Sunday Morning Poetry with the Night Before Last Sunset

Sunset, Henry and Oliver
Pelican Cove, Rancho Palos Verdes

The Bright Day

Earth, earth!
day, this bright day
again—once more
showers of dry spruce gold,
the poppy flopped broad open and delicate
from its pod—once more,
all this again: I've had many
days here with these stones and leaves:
like the sky I've taken on a color
and am still:
the grief of leaves,
summer worms, huge blackant
queens bulging
from weatherboarding, all that
will pass
away from me that I will pass into,
none of the grief
cuts less now than ever—only I
have learned the
sky, the day sky, the blue
obliteration of radiance:
the night sky,
pregnant, lively,
tumultuous, vast—the grief
again in a higher scale
of leaves and poppies:
space, space—
and a grief of things:
motion: standing still.

A.R. Ammons

It's NaCaGiMo, Folks! Day Seven

I know I've been snippy and snappy and sarcastic about National Family Caregiver Month, and that's mainly because I've developed what I think is a healthy coping mechanism. Being snippy and snappy and sarcastic is a kind of coping vice, I guess, for some of us who don't drink or do drugs or otherwise act destructively when under a whole lot of stress. And maybe it's not much of a vice -- I think that anger and frustration can also be used to fuel change and increase awareness, break down barriers and make the very real problems that we caregivers deal with on a daily basis somewhat more relevant and resonant for others.

Today, though, I'm going to pause and pay homage to my many caregiver friends who've lost their children. Part of the caregiving deal is that many of us think about and experience death all the time. If we're not worried that our children will die before us, we're worried that we'll die before them. At best, this is a messed up situation, an impossible conundrum, but it gives one incredible perspective about living each day and even each moment with an almost reckless gratitude. Over the twenty-one years that I've been a mother and caregiver, I have known many, many children who have died. They were Sophie's friends in preschool and elementary and middle school. They are the children of a few of my best friends. They are the children of the beautiful people I've met online, blogging, and in the larger medical cannabis world. Just last week, another child died, the son of a woman I met at an epilepsy conference who is part of the powerful community of cannabis professionals in Colorado. She and I were on a panel with a bunch of obdurate professionals -- she as a nurse and parent of a child using cannabis and me as a parent of a child using cannabis. I was devastated to hear of the death of her beautiful son Reggie.

Last night I had the privilege of attending the 6th Annual Candle Lighting to Remember, a beautiful event down in Laguna Beach. We each had a paper lantern that we decorated with markers and stickers, sitting at picnic tables on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I made one for Reggie, specifically, but my intention for the night was to remember all the children I have known in my family caregiver world who have died.

There must have been at least fifty people who walked down a steep beach path, placed their lanterns in the sand and then dropped a tiny candle inside. As the sun went down in a glorious display of pinks and purples and oranges, the lanterns grew brighter and brighter, undulating out in this beautiful serpentine way across the beach.

When the sun had sunk into the ocean, we collected our lanterns and extinguished the lights and walked back up the path to the bluff above.

May you be happy
May you be well
May you be peaceful and at ease

-- Metta, or lovingkindness

The Edge

Sunrise, this morning

Sunset, a few weeks ago

I'm a bit obsessed these days with Los Angeles winter sunsets and rises. I'm wondering about the edges of days and nights, why they come in with such glory and go out the same. There's something significant about day disappearing with such drama and then appearing again, aflame, here on the edge of the continent.

I was up off and on all night with Sophie as she struggled with seizures, with agitation, with who knows what. Was it a cold coming on? Was it the weird weather? Withdrawal effects? Was it the fracture in our family? CBD saturation? Something wrong with the new bottle? A stroke? A brain tumor? A virus? In the morning, she had four tonic-clonic seizures within forty-five minutes, broken only by bouts of collapse/sleep. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her. I put it off and finally caved to Diastat, an emergency medication that I haven't used for nearly two years. Making the call to use Diastat is always difficult because while it has an immediate and blessed effect, it's also in and then out of the system in a matter of days, and that is a type withdrawal for Sophie. She'll be sluggish, maybe irritable, maybe jumpy from residuals. At no time did I consider calling The Neurologist or any doctor, for that matter, other than the one who helps us with all things cannabis-related. I didn't panic beyond the questions I listed above, the questions that have no answer. We live the questions, here on the edge. Nor did I think that something was going to happen and that something would be really bad if I didn't get "help." It crossed my mind that something could happen, but I felt no urgency. I didn't pray for mercy like I might have done in olden times, although the word mercy crossed my mind, was on my lips with please and please stop and guide me. I'm not sure how to get across these edges of things, this feeling that I have after "dealing" for over twenty years, this sort of existential dread that there's no one to consult. This edge, with one side resignation and the other acceptance. Perhaps you think me jaded, over-confident. Or you know exactly what I'm talking about because you, too, have done and thought the same with your own child or young adult. Do you have a way to describe it beyond that?

This morning, Oliver asked, worried, What's happening with Sophie? Is she going to be all right? I told him that she was having a rough spot, that she'd be ok. A few minutes later, he exclaimed over the sunrise, ran outside and took the photo above. It's only for a few minutes that the sky is on fire, before the edges of clouds bleed into blue. Sophie seems none the worse for the wear given the last twelve hours. She's resting, a little congested, but eating and drinking and sitting up, looking around. My edges feel blurred. I'm tired.

Another Day in Paradise

I took Oliver and Sophie to the beach in the late afternoon yesterday so that we could walk for a bit, eat dinner at our favorite beachside cafe and then watch the sunset.

The sky turned pinker and pinker as we left, but since I was driving I couldn't get a good shot. Here's one I took at a stoplight before Oliver screamed at me to not text and drive. Even though I wasn't texting and driving, he was right that I shouldn't have been so distracted.

January Sunset in Malibu

Oliver, his friend Mac, Sophie and I drove out to Malibu at 3:30 this afternoon. It was about 75 degrees today and gloriously sunny, but we hadn't been to the beach in ages, and we particularly wanted to catch the sunset. I drove my sexy white Mazda on Sunset Boulevard all the way from our neighborhood to the coast and then headed north so it took some time, but the drive was easy and the boys entertained themselves by counting luxury cars. Luxury cars here are not the Mercedes and BMWs, but the Lambos, the Maseratis, the Porsches, the Rolls, the Bentleys, the G-Wagons, etc. ad nauseum and every single one was noted, and either Mac or Oliver "claimed" each one as theirs and I just nodded my head and hmmmmmed. Boys who love cars are entirely nonplussed by middle-aged women who couldn't give a damn. 

The sunset, on the other hand, a couple of hours later, was easily the most spectacular that I'd ever seen. I'm serious. It brought me to tears. I'm prone to hyperbole, but this was something else -- first some gentle blues and then pastel sorbets and then a bit of pink and orange and then -- well -- see for yourself! The sky was literally glowing.

I swear to you that there are no filters on any of these photos!

I don't know where ya'll live, but you should move here. At least in January and February. The universe is particularly abundant, then.

Traffic in Los Angeles is a small price to pay

for this western view. Keep looking and you might see the ocean, glistening, seven miles away.**

Those of you who think we still have smog out here in Los Angeles need to get with the program. During the winter months especially, the air is so clear, it's nearly unbearable, and I almost had an accident last night exclaiming over the colors as I drove my kids home from school at 5:15. Their noses buried in books and iPods, they appeared oblivious to my screams of pleasure -- oh, my god, boys! Look at the colors! but then they did look and we all ooh'd and aah'd until the oranges faded to pink then purple then blue and then it was all can we get donuts after we drop Noah off? and can I have a cupcake before dinner?

**The ocean is seven miles away from where I live, but you can't really see it unless, perhaps, you were to climb up to the top of those very skinny palms. And because of traffic, those seven miles would take you more than twenty minutes to travel and maybe even more. But it's the same sky, baby.

Sunset in the Hood and Overnight EEG