ll get to experience all of the flora and fauna the area has to offer, they said. So much better than the concrete jungle of mid-city, they said.

So, we did.
We listened to “them”.

And for almost twenty years it’s been exactly as advertised—idyllic—except for that July a few years back when the coyotes ate my two Siamese cats. I can honestly say that put quite a damper on my summer. Still, we have managed to co-exist with nature in a very cordial and symbiotic way.

I leave past-its-prime fruit out for the squirrels so they’ll leave my bird feeder alone; we tolerate the enormous spider webs that are mysteriously woven overnight in high traffic areas and happen to always be at face level. There’s nothing like walking outside in the early dawn hours with a cup of coffee and becoming entangled in a giant, sticky, web that entraps you like a mummy and leaves you batting at your hair like a crazy person—all the while wondering where the damn spider went.

But like I said— we agree to co-exist.

Well, except for the crows. My husband wants to shoot them because they’re colossal pains-in-the-asses whose poops are ruining the paint on our cars. I fight, like a cheap defense attorney, for their right to occupy our giant tree in the front even though the evidence is overwhelming AND it pisses me off too. The sheer volume and size of their shit attacks are hard to fathom. I had one last week, the size of a serving platter, that blotted out the entire driver’s side of my windshield. And it was purple. Wtf?

Nevertheless, I won’t allow him to kill them although I’m pretty sure he’s already had target practice with a few.

But only the ones that laugh at him. Crows laugh you know.
At you.
At your dog.
At your poor choices in cargo shorts.
But you wouldn’t know that unless you live in the suburbs.

Aside from that; things have been quiet. That is, until this year, or as we like to call it: The Year That Wild Kingdom Took Over Studio City.

Lest you label me a complainer—I will first tell you some things I love about living amongst nature.

I love the squirrels, they’re chatty and cute and they hide peanuts in my flower pots… Yipppeeee.

I love the birds. They sing and crap joyfully while building their nests in the drawers of the outside potting table where I keep the clippers and the tiny garden spade—so I can’t get to them until the babies are hatched and raised and go off to college.

I love all the spiders and their cobwebs (which I learned recently are abandoned spider webs that have dust bunnies stuck to them) but I already said that.

I love the hummingbirds who actually come up to my face and make their cute little brrrrrrrrrr sound while I’m watering.

Ok. I’m done.

This year has been the year of the skunk and now, as of late, the year of the raccoon—and I don’t mean I’ve gone schizophrenic on the Chinese calendar.

We have captured and released three skunks after our beautiful but stupid boxer, Ruby, got skunked four times.
It has cost us the equivalent of a monthly car payment for an exterminator to wait them out and once caught, have them relocated to a more hospitable zip code.

But who needs money anyway?

Once those little rascals went bye-bye we mistakenly let down our guard thinking that the worst was over.

Until last week when twice, Ruby and I were woken up by the smell of skunk. Again.

One of my friends joked that the skunks are hitchhiking back to our house because they miss us. I had her killed.

This week there hasn’t been any skunk stench. Nope. Just the terrifying screaming that accompanies Raccoon Fight Club which starts promptly at 2 am—two shows a night—two mornings in a row. The sound is SO loud and horrific I’m certain that if a skunk were anywhere in the vicinity the smell would be scared right off it, but it was not the deterrent I’d prayed for.

“It’s just cats”, my husband mumbled in his sleep the first night. That’s his answer to everything.

“Yeah, if a cat is as big as a dog and screams like a child whose foot is caught in a bear trap,” I replied. To add to the racket, Racoon Fight Club had a cheering section—like it was a fucking championship prize-fight in Las Vegas. The rats who inhabit the Bougainvillea covered fence like it’s rent controlled apartments, were squealing their little hearts out. Favorites were picked. Bets were placed. Peanuts exchanged hands.

Oh, the rats? Haven’t I mentioned them yet? Oh, pardon me. Yeah. Our house is a veritable torture museum obstacle course of mouse traps that are set…everywhere. Apparently, all of Studio City is infested with rats.

They say it’s all the ivy and mature trees. Fucking “they”!

Anyway…After fifteen minutes of cowering in the corner with Ruby, it finally stopped. All of it. The screaming, the squealing, and our whimpering.

Last night it started again only this time it was so deafening and ferocious I could have sworn they were inside the house. Ruby and I jumped into each other’s arms, shaking like two pitiful Chihuahuas. It even woke up my husband and forced him to put on pants.

You don’t want to do that in the middle of the night.

You don’t want to make my husband put on his pants because then he means business—and somebody’s gonna pay.

I heard him grab the giant industrial flashlight that occupies valuable real estate on his nightstand. I hate that thing. It’s ugly AF, weighs a ton, doubles as a weapon, and is so bright I’m sure they can see the light from space.

Husband opened the door to the backyard and yelled “Hey!” because wild animals respond to bald guys holding klieg lights yelling at them. In reality, the screaming didn’t even miss a beat. I wondered how any of our neighbors could sleep through this horror movie nightmare, I’m sure I’ll read about it in the neighborhood blog: Neighbors hold middle-of-the-night, illegal racoon fight club on their rat infested fence.

After another ten minutes of relentless screaming from the raccoons with the rats cheering loudly in the background —I’d had enough. Someone had to do something! I left the safe embrace of my cowardly dog and barefooted my way out the door to the deck on the far side of the yard. I could see the glaring beam of light shining from the flashlight on the other side of the lawn where my husband was hiding standing.

It seems he had bestowed stadium lighting upon Raccoon Fight Club which only caused the rats to cheer louder!

“It’s two raccoons”, he whisper-yelled over in my direction. I could barely hear him over the commotion. But I know they heard us, those two raccoons, yet, whatever they were fighting about overrode their fear of two humans.
And a dog.
As an aside: Where’s the memo that goes out to the wildlife in the neighborhood that lets them know that our house is probably not a good idea for staging Fight Club because —IT HAS A DOG. A little brown dog that will…right.

Anyway, this next section sums up our marital partnership in five or six sentences. Maybe it will sound familiar to you?

“I’m hosing ‘um!”, I yelled over to my hero who was shining his beam of light right on them like it was the Super Bowl half-time show. Meanwhile, the raccoons gave not. one. shit. They just kept on with the scream fighting. So I turned the hose on full strength and blasted them with everything I had.

I think for a minute they thought it was part of the show. But Lord have mercy it shut them the hell up.

Blessed silence.

“They’re gone”, he informed me. “Good idea”, he added as he powered down the klieg light they can see from space.

”Uh, ya think?” I muttered under my breath as I wound up the hose and stood for a moment like Wonder Woman—and then went back to bed.

Being the woo-woo, California knucklehead that I am, I saged the entire yard this morning concentrating on that corner, which I’m convinced is a portal to the mouth of hell.

Hmmmmm...I wonder… how much is it going to cost us to trap and relocate two raccoons? They are definitely meaner than the skunks. Hear that? I’m starting to miss the damn skunks!

I think I’ll start a Go Fund Me Page.

Carry on,
xox JB

Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to admit that intelligent design had something to do with this little experiment we call planet earth, I certainly do!  We celebrated Earth Day the other day and at the risk of getting all preachy on you:

1. Every day is and should be Earth day!
2. A few months ago, a friend sent me this article about trees. Not only do they breathe, they have a pulse, a heartbeat so to speak, every two hours!

https://articles.spiritsciencecentral.com/3-unbelievable-facts-trees/     

The health of Mother Nature and Earth is critical to our survival as a species and if you don’t believe that—go hug a redwood, or swim with dolphins, or simply sit on a porch and watch a late afternoon electrical storm roll in…

Okay. I’m done. Keep breathing everybody.

Carry on,
xox

I call this, brother hugging tree

“What has been hidden from you will now be revealed. Pay attention!”
-Moth

My husband thinks I’m nuts. That is not an anomaly. Hardly! It is a rather common occurrence around our house.
You see, I have a tendency to hear voices and see certain things that are just out of the range of most “normal” folks, much to the constant bewilderment of my husband. Most of my pronouncements, which I can admit are…bizarre, are met with a combination of head scratching wonder and abject disbelief. But if asked, I’m sure he would admit that it’s one of the things that makes our life together…interesting.

Case in point: Friday night I heard something flying around our bedroom in the dark, flapping its wings and bouncing off the walls. You know, just another Friday night at the Bertolus’. The next morning I asked him about it.

“Did you hear that thing flying around our bedroom last night?”

“Uh, no,” he said.

“Are you sure? It was loud.” I pressed.

“Loud like how?”

“I dunno. It sounded like wings flapping…”

“Wings flapping?”

“Yeah and then it kept hitting the wall or the ceiling, I guess it could have been both.”

“Like a bird?” He asked.

“Maybe,” I answered. “I’m surprised you and Ruby slept through it.”

Okay, that was a lie. Those two could sleep through the second coming, Gabriel’s horn blaring and all.
Still, I wondered (just for a minute) if I’d imagined it. But I knew I hadn’t. 

“Maybe it was a dream? He said. I knew that tone, he was humoring me, AGAIN.

“I did incorporate it into I dream,” I said. “It had to do with…oh, never mind.”

I knew it wasn’t a dream. Something had spent the better part of the night before flying clumsily around our bedroom, of THAT I was certain.

Cut to: Interior. Our bedroom — Midnight Saturday night.

I got up to do something, I can’t remember what it was, probably pee or put my hair in a ponytail when something caught my attention. As I opened the door, the bathroom light illuminated a moth. But not just any moth. This one was the size of my head with beautiful markings and a confused look on its face. How did it find its way inside our house? I wondered.

Obviously, it was too busy texting to pay attention to its own GPS and made a left turn instead of a right at the fountain.

“I found out what’s been flying around our room!” I exclaimed, flipping on all the overhead lights, of which there are about ten too many. (Keep that in mind when you remodel, don’t over do it. You don’t want them to be able to see your bedroom at night from space).

My husband and our dog both raised their heads and shot me the same exasperated expression.

“It’s a giant moth! Come look!” I squealed. I was doing a little dance. In my nightgown. With no make-up and my hair piled up on top of my head. The poor moth stared back, frozen in fear.

My husband, being the good sport that he is, stumbled out of bed and over to where I was stand/dancing. The dog stayed put. (Now I know who loves me more.)

“Holy Cow!” he said.
Not really. He would never say that. It was something more like Holy Shit! Or it was more likely he didn’t say anything at all, he just made the face of someone who’d had the misfortune of being woken up in the middle of the night to see a moth the size of a salad plate. You know, that face. Then he went back to bed.

Well, if you know me at all (and you know you do) I HAD to look up Moth Energy.
In a nutshell, they represent transformation and psychic abilities to hear and see things others can’t. What?! Well, that is just So me!

Here’s the article if you want to read further:

http://www.shamanicjourney.com/moth-power-animal-symbol-of-transformation

We tried to corral it and guide it outside but that was like herding a cat—with wings—so we just left it alone and went back to bed. Even though I’ve left the bathroom door open to give it a chance to escape, I heard it flapping around again on Sunday night only the flapping was less robust and I can’t find it anymore. It’s gotten stealthier the longer it’s stayed, but I can’t imagine something that large can stay hidden forever. Moths only live a week or two (I Googled it) so depending on its age (I’m guessing teenager) I suppose it’s going to take one last spin around our room tonight—and then die.

Or it could meet an untimely end at the hands of our ceiling fan.

Oh, Christ on a cracker what do you suppose THAT means? It can’t be good.
Never mind.
Carry on,
xox

This is dedicated to my friend Laura F. 

I remember riding on the motorcycle last summer along the continental divide, admiring the groves of beautiful Aspen trees that filled the landscape for mile after mile, as far as the eye could see. At that point in September, their leaves were just turning the color of butter.

They are one of my favorite trees.
I have often marveled at their physical beauty, their mottled white bark and the shimmer of their leaves. But when one of my teachers back in the day, told me their amazing story, and how it related to humanity – well, I developed an entirely different appreciation.

Somehow the roads conspired with the music in my ears (or I’d just gotten better at choosing the tracks) as we would wind in and out of the gently sweeping curves, the edges lined with groves of graceful Aspens. I’ve discovered that I like to match big, full orchestra, sweeping instrumental pieces when we zigzag through the forests.

It provides a perfect soundtrack.
You all have soundtracks that run through your lives – right?

The particular day I’m thinking of, I was listening to Peter Gabriel’s New Blood Special Edition, which is his genius SO album mixed with full, and I mean a FULL orchestra. Many of the instrumental tracks are over seven minutes long and IN YOUR EYES, playing at full volume in my headphones all throughout the mountains of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, just made me weep.
Perfect temperature, scenery, music, road, and company can often do that to me.
It really is magic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq9ZHVAOZDw

Here’s what’s so unusual and really quite mystical about the Aspens.
They are believed to originate from the root system of Pando, which at an estimated 80,000 years old, is thought to be among the oldest living organisms on the planet.

Aspens are very rarely solitary trees, their roots can lie dormant under the surface for years, for instance after a forest fire, or severe climate change, where they will wait for the optimum conditions for an entire grove, not just a few to flourish.

A tree is actually an above-ground stem that has emerged from a single underground root structure.

In other words, they are a collective, a community, all connected to each other with a strength and durability that remains unseen.

Don’t you love that?

My teacher relayed that story to me (which of course I immediately looked up, because it sounded like a bullshit fairytale) to make the point about the origins of our human souls.
He hated that description: human soul. It would get him all fired up, red in the face.

“The soul is immortal, being human for a brief moment of time,” he’d huff.

“It is ancient, and every soul is connected, like the root system of Pando, Pando representing God or Source or whatever you want to call it. We, humanity, are the like stems or Aspen trees, we think once we’re above ground that we are autonomous, (the trees would NEVER be that stupid) when quite the opposite is true.” He was on a roll now.

He continued, “We get all of our wisdom, strength, and beauty from our unseen connection to each other and God. When one part of the group of Aspens is suffering, it affects the whole, once a certain percentage dies, the whole grove is lost. When it thrives, the same is true.”

He was making the second point about a world community, and about the fact that we should care what goes on not only next door to us, but down the street, in the next county, state and every country of the world. We tend to not pay particular attention to wars and suffering in faraway lands, but if you subscribe to the Aspen analogy, any human suffering affects the whole.

That particular teacher was a citizen of the world and he had a soapbox and wasn’t afraid to use it.

As I rode through the groves of Aspens, beholding all the beauty in front of me for those three weeks at the end of last summer,  I remembered his lecture and I could feel how sacred this planet truly is.

If you EVER doubt that, walk or ride, through nature.
No pulpit necessary.
That my loves is my Church.

Tell me, do you feel the Universal connection in nature? How can we practice more connection in our day-to-day lives? Any thoughts? I LOVE your feedback!

Sending Aspen Connected Love,
Xox

I think we can all agree that the world has gone freaking crazy.

Like flip city crazy.

Whether I’m in the line at the market, pumping gas or flipping someone off, gently reminding them it’s not okay to text and drive—I swear–there’s a special brand of madness out there.

This weekend it felt different, more virulent than the generic cray, cray we’ve been living with for close to a year. You know what I mean—the up is down, black is white, and truth are lies reality that we are all attempting to navigate without losing our minds.

“Snap out of it!”

And we can’t even blame the full moon you guys, it’s too early!

Friends told me that they argued almost to the point of a duel at dawn over issues they barely care about.

Insecurity loomed large.

Our mail carrier (who drives at a glacial pace) got broadsided at the end of our block.

And I ate pie. All weekend. Like, the entire pie.

That wasn’t the only display of cray at our house this weekend. The wildlife, which you know if you read this blog has overrun our house, well, it upped the ante.

“We have a crazy squirrel”, Raphael informed me as we sat down to play cards on the patio Saturday afternoon.

“That sounds like an understatement. Have you met the squirrels around here?”

“I’m not kidding”, he continued, unamused by me. “It either has rabies or it ate some rat poison.”

“Wow. Those are terrible odds”, I replied, trying my best to stiffel a giggle. “Hey, how can you tell when a squirrel is…you know…crazy?” I was trying to make a point. I knew the squirrel hadn’t eaten poison. After the summer we all had, the entire neighborhood has rat fatigue. All our poison stations are empty. Besides, as intended, the openings are too small for the squirrels to get to the poison.

I know these things. Raphael does not.

“All I can say is it’s not acting normal.”

No one is acting normal anymore. No one.
Not our elected officials, not our relatives, not even our beloved national pastime! When the final score of a five-plus hour World Series Game is more like a football score—12-13. Normal is so far in the rearview mirror it has disappeared on the horizon.

Besides, what is normal squirrel behavior anyway? My observation has been that they run around our backyard like lunatics, hiding peanuts and fucking like…squirrels. Not a bad gig.

When I pressed him for details he just said it was acting “weird”, taunting the dog and then barely making a clean get-away.

I brushed it off. I had to survive. My experience with the fauna in our neighborhood this year has given me a form of PTSD.

Raccoons, and skunks and rats—oh my!

I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that the squirrels had now jumped the track.

Now, let me set the scene for this last part.
There’s a dog running around and two adults enjoying a couple of hours of cards. There’s music playing both inside and outside and patio doors open to catch a rare, cool, late October breeze.

In a nutshell…a peanut shell—there’s noise, activity, and broad daylight…and a crazy-ass squirrel lurking inside under a cabinet like Kato from the Pink Panther, waiting for us to come back in the house.

When we did—all hell broke loose. The house went full metal cray.

“That damn squirrel is in here!” Raphael yelled as he held Ruby back by the collar.

There was screaming. Even from the squirrel.

It ran into the fireplace and hid (not very well I might add) among the twigs and leaves I collect throughout the year for kindling.

The dreaded boom came out. The death broom. But Raphael was able to quickly sweep the daft little fellow back onto the patio where he stopped, fixed his hair, and did the Macarena.

Great! Now the wildlife is nuts. What’s next? Attack of the killer gardenia?

I give up.

Carry on,
xox

I was lying in bed last night listening to the crickets who finally got a chance to chirp since Raccoon Fight Club has relocated and I remembered this:

https://www.facebook.com/soulseekers.worldwide/videos/1810889285894025/

This is something you have to listen to! In 1992 Jim Wilson got the idea to slow down a recording of chirping crickets. He referred to the revealed sound as “Gods cricket chorus”. They sing in perfect harmony to each other. How does that happen?

It’s gorgeous and mind-blowing and better than…a frog chorus.

Quick cricket story (of course). Back in the day, in one of my apartments, during the summer the crickets would find their way inside and chirp all night long. It wasn’t slowed down to an angelic sounding chorus—it was simply annoying. I couldn’t escort them back outside like I did with the spiders and daddy-long-legs because they hid from me. As hard as I tried I just couldn’t find them.

So like the bitch says above—my idleness, laziness and the desire to save myself the trouble of moving necessitated being inventive.

Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, I got a bright idea. For three nights in a row, I decided to have a chat with them, a cricket “Come to Jesus” so to speak. I walked around and politely asked them to be quiet, explaining my need to sleep at night and giving them permission to chirp their little hearts out during the day while I was at work.

Night one: A full chorus. Nobody felt like not chirping. As a matter of fact, I think they invited friends.

Night two: A little better. They must have started after I went to sleep because when I got up to pee—it was full Woodstock.

Night three: Silence. Nothing. Crickets. (I just cracked myself up.)

The things that nature hides from us are astonishing.

Carry on,
xox