When May rolls back the water color sky of winter
The canopy of the northwest sky that shrouds and blankets
In all discomfort, keeping the cold close to earth.
When sunny days attempt to visit now as spring makes an effort
The gardens and the animals know long before us, we who live
In false heat and comfort, wait for darkness to lift it's heavy veil,
The light to enter, the birds to sing, we are nearer as the mornings
Grow nearer and nearer and lighter with light.
I lay here in my winter garden, a blue plastic tarp strung
Over my head, rope stretched to post, the candy cane design
Patterned around and around between tarp and post.
A brown tarp under my body stretched
I write this poem, aware of nature and happy!
Rain won't stop! I want to pound in the metal posts deeper and deeper.
Rain falls from the sky without promise of blue patches or fluffy clouds or sun.
Still I'm dry and fairly warm though I could be warmer, fresh air surrounds me.
The fragrant community garden! Is that grape that I smell in the damp, wet air?
If only the winds would hold still and I could perceive the fragrance.
From sage and lavender the witches yarrow conjures up the dream
Of my garden which in disarray before me confuses me and hides its essence.
So much to do! I lay my head on my grass purse to watch the rain.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Takilma, Or. March Sky 1970
On waking alone in the forest
I felt the patterns of the sky
and I was among the stars
eternal and alone.
I felt the patterns of the sky
and I was among the stars
eternal and alone.
I wanted you with my heart and my mind
and you came.
I was there with the fire
realizing the security of being alive
and I felt happy with creation
knowing my place.
and you came.
I was there with the fire
realizing the security of being alive
and I felt happy with creation
knowing my place.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
12
The children were lined up against the brick wall in the basement of the Lutheran Church on 18th Street, in Santa Monica, California. 1962. The school nurses were weighing and measuring the children and the kids were stripped down with shoes off. One little girl stepped up to the scale and was weighed and then height was measured. Then the nurse asked her to step to the side and to touch her toes, which she obediently did. She felt the nurse's finger travel up her spine from her pelvis tail to the base of her head. "Look at this," the nurse called the attention of her fellow nurse.
The scoliosis would change her life. She had always thought of her body as perfect but now, as they left the doctor's office, her mother was sobbing and saying that god was punishing her for her sins. "Why would god punish me for my mother's sins?" This is what the girl thought.
All the child could do was wait to see what this would mean. She heard slivers of conversations. Her mother said that the doctor wanted to put a rod up her spine but her father had the x-rays examined by doctors that worked in the hospital where he worked as a book keeper and the answer was no. The most beautiful no that she had ever heard.
She was taken from Lutheran School and put in Emerson Jr. High where they had a special physical education program. The children would lay down on mats and pretend that they were trees and that their arms were branches reaching deep beneath the surface of the ground for nourishment and water. It was here that she met Janie Mansfield, daughter of. They were rolie polie fat girls and they sat at recess eating chocolate cake with thick icing. Janie told her about living with her mother. And she would point to a teacher who ate bananas at recess and say, "It's just like she is sucking a cock."
They moved from Santa Monica back to Hollywood. The Lutheran School was just for punishment anyway. Although she liked it after all, even though she called it The Dungeon, she had even started going through Confirmation and thought that she would become a Lutheran. But she had to go to her Principle and say that they were moving and that she would be leaving instead.
At ten, when she moved to Hollywood, she attended Hollywood Professional School where she did well. She entered as a fourth grader and the class was split into two classes, fourth and fifth. She worked through both grades that year and was put in study hall to make up time, for some reason, but it made her mother angry that she was made to sit with nothing to do for a certain amount of time. She was then placed in a progressive school. She was tested and placed as a fifth grader and near the end of the year went to the new school on Franklin and Highland. So in the seventh grade when she horsed around in front of the progressive school and was expelled, her mother really couldn't put her back a grade, when she returned to her school, after Emerson, she was automatically restored to what she could do grade level wise.
*********************************************************************************
The child slipped out the door of her apartment and remembered to lock up. The apartment was empty, she wasn't lonely though, she was just on the loose. She would walk to the Broadway Hollywood from her apartment and the walk was 2 1/2 miles, one way. She walked it with her mother, they would walk it together when her mom was off work. This was her mom's exercise.
Not swimming, playing tennis, horseback riding or bicycling. Just walking. Walking long distances.
She walked passed the Grauman's Chinese theatre without walking to the side to put her shoes in the place of the actor's shoes. Or to place her hand's in place of the actor's hands, because it was dangerous for a child to go to a secluded place in Hollywood, and many children were found dead around the city and in the Hollywood Hills. There were many little shops and restaurants along the way. And one day something happened when she was just looking at the merchandise in one of the shops. She slipped something off a shelf into her purse and left the store without paying for it. It was so easy and so unexpected that she could do that and not be detected. She continued shop lifting that entire year. All of her Christmas presents or any other present she gave was shop lifted.
Usually she was alone when she did this but one day she was with her best friend and they entered an open market on Hollywood Boulevard. She slipped a package of Hostess Cupcakes under her jacket and they left the market. Her friend didn't even know what she had done.
A man started yelling at them. A huge man with a foreign accent. They ran as fast as they could with him shouting, "Come back, come back and pay for that. You didn't pay for that." He ran very fast for a man that was so very fat and caught up with the little girls. "You go right back to the store," he said as he turned them around and marched them down the street. It took them a while to arrive at the store, they had run a couple of blocks. She put the cupcakes on the counter and got in her purse for the 13 cents. "Now look at you, you had the money the whole while! Why do you steal when you have money?" He just kept going on.
As they left the market her friend said to her; "I was going to runaway to desert you, but I changed my mind. The 12 year old never stole anything again, that was the end of her criminal life.
*******************************************************************************
The twelfth was a rough year. Before scientists discovered teenage temporal growth, everyone thought that a teenager was just like an adult. That their actions were deliberate. She was very troubled, she would sob for hours and in her sleep cut her sheets and her doll's hair. She would only remember this because her grandmother was visiting one time and was aware of what was happening. "I was just dusting her things and her diary fell open on the floor and in it she had written that she hated god!" My poor mom was in hot water with her mother again.
After her grandma went home she and her mother packed up and followed her on the Southern Pacific, again. Her grandma had gotten rid of a renter. (She rented the upstairs of her house) And she sat in her mother's old bedroom thinking how really wonderful it was to look out over Morningside, the neighborhood where her mom grew up. But they didn't stay and returned to California.
The scoliosis would change her life. She had always thought of her body as perfect but now, as they left the doctor's office, her mother was sobbing and saying that god was punishing her for her sins. "Why would god punish me for my mother's sins?" This is what the girl thought.
All the child could do was wait to see what this would mean. She heard slivers of conversations. Her mother said that the doctor wanted to put a rod up her spine but her father had the x-rays examined by doctors that worked in the hospital where he worked as a book keeper and the answer was no. The most beautiful no that she had ever heard.
She was taken from Lutheran School and put in Emerson Jr. High where they had a special physical education program. The children would lay down on mats and pretend that they were trees and that their arms were branches reaching deep beneath the surface of the ground for nourishment and water. It was here that she met Janie Mansfield, daughter of. They were rolie polie fat girls and they sat at recess eating chocolate cake with thick icing. Janie told her about living with her mother. And she would point to a teacher who ate bananas at recess and say, "It's just like she is sucking a cock."
They moved from Santa Monica back to Hollywood. The Lutheran School was just for punishment anyway. Although she liked it after all, even though she called it The Dungeon, she had even started going through Confirmation and thought that she would become a Lutheran. But she had to go to her Principle and say that they were moving and that she would be leaving instead.
At ten, when she moved to Hollywood, she attended Hollywood Professional School where she did well. She entered as a fourth grader and the class was split into two classes, fourth and fifth. She worked through both grades that year and was put in study hall to make up time, for some reason, but it made her mother angry that she was made to sit with nothing to do for a certain amount of time. She was then placed in a progressive school. She was tested and placed as a fifth grader and near the end of the year went to the new school on Franklin and Highland. So in the seventh grade when she horsed around in front of the progressive school and was expelled, her mother really couldn't put her back a grade, when she returned to her school, after Emerson, she was automatically restored to what she could do grade level wise.
*********************************************************************************
The child slipped out the door of her apartment and remembered to lock up. The apartment was empty, she wasn't lonely though, she was just on the loose. She would walk to the Broadway Hollywood from her apartment and the walk was 2 1/2 miles, one way. She walked it with her mother, they would walk it together when her mom was off work. This was her mom's exercise.
Not swimming, playing tennis, horseback riding or bicycling. Just walking. Walking long distances.
She walked passed the Grauman's Chinese theatre without walking to the side to put her shoes in the place of the actor's shoes. Or to place her hand's in place of the actor's hands, because it was dangerous for a child to go to a secluded place in Hollywood, and many children were found dead around the city and in the Hollywood Hills. There were many little shops and restaurants along the way. And one day something happened when she was just looking at the merchandise in one of the shops. She slipped something off a shelf into her purse and left the store without paying for it. It was so easy and so unexpected that she could do that and not be detected. She continued shop lifting that entire year. All of her Christmas presents or any other present she gave was shop lifted.
Usually she was alone when she did this but one day she was with her best friend and they entered an open market on Hollywood Boulevard. She slipped a package of Hostess Cupcakes under her jacket and they left the market. Her friend didn't even know what she had done.
A man started yelling at them. A huge man with a foreign accent. They ran as fast as they could with him shouting, "Come back, come back and pay for that. You didn't pay for that." He ran very fast for a man that was so very fat and caught up with the little girls. "You go right back to the store," he said as he turned them around and marched them down the street. It took them a while to arrive at the store, they had run a couple of blocks. She put the cupcakes on the counter and got in her purse for the 13 cents. "Now look at you, you had the money the whole while! Why do you steal when you have money?" He just kept going on.
As they left the market her friend said to her; "I was going to runaway to desert you, but I changed my mind. The 12 year old never stole anything again, that was the end of her criminal life.
*******************************************************************************
The twelfth was a rough year. Before scientists discovered teenage temporal growth, everyone thought that a teenager was just like an adult. That their actions were deliberate. She was very troubled, she would sob for hours and in her sleep cut her sheets and her doll's hair. She would only remember this because her grandmother was visiting one time and was aware of what was happening. "I was just dusting her things and her diary fell open on the floor and in it she had written that she hated god!" My poor mom was in hot water with her mother again.
After her grandma went home she and her mother packed up and followed her on the Southern Pacific, again. Her grandma had gotten rid of a renter. (She rented the upstairs of her house) And she sat in her mother's old bedroom thinking how really wonderful it was to look out over Morningside, the neighborhood where her mom grew up. But they didn't stay and returned to California.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
FIRST DATE
MAY-MALIBU, CALIFORNIA
Malibu in the month of May is as beautiful as Malibu is
beautiful year round. Each month has a warm, bright sameness. December, January, and February may have a
cool feel of summer gone, or maybe a grey tint in the atmosphere, but the
season differences actually play more in nature, the arrival of the Monarch
butterfly, their cocoons on the eucalyptus trees and then the emergence of
thousands of new butterflies. The dead
jelly fish that wash ashore by the tide or the purple slugs that do the same
and that the scientists come out and harvest at low tide on a sunny
afternoon. These are the noticeable
changes as the year passes.
The young woman bent over the flower garden reaching for
more dried blossoms to deadhead from the red geranium bush. There were pink and dark pink and red
bushes. They were lush. Their dark green leaves filled in and pushed
the flowers up and together. The leaves
were varied greens, soft and impossible not to stroke and pull. Nasturtium grew prolific beneath the
geraniums and covered the ground until they met grass. The grass grew to the patio’s cement. She stood up and took in the salty breeze while
looking at the horizon, the blue and
pink horizon with the pier off to one side and moored boats bobbing with
the sway of the water. It was afternoon
light and a summer’s heat was turning cool as a blue porsche pulled up in front
of the trailer that belonged to the girl’s mother.
A tall, handsome man stepped out of the porsche, walked
around the front of the car and up the step, “My name is Tom. I am Gary’s friend.” Gary worked around the trailer park which
everyone called-the cove. Garry lived in
a trailer with his wife and two kids.
They were in their early twenties.
“Oh sure, I know Gary, the young woman said.” He had helped her mom with repairs on the
trailer a few times. “I am Candy.”
“Well, I wondered if you’d like to go to a movie? I am
actually a projectionist in a movie theater in Santa Monica-but I have the
night off and a good movie is playing tonight, I think that you would enjoy
seeing it.” “Sure,” she answered. Her heart was racing. This would be her first date. She had turned 15 last week and that was the
magic age to be allowed to-go out.
“Well, I will be back for you about 6-o.k.?”
Six came and she and her mother were waiting inside. Her mother had a pot of hot coffee on and was
moving around the kitchen, a little woman in a little kitchen. Candy was sitting at the bar between the
kitchen and living room. “Do I look
nervous?” she asked her mom. “You look
great, honey.” She was wearing her new
jeans with a purple velour top and expensive sandals. It wasn’t an extremely warm evening but still
not cold. She looked beautiful because
she was young, she was untouched and she had the innocent trust and happiness
of a young person just beginning to be aware of her attraction to the opposite
sex. There came a knock on the door and
Tom came in and made pleasentries with the mother. He shared information about his family, his
sisters. His mother had passed away two years before and his father left, in a
divorce. “If you will give me your driver’s
license please, I will jot down information about you." Candy’s mom requested. He reached in his wallet and handed the license to the mother. Candy began to feel odd. She hadn’t seen this coming. Both Tom and her mother looked at her with
smiles on their faces. So, with business taken
care of, the couple left the trailer on their date, her first date. It was a pleasant
date and they planned for another soon.
The following day her mother told her that she didn’t want
her to go out with boys her own age.
That she was afraid that her daughter would be with a gang of drunken
kids on Highway 101 and get in a fatal accident. Someone could get killed and likely it would
be her. She thought this over. There were no teenagers living in the cove only
a younger boy and an older one that was away in the service, overseas. The valley kids came over in the summer and
on Holidays but it was like they existed in separate castes. So Candy gave this new rule no more thought.
“And Candy,” her mother added, “if you become pregnant, don’t
be afraid, just come home and we will take care of it.” (Many mothers in this culture and in this
era-the sixties- were putting their girls on birth control.) But this mother was older and torn about what
to do.
Tom and Candy dated over a period of two years. Tom would marry and divorce another woman
during this time. Candy would date many
men until she would marry at twenty and stay married for twenty years, raising
children until the divorce.
At age 83 Candy died napping under a warm California sun,
slightly inebriated.
Friday, February 20, 2015
THE GRANDFATHER
On one particular shopping trip two dresses were chosen by the grandfather of identical design but different colours. They were sundresses of shinning cotton with butterflies flying about madly, one in blue and green and the other orange and pink. The sun dresses were sleeveless with low front and back and full skirts gathered at the waist with stiff petticoats beneath. One for his young wife, and one for his daughter. They were beautiful dresses and the women were very proud of themselves, looking so young and pretty. But no one was so proud as the grandfather!
Saturday, February 7, 2015
THE STORY OF ELOISE
 |
| Lolly and the little girl in the pink house |
 |
| The little girl sat in front of the fire on the hooked rug on the floor with her mother eating a meal of calves liver. This was a horrible meal and if her mother had not been taking turns eating a bite and then getting the little girl to eat a bite, she surely would not be eating the horrible stuff. So eat she did! She had been diagnosed with rheumatic fever and had been taken to the hospital room with the doctor and both her parents. She just stared at the bed from the doorway and couldn't imagine herself there....although she was there in the hallway. Then it was if she had been taken away in a dream and she was riding on the Southern Pacific Railroad traversing a familiar route. Los Angeles to las Vegas, las Vegas to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to Laramie, Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming to Billings, Montana and then finally Nebraska. Here her grandfather would come to meet them with his hearse, with the black velvet curtains. Her grandfather came with his hearse, a stretcher and a companion to help lift her onto the stretcher . They slid her onto the old black hearse with the velvet curtains that swayed with the weight of the people positioning the girl. Her mother was close by as they slid her on the stand where the casket was usually placed. When she and her mother were in, the door was shut and the girl looked at the ceiling of the hearse where the belts that held the casket were tied up, but swinging to the sway of the velvet curtains. The earth was cold and covered with a layer of snow as the old hearse began the trip to Iowa. Along the road the back tire popped and her grandfather and companion got out and started to change the blown tire. The girl positioned herself and repositioned herself to see outside. There was a blizzard now. Her mother spoke to her sharply, "If you do not lay still I will strap you down." She became still and waited. It did not take her grandfather long to change the tire and they were on the road again. Her grandfather's house was a small brick house on a street in Sioux City. When they carried her in the house on the stretcher she had fallen asleep and wasn't aware until morning where she was, or that she had arrived. She awoke to a beautiful, pink room in a big bed with a satin pink bedspread and an excess of pillows. The carpeting was pink and the walls of the bedroom. There was a huge dresser with a mirror above that and Lollie's perfume bottles and brushes sitting on top. In the front room the girl could lay on the couch and look out a window overlooking the carport and watch visitors leave. The little doll was sent in a large round container to a seven year old girl confined in bed with rheumatic fever. Although she was filled with energy and always wanted to move around, she stayed in bed and only went to the bath room or living room when she left her bed, in a wheel chair. She tried very hard not to bang the walls of her grandfather's hallway as she maneuvered herself from one place to another. The bedroom had become too familiar. She was in the pink house now, and she had her doll and then the family doctor came to visit her. They had made the trip from California just to see him. He came to her sitting in her wheel chair and lowered himself to his knees getting very close to her face. She could plainly see his eyes were of a different colour, one blue, one brown! "Would you like to get out of that wheel chair and play in the snow?" he asked her with a friendly but serious face. It was good to stretch and run and play again. And Eloise would be waiting for her-always. |
She was in the pink house now, and she had her doll and then the family doctor came to visit her. They had made the trip from California just to see him. He came to her sitting in her wheel chair and lowered himself to his knees getting very close to her face. She could plainly see his eyes were of a different colour, one blue, one brown! "Would you like to get out of that wheel chair and play in the snow?" he asked her with a friendly but serious face. It was good to stretch and run and play again. And Eloise would be waiting for her-always.Sunday, January 18, 2015
The Winter of Disaster
the tsuname
all those people gone
the children left, raised together
the nations hope.
louisianna
all those people gone
the ones left, scattered
over america.
the winter of disaster
how we change and survive
our race, our generation
we don't know
how we change.
all those people gone
the children left, raised together
the nations hope.
louisianna
all those people gone
the ones left, scattered
over america.
the winter of disaster
how we change and survive
our race, our generation
we don't know
how we change.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
HOMELESS
Going to pack up my bike
And I am going to ride,
Down the roads of Oregon
On their sunny sides.
I've got my food stamps,
And I am ready to go
My insulin is free,
From the drug company
In this situation I'll freeload.
I'm afraid of what could happen,
And I'm ashamed of being down.
I'll keep a journal of each day
As I stop in every little town.
And who knows who I might become.
I've got creative ways.
I'll think of my adventures,
Then I will write a book and have my say.
And I am going to ride,
Down the roads of Oregon
On their sunny sides.
I've got my food stamps,
And I am ready to go
My insulin is free,
From the drug company
In this situation I'll freeload.
I'm afraid of what could happen,
And I'm ashamed of being down.
I'll keep a journal of each day
As I stop in every little town.
And who knows who I might become.
I've got creative ways.
I'll think of my adventures,
Then I will write a book and have my say.
CHRIS
In my dream I stand by the statue.
Skilled and capable hands had made
The bronze image.
I look into the frozen eyes and frozen smile
Set on a salt pillar, functioning as body.
With my hand spread across the face,
How hard and cold the image!
I, now, overcome with Lot's feelings,
Look into the face of the one who was,
Warm, intelligent, sarcastic and funny.
In my dream I stand by the statue.
I look into the frozen eyes,
Of the one who was.
How warm his arms,
How clear and blue his eyes.
Lovelier than any others.
How strong my brother,
How like a savior.
Skilled and capable hands had made
The bronze image.
I look into the frozen eyes and frozen smile
Set on a salt pillar, functioning as body.
With my hand spread across the face,
How hard and cold the image!
I, now, overcome with Lot's feelings,
Look into the face of the one who was,
Warm, intelligent, sarcastic and funny.
In my dream I stand by the statue.
I look into the frozen eyes,
Of the one who was.
How warm his arms,
How clear and blue his eyes.
Lovelier than any others.
How strong my brother,
How like a savior.
JESSICA
The morning is black and cold
And the mean wind blows against the house.
I would like to walk in the mean wind.
But my baby lies sleeping.
The rain will come and the snow
The ground will be frozen and grey
All the earth around here looks dead
Because the winter has come.
As I listen to the air move so fiercely
My heart quivers and I am afraid
Such weather has no mercy on anything
The house stands about us and cradles us safely.
And the mean wind blows against the house.
I would like to walk in the mean wind.
But my baby lies sleeping.
The rain will come and the snow
The ground will be frozen and grey
All the earth around here looks dead
Because the winter has come.
As I listen to the air move so fiercely
My heart quivers and I am afraid
Such weather has no mercy on anything
The house stands about us and cradles us safely.
GARDENING
When May rolls back the water color sky of winter
The canopy of the northwest sky that shrouds and blankets
In all discomfort, keeping the cold close to earth.
When sunny days attempt to visit now as spring makes an effort
The gardens and the animals know long before us, we who live
In false heat and comfort, wait for darkness to lift it's heavy veil,
The light to enter, the birds to sing, we are nearer as the mornings
Grow nearer and nearer and lighter with light.
I lay here in my winter garden, a blue plastic tarp strung
Over my head, rope stretched to post, the candy cane design
Patterned around and around between tarp and post.
A brown tarp under my body stretched
I write this poem, aware of nature and happy!
Rain won't stop! I want to pound in the metal posts deeper and deeper.
Rain falls from the sky without promise of blue patches or fluffy clouds or sun.
Still I'm dry and fairly warm though I could be warmer, fresh air surrounds me.
The fragrant community garden! Is that grape that I smell in the damp, wet air?
If only the winds would hold still and I could perceive the fragrance.
From sage and lavender the witches yarrow conjures up the dream
Of my garden which in disarray before me confuses me and hides its essence.
So much to do! I lay my head on my grass purse to watch the rain.
The canopy of the northwest sky that shrouds and blankets
In all discomfort, keeping the cold close to earth.
When sunny days attempt to visit now as spring makes an effort
The gardens and the animals know long before us, we who live
In false heat and comfort, wait for darkness to lift it's heavy veil,
The light to enter, the birds to sing, we are nearer as the mornings
Grow nearer and nearer and lighter with light.
I lay here in my winter garden, a blue plastic tarp strung
Over my head, rope stretched to post, the candy cane design
Patterned around and around between tarp and post.
A brown tarp under my body stretched
I write this poem, aware of nature and happy!
Rain won't stop! I want to pound in the metal posts deeper and deeper.
Rain falls from the sky without promise of blue patches or fluffy clouds or sun.
Still I'm dry and fairly warm though I could be warmer, fresh air surrounds me.
The fragrant community garden! Is that grape that I smell in the damp, wet air?
If only the winds would hold still and I could perceive the fragrance.
From sage and lavender the witches yarrow conjures up the dream
Of my garden which in disarray before me confuses me and hides its essence.
So much to do! I lay my head on my grass purse to watch the rain.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
BEVERLY
I remember the dress that I was wearing the day that we met. It was white cotton with lace embedded in the material, sleeveless and mini length. We were in class but on a break. "You are not fat at all, your brother said that you were fat!" I looked down at myself and it was true, there wasn't much there. She was twelve and I was thirteen.
I had spent the summer in the land of abundant and beautiful food. Sioux City, Iowa. I remember opening the fridge one day and there was a huge cheesecake that my aunt had made, a great rectangular thing piled high with homegrown strawberries from her little strawberry patch out back. They drank milk with every meal and my cousin Ron sprinkled sugar on his pancakes. I mean to say, poured.
At home in California there was no food. At ten I had awoken one morning to an empty apartment with no food. I found flour, sugar and water and mixed them together and ate it to end the empty pain I had in my stomach.
"She is a compulsive eater," my grandmother to my mother. So I was... told.
When I returned home from Iowa, my mom got diet pills from the nurse that she worked with unbeknownst to the doctor. I began to thin down. I did more than that, I became anorexic and stopped eating. Mom took me to my grandfather in Palm Springs and he coaxed me back to life. I never became fat again until I had my Olivia.
So began our friendship in 1963. Beverly was my brother's friend to start out. She was 12 and he was 16 but we shared her. She had an IQ of close to 200. She had written journals from childhood that she stacked in the bottom of her closet. She had been belly dancing since a baby. She was warm and empathetic, much like my Olivia, and she seemed to collect people of all sorts and came to know just about everyone.
She had tried to kill herself before I met her. I sat in the car one night with her parents waiting for her session with the shrink to be over. She came out of the building, crossed the street and got into the car. "What was it like? What do you say?" I asked. I kind of could not imagine such a thing. "Oh I just make stuff up. I never tell him the truth."
I had spent the summer in the land of abundant and beautiful food. Sioux City, Iowa. I remember opening the fridge one day and there was a huge cheesecake that my aunt had made, a great rectangular thing piled high with homegrown strawberries from her little strawberry patch out back. They drank milk with every meal and my cousin Ron sprinkled sugar on his pancakes. I mean to say, poured.
At home in California there was no food. At ten I had awoken one morning to an empty apartment with no food. I found flour, sugar and water and mixed them together and ate it to end the empty pain I had in my stomach.
"She is a compulsive eater," my grandmother to my mother. So I was... told.
When I returned home from Iowa, my mom got diet pills from the nurse that she worked with unbeknownst to the doctor. I began to thin down. I did more than that, I became anorexic and stopped eating. Mom took me to my grandfather in Palm Springs and he coaxed me back to life. I never became fat again until I had my Olivia.
So began our friendship in 1963. Beverly was my brother's friend to start out. She was 12 and he was 16 but we shared her. She had an IQ of close to 200. She had written journals from childhood that she stacked in the bottom of her closet. She had been belly dancing since a baby. She was warm and empathetic, much like my Olivia, and she seemed to collect people of all sorts and came to know just about everyone.
She had tried to kill herself before I met her. I sat in the car one night with her parents waiting for her session with the shrink to be over. She came out of the building, crossed the street and got into the car. "What was it like? What do you say?" I asked. I kind of could not imagine such a thing. "Oh I just make stuff up. I never tell him the truth."
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