Life as Art

Cute butts. Oh, these aren't horses?

Close enough.

Cute Baby and Dog.
It's Baby D and Peaches.

Did you happen to catch John Travolta’s two hour interview by James Lipton on the television show The Screen Actors Guild? There are so many things ills of the world, said Travolta, that we could cry at any minute, yet we have to find the joy.

Travolta was the youngest of six kids, and he said his parents worshiped the ground they walked on. If he carried out the garbage his mother would say, “Look at that boy. Isn’t he a genius?” With a theatrical mother waving her hand and asking, “Daul-ling, would you like another orange juice?” Travolta would perform while his parents waved their cigarettes and drank their wine and with incredible patience allow him to carry on and then give him a standing ovation.

The other day when Baby D pooped his diaper Daughter D said, “Isn’t he a genius?”

We gave him a standing ovation.

I’m thinking back to the day Baby D was born—we anticipated that event for so long and we know every woman views it with a mixture of fear and excitement—even grandmothers. Now thinking back it was ethereal. Daughter D says the same thing, it went so fast—we were there, time went by, the baby was born—what happened? It was a work of art. As an artistic event exists in some nebulous spot in the sky, so Baby D hung out there, then he slipped onto earth, and now he will have choices, and a pallet of life’s colors in which to play.

What happened to all the people who were following Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth, Awaking to Your Life's Purpose? I bought Tolle's book when I perused his book and found his story about flowers.

Flowers existed before there were people to enjoy them. When flowers first made their debut it was one here, one there. Then suddenly a miracle occurred. The world exploded into blossom. Flowers, says Tolle were the first thing people valued that had no utilitarian purpose--that is they weren't linked to survival. Human Beings were awakened to beauty. That is the way with enlightenment, first one enlightened being will pop, then another. Suddenly an enlightenment explosion.

It works in reverse too--like the stock market. A little fear, the market does down. The world looks rosy, stocks go up. Think of it this way: A company is worth a million dollars. You buy a stock for $1.00. It catches on that this company is doing well, so the stock jumps to $100.00 per share. Now the company is worth one hundred million. A downsizing happens. The stocks plummet back down to $1.00. What happened to the ninety nine million?

It was never there.

It was a matter of attitude.

At Travolta’s first theatrical audition the interviewers told him to get out of the business.
He thought, These people are nuts.

Now, that's great attitude.

I'm waiting for the flowers to bloom.

Don't forget to check out www.wishonawhitehorse.com

Outside the Bubble

Here comes Velvet after a romp in the forest and a good roll in the Oregon red mud. (Her face shows her color.) Ah winter, don’t you just love it?

Here is a clean baby, my grandson, (two weeks old) too young to track in the mud. Give him time.

“Tuned mass damper,” says my three year old grandson as he stacks a tower of blocks on the coffee table.

“Tuned mass damper?” I ask. “What is that?” You know how it is with a three-year old. Sometimes the words come through, sometimes they don’t.

His tower has a wedge shaped block on top. “I’m building a skyscraper with a tuned mass damper,” he tells me.

His mother, holding Baby D, explains. These days they are building skyscrapers of materials so light that the buildings sway in the wind and that gives people motion sickness. Architects came up with an ingenious idea. If you place a huge block of cement on the top of these buildings it holds down the building and stops the sway. That block is called a tuned mass damper.

I do believe I am in for it with two grandsons…

I suppose someone looking for a horse site will wonder what a baby is doing on it. Well, I called this blog Life’s Twists and Turns, and since we never know what lies beyond the next turning of the canyon walls, my newest find is a baby. Besides some people are saying, “Keep me posted,” meaning they want to hear about Baby D.

Baby D lost weight after birth, normal, but his was a little more than the Pediatrician liked, so right now it is a feeding circus around here. He is healthy, happy, vigorous, a perfect angel, and while he dropped weight, he grew an inch—preparing to be a runner I think. Luckily he had packed in the groceries before birth preparing for life outside the bubble.

I need to decide how often I will post a blog. Let’s see the last one was posted 7 days ago. A week, can I do one a week? Maybe I ought to say one every two weeks just to give myself leeway.

Regarding the horses, I am waiting for the paddock to dry enough so I can work Velvet and Sierra without losing a boot, a foot, or a leg in the mud. I’ve been reticent about working much with the horses, guess I scared myself after my fall last year, and didn’t want to kill myself before Baby D arrived. When I got young horses I thought I would have to live to see them into old age. Now with young grandsons, I need to see the boys they will become, I need to hear those wonderful truths kids skillfully throw out with such abandon, I need to see them graduate from high school, from college, and I need to see whatever it was that they came here to do…

"People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live... [We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born." - Albert Einstein in a letter to Otto Juliusburger

Ah Life, Sweet Mostly, Some Puckers Occasionally...

Look what we got…
A Grandson. Sweet. I told his birth story in the last blog. Here he is one week old. “He is growing up too fast,” says his mother. And you know what? I do believe he is getting dimples! He hasn’t smiled yet, but certain facial movements show the shadow of a dimple.

I have finally grown into being a Grandma. Baby D is my second grandson, the other, my first-born daughter’s son, is 3 years old. When he was born the idea of being called Grandma sounded to me like I had entered a slippery slope of old age. A Grandmother is much much older than me, I thought. I considered having Grandson Number One call me “The Grand Dame.” Kirk Russell said when Kate Hudson’s son was born that he would have the child call him “Mr. President.” “Well,” he said, “A child will call you whatever you choose won’t he?”

It turned out that Grandson Number One didn’t like calling me Grandma anymore than I liked being called one. (You know the old joke, “I don’t mind being a Grandma, but I don’t like the idea of sleeping with a Grandpa.) Grandson Number One simply would not say Grandma. At first we tried Jo—my nickname as a kid, but that didn’t work either. Since Grandson Number One knew the alphabet we tried J.O. And that worked. I’m J.O.

Now, though, being a grandma sounds good. The elder. The wise one. I loved my Grandma.

Daughter Number One says that families come in all sorts. The one Baby D was born into consists of a mother, a Grandfather, a Grandmother, and in the immediate vicinity, an Aunt, an Uncle and a cousin. Distances away are various aunts and second cousins, and I get lost on the twice removed and all that.

Here at the house Peaches, our pink party poodle for peace, is the official ear-licker, diaper checker. Bear, Daughter D’s Newfoundland dog (we learned recently that Newfoundland’s, are natural baby sitters) is the guardian, standing between the baby and Hope, Daughter D’s kitten. The other critters are Zoom Zoom, our cat, and Daughter D has two ferrets. Outside are four horses, Velvet and Sierra, my horses and Dante and Sweetums Daughter D’s horses. Let’s see, there is Orville and Wilber the free-range goats—except when grain is forthcoming from the garage, they get ushered, sometimes happily lured with grain, other times grumbly hauled into a dog kennel. We have three chickens, Mille Fleur and the Dixie chicks, and four Ducks. I guess that is everybody.

We had five ducks until 5 days ago. This is the puckery part. The day after Baby D came home Baby Duck was killed by a raccoon. There in broad daylight the raccoon was sitting in a tree with poor Baby Duck lie dead at the bottom. I was so sad I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so if any of you called that day and I didn’t answer that was why.

Baby Duck was our favorite, a big white duck, once a little yellow baby duckling. She was a miracle duck until the day that raccoon got her, and all last summer she laid an egg a day. Over a year ago she was chased by the neighbor dog, and unbeknown to us was caught by the leg in our cable railing until nightfall. She was rolled in the mud which gave her an eye infection and the leg was damaged. I took her to the Vet who cleaned her eye and it was there I learned how to give a duck a pill. The Vet assistant demonstrated by snatching the in-house cat from its nap on the couch, straddled the cat--that holds the wings down if the cat happens to be a duck, and keeps you from getting beat up. You open the mouth, uh beak, and drop a pill down the throat. The demo cat, gave the assistant a dirty look, shook itself, and crawled back up on the couch from which it had been abducted.

Baby Duck lived in our laundry room for about six weeks unable to walk on two legs, and getting physical therapy—that was one of us holding her on two feet—and giving antibiotics via the cat demo routine. And then miracle, one day she stood on two legs! Ta Da! We eventually turned her loose with the other ducks, where she has happily resided until last Wednesday.

Back to happy. Yesterday at the Pediatrician’s office I read Parenting magazines to Daughter D while she fed Baby D. The article that sticks with me was "How to Raise a Happy Child."

They said that joy can be taught. It is more a positive outlook on life, and I figured we could all use some of that right now. While we want our children to be joyful, we grown-ups are fed a constant diet of negativity. (My take on a bail-out would be to forgive us our mortgage payments. Then I would support the airlines by taking more trips, I would support hotels by staying in them, I would support resorts by cavorting there and giving them big tips. Wow, world-wide travel that sounds good. Saving the mustangs that sounds good too.)

Okay, back to earth. Let’s grow up happy. It isn’t the things we have that make us happy, but the gratitude we have with the things in life that are free. Sunsets, beautiful days, grandsons, children, horses that whinny when they see us, tuna fish sandwiches. (Oprah had the idea with her gratitude journal.) We aren’t perfect at everything—get a grip. If we fail we will learn. We understand we will do it better later. Listen. Validate feelings. (Flush, eat cookies and milk, say please and thank you—this is from Robert Fulghum’s book, All I really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.)

Regarding my book, It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious, the focus of my website, http://www.wishonawhitehorse.com/ , and the impetus for this blog, I’m finding that the people who like it the most are not horse people, but people who like memoirs. They say, “Gosh I didn’t know that about horses. And I stirred up a little controversy with my talk about God and evolution. For me, with a degree in Biology, not to mention evolution would be like asking an archaeologist not to mention bones.

The Grand Finale'

It’s 5 am. My daughter and I, showered and fed, are driving down the hill while all around us blackness engulfs the countryside and rolls over the truck gentle as duck feathers. We are going to get a baby.

That tuna fish casserole for breakfast ought to fuel us the marathon ahead.

As we drive toward town my daughter comments, “If I was in labor we wouldn’t have time to consider the philosophical side of having a child.”

“Such as?”

“Does a person know what a life-changing event this is?”

“Depends on the person,” I say.

“As you get older you are more set in your ways,” says my daughter. “A young person might say, ’Whatever.’

“There is advantage in being more mature…”

The trouble is when you are older they say you have “Advanced maternal age.” My kid, advanced maternal age? Ah well. Daughter’s doctor did not want her to go past her date. There is more of a chance for placental breakdown, the doctor said, and still births. Daughter D opted for an induction.

And so we are driving and talking and anxious and waiting for the sun to break through. It is surreal driving to the hospital, no labor pains, no huffing and puffing, no woman swearing or yelling “Drive faster.”

When we arrive in the hospital with her cervix 3 cm dilated. After being attached to the fetal monitor we discover that she has had two contractions within the last 5 minutes.

Can you believe it? We are going in for an induction and she is having contractions? Within the next two hours the Obstetrician comes in and breaks her amniotic sac, which causes the contractions to come on stronger, but not strong enough to get the job done. “No pain, no gain,” says the nurse, and begins a Pitosin drip.

Contractions come. Daughter D can’t imagine 12 hours of this so she requests an epidural anesthesia, which partially numbs the abdomen, but not completely her legs. She has some nausea, some break-through pain, they up the anesthesia. As I am filming the monitor the baby’s heart beat drops. The team is on it immediately. “He just took a dive into the birth canal and scared himself,” says the doctor, “Let’s have a baby.” She affixes a monitor onto the baby’s scalp, and we watch his heart rate rise.

In four contractions and maybe a dozen pushes, a little baby’s purple wrinkled head appears, a magical moment. He slides out, whole, complete, pink, plump like a rubber doll. I get the honor of cutting the cord, and daughter gets the honor of holding her son.

A life-changing moment? Definitely. He’s perfect, beautiful. His color is pink. His hair is dark with every hair affixed as though by a movie special effects team. Maybe he visited a Divine hair salon before making his debut.

That night a wonderful gentle man, a CranioSacral therapist gifted Daughter D with an examination for the baby. He treats newborns gratis because he believes the 72 hours after birth are critical. I can’t explain exactly what he does; somehow he supports the body/mind in self-correction. I do know that CranioSacral Therapy focuses on the release of any abnormal tension in the fascia (fabric of the body). The therapist uses the rhythm produced by the production and re-absorption of Cerebral Spinal Fluid to locate restrictions. Using gentle touch, the therapist assists the body’s self-corrective actions.

Baby D cried a birth cry—his wasn’t loud at birth—and he opened his eyes. Prior to that he had puffy closed eyes. I said I believed he had been rebirthed. The therapist agreed and said he only had a little swelling in the neck, and that everything was wonderful. I think he got the message that he was no longer in utero.

p.s.
This birth is the Grand Finale’ that began three years ago. At that time Daughter D said to me, "I want to adopt a child, a child for Africa.” I said, “Why don’t we make a documentary of the process.”

“I had thought of that, but dismissed it.”

We found that together we are better than the sum of the parts. What we might dismiss on our own we fan into white-hot intensity together. And so we began…
She began filming. I started writing a supplementary journal to our documentary.

We called ourselves “Two Dorks and a Camera Production Company.” The working title for my book was Beyond That Next Turning of the Canyon Walls.

“May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl...beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
--Edward Abbey
Now I’m calling the book if
A journal, a film, and a baby

What if heaven was a state of mind and not a physical location?
What if one could live their dreams?
What if we really could stop worrying and be happy?

The Imagineers at Walt Disney Studios say,
“The formula is there is no formula.”

p.s.p.s.
On the day Baby D was born I received, from my publisher, 5 leather bound copies of my book
It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious.*
There was some debate whether I would get one or five, so I was delighted when five arrived. It seemed fitting, a first edition for a little first edition.

*See www.wishonawhitehorse.com

A Miracle in The Making

I continue to be awed by this process of growing a person. I’ve had two children—the world is filled with people who came here the same route (or a variation on the theme) yet it is a miracle.

That mice can grow baby mice in their belly is miraculous, horses, bears, kinkajous, everything. That chicken eggs when fertilized and given the proper temperature and time will grow into a chick. Tad poles turn into frogs, gelatinous salmon eggs grow into salmon. DNA, all in its own time, knows what to do and tells the cells how to do it.

Daughter D asks me, “Does my having a child have something to do with whatever great thing I wanted to do?”

She has said on numerous occasions that she wants to do something great. I believe she is great for having a dream and going for it. “Living the life I choose,” has been her motto for a long time.

I believe the child she is carrying is her destiny and we have high expectations for him—this child still in utero, head down, ready to be born. We contemplate. We do not want to overwhelm him with our expectations, but isn’t having lofty goals better than having none? No pressure dear child, live your life, follow your dream, use your own internal guidance system, not the one we set for you.

We joke, we know his gender, but we don’t know his color. His DNA Dad is Jamaican, has curly hair, hazel eyes, a beautiful smile, is well educated, a self starter—wants to be a lawyer or a Social worker in Africa—interesting contrast. We don’t know what genes Daughter D's child selected, but we trust the process. I trust that my daughter's child’s consciousness had a hand in the selection of his own mind, body and soul. He is the child of Daughter D's heart, and he had abundant DNA from which to choose. I believe he chose well.

I ‘m waiting…

P.S. To check out the book pictured at the top of this page see http://www.wishonawhitehorse.com/