I'm a sniffer...

I'm a sniffer.  I love smells...they remind me of my life and all the places I've lived.

Driving through Burbank and suddenly I smell Tijuana. The exact same smell of the clinic where my mom died. A little pine sol, some of that pink liquid soap, rubbing alcohol all mixed in with the smell of hot sauce and car exhaust and that dusty heat-smell of the desert. Cigarette smoke mixed in a bit - family members of the clinic patients hovering outside, just out of view so their cancer-ridden loved ones won't see the smoke.

Sometimes Los Angeles smells like Milan - the diesel fumes from set-up day at the Fiera...mixed again with cigarette smoke and pollution from too many cars and old buildings and then wonderful cooking wafting through, a cafe filled with people and lattes and croissants.

Early mornings near Santa Monica remind me of Cannes in the spring when the Festival is just setting up and the air is clear still from the ocean, no traffic yet, birds floating through the air and a slight breeze blowing through the curtains.

Then there's Cairo; downtown always smells to me like Egypt. Old urine, sweat, decay and heat in the summer making the car engines ping as they slowly cool down while their owners run, trying to avoid the cops and find their favorite dealer.  I remember the scent of camels and donkeys and jasmine and smoke and burning rubber and just heat.  Heat has a distinctive odor that is a little different in each country but is palpable and almost visual. 

Not much in California has reminded me of the smell of Canada, except my one expedition to Big Bear and the snow.  Calgary's smells remind me of cool summers by the lake and the smell of hot dogs and marshmallows and a campfire and fish and a bit of whiskey and wine from my parents' glasses.  The metallic smell of snow and the silence as it falls in winter, the same in Calgary as it was in Denver and in Norway...Norway had more fish though.  Denver is also thunderstorms in the summer, crackling smell of lightning and water pounding the car roof as you pull over on the highway to wait out the storm. 

Nassau was the sunscreen and saltwater, more a taste than a smell.  Lobsters freshly caught grilling with garlic and too much rum in my glass again.  Night air of the ocean and always humid sweat. 

Gratitude on a March Morning

Today I am grateful for the wild parrots outside making me smile; the two 9 year old girls asleep in my bed; the man with whom I'll be living in 2 weeks; the house that I own and will cry to move out of; the sunshine in California March; the little baby I held yesterday while he slept; the books filled with words that build my soul and that need to be packed quickly into the boxes I don't yet have; the woman who leased my home because she'd prayed for a house with fruit trees and wept when she saw my yard filled with citrus; my daughter's best friend who sobbed and hugged me tight when she learned we were moving away from her; the wonders of AA which brought my soul-mate and me back together after 20 years; and the houseful of children that will be my new home.

right now, I am Grateful...

...for the silence broken only by bird chirps; for my daughter who massages around the scar on my neck; for the grass and pollen and fur that make me sneeze yet beautify this earth; for the man who called me just to say he loves me; for the mother who taught me to laugh with my head back and my mouth open and my heart free; for the drug addict thief who gave me a good chuckle; for swell old David Cassidy tunes; for warm peanut butter cookies; for the early-morning hummingbird; for the tall sunflowers next door; for having been homeless; for having a cozy and lovely home; for having been in the gutter; and for this perfect now.

Betty Wolfe 1923 - 2008

In 1999, I met Betty - a tiny but amazingly strong old woman, surrounded by children and laughter. That first day she told me the first of many little fibs – she said that in her daycare, the tv was hardly on during the day and the kids only got goodies occasionally. Over the years I learned that she told you what you wanted to hear because she wanted to make you happy. And she always did just that; she filled my heart and Sophia’s life with happiness. I honestly don’t know how I could have made it through the first five years of Sophia’s life without Betty’s help and love. I have little family in LA and my own mother had died years before Sophia was born. Betty became my adopted mother and Sophia’s grandmother. She taught Sophia her abc’s and she potty-trained her and she let her spend the night so many times over the years – in fact, Sophia knew how to say “Betty” long before she could say “Mama”.

As I grew closer to Betty, she told me stories of her life – she’d had a very difficult life when she was young. And yet she was the most positive and happy person I have ever met. I think after all the hardships, she wanted only laughter and love in her life, and so she chose a path that enabled her to be surrounded by simple joy all day. Her love for children was amazing, her patience and acceptance. She could also, of course, be frustrating and stubborn and hard-headed as could be if you were an adult trying to talk some sense into her, but really what could you do but laugh and shake your head and let her have her way…

The night she passed away, Sophia reminded me how Betty used to love to come out on her front porch in the evening and watch the moon and have a little puff and a little drink. Often when the kids had left late in the evening, she would talk to me of her husband and how she missed him so, decades after he had passed away. I know that they are having a ball now, together again finally.

Every day of every year, Betty Wolfe touched the lives of hundreds of people. She helped countless over-whelmed parents and lovely babies who grew into young men and women, so many of whom came back to work with Betty years later. Her arms have wrapped around generations. I am so grateful that she was a part of my life and that my daughter and I were able to learn about real love from her. We are so fortunate to be one of the thousands whose lives she made better.

Good bye Sweet Betty.

life is funny

I have a house full of kids tonight, and three of them are from a very rich family and they are used to getting their way and whatever food they want and toys and presents and more toys and more presents. I'm feeling a bit resentful because really I wasn't prepared for all of them to be here but I want it to be fun but I have very little food today and not so many toys and they want and want and want and so I feel annoyed at their lack of gratitude. So I take a break and read the news about Myanmar and then I go to another website and read short stories of pain and incest and abuse and moments of betrayal and seconds of pleasure. And I remember that these kids that I am resenting have a father who drank and did drugs and ignored and a mother whose father beat her and her siblings and while she might live in a palace, she is just trying to shield her kids from the pain that her father beat into her because he grew up in the concentration camps and only knew horror. And we are so lucky thousands of miles away from a cyclone that has killed hundreds of thousands. and I bitch about our president but he is not telling the UN and its aide to go away while more perish every day beside rotting bodies. I saw a photo of a thin old woman balancing two pails of water on her shoulders as she walked past corpses and rubble, eyes straight ahead and focused to keep her sanity. How lucky we are to be able to write about moments of pain and betrayal and incest and insanity - my child microwaves her pepperoni and is yelling about sharing and sad that her father has not bothered to meet her, but across the world a baby is dying held by her mother's corpse as maggots eat closer to her eyes and a group of fearful men decide that they cannot and will not accept aide from America.

Elvis is Love!

January 8, 2008 – it’s Elvis’ birthday, which means I got pregnant 9 years ago tonight. We were at the House of Blues: her dad was playing in a few different bands for Elvis’ birthday tribute; then off to home, and a few weeks later the truth was revealed by a stream of urine on a little plastic test strip. He didn’t believe it and wanted to do another one, but both of us were too broke to afford another $15. It of course turned out to be correct. I was pregnant. He wanted it terminated; I refused; he vanished. That’s the simplified version; the reality was a lot more dramatic and really quite sad.

What followed was nine months of fear and worry and a complete lack of support from anyone I knew, except a girl who I looked up to immensely but who eventually turned her back on me 2 months before the birth and then died of an overdose a few years later.

But, what followed that was that clichéd but absolutely amazing and lovely miracle of birth – 16 hours of labor and an emergency c-section and a small little critter who looked so much like my mother before she died that in my morphine-induced haze I was convinced she’d been reincarnated as my daughter. And then years of love, and love, and just a lot of love, and now she’s 8 and how amazing is that?! Again…that’s the simplified version, and the reality has involved a bit more drama, most of it not sad at all.

So Elvis was born and then my daughter was conceived and then I learned about love.

Elvis fucking rules!

It's a beautiful thing

So I've entered another year of life...42!!! Wow. It was a perfect birthday - I've celebrated for three days with people I love. Then it is Thanksgiving, and really I don't think I could possibly have much more room for the huge amount of gratitude that fills me.

It's interesting to reflect on one's life. I often feel that nothing has changed, but really I've lived many lifetimes in one. Maybe that's what the Buddha meant when he talked of reincarnation...one can live so many lives without even dying, and karma and our actions and love and compassion can change each life as we live them.

At two...living in Calgary. l look happy in the photos...summers in BC and snow-filled winters. A horse and a couple of cows and a brother and sister and many dogs.

At twelve I was in Cairo, in 7th grade, letting Mark Flores touch my little breasts through my shirt while we drank a bottle of wine in the dark outside the school gate; listening to my parents yell at each other and helping my mother as blood poured from her nose after my dad broke it that night.

At twenty-two, I'd been in LA for almost a year. Not sure which boy I was letting touch my breasts that year (month/week/day), but it was someone who was bad for me and who drank too much with me and snorted coke with me and who would break my heart or let me break his.

At thirty-two I was squatting in an apartment in Hollywood with broken windows and no gas or electricity, not letting anyone touch my breasts because I hated being touched when I was smoking crack. People who touched me only hurt me, and so I didn't let them do it anymore. James came over and never left, and his mother would leave food at our door, and we would beat each other, and I would cut myself and steal and go to jail.

Now it's forty-two and despite the fact that no one is touching my breasts, I am happy and sunny and learning how to love more than I ever thought I could, and learning too to accept love in return. Love has nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with vulnerability and emotional intimacy...what a lovely thing to learn after 4 decades of life. A beautiful daughter and a cozy home and friends who call and someone who makes my heart pound and my eyes smile, and really I can't imagine how it went from that to this in just ten years.

Happy birthday to me.

rangoon...darfur...baghdad...los angeles

I drop off my daughter at her school in West Hollywood and head to my office in Beverly Hills, on Sunset Blvd. I drive past the Ivy almost every day. I weave past the paparazzi and the gawkers and the plastic-ladies-who-lunch while I try to make it to my office on time. And in our office we worry about whether John McTiernan will really go to prison and if so can we squeeze in pre-production first? And who will keep Lindsey sober through the "Dare to Love Me" shoot? On NPR I listen as they tally up the millions raised by each presidential candidate, millions that will be spent on advertising for a year until one or the other is elected. Millions that it seems to me could be better spent...but then what do I know. I really don't know much, just a bare bit of what is happening in Myanmar and in Darfur...and what the government lets us know about Baghdad. But I look at this photo of a monk in Myanmar, a man who wanted only love and compassion and peace for his country and his people, a man who over the last week joined thousands of other bodies hidden in the jungles, and I can't help but be horrified and disgusted by the vapidity that surrounds this town and most of America.

the neighborhood

How sweet that at 7 pm the doorbell rings and it's Lamont from across the street. He's 12 and very senstive and at this moment he's sobbing his little eyes out and it seems that I am the one he chose to come to. Of course, that's partly because my daughter and the other three boys he was playing with ganged up on him with their water guns and hurt his feelings. Hot Labor Day weekend, a party for the 3 year old across the street and their bouncy-house-tent is filled with laughing kids and there is more food than can be imagined and I have 5 kids screaming around me trying to defend themselves and blame each other. I hush them all and step outside myself for just a moment and I am laughing so hard to witness this! When the hell did I become the mom the kids come running to for help and advice? This just two weeks after social services came to investigate reports of abuse. I am a bit at a loss as to what to tell these kids, as in my head I am not much older then they! Finally I separate Sophia and Lamont from the others and sit on Lamont's front porch with his mom. My daughter tries to blame it all on the other kids and I tell her I don't care, she did it too, and I don't care what the other kids do, but in our house I teach love and she knows that very well. Wide-eyed and sweaty, but still she nods her head and reaches out her hand to Lamont and says I'm sorry. He's still crying a bit and I hug him and 20 minutes later he's back at the party all smiles but a bit shy.

When I moved into this neighborhood, people warned me how "bad" it was and were worried about my daughter and horrified that I would move her to such a place. Now they are envious because their kids have to be driven to each other's house to play and they live in neighborhoods with big walls and no contact with their neighbors. Yet we come home and Sophia runs to one of six or seven homes to play with her friends till dark. It's like the old days in Canada when we all roamed, the older kids taking care of the younger ones and the parents happy.

I love my 'hood. I have the best neighbors, filled with love and respect for each other. We're a hodge-podge of cultures and races and religions and we make it work. Our kids are not being subjected to the racism that runs rampant in the richer neighborhoods. Maybe I'm over romanticising it all, but as the giant flock of wild parrots flies over my home and the ice cream truck rings it's bell, I am just delighted that I chose this neighborhood.

dissolving evil

So the social worker came and saw that it was B.S. and took down Howard's name and left us alone to enjoy the rest of our day. Soph was so scared, and that is what angers me the most. She hugged me hard this morning and said I was her MOST favorite mommy ever. Little sweet pea.

I'm trying to move forward with compassion and get the anger out of me. It's a lovely day in August; my daughter is off skating; I had a fun dinner last night; my new desk is being put together in my office; soon I'll go do Pilates. My life is so amazing, and I'm so filled with gratitude for so many things. His evil cannot hurt me, though I must admit I'm tired of its touch and wish it would just dissolve away.

child services

So I left work early to pick up my daughter, and then we went grocery shopping and got her all kinds of favorite treats. I did all the things a good mom does, and then we got home to find a business card on the front door. It was from a children's social worker from the Dept of Family & Child Services, and on the back was a note saying she needed to see me and my child and to call her with a number where she could contact me next week.

What the fuck?? My first suspicion is of course that it's Howard, trying to get back at me for filing a complaint with the contractors' board and for signing a declaration for his wife who is trying to get two years of past due child support. I can't imagine who else it would be, unless they are investigating someone who I know and need to question us about them. Which doesn't seem likely. If it's Howard I am seething with anger. I don't like that feeling. The contractors' board closed my complaint because he bs'd them enough, and that's just fine. I've moved on - I did what I could and now it's done. He's got my money and by this time I've repaired most of the crappy-ass work he did on my home. The crappy-ass work he did on my psyche has pretty much healed as well. But this...this is a new low. It sickens me. I know any investigation will reveal only that Sophia is surrounded by love and kindess, so I'm not worried about it. But I'm horrified that someone could be so mean and spiteful as to call child services on me. And if it is Howard, I'm astounded that he was a good enough con that I actually fell in love with such a despicable, evil person. And...I'm very disturbed that I feel such anger toward him. God, I just really want to be a loving, compassionate woman. I am trying to do some compassion meditation, to feel sorrow for him since he must have such a tremendous amount of self-hatred to do such a thing. I picture him trying to look at himself in the mirror and like himself. But on the other hand I know that he is a sociopath and feels no remorse for any of his wrongdoings. He has no idea he is in the wrong, ever. So...how do I look at a sociopath with compassion? Can one have compassion for a remorseless killer or rapist?

And what could he have told them for them to come investigate? ugh. I am sickened by this. And of course I do not know for sure that it was him who initiated this. And there is nothing that I can do about it if it is him. I hate him, and I don't want to feel hatred for any living thing. I want every bit of him gone from my life so that I can move on, yet somehow he keeps just stepping back in.

And if it is not him...well, then it's me that's filled with hatred and evil, isn't it!? shit...

and apparently I won't know till next week, if ever, which is most annoying. I would sure like to think that I'm not the hateful evil one! :>

love's sunset

In the sunset my daughter throws wet sand at the waves in a contest with her best friend. The way the light hits they look black-and-white with a tinge of sepia. I remember early summers in British Colombia, playing till dark and our lips purple with cold water and wind; we laughed and screamed with joy while mom watched happy and ignored dad sipping whiskey too fast, scowling as each squeal of happiness underscored his emptiness.

Now the end of July, and I sit in twilight reading an amazingly beautiful book about love and loss…and so in my head I’m recalling the first time he kissed me, leaned over me in the movie theatre and told me I’m beautiful and I’m barely 18 and he’s 32 and I want that moment to last forever but now he’s across the world with someone else, and I cry just a little sometimes over the love that I let go. As I read the words on the page, I think: It’s implausible that a man can remember his first love forever. And yet. He wasn’t my first love but certainly my longest, and 23 years later I still remember every touch and his arms so strong, and then I imagine his face when he returned from Bermuda and I was gone, some piece of shit note all that I left. How could I have done that to someone, to anyone, but to him? Some regrets will last a lifetime…

The book – “The History of Love” – (it is amazing and has set my mind reeling) – also has me thinking that to live without knowing your child must be the worst kind of pain. How can Sophia’s father have spent more than 7 years not knowing that joyous girl? A moment captured today with the camera, the light just so on her sparkly eyes and wide laugh, and I wonder what kind of person can not want that spark to touch him too. Our last conversation reminded me only of what a racist pig he is and emphasized how much I don’t want him in our lives. But…she wants a face to view and a hand to touch and keeps holding out hope that one of the semi-monthly phone calls between us will result in a real meeting; and so I keep that hope alive too, just for her.

But now the night is dark and the kids are running in the cold dark sand and so happy that it makes me hurt to watch. Sand buckets, burnt noses, scraped toes, missing teeth…castles, princesses with moats and dragons and maybe a super-hero or two.

Missing Mom

Every year I write something so similar, and I feel like I should come up with something new and different, but the bottom line is...I miss my mom.

She would have been 71 yesterday, and today is mother's day and so every mother's day is very bitter-sweet for me. On the one hand I have my sweet Sophia, who brings me endless joy and her birth saved my life. On the other hand I lost my mom almost 13 years ago and I miss her every single breath of time.

After watching her die in a hot, sad, horrid clinic in Tijuana, I started my downward spiral, ending up 4 years later as a homeless felon crack-head. Then rehab; then 2 weeks out of rehab I conceived sweet Sophia and here I am today in my beautiful home surrounded by love and joy. So why do the tears come on mother's day morning?? When the AA meeting's over today and the people go off to have lunch with their mothers or their wives, I will take Sophia to brunch, just the two of us. And that's so lovely, really. But I'm sad and envious when I talk to my best friend and hear that her husband brought her breakfast in bed and I hear her baby in the background and I know that she will visit her mom in just a few hours and the three generations will love and laugh for just a little while.

I have a picture in my head of Sophia and my mom, hand-in-hand, skipping through a forest as mom teaches her all about nature and Sophia teaches her the newest songs and they share joy and wonderment. At least that's a better picture than I have carried for so many years, of my mother's dead body being wheeled through the early Tijuana morning wrapped in sheets. I just wish the imaginary picture could be reality.

good friday

I am not even sure what Good Friday is all about....But I did my first Passover last week...interesting. Lots of plagues and wine and prayer. I like the Jewish rituals more than the Christian ones for some wierd-ass reason. Perhaps because I don't speak Hebrew, and I don't understand them, and I never had anyone trying to shove them down my throat as a child. Not that anyone tried to shove Christianity down my throat as a child...we were pretty much heathens in my household. I knew more about Islam than anything from hearing the call-to-prayer five times a day for 4 years. I remember after my first drunk, at the age of 12, cleaning up my friend's puke and scared to face her mom and then the five a.m. prayer started. She had an amazing house, but it happened to be right next door to a huge mosque. Not what a hung-over 12 year old yearns to hear. Her mom blamed the whole drunk episode on me, and I was banned from playing with her ever again. Looking back it, seems strange that after getting DRUNK I wasn't allowed to PLAY with her again. The irony didn't strike me then. I thought I was tough and cool and grown-up as I walked through early morning Ma'adi to my house and the grounding that awaited me. I didn't really mind being grounded. I could still steal my dad's whisky and hang out with my sister or brother. We'd go on the roof and watch the soldiers visit the hookers next door. My brother and sister both smoked and so I started too. I'd play dress-up at my friend Angie's house with her 1800-period-costumes and then we'd sneak out back to smoke butts found in the yard. I'd make mud-pies in the canal and buy tobacco from the kiosk by the school. My sister skipped third period to go buy a bunch of qualudes and passed out during art. I had art after her and cried and was scared and yelled at her because big brother Geoff would never do drugs...Ha. If I had only known. I'd steal scotch and vodka all week in a thermos and meet my friends at the movie at the Ma'adi Club on Thursday night. We'd sneak out to the tennis courts and get loaded and let the boys touch our little breasts through our shirts. I remember jumping the fence to the school and giving the guards a bottle of wine to let us stay. Amazing that a group of twelve year olds could wander around Cairo in the middle of the night and not get killed or raped. One of my sister's friends got kidnapped and raped by police or something but she was an Embassy kid and it was all hushed up and she was sent back to Canada so as not to create an international incident, just when Carter was making nice with Begin and Sadaat and the world was witnessing a miracle they thought might just last.

insomniaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

So yeah...I can't sleep again. Last week I slept for 3 days straight practically. Now I'm losing my mind. I hate all you sleepers. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm manic-depressive. If I am, I'm a pretty boring manic. I'm in bed listening for rats. I'm pretty sure they are all gone but moments ago I was convinced I heard gnawing behind my dresser. I feel like a tweaker. I read an article today about a study that found that lack of sleep makes one's moral judgment poor. Now that would explain some things in my life! Not sure my moral judgment's off, but certainly some judgment was awry in the past year or so of dating. First I became convinced I wanted to marry the top man on the City Attorney's Most Wanted list, then I give him my life savings, and then... well. Then there are more recent issues. yep. It's been an insomnia-filled year, that's all I can say.

I want to write a poem about birth and death...those thoughts have been circling my brain lately. things that could have, shouldn't have, might have been. And my Mom's been in my heart lately too. I miss her. Sophia becomes more like her every day, except she hugs so much and Mom never knew how, till the morphine kicked in those last few days. Sweet Mommy, roaming the clinic halls, mostly naked and giggling away. Wish the giggles had lasted til the end. god. Why is my head there now, I just don't know. I'd rather worry about rats than see my Mom's death. Now I remember why I drank...closed those thoughts off real quick-like, it did!

I'm collecting images, in my head. Images of my neighborhood...need to write a story or a book. There was a great old man this evening, washing his car on the corner of La Brea and Adams, wearing long black socks and loafers and little old-man shorts, his buttoned up shirt tucked in just right. I love him. And my neighbor from India and me, out watering our lawns in the sunset. My grass died, and I'm trying so hard to bring it back, and my other neighbor jokes that they're going to start talking about me in the 'hood. Ha....like they don't already. People drive by and do a double-take to see a red-head out on the lawn, white daughter running through the sprinkler and buying fruit from the street vendor. My gardener's name is Joe Handy. He's old and sweet and curious about me. I asked if it were his real name, and he just smiled, "yes...yes it's my real name. Joe Handy. Guess it was jes' destiny." He asks me how a girl so young can afford a house and when I tell him my age he is surprised and inquires politely how I keep my "girlish figure". Then he calls me to scold me about not watering. And Cynthia next door on the North side. Her 90 year old father passed on New Year's Day, and so she lives alone in the back house now. She talks to herself in the yard. When the doorbell rings it's always her, come to check up on us and give Sophia a hug and have some lemonade or, if she's timed it right, a steak. God that woman can eat. She goes to church on Sunday and bathes Saturday night to prepare, and Monday's I think it is, she goes to choir practice. She speaks of a boyfriend who comes to visit, though I have never seen him. Actually the bell rings on Saturday too, for my weekly visit from the Jehovah's Witnesses. A few of them are from my street so I must be very polite. I always take the magazine and thank them and wish them well in their war on .... whatever they are fighting. evil I guess.

Seems like we're all fighting evil in our own way. Mine comes in the form of rats, shitty boyfriend-judgment, thieves and insomnia.

So...just continuing to battle evil with love. It's all about love, baby...

sure would love some sleep