Billie~A Piece of Oral Herstory

I met Billie one foggy afternoon two years ago. It was a Sunday and I know that for a fact because Billie only comes into the teashop on Sundays; always at 2:00.  She gets out her four dollars and her frequent flyer card, as I wash my hands and begin to prepare her bowl of premium matcha. She requests the same bowl; the one that "sufficiently holds the heat."
Billie is a different sort.  A misfit. She's the single, tiny piece of washed sea glass in a beach of a million granules of sand. She did not want to be photographed.

tpg: Thanks for sitting with me, Billie. I hope I can honor you in a way most deserving of the person that you are. Let's begin by you telling me a bit about your childhood. Where did you grow up? What were your interests?

Billie:  (rubbing her eyes and looking everywhere except at me) I grew up in Massachusetts and then in Hawaii, which was interesting to say the least. I always preferred Boston, you know, it was the 1950's and 60's and so on and so forth. Segregation, good old-fashioned lynching's were a hot topic and of course, I wasn't going down south, no way no how.

tpg: What was interesting about Hawaii?

Billie: I mean it was horrific at times because I wasn't Hawaiian or Samoan!!! (She's shouting) I was a "toe-head" for god's sake!!

tpg: Did you have trouble making friends?

Billie: I didn't need friends. I preferred books. Mother always bought me books. I read the entire Bible, THE KING JAMES VERSION, (shouting) by the time I was 11 years old!

tpg: Wow! And you were an only child, right?

Billie:  Yes, I was. My parents were a bit eccentric. I was most likely a mistake. Well, I shouldn't say mistake, but certainly a surprise! (laughter)

tpg:  Were you closer to one than the other?

Billie:  I found them both excruciatingly high functioning. In later years, after mother had long passed, I ended up caring for my father and during that time, we became somewhat close, though his dementia grew horns every now and then.

tpg: Would you consider either of them role models for you?

Billie: I think not! Aunt Margaret was who I went to for advice, direction and books.  Additional books. She and Yosko.

tpg: Yosko?

Billie: Yosko hailed from Tokyo and knew how to cook like nobody's business. I had my first bowl of matcha in her studio and I loved her dumplings. I need to buy some cut flowers when I go to the farmer's market for my English peas...it's the only place I can find fresh ones, well, except Grove Market... and put them on her grave. Maybe I can get some ribbon at Beverly's.
I think they're having a sale.

tpg: Are you a coupon-cutter like my mom was?

Billie: Well, not really. I suppose I could be. But I sure can look a good deal in the face!

tpg: So, I'm gonna take a sudden turn and ask you about your dis-ease.

Billie: HA! It's a pain in the you know what because while most people can cry, I cannot. So instead, I have this enormous amount of rage that's like two burnt holes in a blanket. You're gonna read about me one day on the front page...Woman beats the crap out of domestic abuser because she can't feel sad about it.

tpg: So what's the medical term for what you have?  I've watched you put liquid in your eyes for almost 2 years now.

Billie:  I have kertoconjuctivitis sicca...Which basically means, I have no tears. DRY EYES! The doctors that I deal with don't seem to be worth a half a cent. I keep trying to find one that knows what the hell is going on!!

tpg: Gonna take another turn and ask you, do you ever feel lonely?

Billie: Do you?

tpg: Touché! Not often. But I guess I'm fortunate to have a partner and many friends in my life. I like how you turned my question on me!

Billie:  (laughing) I don't mind being alone. I'm used to it. I've lived in my apartment for 44 years. They do need to update the plumbing and fix the water pressure, but Pauline, the daughter of my slum lord, is easily agitated. Specifically, I walk on eggshells around her. 

tpg: Do you kill her with kindness?

Billie: I'd like to just kill her. Then I suppose you'd read about it in the headlines of the morning paper, but yes. (gathering her worn leather purse and reusable shopping bag)
 
tpg: You seem as if you're getting ready to go. Just a few more questions...

Billie: I have a lot to accomplish today. I need to steam my vegetables and press my shirts. I should sweep and air out the rugs and so on and so forth. 

tpg: I know you work at the library. Do you go in early tomorrow? 

Billie: It's a 6-day work week. They, the powers that be, want me to take some time off. I have too many weeks of vacation days to count. Hell, they probably wish I'd retire.

tpg: How old are you, Billie?

Billie: No comment. (laughing)

tpg: Fair enough. Thanks for this. See you next Sunday.

~tpg

Just Me; Bitter & Sweet

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.~~Rumi

                                                                                                                                                                              I'm on hiatus this week.  The pause will be bittersweet.
I suppose I look at life that way. Every time I take out my notebook and raise my pen up in preparation of jotting a notion or impression, I find myself right smack in the middle of this torturous dichotomy.
You look out a door. You see a newly opened, scarlet peony.
Its brilliant petals are magically arranged in perfect symmetry.  You stare into its center and you wonder how you could ever doubt that there was a Creator.
Right next to it, lies an injured sparrow.
She is slow-moving and weak.
You want to save her, like you want to save the spiders on the bathroom wall or the dog being drug around town on too short of a leash.
You pour yourself a piping hot cup of emerald sencha, all the while the sun is streaming in through a window behind your shoulder. The warmth makes you think of summer days from your childhood.  Seconds later, passing by that same window that filled you with so much joy,
is a dilapidated man.  His eyes are hollow and dull. He's pushing a shopping cart with one hand and holding his pants up with the other.
For me, life is constantly like this: a dichotomy of the bitter and the sweet.

A week without The Cousin and Sweet Pea is restful for sure, but it's accompanied by a twinging ache at the thought of not seeing their little mugs.

When I first started writing this blog, several years ago, I didn't call it a blog.  I called it a "friendship email" and I sent it out to only my email contacts: family and pals. It was a weekly rambling consisting of a roller coaster of subject matter that ranged from politics, religion, poverty,human rights, animal rights, love, peace, No Nukes and other current and relevant topics of the day.  More importantly, I wanted all recipients, especially those that lived faraway, to know I was thinking of them and sending a "shout out" of love.  Then, someone said to  me, "Why don't you write a blog?" The question left me feeling like a Stegosaurus emerging out of a cave. What the f*@ck was a blog?

When the blog was created, I suddenly found a voice.  My 7.5 years as a trailer park manager in Prunetucky, California, seemed to be of significance in the most insignificant way.
For sure, it was downright hysterical to many of my friends, and far more satisfying than
whirled peas to others.
The feedback came in droves.  I began to realize that although we all can offer up exchanges of life's bitter and sweet, the truth of the matter is, we all desperately need laugher.
Reminds me of a bumper sticker I  purchased on one of my adventures in Austin, Texas:
"Laugh Until Life Makes Sense."
I think I've talked about this mantra before. I wrote a blog once upon a time about these 5 words of wisdom. http://trailerparkgirl-vfern.blogspot.com/2012/04/laugh-until-life-makes-sense.html

Laughter has saved my ass on more than one occasion.  This blog also. Writing, in general, has saved me from the fires of hell, from the dark dungeons of depression, from beating myself up with the "self-critical stick", from getting my head bashed in by an angry "hater".
Because with writing, in any genre I choose, I am able to talk, cry, pray, shoot off my mouth, and yes, even laugh without getting into a fist fight.

This week has gripped me with sadness, as the news of a special friend's death came last Tuesday.
Sometimes "family" comes in the form of "non-bloods" and that is certainly the case with this
86 year-old woman who, while we sat together in her living room years ago, asked me to call her "Auntie Arl".

Auntie Arl was the sister of my Auntie Ferrol.  Talk about two peas in a pod! These gals phoned one another every single night at 6:00 p.m. sharp for more than 4 decades. Can you imagine?
We all knew not to call either of them between the hours of 6 and 7. To most outsiders, it was inconceivable how two people could have so much to talk about every night at 6. Especially in the last 10 years, when both of them stayed pretty close to home each day and kept their activities to a minimum.  But I understood them.

They talked about golf, health articles, exchanged recipes from cook shows, recent doctor appointments. They each sipped a glass of their favorite Mountain Rhine boxed wine throughout the conversations; never diving too deep into emotions.

Rituals carve deep imprints into our hearts. My mom and I shared the ritual of calling each other every Sunday morning for at least the last 10 years or so of her life. It wasn't until after her death, that I appreciated how sweet that ritual really was.  For many years following her death, I hurt every single Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.
These are the things in life that stay with us; cut deep like broken shards of glass and form both the bitter and the sweet.
Growing up, I didn't see Auntie Arl like I did my Aunt Ferrol. But in the last 10-20 years, she had been a regular part of my life.  I hold many, many memories of conversations about reincarnation, discussions of politics, shared meals at her favorite Chinese restaurant, Chester's in Camarillo. My partner and I also made ourselves available to change her light bulbs, clean out the top rows of shelves she could no longer reach, recycle her batteries. I recall a drive we took down a main street in Camarillo. The center of the street was lined with dozens of old Jacaranda trees, all the most stunning shade of purple.  Auntie Arl was so pissed off that the city she loved recently voted to remove the trees. "I can't understand how they can call this progress" she griped.

One of the final things she said to me happened on a visit at the hospital just a couple of weeks before she passed away. I bent over to give her a hug and a kiss on her cheek.
She grabbed my arm, and because she was getting frail, she struggled to get the words out.
She said, "Take care of her"  referring to her sister.
"You know I will."   I said back.
And as I walked to the door, I turned, our eyes meeting, and I blew her another kiss.
This one was a funny, overly dramatic, big one!
I will always remember the smile on her face, just like I will always think of her when I see a
Jacaranda tree in bloom.

But everything has an end. Luckily, even sadness.

~tpg