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Stick with Honey: A Doga Writing Memoir

December 23, 2012

Four years ago, on the Friday before Christmas . . .

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
–Mark Twain

Suza_book_cover_size   The last Chapter in my dating memoir, “Fishing on Facebook: A Writing Yoga Memoir,” is entitled, “Stick with Honey.” As many of you know, Honey is the Australian Shepherd rescue dog who appears on the cover. When I told my friend Dale Hanson the truth about “Adam,” the antagonist in my memoir, she offered this simple advice, “Stick with Honey!”

Well, I have stuck with Honey, through thick and thin! Truth be told, like most other relationships, it has not always been easy. We’ve had enough adventures to fill a book. Here’s the beginning of the story:

Four years ago, on the Thursday before Christmas, I got a call from a local dog rescuer who said she heard I was looking to adopt a Queensland Heeler or Australian Shepherd. She asked if she could bring an Aussie rescue over on Friday, “Just so you can meet her.”

I thought to myself, “What a coincidence that I would get this call today.” My previous dog, Queenie, a Queensland Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog), had died exactly one year ago, on the Friday before Christmas.  003_103_8005

I tried not to take this as a sign from God!

Honey

Honey, Australian Shepherd rescue dog Photo Credit: Janeson Rayne

For a moment I hesitated. I already had plenty of other animals — four cats, two rescue pigs, and a dear mouse named Whitey. Life was so much easier without the responsibility of a dog. I knew very well that if this Aussie arrived on my doorstep it would probably be case closed.

The clever, determined rescuer softened me up by explaining how her organization goes into the animal shelter on a regular basis to save as many dogs as they can from death row. They already had as many dogs as they could handle in one trip and she almost didn’t notice this beautiful Aussie. She described how this little girl dog came up and gently licked her hand.
I imagined the other dogs desperately barking, “Save me! Save me!” while this Aussie girl wisely distinguished herself by quietly licking the rescuer’s hand.

So the next day, on the Friday night before Christmas, a truck stopped in front of my house. The back of the truck had several crates, each holding a yapping dog. The driver took out a beautiful, fluffy Aussie dog. She didn’t bark. It all happened very fast and I felt like I was adopting an unknown orphan child.

The unknown Aussie stood beside me on the street, appearing very calm. We watched the truck with barking dogs drive away. After the truck disappeared, Aussie girl looked up at me as if to assess this human being who fate had delivered her to. At that moment I think she saw right through me –she picked up that I was easy and that she had nothing to fear. She willingly followed me into the house.

What I remember from our first night together is that this Aussie, who I named Honey a few days later, not only did not chase my cats (at least not while I was looking), she licked Leo’s face. Possibly because Leo’s lips taste like cat food, but it looked like a sign of affection and scored big points in her favor.

Late that night, while we were in the kitchen, a band of raccoons that had gotten way too tame during the year that I had no dog, came looking in the cat door, to see if it was safe to come in. I noticed Honey staring intently at the door, well aware of the intruders peering in. Suddenly she let loose an explosive bark that would shatter the ear drums of the dead. That was the end of the raccoons sneaking into the kitchen and stealing cat food.

For the first few days, as is the case in most new relationships, Honey was on her sweetest, best behavior. She smiled at everyone and sat still during my yoga classes with her front paws crossed, observing my students like a flock of sheep. But gradually, as she felt more secure, the reality of her true nature emerged.

Another day I will tell more about “Sunny” Honey. She is the world’s most loyal and lovable dog, but there is good reason why friends have dubbed her, “Buffalo Girl,” “Thunder Girl,” and other nicknames that reflect her energetic, exuberant, spirit!
Happy Fourth Anniversary Honey! (Honey hopes her story inspires more humans to give a dog waiting at the shelter a forever home.)

Southern California Australian Shepherd Rescue http://www.aussierescuesocal.com/

Please spay and neuter your dogs and cats –thousands of animals are waiting on death row, hoping to be adopted before it’s too late.

HONEY HUG

Stick with Honey! Photo Credit: David E. Moody

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Posted in Doga Writing Memoir, Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | 1 Comment »

I can’t die yet—I just spent $2,000 at the dentist.

December 7, 2012
 

Honey

Honey

    

The other day I reached inside the mailbox, which I share with seven other people. There were Christmas cards, credit card offers, a Victoria’s Secrets catalog that has no secrets, and a gourmet gift catalog with giant walnut chocolate cookies, baklava, biscuits, and cinnamon swirl buns for those no longer watching their figure.

     On this day the only item in the mail for me was another discreet reminder from Smart Cremation that my journey in this world of pleasure and pain is coming to an end.
      I can’t die yet—I just spent $2,000 at the dentist. The root canal is fixed, my chipped front tooth is whole again. But the thought of all the work I have to do to earn that money back is exhausting. Yesterday, as I assessed my life situation, I hit a wall. I fell into that depressing place where you just want to pull the covers over your head and give up. I felt tired and close to tears. So I decided that, instead of scooping the poop out of the kitty litter and making a dent in the endless hopeless housework that comes with five four-leggeds, I would run away with Honey and Chico to the basin near Pratt Trail. We would hike and I would do yoga in my favorite panoramic spot. I still had the car that I borrowed the day before to go to the dentist, so off we went.
       Chico and Honey were yapping with joy and ready to fly out the window. As I eased the car into the dirt parking area, I caught a glimpse of a Ventura County spray truck. Seeing those workers with gloves on, once again spraying toxic weed killers up and down the side of the basin and surrounding areas, killing everything that was sprouting after the rain, my heart sank. In years past I’ve questioned them . . . they have their reasons (flood control), but their reasons make no sense to me.
       The dogs were so wild to go running that I didn’t get out to question the workers. I turned around and drove away. Later I heard from a friend who lives nearby on North Signal Street that she could smell the spray from her house. The whole scene of man still poisoning the Earth, after all we know about toxins traveling up the food chain, killing wildlife. . . all this put me further over the edge. I told myself that in other countries they’re spraying people, poisoning and killing human beings—that I’m among the lucky ones; I can walk away and find refuge somewhere else in nature.
470591_10150741641279703_266408929_o        Later the dogs and I walked the creek bed in the river bottom. I’d cancelled my Thursday night class, feeling that I had nothing to give. So I had time to drift off into the sunset, to watch the light change and sink into stillness. When I came home, my sweet daughter brought me my favorite bird seed cookie with strawberry jam in the center, fresh-made at the Farmer and the Cook. “Here, Mom,” she said, “I’m sorry you’re having such a hard day.” I felt slightly ashamed that I had dumped my troubles on her earlier in the day. Laughing, I bit into the yummy cookie, and thus my hard day dissipated.

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Happy 90th birthday to beloved Ojai teacher David Essel

December 6, 2012

Last night I went to the 90th birthday party of my former teacher David Essel, who I met in 1966 when I was a shy, introverted student at Happy Valley School (now Besant Hill School).

The party was held at the Ojai Retreat and the room was filled with his lifelong friends. I planted myself right next to the birthday boy in a comfortable padded chair where I could sit cross-legged with a plate in my lap piled high with delicious vegetarian food. I listened intently while he told endless stories about old Ojai—the Ojai I knew as a child.

To the other side of David Essel sat the writer Catherine Ann Jones. Also sitting in our little huddle of guests was author David E. Moody and Mark and Asha Lee, founders of the Oak Grove School. Catherine asked the birthday boy what was it like to be ninety and he replied that he’s always felt ten years younger than his chronological age–he feels only eighty! He expressed surprise that his daughters were throwing this party for him so soon –he laughingly said they should have waited till he was a hundred.

In the course of the evening David Essel told the story of how he, Alan and Helen Hooker (of Ranch House fame) and Frank and Bennie Noyes (grandparents of Marla McFadin and Brian McFadin) came to Ojai in 1949, lured by Rosalind Rajagopal, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley, Annie Besant, and the Happy Valley School. He remembered a young girl named Jan, the mother of Marla and Brian, who I can still see clearly in my mind’s eye. Jan was one of the early students at Happy Valley School when the campus was located just past the Ranch House, downhill from the Ojai Retreat.

I can tell you that David Essel’s mind is sharp. I saw no sign of either short or long term memory loss. I remember many of the people he mentioned and his recollections refreshed my own childhood memories of Beatrice Wood, David Young, Heather and Peter Young (parents of musician Martin Young and his sister Lindy) —and other Ojai pioneers, educators, and artists ahead of their time.

When the birthday cake was presented someone shouted, “Speech! Speech!” For a moment this youthful elder looked overwhelmed and at a loss for words. But then he gathered his forces and launched into a lengthy Life Review, as most of us are apt to do given the golden opportunity of an audience waiting for the cake to be cut.

David Essel described the stages of life, beginning with his childhood family life on a farm, growing their own food. He was allergic to cow’s milk so the family learned the art of milking goats. Then came the years in the marines and the awareness of the horror of war. He told a story about meeting a Japanese family, “the kindest, nicest people… the same people we had been killing…” He described how he went to school and studied animal husbandry–and how after he had to slaughter an animal he threw all his papers and schoolwork in the trash in disgust and became a vegetarian.

He told how the three people who influenced his life the most were his father, his wife, Mary, and J. Krishnamurti, for their impeccable integrity. David’s father spent time living deep in the woods and loved nature. He also recalled that when his father was still single he gave up a secure job so that his friend, who had a family, would not be laid off.

We never know how much we influence the life of another person but I know David Essel influenced mine. His sensitivity and kindness made a great impression on me. Like Beatrice Wood, who also rescued dogs and carried spiders outside, he taught in word and deed that all creatures, great and small, love their life as much as we do.

Posted in elder care, Life in Ojai | 2 Comments »

Yoga yakking

December 1, 2012
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Yesterday we were yakking in the yoga room about life, and I mentioned that I’d had a date with a man twenty years younger.
  When I first began practicing with other teachers and students, I used to try to hush everyone up, but now I realize that this “yoga yakking” while opening the body can be enormously therapeutic and insightful.
  One of the teachers present told the story of her friend who married a man twenty years younger. “She’s now in her seventies. He’s in his fifties. They’ve been together twenty-five years, and they are the happiest, sweetest couple you’ve ever seen.”
  “Well,” I said, “If nothing else, this date with a younger man showed me I need to stretch the age range at both ends.”
  When I was in my fifties, I dated a man at the other end of the spectrum—a sophisticated filmmaker in his eighties. He was totally romantic, bought me flowers and beautiful clothes, and joked about sending me to finishing school and taking me to Italy. But, alas, when we went to dinner he ordered veal, and he still smoked pot and hash and scared the daylights out of me with his coughing and hacking . . .
  “My date went great,” I said enthusiastically. “He’s a really nice guy. Very responsible. Vegetarian. And he looked so shiny and clean. He’d just gotten out of the shower. Once we started talking, I forgot all about the age difference.
  “But I think I might have blown it. First of all, I didn’t have anything to wear. All my skirts have rips in them, so I just wore my yoga pants with a blouse and shawl. It was short notice. I should have postponed it. We went somewhere very casual. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and I wasn’t hungry. Just sipped some wine . . .”
  The rest of the story came out while we were opening our hips, stretching our legs, excavating the stiffness out of our shoulder joints, or hanging upside down.
  “It was so interesting,” I went on, “because the age difference seemed not to matter. He’s been divorced three years. Doesn’t strike me as a womanizer. Seems very straightforward, kind, and honest. I had only actually met him in person once, about six months ago. It never in a million years occurred to me that he might like to ask me out. He’s younger than my son! My daughter didn’t approve of me going on this date! We basically told each other bits and pieces of our past. Kind of like a job interview.
  “He told me the story of how he ended up moving to Ojai . . . asked me where I went to school . . . I told him how I had a baby when I was eighteen and that I went to Ventura College and got an Early Childhood Teaching Certificate because that was a job where I could take my toddler to work with me. I told him I did child care out of my home, worked at different nursery schools in town, and basically took care of kids from dawn to dusk.
  And then I heard myself say, “I thought I wanted to teach preschool for the rest of my life, but then when my son turned seven I didn’t want to see another kid as long as I lived!”
  I plum forgot that my young-man date had young children!
  I told my yoga confidantes, “I didn’t really mean it the way it sounded! I can’t remember if I told him that I had a daughter later in life or that I’m a grandaunt to a niece and five nephews! I love kids—really I do!”
  Truth be told, I didn’t want him to think I was some kind of cougar. We’d already joked about cougars before our date when he explained that he liked older women. For me, this was a first-time experiment. It’s in my Gemini nature to laugh and flirt, but as I sat across from this shiny clean young man —the kind I was not attracted to in my youth but was considering now—I noticed that the nun in me had the upper hand.
  Yes, I’d told myself that the age difference didn’t matter. The date was his idea, not mine. When he walked me to my car and, half jokingly, casually said something about me coming over to talk and have more wine, I’d never said no more quickly in my entire life!

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The interruptions to life’s best laid plans never end!

November 27, 2012

Monday, November 26, 2012

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I’m telling you, having dogs (next to having kids) is the world’s best assertiveness-with-kindness training. In the time it took for me to do my morning ablutions, Honey and her black-wolf husband Nubio tore the stuffing out of my warm winter quilt while romping on my bed. The interruptions to life’s best laid plans never end!

Yesterday, after thoroughly enjoying myself at the Glen Muse Yuletide celebration, I felt fortified to spend the evening with my elders. Turns out my middle sister, the Boolie bully I lamented about in yesterday’s Post, was right. Our old parents do need more help.

When I managed to get my mom to unlock the door (by calling on my cell as I banged on the door) I stepped from the cold outdoors into a sauna. I’ve done home health care and end-of-life care off and on for almost fifty-years (since I was thirteen) and thermostats turned up to 100 degrees are a given for this job. Skeleton thin elders with poor circulation are always cold.

My dad was lying back bundled up in winter robe and wool socks in the special huge ugly sturdy $900 easy-chair my bully sister insisted on buying many months ago. Our parents were furious when she planted it in the center of the living room but now of course my dad dozes in it all day long.

The whole scene is like a European home frozen in time fifty years ago. The radio, turned to a classical music station, is fifty years old. If you open the kitchen cupboards you will find items like the flat wood silverware holder that came along with us on the ten-day boat trip from Holland to New York. My mom plays Dutch childhood songs on the piano for hours on end. There is no TV, no computer and they never check the answering machine Boolie bought them eons ago.

My mom always wants to know if I have a boyfriend. She laughed and perked up when I told her I had a date the other day with a very handsome man twenty years younger than me. My dad insisted he’d already eaten so I reheated a left over sweet potato for my mom, slathered it with raw organic butter to try to get some calories in her.

While she eats we banter back and forth about the ludicrousness of life. At one point her mind slipped and she asked if my dad was my father. “Well, ” I said, “if he isn’t, I advise you not to tell him!” She laughed so hard I got on a roll and asked her if she’d like me to take a paternity test. Our love for naughty jokes never ends!

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I’ve resented her intrusion since the day she was born

November 27, 2012

Sunday, November 25, 2012

My first free Sunday in four weeks! After my yoga class I’m going to walk, walk, walk, and write, write, write. But first, I have to check on my old parents.

I made the mistake of answering the phone last night and got in a heated argument with my middle sister about our parent’s elder care. The stork delivered this interloper, nicknamed “Boolie” (pronounced “bully”) when I was two years-old. I’ve resented her intrusion since the day she was born. She thinks she is my superior in every way and delights in my failures as each of my fumbles proves she is right.

The sun is shining, the blazing red and yellow leaves on the trees outside my window are shimmering to the ground. The ever-present river bottom wind whispers in my ear, reminding me that all things on earth are transient and somehow I must extricate myself from the earthly messes I’ve created, whether they be present or past karma, possibly from lifetimes ago. Some say we choose our parents, our siblings, our whole life situation. . . that here on the wheel of life we are working out stuff from past reincarnations. Anything is possible —perhaps this lifetime all my past husbands are converging in Ojai to give me one last chance to be merciful and kind. . . I would launch into a long story on this but must clean the yoga room, feed my four leggeds and put on my yoga hat. For my students (who know me well and accept me as I am) I am almost always on my best behavior!

 

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Nothing like a toothache to bring you to your knees

November 27, 2012

November 20th, 2012

There’s nothing like a toothache to bring you to your knees and stop you in your tracks!

A few days ago I was sitting in the parking lot at Ojai Community bank filling out a deposit slip, making plans for lunch and the rest of my life. I had just taught a great class, I was on top of my game, when all of a sudden all hell broke loose in my jaw. The pain was so bad I couldn’t move —I just sat there
breathing, waiting, hoping and praying the merciless agony would subside. I began to doubt I could even make it to the ATM or drive safely home. Tears were pouring down my cheeks. It hit me that this was the kind of acute pain that makes people want to drop the body and check out.

After the pain died down, I managed to do my banking and drive home. I made a dental appointment. Each time the pain came back I massaged my gums and rinsed with various natural potions to ease the agony. Thankfully all weekend I was pain free so long as I stayed away from anything too hot or too cold.

Today I went to see the man I love and worship above all others: my dentist. Tomorrow, the day before Thanksgiving, I’ll be getting a blessed root canal from one of his associates. For this I’m mighty thankful!

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Ginger — the cat from hell, alive and well

November 16, 2012

Last night my daughter Monica found my old cat Ginger in the dryer — with the door closed. Ginger was deep asleep, buried in the warm towels and clothes, perfectly happy, having found the ideal quiet, cozy spot where no one will bother her, which is all she really wants from life.

When Monica lifted Ginger out of the dryer and brought her to me my heart turned over, as it hit me what could have happened had someone turned the dryer on with Ginger inside. The dryer is in the garage—we might not have heard the thump of her little body or cries for help.

I have to tell you that Ginger is the cat from hell. I got her at the Humane Society about a hundred years ago. She was in the cage (back then there was no Cat Room where cats can wander and play as they please) right next to the really sweet cat that I had picked out. But I felt sorry for Ginger, so scrawny, short -haired, not cute or adoptable looking. So, as an afterthought, out of the goodness of my heart, I asked if I could take her too. The Humane Society let me have Ginger for free and I’ve been paying the price ever since.

The first thing Ginger did upon arrival was chase off the other cat I adopted that day. I never saw that cat again and hoped it found a home with one of my neighbors. Until Ginger arrived on the scene I always had several cats. But each time someone brought me a stray, no matter if I kept the newcomer locked up in my bedroom to try to acclimate him or her to its new abode, sooner or later Ginger’s hissing and utter selfishness would drive the poor innocent off.

Until one day Monica told me that her friend’s cat had had kittens and now that they were weaned they were on the way to the Humane Society because the friend’s dad would not let her keep them. “Call her up, ” I said immediately. “We’ll take them!” An hour later the most beautiful, fluffy creatures arrived. We named them Princess Priscilla and Leo the Lion. Being kittens, they paid absolutely no mind to Ginger’s hissing and threatening flicks of her paw. They played all day and grew up to be fat, snuggly, long-haired cats. While Ginger sleeps alone in the most private quarters she can find, Leo and Priscilla sleep in my nice warm bed, like normal cats.

While writing this I heard a terrible hacking sound coming out of the bathroom. When I ran to check, I saw Ginger throwing up watery bile with grass and hairy clumps all over the fancy scales that an old boyfriend gave me during my menopausal years when he was worried about me gaining weight. After I wiped the mess up I noticed that some of the brown watery stuff had seeped inside the scales, floating under the glass, where the numbers are. I’ll try not to take it as a sign from God.

Posted in Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | 1 Comment »

Full moon wake up call

October 30, 2012

Monday evening, October 29, 2012

The full moon is here. She woke me up at 4 a.m. and demanded that I look her in the eye. I threw on my cloak, stepped outside into the cold, and sat in the dark. All was quiet except for the soft back and forth hooting of two owls. The moon shone bright through the trees, but she felt cold and distant. My energy was not right. Too much outward activity catching up with me. I needed to withdraw from the world, rest deep in the Goddess Pose, and let go of my earthly concerns. Instead, I sat shivering on the floor, did my accounting, bumbled through my morning class, and flogged myself all the way home. Felt nauseous and negative. Had no choice but to postpone everything and take a healing nap. Then took wolves for a walk in the boonies. Sat on the ground, soaked up the sun, and waited for Mother Nature to do her magic. . . . Just now I went outside, looked up, and can feel the full moon energy smiling down. . . .

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Am I my father’s daughter?

October 18, 2012

October 15, 2012

I had the most extraordinary epiphany today at my father’s 89th birthday celebration. We were sitting around the table eating an Indonesian fruit compote and other goodies—a lively gathering of family and friends, all of us laughing, reminiscing, talking all at once in Dutch, Indonesian, and English. Suddenly, out of the blue I heard a woman I hardly know, a close friend of my youngest sister (my dad’s favorite), call MY father “Dad.” Of all the nerve! She was sitting close to him, reading him a birthday card, and they were yukking it up like they were old pals—like they were father and daughter!

I felt so betrayed! Each time she called him “Dad,” an irrational,  uncontrollable pain shot through my heart and solar plexus. I realized it was the exact same raw, painful sensation I used to feel in my gut upon suspecting or discovering a boyfriend or husband had betrayed me in some way. Like someone sticking a knife in my stomach.

It was as if my psyche went back in time to when my dysfunctional relationship with men first began—to the core of the second-class-citizen relationship I have with my father. Growing up, I was afraid of him. Once, some years ago, he actually held me, cried, and apologized for being so hard on me.

But my dad’s religious fanaticism creates a gap between us. And now here was this strange woman from my sister’s church, who had evidently visited my dad many times before, kissing up to him and calling him “Dad,” every chance she got. And he was eating it up! All my father-daughter-man-woman neurosis was staring me in the face. I sat there paralyzed. There was nothing I could do but wait for that old familiar pain that has haunted me all my life to subside.

To ease the pain and appear normal, I reached for a chocolate cookie. I ate several, till the pain subsided. Then I regained my composure, chatted a bit about yoga with the Indonesian ladies, and even signed over a gift copy of one of my yoga books.

As I said my goodbyes, I thanked my father’s friends for their presents and for celebrating his life. I made nice with the woman who had the nerve to call my dad “Dad,” pondering her motives as I looked her in the eye. Then I grabbed my backpack, stepped outside into the sunlight and fresh air, and walked home to my tribe.

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