A MOTHER'S GARDEN

"I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant, almost to the point of being invisible--except as Creator: hand and eye. She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her own personal conception of Beauty. Her face, as she prepares the Art that is her gift, is a legacy of respect she leaves to me, for all that illuminates and cherishes life. She has handed down respect for the possiblities--and the will to grasp them.

For her, so hindered and intruded upon in so many ways, being an artist has still been a daily part of her life. This ability to hold on, even in very simple ways, is work black women have done for a very long time.
---Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens


There's a saying that for every blade of grass there is an angel standing above it, whispering, "Grow.....Grow." Of late, this is how I feel.

Have you ever had the kind of day that smells so sweet you just want to inhale every bit of it, suck it deep into your lungs so that it somehow mixes in the very marrow of your bones and courses through your entire body? The kind of day that is sweet like mangoes; so sweet that you just want to curl your tongue around it and through it, and laugh--throw back your head and laugh--as the juice runs down both sides of your mouth and stains your very best shirt and you, still laughing, not giving a damn; the kind of day that you really feel like you "get it", you finally get "It." The kind of day when it feels like the Sun and the Moon and the Stars--every hopeful little star--every particle in the Universe is lined up in perfect, divine order for your Divine Good. Have you ever had the kind of day where you just question absolutely nothing, where you feel--no, you realize and deeply believe--that every single thing you've experienced has been purposeful, not accidental or incidental but absolutely necessary for where you are. I'll tell you, it's a beautiful place to be.

This time two weeks ago I was lying in my bed with one foot propped on a pillow, my ankle cradled in ice, completely unable to bear weight on my left side. I had come from a Saturday afternoon gathering of women who'd come together in celebration of International Women's Day. For me it was magical, perhaps because I so enjoy spending time with women from other continents. I love listening to their language, watching their mannerisms; I love being embraced by them in the way that we American women seldom do (but that is subject for another essay). The coordinator of the event, my friend, works for Work Of Women, a non-profit arm of World Neighbors. We watched an important film about the status of women worldwide and we, of course, ate and laughed and shared our own stories with a mix of joy and sadness. I left feeling immensely grateful not only for the invitation, but for the ever-widening of my own personal circle; grateful to have shared company with such dynamic, forward-thinking women. On the way home, in a complete state of distraction (partly because I was on the cell phone talking to my daughter about her time with Dad and their trip to see Robots) I stepped into a sinkhole, leg and ankle turning one direction, foot turning another.

Immediately I thought of the television show that I was due to tape two days later. I shuddered at the very thought of missing the taping yet at the same time felt immensely annoyed at being bed bound for 24 hours. But a friend reminded me what these kinds of things really are: time to slow down. Time to be still.

The still time gave me the respite I needed to speak intelligently that Monday morning. Literally hobbling into the studio, I had had the benefit of a full twenty four hours to think about what writing means to me; how the making of my book came about. I had the benefit of reviewing my poems, my stories, and hence, my life in full. In this age of distraction in which we live, still time, at least for me, is a Gift.

I arrived with time to kill but had forgotten my days of walking across a college campus. I severely underestimated the distance and, with a sprained foot, felt as if I'd been charged with walking across the sands of the Sahara. A ten minute walk (I'm guessing that's what it is) became, for me, almost twenty five. A friendly make-up artist greeted me, took one look at my exasperated expression (which I tried to mask with a crooked smile), and told me, "You poor dear. Hop up on the table here." I told her all about my foot incident and she insisted there'd be a driver to take me back to my car. Humility at first and then, pain shooting through my foot, I said, "Great." She selected the most beautiful shades of color for my skin. She put more makeup on me then I've ever worn in my life---concealer (for the bags, I'm sure), lipstick, eye shadow (no, not blue, thank God), and mascara. I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized the woman staring back at me.

With little delay I met Judith, the gracious host of the show. She looked exactly like her photo on the back cover of her memoir, which I'd been reading, save for a little less hair cut into the shape of a bob. We talked briefly. She told me I looked beautiful. I believed it. We went into the studio and the engineers put on the mics, did the necessary adjusting of the cameras and lighting and then, we went into the taping. The obvious difference between television and radio (which had not occurred to me, for what reason I don't know) is the angle of so many different cameras and the difficulty of knowing which way you're supposed to be looking. I kept my eyes on Judith (or at least in her direction) and satisfied myself with that.

Judith asked me so many meaningful questions about the book, about certain charachters and of course, my life as a writer. We talked about the woman I feel immensely connected to (Alice Walker if you haven't already noticed) and my admiration of her sense of activism as an arm of her writing. But what I noticed was how taken Judith was with my life as a nurse, writer, mother, wife, and my own activist work (which in my mind is still not enough). She asked the question so many people ask: how do you do it? My only answer, without getting into specific time analysis, is that I really do see my life as one big tree and all the rest as branches. Branches of the same tree. My children are one branch, writing another, my relationship with my spouse (whom I love for having the tenacity to live with an artist) is yet another branch. The things that I do throughout the day are, for me, arms too: the creation of satisfying, healthy meals; designing a home that feels like a spiritual place not just a place to live; helping patients to make better health decisions; encouraging children to read (and think for themselves); and encouraging people I meet to think about the environment and do their part to save it, whether it be through the simple act of recycling or through volunteering to clean up a stream. There is something we all can do.

We talked about a line in one of my stories that reads:

"When Amir and I make love it is a treaty between two warring nations, an opening of long sealed borders, the retreat of armed patrol forces. It is the crossing of the moon into the sun's space; daylight that merges with nightfall."

Judith was intrigued by that and wanted to know the genesis of it. And of course it is rooted in my belief about peace. Peace, for me, is a verb. An action word. Peace requires doing. Peace does not just happen (at least, not in the world we currently live in). I believe that in every moment of conflict, in every space where there is conflict, there is ALWAYS a moment in which peace is possible. I wrote that story shortly after 9/11 and believe, to this day, that there was a moment in which we Americans could have made peace happen. But of course, given our current leadership and given the nature of American ideology (that is, one of supremacy) we failed and we quickly descended from a place of grief into a place of revenge which is an even greater tragedy than the incident itself. And peace, let me just add, does not mean absolving wrongdoers of their crimes; it simply means to avoid adding to the conflict itself.

In any event, we had a very meaningful discussion. The engineers, one by one, greeted me afterwards, commending me on the poems I'd read and tell me that I had given an excellent interview, "exceptional for a person who's not on t.v. everyday." (I can't wait to see the tape!).

I left feeling elated, high on living. I left feeling so grateful for all of the women writers before me, who literally paved my way. I left singing my own freedom song for all of the life I've been blessed to live and for all the living I have yet to do. I left feeling so full, so very whole, so lucky (if there is such a thing) to really have what I consider "it all." And the "all," to which I am referring is having "all" of the things I find make life meaningful. I left feeling not hopeless (as we writers do, when we consider the difficulty of balancing Real Life with our craft of writing) but hopeful; hopeful that I'd remember that day with clarity, every single time I descend to that place of worry about whether or not I can pull it all off.

I left feeling like a great, big, wonderful Mother Tree with a thousand branches both big and small, and roots--big, chunky roots--tunnelled deep into the Earth; an Earth that loves me immensely, as I do my own children, and wants the very best from me and for me. That night, with makeup still on my face, I lowered my hands into the sink to wash yet another set of dinner dishes, the children's chattering voices in the distance, Spouse's evening news turned up louder than it needed to be, my yellow Lab underfoot (a foot still not quite healed) and a panoramic view of trees outside my kitchen window. I looked out the window at the trees and saw myself smiling in return, bending my thousand arms like a dancer in the breeze.

For you, the very best.

ANGEL