Category Archives: Story telling

On… The sweetness of a name

Posted on November 10, 2012 | 3 Comments

This blog is quivery and yellow–  like pineapple Jell-O.  It shimmies and shakes as I struggle through what has become an extraordinary array of challenges.

From carpal tunnel to feet that require the use of a cane or walker, I have been traveling the road to patience and health. It hasn’t been easy, but I have the support of friends and a basically happy outlook. I am also inclined to whine a bit.

With that said, I recognize the need to keep jabbering away. Silence is not acceptable for a blog. This week in particular was an ecstatic one for me as my choice for the American presidency won the race. I am thrilled that President Obama won his second term. And now, we can get to work, the real work, of equal opportunity for all.

Now for this week’s word: names.

I, for one, am intimately connected with the experience of names, having spent years accepting or rejecting several of my own. I was my father’s firstborn, and as such, my birth name reflected his joy and prayers. My birth name meant “gracious gift of God,” and both the name and its meaning lifted me up in good and trying times. I never abandoned the name — not really. Its meaning allowed me to, at least inside my head, recognize myself as a beloved daughter of God, a belief that has revealed itself to me in good times and been hidden away in times of stress or fear.

Given that, in so many cultures, the child’s name describes a dominant personality trait, and with cousins that had nicknames like Cunning or Bossy, I figured I lucked out.

Still, over the years, I have tried on new names like a judge at a dessert tasting contest. How I started the journey is unclear, but there was this point in my development where I felt that my name was restrictive, a sentence to an impenetrable goody-two-shoes life. By the time I moved into a small apartment (and I mean small!) in San Francisco in 1969, I had decided to try out the name of Susan.

Right.

“Susan” was the name of business and surety and normalcy. But anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a Susan, and that shirt would not fit. So, I abandoned Susan when I returned to the East Coast, started working in theater, and eventually met a troop of African-American actors where we all took African names. The name Sala came out of that experience. My father said “you will always be what I named you.” This was significant because there were times when I felt he did not like me. But his statement said that, to him, I would always be a gracious gift of God.

What was I looking for? What identity did I feel was missing? In India, I asked a meditation master to give me a new name. She told me to keep my own name. This began the inner work of trying to know who I am beyond the labels I use to describe myself: a woman, African-American, creative. I was the pound cake waiting to be drenched in the liquid lemony frosting of my own nature. After several years, I received a name from the meditation master. And, in the end, I discovered that all the names I lived with had essentially the same meaning. And the river of God ran through every single one of them.

Sala meant gentle or peace. Gloria Jean, my birth name, meant gracious gift of God, and the blessing I received from my teacher was the name of Gopi, which meant that I was to be a lover of God in all his forms. I had been bathed in the lemony frosting of my nature for my whole life, but couldn’t taste its sweetness.

Finally, I am enjoying the taste of my own nature. There’s more to come.  Yum.

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Essays, Essential nature, Life Stories, Memoir, Reflection, Spirituality, Story telling, Values and Spirituality

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On Pie

Posted on October 27, 2012 | 3 Comments

There were a couple of comments about the sweet potato pie. The exact recipe? By now, I have forgotten. What I remember is the creamy, comforting richness.

Disclaimer: you try this at your own risk.

Mom would cook the sweet potatoes, add a pinch of salt, then mash them until not a lump could be found. She added the other ingredients one at a time. When I was a child, we did not have electric mixers. We used those hand held rotary beaters to create those stiff peaks from egg whites and cream.We developed strong arms from using those beaters.

So, we’d beat the whole eggs. Was it two or three? We’d add them to the potatoes; then, we’d add about a stick of butter. Mind you, there were a lot of sweet potatoes. Mix ’til smooth. Now comes the cream. I call it cream because that was when real milk came with cream settled on the top. Shake the bottle (yes, milk came in bottles). It was better than half and half.

Whatever happened to milk bottles?  True, they were heavy; but you could see the cream gathered on top of the milk like a thick icing. And there was no concern about the landfill. Bottles went back to the dairy and were sterilized and refilled.

The milk/cream was added and then the brown sugar and — corn syrup? To tell you the truth, I can’t remember. But, I’ll tell you this: it was sweet.

By now, our mouths were drooling over the pudding like consistency. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. Vanilla. Am I missing something?

We children were such pigs. We’d stick our fingers in the bowls and get chased away.  “Get your dirty hands out of here!” It didn’t matter what kind of pie. Peach. Blueberry. Apple. Pear. Hovering like humming birds and annoying as ants, we’d taste and get chased away.

Now when it comes to the crust, you’re on your own. That’s because when I was growing up, we used lard. For me, that’s not an option anymore. So once you have made your crust — and it will probably  be two or three — fill the pie plates with yummy stuff.

And that’s it. A chilly autumn evening or bright summer afternoon becomes more than alive…

All times are better with pie. On days like today, as we anticipate hurricane Sandy, and I begin to understand the importance of patience in the healing process,  pie is a gift and a sweet comfort.  Baking pie takes patience; savoring pie takes time.

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Posted in Commentary, Creative nonfiction, Creativity, Essays, Life Stories, Memoir, Reflection, Story telling

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On touch — and other sense matters

Posted on September 2, 2012 | 3 Comments

Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it sharp? Is it dull? These are the simple questions.

I was not fully conscious of how finely sensitive my finger tips are — until my sense of touch was compromised by carpal tunnel. And although surgery for CTS is common, I’ve been a holdout. That’s changed. I’m going to have surgery. Because in the process of holding out, I learned what it means to have everything I touch feel like a bowl of sand.

The texture of bread dough? Sand. The round, firm skin of a grape? Sand. The silky smooth flesh of salmon? Sand.  As I comb and brush my hair — that’s right — sand. Paper?  I won’t say it again.

There is the sad fact that I have lost bragging rights to my asbestos hands. I could pick up a veggie burger from a pan and it would not burn my fingers. This is not the case right now, and I don’t like the experience. Touch is an iridescent spoke on the wheel of my world. Touch is why I love to cook. Touch is why I love to hug and cuddle. Touch makes me happy.

A friend of mine charged me with being “touchy-feely.” I embrace that label with love. When I think of my childhood, I go back to the place where I was not raised. I go back to the summers I spent with grandparents in South Carolina. It was there where I connected with the silk of corn, the taste of well water, and the sunny warmth of fresh-cut watermelon on my tongue. It was there where I experienced soundless nights and pink cloud mornings. If I could live to be a thousand years old, I would forever embrace the sense experiences I received from my grandparents’ lands.

When I remember touch in the city, it is not a soft memory — except in the context of food. With food, touch drives memory: squeezing an orange, fluting a pie crust, slicing a melon, or rubbing a roast. When I think of touch in the city, I think of standing in summer rain to cool off from the heat of a small apartment that seven people called home. When I think of touch in the city, it comes with art—the thin press of violin strings, the satiny fit of a leotard.

And when I think of sand, in its own nature, I think of the sea. There is no sea in my kitchen; no sea in my hair.

Yesterday, for the sake of feeling the smoothness of dough, I made a pizza. I like the touch of food:  (haven’t you noticed?) kneading dough, slicing carrots, tearing lettuce, dicing onions or potatoes. But yesterday, I had a spiritual bonding with my food processor as it made the dough, and when I poured it out onto parchment to give it a brief knead…it felt like sand.

I know that this is temporary. But it’s given me pause to reflect on the importance of touch and how much I love the purity of the senses.

I guess there is truth in the saying after all. “In everything is a gift.”

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Essays, Essential nature, Life Stories, Memoir, Reflection, Story telling, Values and Spirituality

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On saying grace and cooking

Posted on August 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

I admit it. I shamelessly admit that I’m a person for whom being in my kitchen is an anchor to the heart. I don’t care how scrappy a kitchen it might be, how modest; if I can cook for myself, I am in paradise.

Today, I went to the Farmer’s Market. I bought perfectly green zucchinis, shitake mushrooms, and leeks. Then I went to the natural foods store and bought sweet potatoes, garlic and ginger. I bought cucumbers and peaches. The cucumbers were local and not smeared with wax or petroleum or whatever they put on the big agriculture produce. Ahhh. What am I going to do with all these the peaches? What with work and rehearsal and acupuncture and physical therapy and…I don’t have time for a pie.

I’m thinking…maybe a cucumber and peach salad. What spices?  Maybe a pinch of salt and black pepper. Cumin?  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

It’s 92 degrees and humid, but I turned on the air conditioner and the oven anyway. I chopped the sweet potatoes, tossed them in spices and olive oil, and baked them. I turned on the television for my favorite cooking shows (hint: do NOT come between me and my cooking shows). I pitted cherries, sliced a lemon and put them aside. Raw cherries make my throat itch, so I put them on the stove to cook and added sugar and a little water. When they were soft, I tossed the cherries with the sliced lemon. When they were cool, I covered them with vanilla ice cream.

Dear Lord (I always seem to be saying this), I have been too busy. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be still and give thanks for the skill of cooking. I’ve let too many moments go by without offering a prayer for the food I eat. I have forgotten how easy it is to forget — to make time to be close to home.

I sliced zucchini and shiitake mushrooms; I minced ginger and garlic. I added chopped leeks and leftover greens. Throwin’ a little water into the pot, I let the vegetables steam. And while they are steaming, I remember “saying grace.”

“God is great and God is good; and we thank God for our food. By His hands we all are fed; give us Lord our daily bread.”

That was the prayer we said as children until we were old enough to sit quietly through the grown-up prayers. That’s how we began our meals, every meal, everyday, 365 days a year, every year of my life that I lived in my parents’ home.

The stillness in that moment before meals is a potent memory.

As a child, I didn’t particularly like using the time to say grace. Depending on the person praying, it could be three to ten minutes before the food hit our tongues. I’d watch as the steam floating up from the stewed tomatoes became lighter. But the invisible Grace did not care about the tomatoes.

Despite my childish anxiety about food, the act of saying grace had great power.  Power was in the humility dripping from the voices of those giving thanks. Power was in the protection released into the air; a grace.

It has been said that taking the time to pray, to express gratitude, acknowledge each other, or just to sit in silence before eating helps the digestion. I didn’t know that as a child. My thoughts were on the seductive smell of sausages and pancakes. Or the golden river of butter running through the crevices and valleys of fluffy mashed potatoes and homemade buttermilk biscuits.

But I also knew, even as my mind willed the prayers to cease, that there was magic in the air. Those times round the table are the times I remember as the best part of being home; times that I will always hold close to the heart.

My potatoes are done, the shitake-zuchinni vegetables are steamed.  I’ve poured olive oil and Bragg’s aminos over them. I plate it all up with some “vegan” chicken salad and, sigh, I shamelessly indulge in the pleasure of cooking and saying grace.

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Essays, Life Stories, Memoir, Reflection, Story telling, Values and Spirituality

On Jealousy

Posted on May 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

Jealousy comes from a certain kind of poverty consciousness.  A jealous person is a hoarder, more concerned with taking than with giving.  And while I’ve planted several vices and faults over a nice swatch of karmic turf, I’m grateful to say that jealousy is not a seed that I have planted.

I do not want what belongs to someone else.  I don’t want what you have.  I don’t want what God gave to you for you.  It’s all that I can do to make space for my own psychic and material stuff.  Why would I want someone else’s?

Time has a way of erasing faces and sometimes names, even if one remembers the incident.  And so, I remember a lovely Sunday morning in a quiet café with a new “friend” that I was getting to know.

“I’m jealous of you,” the woman said.

We had been talking about nice things–music, the weather, etc.  But then, she put on this frowny face.  I want to head for a bomb shelter when I see a frowny face.

“I feel jealous of you. You always seem to get what you want.”

You know how in slapstick comedy, when somebody says something really dumb, the person who’s listening gags on their drink and spits it out?  Okay, so I didn’t spit out my tea.  All I could do was stare and know that this person would not be a friend.  Looking back, I wish I’d been present enough to say, “Do you think you’re woman enough to handle it?”

Now, see (as my mother would say), this is the problem with perception.  We see what someone else has, and even though we have enough, we think that we could use more.  We forget that the person we are envious or jealous of has paid a price for what they got.  But we get mad at them because God allowed them to have it.  Jealousy is stupid–and lives in a hoarding heart.

Like everyone, I’ve had moments when I wanted an easier time of it.  I’ve desired many things:  a problem-free (new?) car, a boyfriend that does the laundry and cooks dinner, more money, a massage once a week—a best seller.  But I will tell anyone in a heartbeat, “I do not want your stuff .”  Because that would mean I want someone else’s life, and really, at this point, I’m pretty content with my own.

Jealousy is a waste of vital energy.  First of all, it’s a tremendous expression of ingratitude.  It’s like saying, “God, you made a mistake with my life.  Can I have hers?”  Ew.

Second, it’s like putting yourself down.  It’s placing someone else above yourself, making their life experience more valuable than your own.  And third, it’s like asking God to give you somebody else’s sorrows in order to experience whatever is perceived as another’s joy.  Again, ew.

When I spend time by myself–writing, for instance–I am happy.  I am quiet.  I feel at ease.   When I am healing my creative self, aware of smiles,  colors, and sounds–I am happy.  When my heart is open,  words, whether hard or soft, flow with the ease of warm honey–I am happy.  It’s taken a long time, but I finally recognize this experience as spending time with my own soul.  It’s private.  It’s soft.  It’s sacred.  It’s healing.  And I wouldn’t trade it for anyone else’s experience.

No one can take those things from me, so being jealous is a waste of vital energy.  Do I get everything I think I want?  No.  But I get what is mine and try to share the best of it.  Hoarding is not my nature.

But hey, if anyone wants what I got, she will have to pay the karmic price.   And I don’t think she’s woman enough to handle it.

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Life Stories, Reflection, Story telling, Values and Spirituality, World View, Writing

On Bread, Laundry, and Morning Routines

Posted on May 12, 2012 | 6 Comments

I don’t like being away from the blog for too long.  But, I guess it’s good to shake things up every once in a while; break the routine, learn something new or meet new people. It protects one (i.e., me) from narrow-mindedness.  Perhaps, you’ve noticed; I do not like narrow-mindedness.  Narrow-mindedness is anchored in fear.

So, about shaking things up.  Nine years. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve set foot into a public laundry. It’s not been a conscious thing.  It’s just that most rentals now have on-site laundries as a convenience.  They’re safe, you recognize most of your neighbors, and you can count on them (the laundries…) being clean.  The down side is that you may have to wait for machines or pull someone’s laundry out because he or she left the building.

So, the other day, when I ran into one of my neighbors as she returned from the laundromat a few blocks away, I started thinking…

My mornings are pretty routine.  I’m a woman who likes to watch the sun rise.  I like to have tea and write in my journal.  I like my mornings slow, lazy, and quiet–just the way God made ‘em.  The world will bring itself to my psychic door soon enough.  Mornings—particularly weekend mornings—are when I can bake bread at 5 or 6 AM.  Because I want to.

Baking bread is like a meditation:  still and reflective.  I have lots of time to be with my own thoughts.  First, I mix flour, water and yeast.  Then let it rise.  Then, add oil and salt and more flour.  Then let it rise.  Finally, I knead and knead some more, divide the dough into loaves, let it rise again and bake.  By 8 am I have four nice loaves of bread.  The traffic is quiet, the Haverford geese honk overhead, and I can indulge myself in journaling about my “stuff.” You know what “stuff” is, right?

Well, last weekend, I changed my routine.  I packed a plastic IKEA bag full of shirts, sheets, and undies, bought a breakfast bagel sandwich at the bagel place, and headed for the local laundry.  I arrived about fifteen minutes after it had opened.  That would be 7:15.  Lugging my laundry, soap powder, bagel, and a book, I opened the door to find…Men?  Men.  There amid the cacophony of whirling washers and humming dryers was a room of men.

Now–as a child, whenever Mom’s machine broke (which with five kids seemed like all the time), we would go to the neighborhood laundry.  There were never any men there, only mothers towing infants and older children picking on their siblings.  Most of the time, it seemed that a mother’s singular focus was to keep the laundry in the machines and the children out.  Those laundromats were filled with yelling, laughing, and crying children and very harried mothers.  Men?  Never.

Who were these guys?  There was an elderly man with really thick glasses, his cane propped against a bench.  There was an obese fellow with a cap pulled tightly over his head.  His vibe was one that dared anyone to say “good morning.”  I sat on the bench across the room.  Another chunky guy chewed gum, popped it loudly, walked around, sat down, and walked around again.  They all stared at the ceiling.  I could not figure out what was so interesting with that darned ceiling.

Two Mexican men talked and laughed until one packed his laundry and moved on.  The other went outside to make a phone call.  I buried myself in my book, munched my bagel sandwich, and remembered a vacation in Tijuana that left me joyous.  I had made my way on public transportation (with limited Spanish) to meet my friends, bought colorful clothes and fabric, drank in a bar where the guys laughed at my name (means living room in Spanish, I learned… “ha, ha, very funny,” I said.) and sauntered in the sun.

I let the sounds wash over me.  Note to self: take Spanish lessons.

In an odd way, the rhythms were the same as baking bread:  put clothes in a machine, sit to read, wait 15-20 minutes, and check its progress.  The Haverford geese honked overhead.  Traffic was quiet.

At 8 o’clock, the door opened and a voice asked sweetly, “Does anyone have change for a twenty?”

“Finally,” I thought.  The men stared.  “No,” I answered.  She left.

But, I had succeeded.  I’d changed up my day.  The sky didn’t fall.  And I’d learned something I never knew before.  Men can, in fact, get up and out in the morning and do laundry.

It is good to shake things up every once in a while.

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Creativity, Essays, Humor, Life Stories, Memoir, Story telling

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On Broccoli and Expectations

Posted on April 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

Common sense.

My grandparents were farmers who, when we visited, involved us in the process of planting and harvesting. They were practical people, with a solid understanding of nature and the folly of rigid expectations.  They planted, made sure they had done their best work, and accepted whatever results nature provided.  Their common sense fed scores of relatives for decades.

Fast forward to their granddaughter—that would be me—as I sat in my own vegetable garden in Oakland, California, dreamily pulling weeds.  With each clump of dandelion or grass, I felt like I was letting go of some unresolved issue. I like to think of it as my Zen moment of gardening.  Inhale, pull a clump, and exhale; inhale, pull a clump and exhale.  By the end of an evening of weeding, I would be—excuse the pun—grounded.  But I didn’t have my grandparents’ wisdom:  whatever grows in the garden, after I have given it my all, is perfectly what is meant to be.  When I think about it, that perspective is a metaphor for living.  But back to vegetables.

In my neighborhood, there were a lot of folks who had gardens overflowing with vegetables and fruit.  One of my best friend’s garden was a cornucopia of kale, peas, asparagus, potatoes (red, white, and blue), squash, green peppers, tomatoes, and corn.  She and her husband had spent years putting in the time and hard work to make their garden organic.  Blackberries and raspberries circled their entire yard.  And, oh yes, the apples really did hang low on the tree.

A few years before learning from my friend about gardening, I had decided to grow some vegetables.  In addition to the peas, tomatoes and lettuce, I thought I’d try some broccoli.  Broccoli, in my mind anyway, is a vegetable of perfection. It’s sweeter than leafy green vegetables and is easy to adapt for recipes.  Little bites of the crown can be dipped in a variety of sauces. The whole stalk can be creamed for broccoli and cheddar cheese soup.  Then there are the salads and–my all time favorite–tempura.

I hoed, raked, and tilled.  I mulched and fertilized.  The vegetables grew strong and basically healthy, and the broccoli was dark green with stalks an inch thick.  I purchased lots of ladybugs to eat the aphids in the garden.  I planted garlic and onions (didn’t have a clue what I was doing).  It rained, and I checked for bugs.  Obsessively.

I found holes on the leaves, signs of critters that ate their veggies.  But I had declared a no-worm manifesto, and I was determined to win.  You know where this is going, right?

One cool evening, I went to the garden and cut some stalks for dinner.  The veggies were beautiful.  Green, shiny and strong.  I checked, washed, and placed the broccoli in a steamer.   About camouflage…

When the time came to serve—I had invited friends over—I opened the pot and screamed. There, fully steamed and swollen like a green hot dog on the top of my beautiful broccoli, was a humongous green worm.  My friends laughed and encouraged me to toss the worm and eat the broccoli.  I couldn’t, but I was told by those who did, that the vegetable was perfection.

Plant, make sure I’ve done my best, and accept the results of whatever nature provides.  Common sense for a great and anxiety free life.

Happy Monday!

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Reflection, Story telling

Words On Art, Pizza, and a Joyful Life

Posted on April 6, 2012 | 2 Comments

People like to use the term “fire in the belly” to define that insatiable passion in pursuit of a dream.  I like to think of the term in its relationship to the pursuit of pure joy.

Artists are messengers of pure joy.  They inspire folks to view the world in radically different ways.  They encourage us to be curious and to take risks.   They encourage us to be joyful.  As in…”make a joyful noise unto the Lord..”  Not threatening.  Not fearful.  Joyful.

Even when an artist’s work is something I’m not particularly fond of, I find that I am turned away from that experience only to be propelled toward a more joyful one. For this reason alone, if I had a million or a billion or a trillion dollars, I would give it to artists.

I recently heard a story about how Erma Bombeck said she would greet God if she met him face to face after death.  The story goes (and I am paraphrasing here) that she imagined God asking her what she had brought back for Him.  She said she would tell Him she had nothing to give; that she had used every gift He had given her, and there was nothing in her pockets to return.

I could only sit in amazed silence.  To live like that, one must live joyfully.

The other day, my sister-in-law, nieces, a couple of other girls, and my cousins were over for a pizza making party.  The children are all talented girls, five to eleven years old and sassy with creativity.  Their interests are diverse.  One loves music, one loves to ice skate, and one–I’m betting on it–will be a famous television chef.

The girls immersed themselves in the project immediately, and my small kitchen crackled with joy as each girl rolled out her dough in her own way and used toppings to suit her imagination.  Every pie was a work of art.  I was inspired by their boldness and generosity.   They even made “take outs” for their siblings who were not there to cook with us.

There were no rules, just a lazy afternoon,  ingredients, and joy in the process.  I had done the prep work the day before.  I had made yeasted dough from scratch and filled bowls and containers with toppings that I thought they would enjoy.  To be honest, I had a pretty joyful experience prepping.  I home roasted and sliced red bell peppers, sliced and sautéed mushrooms, chopped roma tomatoes, and sliced black olives.  I diced pepperoni slices into quarter chunks and made a fruit salad.  As I washed and chopped  strawberries,  pears, and oranges, then sliced bananas and added  blueberries and raspberries, I was in the zone.  I could have purchased any number of the ingredients I used–the mushrooms, the roasted red peppers, and sliced olives–but I was painting my picture of children joyously making pizza from scratch.  I couldn’t have stopped prepping if I wanted to.  I was quite happy.

In 1968, I was in San Francisco for the first time.  It was a dynamic time, filled with the presence of flower children and the so-called love generation.  I remember being amazed that I could walk the entire city from one end to another in a day.  There was no BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), no subways.  It was quite a different city then.

One day while walking–and brooding on how difficult life was, a pastime I thought necessary if I wanted to live as an artist–a beautiful man came up to me.  He was African and so beautiful that I will never forget his face.  In those days, I had no suspicion of strangers.

“Why do you look so sad?”  he asked.

I was taken aback, but before I could open my mouth to respond, he was almost singing.  ”You should be happy!  Be Happy!”   He patted me on the shoulder and cheerfully walked off.

It seems that this has been a spiritual theme–a command from the Universe, if you will–wherever I go.  Live joyfully. Empty the pockets. That’s the ticket I’m supposed to buy.

Creativity is mysterious medicine, generating in us the desire to live with a fire in the belly for joy.  We’re inspired by interpretations of life–stories, choreography, theater, music, photographs, paintings, and poetry — that reveal the stages and emotional paths bringing us to the joy that we yearn to experience.

Artists inspire us to get up and do something.  Dance something. Write something.  Sing something.  Cook something new and fabulous—maybe a pizza.

Yes indeed.  It is a very good Friday.

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Posted in Commentary, Creative nonfiction, Creativity, Humanity, Inspiration, Life Stories, Reflection, Story telling, Values and Spirituality, World View

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Service

Posted on March 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

“Thank you, God, for allowing me to serve.”

It wasn’t so much the words that were strange.  It was that it was four in the morning, and these were the first words in my day, floating up from my subconscious dreamy state.  I suppose I could call it a prayer.

I’m no stranger to service.  I got my father’s DNA.  His life, from community councils to volunteer fire departments to the National Guard, was a perfect model of service.  Since high school when I was a “candy striper” in a local hospital, I’ve volunteered for neighborhood cleanups, helped teenage moms, taught elderly people to read, and participated in scores of projects throughout my adulthood.  But this prayer was a surprise.  Some subconscious part of me was so moved that it was expressing gratitude.

The evening before, my trio had performed.  As I looked out into the audience I saw that people were having a real good time.  This was not a drunken bar audience.  A couple of people told me later that they had been moved to tears.  Others laughed and clapped.  Happiness reigned.  Once again I realized the power—and, for me, the purpose—of performance art.  One of my brothers calls it the “human to human” connection.  It’s also, I think, the magic of service.  Happiness reigns.

What if it’s true?  What if our real purpose for being born is to serve?  What if—whether we believe it or not, whether it fits our spiritual and political beliefs or not—we are here only to take care of each other, to nurture each other, to make the world a better place moment by moment?

What does it mean to serve?  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said about service:

“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.”

I was driving a shuttle between a hotel and a retreat site where I spent a lot of my time.  This was my service, and my task was simple:  pick people up at the hotel and take them to the retreat site.  Folks were arriving from all over the world.  Some spoke English well, while others struggled to make themselves understood.  Some seemed perfectly at ease, and others seemed hesitant; they had come very far for a new experience, but weren’t sure what to expect.

Everyone was connected to his or her own story.  I was focused on my task, ensuring the comfort and safety of passengers, but I had stopped smiling.  I felt disconnected and sad.  I felt like I was using up precious air, taking up valuable space on earth.  Looking back, I can see that I felt unworthy of the task of greeting so many people from so far away.  I had always loved volunteering, but I felt my anger and impatience growing with the chattering adults and noisy children.

At some point, a beautiful woman from Hawaii climbed into the van with her two children.  She sat beside me in the front and began to talk and ask questions about the retreat site.  She’d brought the Hawaiian sun with her smile, and her laugh literally filled the van.  Throughout the ride she talked about her life, her children, and why she was so happy to be at the retreat.  Her joy was contagious.  I looked around and saw that other folks were drawn in and were feeling at ease.

When we arrived at the retreat, she said goodbye and lifted her children from the van.  She started down the sidewalk, but suddenly stopped and came back to the van.  Looking me in the eye, she said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”  She smiled and was off.

I began to cry.  Hers was the heart full of grace.  Hers was the true service, and her kindness brought me back to the reason I was driving that van in the first darn place.  To serve.

The task doesn’t matter.  It can be driving, performing, painting a school wall, mowing a lawn, or reading to an elderly person in a nursing home.  Tasks are endless.  What matters is how I serve.  True service is a matter of the heart.  True service leaves love behind when the server herself has left the scene.

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Posted in Commentary, Creative nonfiction, Humanity, Life Stories, Reflection, Story telling, Values and Spirituality

Pie

Posted on March 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

This world is full of pie (as opposed to what some other folks would say the world is full of, and it’s not a pleasant word).  The world is saturated with a dizzying rainbow of crusty confections with meat, nuts, vegetables, and fruit. Who could turn down a slice of color in the form of cherry, blueberry, lemon meringue, or lime pie with a dollop of rich vanilla ice cream on top?  Admit it.  You love pie.

There have been moments when I allow myself the fantasy of peace through people taking time out of their busy days to join a friend and make a pie.  What a lovely thought.  I imagine a world where people settle conflicts by getting together to bake pies.  How can a person fire a weapon when her hands are covered with dough, his face is dripping with peach juice, and there are peach pits in the middle of their tongues?  Peace In Eating.  Pie.

As a young girl, I learned to bake good pies after discovering that I was horrible at baking cakes.  Those three-layered or square-shaped dough concoctions were too unpredictable; like people, you couldn’t control them.  It didn’t matter if they were pound or angel or chocolate layered, my cakes inevitably fell in the middle or broke in half as I iced them.  Worse yet, I would go to read a book and smell burned cake, a pitiful result because the cake would be inedible and Mom would be furious.  My cakes and biscuits met the same fate.  The biscuits were embarrassingly hard little pieces of rock that could kill a chicken with one throw. It was sad.  After all, I was born to a legacy of cooks who could probably make rock soup taste like a five-star menu item.

But pie was different.  I don’t know if it was the concentration and rhythm of fluting the crust, the sensuality of juicy fruit in my hands, or the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg and other haunting spices.  There was some mystery about pie that calmed me down, made me feel, um, competent.  Maybe it was because in learning to bake pie, I learned focus and patience.  I learned how to follow directions.  I learned to measure, to take my time.  Of course, I haven’t always fallen back on the things I learned.  My life might be very different if I had.

Mom was specific about measurements.  Too much flour?  Put it back.  Too much shortening?  Take it out.  Work with the dough until the flour and shortening looked like uniform grains of sand.  Add water.

“No, not that much!”

Take it out quickly before you have to throw the whole lot away.  Learn how to salvage the good, to manage mistakes before they become disasters (relationships).  The ingredients (like relationships) were as precious as gold. Nothing could be wasted.  But taking the patience to add water, drop by drop, until the dough was ready to knead was another lesson. It takes time to do something really well.  Of course, I haven’t always use this lesson either.  I’ve wanted things to be resolved, fixed, changed, or transformed NOW.  Remembering patience, moment to moment, is a skill that must be practiced again and again–like baking pie.

Depending on the fruit–pears, apples, or peaches–I would peel the skins slowly, watching the skins form those little Shirley Temple ringlets that became the main ingredient for homemade jelly.  Peach pie was my favorite.  With the juice flowing between my fingers, I used precious moments to suck on the pits. Making a pie was focused work.  Sucking on peach pits was my reward.

Today, I still love to bake pies and, somewhere along the years, I have learned to bake decent cakes.  Cakes require the same focus and patience.  I’ve added a variation to my baking.  I have learned to bake vegan, and I do not add dairy or eggs to my cakes.  I no longer use shortening in my pies, and I’ve added fruits that we didn’t use when I was growing up.  Mango gives me larger and juicier seeds to suck on.  But the lessons remain.  There is still a mystery in baking. Time stands still.  I can live in the moment.  I can learn patience.

The other day a friend and I got into a fight.  I was very upset.  I felt like I wasn’t being heard, and my friend felt attacked.  It was ugly.  After spreading fury through my apartment, I asked myself the usual question.  What could I have done differently?  I talked to a couple of close friends and my sister.  After all the guidance (and evidence of my impatience) was gathered, I sat down to write about it.  I came up with the understanding that I was wrong.  I apologized.

Now, I am on my way to the kitchen to bake a vegetable pot pie.  Have a marvelous week.  Words, like pies, have delicious color.

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Posted in Creative nonfiction, Humor, Life Stories, Story telling, Values and Spirituality, World View