Declarative Death Sentence(s) (and...)

But first, before the essay: our life in the village and on the beach continues to feel like Eden --such gentle beauty of flowers, greenery, natural sounds, fruit growing all around. We have very sweet connections with our friends here, and in fact we feel like part of the family with one group. Originally, speaking of "our" family, a man and woman (still living here) had some 9 or more kids. Plus they had brothers and sisters themselves. Hardly any of them seem to have left. Some who did are returning. Thus, from a farmhouse filled with kids, a village has appeared -- brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, all built and now live in their own homes nearby, in close and amiable proximity. I laugh, remembering one little boy of two years of age running stark naked from his house, through the twisting dirt-paved lanes, to visit his cousin who is also two. There are other extended families here as well. Kids from all these families drop by our house to play with the toys, draw, paint, goof around -- they come and go as they please. It is a deep pleasure to have them visit.

Furthermore, the waves continue to astound, and bounce us around (boogie-boarders dream). The beach has returned to that mellow "aloha" vibe, easy'going and friendly. Our house is now painted (pix posted on our return) and other construction projects underway, plus numerous fruiting trees are now planted to complement our abundant mango trees. Think grapes, figs, avocados, lemons, guavas, tangerines, grapefruit.... what have I forgotten to mention?

The odd little essay below is.... just that. An odd little essay -- a testimony of respect for little lives. It is followed by a few more comments on life as we know it in the village...

DECLARATIVE DEATH SENTENCE(S)
There was a hen in a box in our yard when we arrived from the States. The hen laid 13 eggs in the box. Twelve eggs hatched. Two days later a tlacuache killed four chicks. The neighbors came over. They said the hen was theirs. They took her. They tied her up. The chicks had no mother to guide them. They wandered the hazards of our jungly yard alone. A feral cat ate one. The neighbors released the hen. The hen was stung by a scorpion the next day. One of her chicks was also poisoned by a scorpion. The chick died. We treated the hen with garlic and water. She began to rally. The neighbors came into our yard when we were away. They took the hen. They did nothing to help her. They did not even give her water. She died. The chicks roosted at night on the neighbor´s porch. They were unprotected. The spot where they huddled is where their mother´s body had lain. A tlacuache came. It killed two of the chicks. The remaining four ran to our yard screeching in the night. We hid them under a large upturned flowerpot. The neighbors said the chicks were theirs. They took them. That night they closed them up in an outdoor cupboard. They crushed the foot of the remaining rooster-chick when they closed the door. They did not let the chicks out the next morning. The chicks had no water or food. The neighbors released the chicks late in the day. They ran to our yard. The rooster-chick hopped, of course. They were very hungry and thirsty. Now they come every sunset to the flowerpot. They expect us to drop it over them. We do. Now we worry. We will be leaving in early June. We have done all we can. The chicks can fly. They like to sit on branches. This is where adult chickens spend their nights. They fly up into branches. We hope the chicks will fly into higher branches when we leave. It is out of our hands.

SO! After that cheerful little preschool tale, here are a few more random glimpses into our pueblo life, by no means complete:

More villagers who speak English are revealing themselves. One cheerful and friendly man (also a member of "our" family here--brother of the original farmhouse wife) turns out to speak English with (get this) an Italian accent (from years in a Little Italy section of a US city). The way he walks and moves his body feels/looks American. He told us that he came back here for the same reason we love it here. It is a little paradise of mellow, gentle people sharing life together.

There are two kids who speak fluent English as well. Apparently just visiting from the States, tho' their family/ancestry is from our pueblo. Who knew? I smile as I type this: perhaps they were testing us to see what we said to each other when we thought no one could understand -- and we passed the test. We do know, also, that the pueblo's middle/high school kids study English, but not one practices with us. For sure they have been listening all these years.

In fact, hey you guys!! ¿How many of you are secretly visiting this site and reading these entries? If you are reading this, let us know. Do this: come up to me and touch my nose and then touch your nose. And smile! ¡¡¡Then we will ALL laugh!!!

And the band played on...

....rather Titanic-like, I thought! Nearly the entire village was gathered in a festooned yard celebrating the third Quincenera (a cute touch) of an esteemed matron. The band´s music was amplified to "ear-splitting" and everyone was in very high spirits even rather risque at times. In the brief pause between songs, however, with no warning whatsoever --an EARTHQUAKE shook the ground, the people, the tables -- and the air was filled with a terrific grinding noise. Following that, a moment of utter silence. But then! Moments later, the band cranked right back up with the next song! As they did so, everyone cheered! and they set to dancing all the more! Yes! ..and the band played on.

Three days later at the Quicenera of a truly 15'year'old, I casually asked a dear friend of ours, a fisherman, how the fishing was. There aren´t any fish anymore he said, looking me directly in the eye. The earth is dying, he added. Scientists are saying we will have to move to the moon or to Mars. Pollution is destroying everything, he said. ....and the band played on.

Then there´s a local loner in the village who frequently cranks up his very own amplifier and microphone and treats EVERYone to his, um, his style of singing. He cannot carry a tune, but he is loud. His words are unintelligible to the rest of the village... but this one'man band plays on.

And one night very recently, the deep peace of 2am was destroyed by the loud screeching of our favorite chicken. She had chosen a cardboard box in our yard to lay 13 eggs -- 12 hatched. We were actively working on fortifying her lair to protect her brood from predators, but there was a weak spot still, and thus, the loud screeching. Robert leaped (successfully!!!) out from under our mosquito netting, outsize flashlight in hand --leaped off the porch, through the flower garden and was there in seconds.

The hen was screeching away at a far distance, and in the lair were feathers and tiny bodies -- and a tlacuache heading viciously straight for Robert´s ankle. WHACK! Robert got it on the head and pushed the head hard onto the ground... it wobbled and then ran into the jungle. "They´re all dead," he said. By then I was right there already and we stood helplessly and so sad, grieving really, and watching as the hen raced around the yard screeching.....

But then we learned something! HA! HEY! She was calling for her chicks! And they came! Each from a completely different direction, half of her brood reassembled, leaping over small sticks, wings extended --and then they settled under her protective wing. So! Six lived. Six is good. We covered them all with a large overturned flowerpot for safety -- and with the morning´s sunrise, we were delighted to discover a SEVENTH chick waiting outside the flowerpot. Before sunset, there came an EIGHTH chick. ...and the band played on.

Days later, as I was teaching myself to play "Fur Elise" and "Jesu, Joy of Man´s Desiring" on my guitar, a new kid (to us -- a village kid, clearly, but we had never met him before) came by. "I speak English," he said. And he does. Raised in Beaverton, Oregon -- but with deep village roots so that Spanish was still his first language and he has a slight accent in his flawless English... He and family have moved back home for good, he said. He spent the sweetest day with us alternating between learning to play "Fur Elise" with me, and watching how Robert makes wooden archery bows from a tree trunk. The band plays on.....

Oh, and periodically, there have been really great waves both for surfers and boogiers. Full moon´s a-risin´and that means BEEG waves a-comin´! Yáll come on down. The band is playing.

¡Donde Quieras! Cuando Quieras! y Como Quieras!

(Firstly, before I relate the encounter on the road: we are back in that sweet heaven'realm of village life, with the lilting laughter and play of children like sugar sprinkled on top. Did I say ¨"on top"? The children surround us -- fill our hearts!-- with their absorbed play, spilling off of our porch and filling our ramada, and tossing a frisbee in the yard. Neighbors wave, invite us in, stop for conversations. We are once again home. Even got the house all cleaned up from 4 months of absence. Oh! And we were treated to huge waves at the beach, which, as we all know is like immersing into a heaven'realm of light, and breezes, sounds, and.... ah the sea, theseathesea. But below is a silly true cuento which shows the sense of humor of our closest village friends...)

¡DONDE QUIERAS! ¡CUANDO QUIERAS! ¡Y COMO QUIERAS!
Safe in the tranquility of our little casita porch, with our closest family friends, I was relating the story of an encounter on the road--one where I did NOT succeed in staying calm and present in the face of danger. Briefly:

At a gas station halfway down in Mexico (Robert was in the restroom), a man pulled his camper/truck thru the gas station, so CLOSE to our car that he was scraping off the paint along my side of the car. I banged and yelled on his camper moments before he broke off the mirror on my side.

He responded with profanities directed at my womanhood, of course. To which I responded by calling to the gas station attendant for help, mentioning both the damage to our car and his profanities. The attendant successfully got him to somehow back up and simultaneously move slightly farther away... but still close enough, alas, to bring his window right up to mine. With real hatred in his eyes, he directed another profanity specific to my womanhood. I responded with profanity right back, alas (but in English).......and it really riled me up and I regretted it.

In telling this story to our friends, safe on our porch in our Little Salty Place, I related how I wish I had responded instead. I did so by first telling another cuento: a mutual gringo friend of ours was walking by a lake with a long-haired boyfriend in redneck Texas country when one of a group of rednecks hurled a stone directly into the back of her boyfriend... Her response was to turn and meet their eyes, and say, ¨Hey, man, Jesus loves you.¨ And all three men dropped their stones, and let them pass... I do wish I had said that instead...

To which the laughter'loving wife, on our porch, replied (in Spanish): "Ha! You should have looked him straight in the eyes and said, "¡When you want it! ¡Where you want it! ¡How you want it!" (This, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a well-known challenge'phrase in Mexico.)

La La Lula Lullabye

Oh, every night when the sun goes down,

People lay their burdens down, and sing...

La la, Lula... La la, Lula... Lullabye

I've never known a better way

To say goodnight to the day, than sing...

La la, Lula... La la, Lula... Lullabye

(Composed for our sweet Amy/David's daughter, Lula Sophia Zelina, born 03/31/10. There will no doubt be more verses as they occur to me. La-la means "Sleep..." in Swahili, but I didn't know that as the song came to me. I do have a digital/e-mailable recording of my singing it, if you're interested. I failed in my attempt to attach it here.)

And since her full name is Lula Sophia Zelina, I composed a song for Sophia as well:

Sleep, sweet Sophia...

Silently slip into slumber as I sing this song...

Sleep, sweet Sophia...

Swing with the stars as they circle the sky...

Sing along...


AND! How could I not borrow the tune of "Coventry Carol" - - thus:

La-la, Lula, thou little tiny child...

By, by, Lula, lullay.

Now close your eyes, until sunrise...

By, by, Lula, lullay.

Ho! Schmat-Razum!

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Pictured above is my invisible servant and dear friend, Schmat-Razum. Like Vasilissa (see post below), he arrived in my life through the ancient skazki -- the Russian Wonder Tales -- as a bedtime story. He lives in my pocket, and I have but to call, "Ho! Schmat-Razum..." and ask a favor of him.

The most remarkable example of his favors was when he was traveling with Taraban. The young lad, having traveled across many vyorsts, fell exhausted, and bid Schmat-Razum to find another master, for he could go no further. Replied Schmat-Razum, "Why didst thou not tell me thou wast wearied? I should have carried thee the whole way!"

Schmat-Razum asked me to post him here, along with Vasilissa. In gratitude, I have done so.





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Vasilissa -- thank you.

My dad read me bedtime tales. Not sweet ones. He read the “skazki” of Russia -- the Wonder Tales -- replete with horrific violence where the hero more often than not is chopped up into a thousand tiny pieces (though he does recover). They scared me, and I loved them.

The one I related to most dearly, was the wild tale of “Vasilissa the Beautiful.” This is the Russian version of Cinderella, complete with the hateful stepmother and the two wicked stepsisters...

At her step-sisters’ orders, Vasilissa must wander through the wilds of untamed forests alone at night. Vasilissa must go to the home of the very spirit of the wilderness, that is Baba Ya-ga’ (accent on the second syllable). She must enter the yard where the fence is made of human bones, where each fence-post is topped with a human skull the eyes of which light up at dusk, and fade at dawn. She must enter the house that turns constantly on giant chickens’ feet. And, she must deal with Baba Ya-ga’ herself! Deliciously terrifying imagery.

And through all of this, this story taught me more about how to live life than I ever realized. In fact, I only caught on to the subtle and yet beautifully pervasive lesson it imparted -- a week ago!

I might say that Vasilissa saved my life, more than once.

Here’s the thread that led me to seeing this:

I was deeply involved in preparing a public presentation elucidating Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” I had marked the Vasilissa story to use as an example of the “Helper,” delineated In Campbell’s outline. Each time that Baba Ya-ga’ gave Vasilissa an insurmountable task, the child pulled out a little doll that her dying mother had given her. As instructed by her mother, Vasilissa gave the doll something to eat, something to drink, and told the doll her troubles--and there! the task was done!

In my notes for the talk, I even included a modern-day example -- how I had given a little doll to a dear child I knew, a neighbor of mine, with similar instructions. She never mentioned the doll to me until she grew to womanhood. And then, one day: “Remember that doll you gave me as a kid?” she asked me. “It worked! How did you know?”

But the true, deep lesson embedded not only in “Vasilissa the Beautiful” but in all the skazki was subtle enough that I missed it until I was awakened -- as if by an alarm -- at 3am, just days before the talk.

It is she, Vasilissa, who is the Helper. She is the Helper for the listener of the tale.

Unlike the tales/movies/playtoys given to our children nowadays, Vasilissa could not engage in epic one-person battles, defeating hordes of evil-doers with breath-taking gymnastics and superpowers. She was not a wise-cracking, bad-ass heroine with a temper.

She was ordinary.......and yet she was not.

We meet Vasilissa as an ordinary child, alone and frightened, and sent away to face terrific dangers. It is HOW she faces these dangers that turns out to be the teaching that saved my life several times over. I absorbed her behavior with the listening, again and again, to my father reading the story.

Speaking personally now, I offer but one example (from several similar, teeteringly lethal ones -- for I was a slow learner).

In the early spring of 1970 (I was 23), I was living in Roxbury (then a dangerous neighborhood--gangs, drugs, violence... but cheap rent). Late one evening, I was walking home from the MTA. I knew enough to walk down the middle of the streets -- so that no-one hidden in the shadows could reach out and grab me.

However, directly in front of me, in the center of the intersection -- arms folded, feet spread, and head cocked to one side -- was a large young man. Over against the row of closed-up shops to my left, was a line-up of young men -- arms folded, heads cocked, leaning against the wall behind them. All eyes were on me.

There was no ignoring them.

I entered a space of deep calm. I assessed my options (there were none). There was only this moment in this place with these people. Clearly, the man blocking my way wanted my attention. I could see that.

I walked directly up to him and looked directly into his eyes, one human being seeing another human being. “What do you want?” I asked calmly, not stuttering, not glancing around.

Perhaps, then, I had surprised him for he hesitated a moment...

“Uh.... you got a... a nickel?”

“Sure, man,” I said with the slightest of smiles, maintaining clear-eyed contact. Then I reached for my little pull-string bag where I kept my money, poured some coins into my hand, and selected from among the dimes, pennies, nickels and quarters -- just one nickel.

Returning the other coins into the bag, and the bag into my pocket, I calmly handed the nickel to him, looking again directly into his eyes.

This is what he asked for. This is what I gave him -- along with a slight and calm smile of humanity between us.

And I walked around him, unhindered, and continued the last block to where I was staying.

I no longer put myself in these situations. I do not take for granted my ability to defuse them -- I was clearly lucky that I had walked away unharmed each of those times. That was then.

But what I realize NOW, is that the way I responded was the way in which Vasilissa dealt with her trials. In those situations, it was the very best I could possibly have done -- becoming calm, seeing my situation clearly, and dealing with it directly.

Baba Ya-ga’ even said as much to Vasilissa. Here is the exchange, taken from the very book my dad held as he read to me...

After putting Vasilissa through a number of trials, Baba Ya-ga’ asks snappishly:

“Well, why dost thou say nothing...”


“I spoke not,” Vasilissa answered, “because I dared not. But if thou wilt allow me, grandmother, I wish to ask thee some questions.”

“Well, only remember that every question does not lead to good...”

(Vasilissa then poses a few questions about various beings she has seen since coming to this wild and vast forest. Baba Ya-ga’ answers each question and adds, “Ask me more.” -- but one time, she ground her teeth.)

“Ask me more!”

Vasilissa, remembering the warning Baba Ya-ga’ had given her, that not every question led to good, was silent.

“Ask me more! ... Why dost thou not ask me more?...”

Vasilissa saw how she snarled at her and she answered, “The three questions are enough for me... As thou hast said, grandmother, I would not, through knowing overmuch, become too soon old.”


“It is well for thee,” said Baba Ya-ga’....

Likewise, it was well for me, that night in Roxbury, that I asked no more.

Here is what would have happened to Vasilissa had she continued:
“...Hadst thou asked of them, my servants, the three pairs of hands would have seized thee also, as they did the wheat and poppy seeds, to be my food.”

The week after I moved out, another woman quite similar to myself, and living in the very same neighborhood, was assaulted by a gang of young men and forced to pour flammable liquid over herself and set herself on fire. She lived only long enough to tell the police.

OF RIBBONS AND BOWS...

A silly fantasy I've entertained over the years came to fruition on Christmas morn.

Background Part A:  Our front yard which was once an apple orchard has become a junkyard of old cars from Hudsons and Model T's on up to... well, that's part of the story I guess.

Background Part B:  As a young child I drew incessantly and fantasized having my very own red convertible car.  When the Miata appeared decades later -- first as huge billboards with a photo of a red one and just its name -- I recognized my childhood drawings made real.

SO..... for fun, I would poke Robert to see if maybe...  but NEVER really meaning it because such cars are so very impractical.  Where do you put the groceries, your friends, your bike, your pokeboat, your camping gear?

Nevertheless, I played around with the image of waking one Christmas morning, and after coffee and sweet quiet before the tree, finding a small package there for me.

Inside this package would be a key, maybe with a bow on it, and a note, "Whatever car this fits, is yours.  PS  Look for a bow."

Then I would wander out into our yardful of cars and search...  and find that Miata.

This Christmas Morn / 2009:  After a quiet time in the living room, fire newly stoked, I looked under the tree and there was a little package -- a key with a bow on it.  I winked at Robert and stepped outside in slippers and robe.  No need to look far, no need to trudge through the snow looking among all the cars out there.  Right there in the carport was a car new to me, with a red bow on it.  AND, the key fit.

Mind you, it is a practical car -- one I really truly DO want and deeply appreciate.  It is really OUR car because we will be taking it on many a camping/adventure.  It is a new-to-us-used Dodge Caravan.  Not red, though.  Blue, Iris Blue.  (If I get around to it, I'll restage the discovery for a photo-op  but don't hold your breath --my iPhoto says it's full, which is also why I've yet to post Mexico pix -- can't load 'em!)

(...and I smile here as I post this Christmas fantasy because right at the start of this blog --December 2007 -- is far more profound fantasy come true, described under the title "A Sadhu's Christmas in India.")