The Furious Spinner

It is pouring down pissing down rain. Finally. Wispy clouds rise from the hills, like steam caused by hot rain. The ferns across the street at the church jerk in the wind. They look like short triffids trying to break from the crowd. Upstairs, Mario is shopping for clothes online. Last week someone had stolen our credit card information and was also shopping online. We're never going to know who did it, but I would like to know. I would like to face them. I have been a crime "victim" before: had my checkbook stolen—they wrote three checks from it before anyone figured it out; been mugged; been beaten up; had my car broken into. Except for the mugging and assault, I never saw the faces of the criminals. I don't know what I'd do. Slap them? Put a curse on them? Bless them?

Wait. I'm wrong. I got my purse stolen when I was in college and I saw that guy, too. He was coming out of my office (I was editor of the university's literary magazine) carrying my purse. I said, "Hey, give me back my purse." And he did! Then he turned around and ran, and I ran after him, shouting, "Stop him!" Kind of funny now.

Friday was my half century mark. My birthday. None of my other birthdays "bothered" me. This one makes me feel uncomfortable. I looked back and thought, "I've been sick for half of my life." Gawd. That realization was/is depressing. Two friends came over to celebrate with Mario and myself. Barbara said, "But you're a crone! You're such a good example of a crone." I shook my head and said, "I'd rather wait a few years to be a crone. I don't feel wise at all. I'm not ready for that. I thought I'd be a juicy crone. Instead I see so many years wasted in illness." But then Linda said her tumor markers were down by 160% and our friend with the brain tumor that got a brain tumor (he calls them Mutt and Jeff) called with the news that Jeff had disappeared! The best birthday news ever.

Isn't it strange what we celebrate these days? I remember when I was a teenager hearing apocalyptic predictions of widespread chronic and acute illness caused by environmental degradation. And here we are living that prediction.

Don't mean to be so depressing.

Mario made us dishes from a Pakistan cookbook for my birthday: biryani, dal, and aloo gobi. He also made his fabulous apple pie that I have written about here before; it has four ingredients: barley flour, olive oil, apples, and a bit of water. We watched Finding Neverland. I thought it was a movie about how J. M. Barrie came up with Peter Pan and I suppose it was—it was also about a woman dying. Not something I wanted to watch on my birthday with my friend who is fighting cancer, or with my other friend who has had cancer. Plus I looked up the facts of Barrie's life and they don't coincide with the movie. Quelle surprise. So afterward we all were crying and discussing death. Linda, who has to think of it daily, says she likes the description she read somewhere about death being like taking off too-tight shoes. I said that may be all right for the one dying, but it didn't do much for the people who are left behind. (I said this gently.) Linda is someone who is good at going with the flow and letting things and people go. I admire that. I think it has helped her stay alive longer than the average Jill with a condition like hers. I, on the other hand, am always railing against the dying of the light.

On Thursday the sun came out, so we decided to go to Falling Creek to see if the snow had melted yet. The gate wouldn't be open until April 1st, but we could still get a walk in. As we got ready to leave, we discovered one of the two hundred year old trees (an elm) across the street on the school property was down and being sawed up into pieces. I called the school to see what was happening.

"It was damaged during the ice storm so it had to come down," the woman answering the phone said.

"I didn't notice anything and I live right across the street," I said.

"You had to get close," she said.

I thought, if you have to get that close, could it be that damaged?

"We'll plant another tree there," she said. I could tell she did not care. People around here loooovvvee cutting down trees.

I laughed (ironically). "That tree is two hundred years old."

I decided to see what had happened for myself, despite my terrible experiences with this school. So I walked up the hill to where the dead tree lay. Men with chain saws moved about the broken pieces like noisy busy bees—happy busy bees. Give some men noisy destructive machinery, and they are just so happy.

I talked with the maintenance man. "Do you really think I'd cut down this tree if it didn't need it? Let me tell you if one of these kids gets hurt–."

"Don't get hostile," I said. "No one wants anyone hurt. These trees are hundreds of years old. If they're coming down, we're part of this community and we want to make certain there is a good reason."

And I assumed everything the school did was destructive or wrong.

As soon as I said that, his attitude changed. Which is surprising. Usually when I tell someone not to get hostile, s/he gets more hostile—which I understand. He started asking us what kind of tree we would plant. He was making nice. So I made nice, too. He told Mario he had read his letter to the school board, and they were going to try very hard not to use pesticides this year. Mario said I wrote the letter (two or three times), but the man wanted to talk with Mario. It was fine with me—I was just hoping what he said about not using pesticides was true.

"There's a learning curve going on," he said. "It'll take some time."

I could have jumped up and down I was so happy. I went over to the old elm, patted it, and said goodbye.

Then Mario drove us toward Falling Creek. The snow was gone, so we figured we could walk up the road even though the gate would be closed. We turned down the road, went a bit, and there was the gate: wide open! Thrilled, we continued driving down it, avoiding the blowdown from four months of weather.

Unfortunately two other cars had also discovered this early fortune. We didn't care. We put on our warm coats, hats, mittens—it was very cold—and we started down the trail. Only a few feet in, and we saw our first trillium of the year. It was closed up and drooping from the rain and cold, but it was alive. We reached the creek, looked at it, then looked at each other: it was as low as it usually was in August. Usually at this time of the year, we could hear the creek long before we got to it because it was swollen with snowmelt. Not now.

"Well, maybe the snow hasn't started to melt yet," I said.

We walked up the the path that curved along the river, like a giant boa sunning itself along the banks of the Nile before the land around it became desert. In March and April, the woods are usually all water; we have to navigate over at least three other smaller falls to get to the biggest falls. Not today. The woods were quiet. We spotted yellow woods violets, blossoms closed and sagging as though shivering in the cold.

A family passed us with two dogs. One of the dogs barked at us. The woman said to the dog, "It's all right." I thought, "You moron, I'm the one who needs comforting." She laughed as she went by. "I'm glad you find it amusing," I said.

"Interlopers," I said to Mario. "They don't deserve the gift of this day."

Feeling mean I was. Chain saws and dogs do that to me. This was the last day of the first half of my century. I needed to lighten up.

We walked to the falls without passing anyone else. The falls had half the volume of water it usually had at this time of year.

"Thank you for the blessing of this place," I thought.

We poured water on the Oregon grape near the rotted tree as usual. Then we walked out again.

The next day on my birthday, we walked the trail again. We met a friend who told us they had announced the early trial openings in the paper. (Gotta start reading that.) They close it in the winter so that the animals have space to hang out, breed, etc. when they come down from the higher elevations because the snow is too high (they can't feed, walk). This year they didn't come down.

He said that and I thought I could hear bells tolling. It is going to be a long hot summer.

It started raining Saturday, however, and it is still raining today. They've picked up another foot in the mountains which is good. I finished the first draft of Camel Jockey Saturday night, and then I read what I had written that day to Mario. (I had been reading it to him every night.) He cried and laughed. She is a wonderful girl, Nadira. Once my characters come alive for me, I let them write their stories. That's why I often write in first person. And she told her story. She is not an American girl, so her reactions and actions are different from that of an American girl. Often in stories, girls and women become heroes by acting like men; I want my girls and women to become heras by acting like women, whatever that means in the context of their lives. Nadira solves problems by using her skills from her culture—her skills as a woman. At one point she is in a camel training camp disguised as a boy in a kind of Lord of the Flies situation. It's terrifying, and I wasn't certain how she was going to get out of the violence that was coming her way. I was surprised at what she ended up doing. But it was organic—it flowed from her experience as a girl.

As you can tell, I admire her.

I was going to write more, but Mario just came in from the rain and we're going to eat at the Bombay Cricket Club to celebrate Jeff disappearing and me finishing the first draft of my novel.

I shall endeavor not to be depressing or bitter. I've decided I want to buy a scarf for my birthday. I have three ideas for new books. Two of them are Scarf Sisters and Editing Sunlight. I forget the third right this momento.

I'm a wee bit manic, as you can probably tell, so I hope this post makes sense.

Someone asked me what I thought about what's been going on in the news. I think it is obscene what the politicians have been doing about the woman in Florida. It's none of their business, and it is certainly none of mine. This is just another story to distract the masses from what the Bushies are doing. (In fact I'm sure you've heard that the Republicans sent around a memo encouraging their members to get on board the Schiavo bus so they could exploit the issue and get their base riled up again.)

Anyway, I love the book I just wrote. It is beautiful. Inspiring, I hope. Remember, once I write a story, it is no longer mine. I feel as though the people have their own...being, if you will, and they are not tied up with my ego. But I will protect them and fight for their stories to be heard! I'm off to eat and determine what is truth and what is beauty.

Wish me luck.

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