A Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On

Reader, we are fine so far after two of the biggest earthquakes we've felt in the twenty years I've lived here. Last night I went outside a bit after dinner and stood in the front yard looking up at the sky. It was a beautiful night, a typical glorious southern California clearness to the air and the temperature, and I noted how quiet it was -- no sirens, no voices, no birds. No birds.

I do not like earthquakes. I do not find them exciting, particularly when they happen really close to one another. I do find them similar, in some ways, to living with a person who has uncontrolled seizures. That means that I never get used to them. They come out of nowhere, cause the same burst of cortisol (or is it adrenaline), and one makes you feel nauseous and like you can't trust the ground under your feet while the other makes you feel nauseous and like you can't trust -- well -- anything. So, I generally practice being mindful, or at least try to be mindful even as I dissociate a bit during Sophie's seizures and marvel/wonder/holy shit! during earthquakes. But we're fine, honestly -- taking stock of emergency supplies, wondering if the 30 gallon container of water in the backyard shed is still good and whether I should go ahead and pack a "to go" bag specifically for Sophie and her meds.

Those meds control Sophie's seizures about as well as preparing for an earthquake controls my nerves. We could stretch out that metaphor to say that all is vanity and there's nothing new under the sun.

I read something the other day about the importance of a belief system -- higher power, etc. etc.  to allay anxiety. I remember feeling somewhat faithful in my Catholic childhood and early adulthood, was obsessed, briefly, with the lives of the saints and even went to a Billy Graham revival with my Bible beater college friends, but when I look back and read back (lots of religious agonizing in the journals), from this vantage point of general/relative unbelief in any higher power other than the universe itself and, of course,  love, love love, I'm struck by how I labored to believe and how the whole religious thing banks on the myth that it takes labor to believe, to love, to have faith, etc.

which

leads

me

to those I've engaged with over the last few days who argue semantics (the term concentration camp) and wave their silly flags and insist on the rule of law and God and Jesus and prayers and then exclaim should we just let them WALK over the border, then? and bite into their charbroiled burgers and slide some mustard over their hotdogs and watch some hulked up millionaire swing a bat at a ball as American as pie.

Speaking of pie, The Gig Economy Worker made seven peach pies this week and is taking orders for the rest of the summer.

(I picked those donut peaches from a friend's tree, a tree that had a ridiculous number of peaches and bowed branches, so heavy was its fruit. Alas, the taste was not as sweet and generous as the number, so I used very ripe, very delicious peaches from Trader Joe's)

The 4th of July in Terrible America

Children and workers are seen at a tent encampment recently built near the Tornillo Port of Entry on June 19, 2018 in Tornillo, Texas.

 Getty Images

I was sitting at my computer, paying my American Express bill and waiting for a peach pie to finish baking in the oven when what was the biggest earthquake I have felt in several years began. It started as a jolt and then it grew in waves even as I glanced up and saw the chandelier swaying and heard the pots clinking on the pot rack that hangs over the stove. I willed myself not to panic and walked toward Sophie's room, the hallway a galley in a boat swaying back and forth. I nearly put my arms out on either side to keep my balance and when I passed the boys' room, I shouted to Oliver, Earthquake! and sat next to Sophie who was lying in bed, her eyes open, my stomach lurching the pots clinking and windows creaking. It seemed to go on forever and then it stopped. Everyone is fine. We are all fine. Sophie, who had a ridiculous number of huge seizures yesterday out of the blue, as she'd been doing so well, is fine. I know that she had those seizures now because she is exquisitely tuned in to the strange and elemental goings on in the universe. I imagine she feels relief now, her brain settled even as we settle. It seems like relief, now, after the simmering rage and unease I've felt for days, a rage that I attributed to what's going on, the unease to the imperative to celebrate, to wish happy fourth of July when so many are suffering, when tanks are being power-washed to shine at military parades for that POSPOTUS, the empty rapist in chief of Terrible America. Yes, my words are harsh, but isn't it true? And what can we do beyond cutting our pie crusts out with END THE CAMPS letters scattered over caramelized peaches? How can our voices be anything but tiny and inexhaustible (Faulkner)? I just can't wish anyone happy anything this 4th of July. I feel angry and ashamed to be an American, to be so ineffectual, to be able to do nothing but post horrible photos and satirical cartoons about the POS we have leading us and the incredible injustices that he and those who support him, those we know, those, even, we love, are doing in our name. It makes me so sick to my stomach that the very real earthquake that rocked our house was a kind of relief.

It's Gonna Be Dope

That drawing above has nothing to do with the post, other than it's an apt illustration of the state of my mind, and I'll leave that up to you to interpret as you'd like, dear Reader.


Over the last couple of weeks, we out here on the southern edge of the continent have been hearing about a swarm of earthquakes that hit the weird Salton Sea to our east, and over the last few days, there've been dire predictions that The Big One was going to hit the Los Angeles area very, very, very soon. Like by today. I got a number of notifications of this "fact" from friends and family yesterday, one while I was trying on clothes in a Target dressing room that prompted me to quickly put my own clothes back on, search for Oliver in the gaming section, acquiesce to his request for a box of Fruity Pebbles cereal and make a bee-line out of the place and into my car and out of the underground parking garage with visions of its exposed pipes and Best Buy electronics crashing through and onto the roof of my sexy blue Mazda.

Oy vey.

Here's a text I got from Henry this morning:

On the plus side, I'm so desperate to find a meaning for Sophie's recent decline that I'm thinking the swarm of earthquakes and impending Big One might be the reason for it. This kid's brain is incredibly sensitive, so who knows -- maybe she senses the earth's discomfiture? There's a strange and apt parallel between earthquakes and seizures. Warnings of earthquakes are a bit like medications for seizures -- both giving us the illusion of control. When I'm not lying in bed in the hours before dawn, one part of me going to the dark side, as my dear friend likes to say,  I am busy trying to figure things out, go through variables, talk to the wise people I know, meditate and stay calm. I've learned some degree of equanimity over the last twenty years despite the imminent threat of destruction nearly every single day, so I guess I'll keep at it. And while I wish that The Teenager could have at least written how much he loves me for being the best mother on the planet, I'm encouraged by his attitude.

It's gonna be dope.

Nepal

His voice is licked
but his dreams
are the artillery of words loaded
to uncoil our strength.

Michel-Ange Hyppolite (Haitian poet)

I'm not much of a "prayer," but my heart aches for the people of Nepal, and I send them prayers from that ache.  Seeing ancient buildings reduced to piles of sticks, enormous sacred statues tumbled, ashy faces under rubble, the bloodied, torn pants of a woman being carried by others makes us feel wildly helpless.

That compulsion to write what we see. That compulsion to not sully with words what is beyond them.




The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

Thinking About

Today is the day that ended with me getting my boys back, and I'm glad about that. I puttered around today, cleaning up, organizing my crap, reading some magazine articles, researching Chechen food for the salon on Friday and mulling over the fate of the universe, albeit the universe of my own tiny little mother mind.™ This would include my observations about the first episode of Wolf Hall on Masterpiece Theater (no, I did not read the book, but so far so good) or rather the period that is depicted (16th century King Henry the 8th/Catholic Church/Church of England and all those shenanigans) and how really ridiculous most men look in history when they're striving for power and territory and keeping down the women-folk and the poor. I'm in, though, particularly as the actor who plays Cromwell bears a striking resemblance, even in that sixteenth century get-up, to Dr. Paul Weston, the shrink from In Treatment with whom I carried on an affair, at least in my tiny little mother mind.™

I also had an interesting conversation with a mother who is very active in the movement to defeat the proposed bill here in California that would make every single vaccination mandatory for every single child in the state unless they have a medical exemption or else they will not be allowed to go to public school. I definitely do not support this bill for various reasons, some of which are kind of, sort of, connected to even the patriarchal values that were demonstrated even farther back than old Henry the 8th and his ignorance that it was his mighty sperm that lacked the necessary Y to give him an heir. Basically, that is the fact that I'm not going to let the government or the medical world force me to do anything to my children that I believe will hurt them. That led to me thinking about my instincts (which work quite beautifully, most of the time, with my tiny little mother mind™) and how they tell me that, really, we're on the edge here in 2015, with the dregs of allopathic medicine. Apparently, the libertarian Rand Paul, whom I loathe because I just don't gel with the libertarian aesthetic (or lack of one) or the cult of individualism that it espouses, is probably the best bet to keep out government over-reach (we can throw in medical marijuana, too, here), but it's just the way the guy frames it all that makes me sick, and that's because he sort of denies women's issues in an incredibly patronizing way.

Anyhoo.

Where was I?

Where are you?

We just had one of those very big jolts of an earthquake which evidently registered 3.5 on the old Richter scale and which I'm realizing is probably the reason why Sophie has had a terrible day with lots of seizures, jitteriness, clamminess and otherwise uncharacteristic behavior. I'm certain she senses these things or feels quite exquisitely the subtle changes of the planet. You see? I've brought things right round to the universe and my tiny little mother mind's™ mulling over its fate.

More Notes

Helicopters are circling and the night breeze is gentle on my bare shoulders. There might have been an earthquake an hour ago. I do love Los Angeles.

It would be nice if I could lie down on the floor, kick and scream, like a two-year-old, if I could spit it's not fair like a seven-year-old, if I could sneer my life sucks like a fifteen-year-old, or moan pray that I die like an eighty-five-year-old. Instead it's all breathe in, breathe out, rueful smiles, looking for angels in trees, being mindful of the goosebumps on my skin, reaching for ghosts.

Earthquakes and Seizures

We're having both.

And they're sort of alike.

I figure I've got it down until it kills me.

Dispatch from the Medical Marijuana Revolution

So, here's the thing. Last week was not a good week. There was a pretty decent earthquake, a full moon, a vague virus, the bottom of the bottle of the second batch of Charlotte's Web and some seizure activity after several weeks with virtually none. The week before last, there was also an Onfi wean that The Husband forgot to tell me about. AHA! Withdrawal was probably more the reason for the increased seizure activity than all those other things combined. I think. There's always a lot of thinking going on in these parts --shallow thinking (why, why wasn't it me that had a Javier Bardem sighting in the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills the other day***), mid-level thinking (why the hell can I not make it through novels longer than 400 pages anymore?) to highly complex thinking (perhaps I walk around and drive around in a weird state of numbness because I actually CAN after nineteen years of dealing with the adrenaline rush of constant crisis?)

Anyhoo.

I highly recommend that any of you with children with refractory epilepsy or any of you with seizures or other autoimmune diseases at all give this medical marijuana thing a try if at all possible, because the thing is: even when Sophie does seize, she recovers quickly, she's coming off of one of the most vicious anti-epileptic benzos, she's more alert overall and it really, truly looks like this is the thing. I know that hundreds of you are struggling in your states to get easier access or access at all. I know that many of you have neurologists who are perhaps more like dinosaurs than healers. I say forget them and pursue what you think will help your kid. I'm not going to even qualify that and say something bullshitty like I am not a physician and in no way recommend this treatment without a doctor's referral. Think back. Didn't I tell you not to try that fifteenth drug if it was in combination with the thirteenth and fourteenth?

This concludes today's dispatch from the Medical Marijuana Revolution.








***Probably because I have never been to the Polo Lounge. A friend of mine posted it on Facebook and I died a small death -- you know, la petite morte. There's some medium-thinking for you. Look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Shamrock Shake

So that's what I wanted to do after I woke this morning to a huge jolt and then some seconds of shaking. Have I ever mentioned that I hate earthquakes? I know I go on excessively about the weather here, the outrageous beauty of it and how ever since I've moved out here (15 years ago), the winter months are no longer ones where I feel faintly suicidal. I really hate earthquakes, though -- and particularly the awful jittery, faintly nauseous feeling I have for hours afterward. Like right now. Some people are charged up and excited, and they're probably the same kind of people that love the crazy rides at amusement parks or think bungee jumping off of skyscrapers is cool, but that is not me. I hate earthquakes. Feeling the very ground under your feet shake and sway is a feeling like no other, and it's not good. At least for me.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, though. I do love the Irish. I might have to have a Guiness before noon to calm my nerves.

Blue Mind

I just noticed some sunshine and blue sky for the first time in days, and it's a good thing. I dropped my cousin off at the airport in a thick fog, and I wondered if Los Angeles has turned into the rainy nightmare that T.C. Boyle described in one of his books that foretold the dire future of our planet with global warming. Perhaps not yet. We have much to do around these parts as both my boys are traveling to the east coast next week to visit my parents. I am tired. I woke up this morning quite suddenly at 3:45 am by the sound of buzzing or a thump or maybe even both. I sat up and grabbed my phone, but it wasn't a call so I lay back down and wondered if there had been an earthquake but when I checked the internet (Los Angeles earthquakes in the Google bar), there hadn't been one since 1:00 am that morning. Earthquakes happen all day long everywhere on the planet -- did you know that? The early hours of the morning are ripe with metaphor, but I've pledged to avoid it -- the making of metaphor -- and sit in what's around me, illusion or not. Sophie was still breathing, the dog's collar clicked on the floor when she lay her head down, the air conditioner kicked on, and I, convinced that something had happened or was going to happen didn't go back to sleep until 5ish or so. Nothing has happened, and as things always go, the music playing on my Amazon Sound Cloud is the above.

Roses and Thorns

So, I'm finally feeling a bit better. I'm either a giant baby or this virus took hold of my central nervous system and turned me into a sniveling, coughing, whimpering, depressed and irritable old woman. I feel now like I'm one of those cut-back roses, all thorns with no sign of flower. I did rest, though; in fact, I watched all thirteen episodes of the new Netflix series' House of Cards. It was awesome although it made me feel like I should get up and take a shower. Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright play just about the most icy, venal couple on the planet. Speaking of planets, it's pretty cold here in Los Angeles at about fifty-five degrees, but it feels like another planet when I see what some of ya'll are dealing with on the east coast. Even though I'm sick, I'm glad I'm not you if you live in Boston or Connecticut or even New York. Call me cruel when I say that snow is pretty, but it's not that pretty. I guess you can get back to me during fire season or when The Big One hits. 

3.3 at 3:26

I woke up with a literal jolt this morning and realized immediately that the earth was shaking. Valentine the dog stood up, too, and yelped and I said, it's ok in a louder than 3:30 in the morning voice. Despite having lived here for more than 14 years, I've never felt that surge of the natives, nor do I roll my eyes and roll back into sleep. I sit upright, for hours, with the lights on, waiting for the slightest tremble with my stomach queasy and my heart beating. The Husband, who was sleeping with Sophie, didn't stir, not even when I flipped the hallway light on. The boys slept on.

Well, it's morning and the sky is blue and no new cracks have appeared in the plaster walls. The earthquake, a 3.3 whose epicenter was in Beverly Hills, just down the road from where we live, is now just another one that I've experienced and certainly not The Big One.

I woke up this morning to see that the wonderful Design Mom has posted about our video -- another earthquake, I'd say, and the kind that does make me feel a surge of excitement. Go check it out!

Weird September

I've woken up literally every morning this summer, here in Los Angeles, and walked outside to the usual glorious weather -- sunny, clear skies, a bit of a cool breeze, temperatures near seventy degrees, no humidity. And every morning -- in fact, throughout the day, I've either remarked to someone or said in my head how utterly fantastic the weather is. How beautiful. How perfect. How grateful I am for it. How fortunate we are. This morning I opened the door and was greeted by a blast of humid heat. The skies were a bit gray, yellow, really, and the breeze was hot. And the air was weird -- both still and stifled and rippling through the palms. I felt uneasy, unsettled. Earthquake weather, is what the neighbor said, and I nodded as I leaned over and picked up our paper. Sophie had just had a seizure and was her post-ictal clammy self and despite the fact that she has seizures nearly every day, multiple times a day, I worried that it was indeed earthquake weather and that the strange barometric pressure or whatever you call it was affecting her, too.

I'm still unsettled. Anxious, looking up into the sky and down to the ground.