TWO CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES

So we did it, dear Reader, we married. This past Sunday we spent several hours debating about whether we should or should not go through with an actual wedding ceremony, since neither of us wish, for several very good reasons, to not have a civil wedding. If not a ceremony, though, filled with family and friends, then, what? Very few of Alan's friends would be able to make their way to such a ceremony....it would be filled with my side of the family and my friends; and, although he has come to love my friends and my family as I have come to love his daughter Star, his sister Fran, her husband Leo and his cousin George, Fran and Leo can not attend, and George is not ambulatory.

We awoke Monday, ate a light breakfast, dressed for the day. I threw on a dress, something I rarely do (wear a dress on a "day off", I mean; usually I wear jeans) We stopped at a thrift shop, where I found Alan the most gorgeously made Japanese (or are they all Japanese?) kimono and where he found (and wore out of the store) a kind of hippie-ish traditional "wedding" shirt. Then we took off for Poulsbo.

In Poulsbo, at the restaurant Mor Mor's, which we love because it serves our favorite red wine, called Abacela, a kind of Tempranillo, I asked him what he needed to feel married to me. He said, "Nothing. I already feel married to you." In turn, he asked me the same thing. I felt the same way. "Me too," I said. "I need nothing at all. I have felt for some time as if I am your wife."

The day went on. The day was a strand of ribbon, a length of rope like life itself, a new measure of time where mystery leads to what suddenly appears to be inevitable. That's how feels now. Inevitable.

We said our vows. Past the afternoon of our lives, but still open to meaning and wonder as we were in the morning of our lives, only the meaning and the wonder and the purpose are now different.

What did we say? What did we vow? Our vows were spontaneous. I remember words like "love" and "commitment" and "care for" and .....oh, why bother trying to remember? As one who has lived in a long term marriage I know one thing; a couple lives it's vows as a poet writes her poems...in step with whatever reality sets inside the couple's path. We vowed to keep the channels open. Perhaps that is the most important vow of all.

I am afraid I may have disappointed my children by behaving so spontaneously. On the other hand, the money I have saved means that Alan and I can more easily fly to pay visits to see my children.....and I pray they realize how much they know I loved their father and how much I love them and how much Life and Love must go on, if one is willing to resist living mechanically. I hope I have not disappointed my friends (actually, I don't think they give one fig, so long as I am happy).


I will end with a quote, from which I have taken the title for this blog - - and a poem.


"For two personalities to meet is like mixing two chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed."
Carl Jung


And the poem, which I read aloud more than a month ago to Alan:


YOUR BLINDED HAND

Suppose that
everything that greens and grows
should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
I think that I would find your blinded hand.
Suppose that your cry and mine were lost among numberless cries
in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand.
Through flames everywhere
consuming earth and air
I must believe that somehow, if only one moment were offered,
I would
find your hand.
I know as, of course, you know
the immeasurable wilderness that would exist
in the moment of fire.
But I would hear your cry and you'd hear mine and each of us
would find
the other's hand.
We know
that it might not be so.
But for this quiet moment, if only for this
moment,
and against all reason,
let us believe, and believe in our hearts,
that somehow it would be so.
I'd hear your cry, you mine -----
And each of us would find a blinded hand.
- Tennessee Williams

Try A Little Gratitude

In writing a eulogy for Lucretia Eddy, my best friend, Christine Dosa's mother, I ran across this quote from the philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The truth of being human is gratitude. The secret of existence is appreciation, it's significance is revealed in reciprocity. Humankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation."

Today I am thinking about gratitude.

The above picture features Aleister in a rare moment of allowing a camera to catch him in a big smile, his Mom Angela, and me; photo taken by Alan. The camera clicked just after Aleister just informed us that "Sometimes I just like to go with the flow of other people....as long as their flow feels like a proper flow." I am grateful for Aleister. Grateful for Angela. Grateful for Alan. Grateful for this reality which I live, day after day, my house in Bainbridge, my patients, my books, the few friends I have been able to make despite my crazy schedule, the many friends I love but do not see nearly often enough and the plans I make to see them, grateful for my daughters Kelly and Erin, grateful for the Dietz's and my deep love for them as well as for Steve and Katy, grateful for Christine and my Cousin Linda and my friends Magge and Robin, grateful for my dear Dr. Buskirk, my psychiatric supervisor, whom I have been with for eight years, now.

I am even (sometimes) grateful for my chronic pain, which has informed me of human frailty and how much compassion is needed in the health field, mental or physical, it doesn't matter.

I am grateful for my shampoo. I am grateful for my bar of soap. I am grateful for cold water. I am grateful for hot water. I am grateful to have toothpaste and my new electric toothbrush which Alan bought me. I am grateful to be able to read my self-imposed number of two books a week. I am grateful for my wardrobe of (mostly) black clothes. I am grateful for my engagement ring, which surrounds my finger like a demanding lover.

I am grateful for my friend and fiance and lover, Alan.
Here he is.



It has been said that realism is "the belief that things are in reality as they appear to be in the mind". Well, perhaps that's true. If true, then Alan is one big smart fun kind hottie, both in and outside my mind. He's....authentic, which is one of the decade's overu sed words to be sure, but there you go and here he is. He IS authentic. And I am grateful for knowing him. I can not, can not, can not imagine not having met him. How could it be, not to have met him? How could that have even been possible? I suppose all lovers spend plenty of time questioning each other on this one.....if only I hadn't showed up at the.....if only you hadn't sent that.....if only I hadn't answered the....if only you hadn't made that call....if only...if only.....But yes, my God! It's true! We all cook the facts in our favor, but, Wow! If only!

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
- Shakespeare, Hamlet

Forget Yoga. Forget Yogurt. Forget flat stomachs. Forget Botox. Forget ipods. Just sit there and consider what you live with every day that you are grateful for. And WHO you are grateful for. Cereal. Soap. Milk. Your garden. Dirt. That hummingbird. Old Ray Charle's songs. Your bath tub. Your shower. Your hair. Your bald head. Your legs. Your teeth. Your false teeth. Your telephone. Your nail clippers. Your robe. Your windows. Your electric lights. Your candles. Your radio. NPR.

Go ahead. This could go on for years. Try a little gratitude.

Information, Consciousness, Enjoyment

So I'm still thinking about my New York experience and how difficult it was for my "being" to bring about keen feelings of immediate pleasure at the moment of seeing (often great) scenes I've always heard about, read about or seen pictures of. Indeed, I often felt quite numb inside, as if I weren't quite there, like an awkward geek. Later, I thought perhaps it was a matter of too much information, like the physicist James Gleick talks about: information is everywhere, in a certain way it is what the world is made up of these days, we are all bashed up against it, inside and out, and it's hard to get away from it all, to become "innocent" again - - indeed, Yeats believed that it was important to remain innocent from too much experience in order that one could feel.

What would Yeats think now!

In his new book "Soul Dust", Nicholas Humphrey states his own belief that it is important that we are most vividly conscious of the unexpected, because consciousness is liked to curiosity and exploration. Seeing the Atlantic ocean, for instance, moved me more than the Metropolitan Museum, because I had no idea what the Atlantic Ocean looked like. I had seen so many pictures of the famous paintings in the Met - to be actually standing in front of a Van Gogh or a George O'Keefe or a Renoir or a Braque or (I'm just naming names who are popping into my head, not necessarily my favorites, just naming names) a Modigliani.....did not move me. They were not unexpected. The elderly European waiters in the delis were, for me, unexpected. I want the unexpected. I want the "je ne sais quoi" , alright, the magic of experience, but I want my experience to carry the magic of the unexpected.

Or, one could argue that my senses were simply on overload, that I'm a hopeless rube and that I was simply too numbed out, too much on overload, to be able to appreciate. But I DID appreciate the Schubert Theatre because I had never in my life imagined what the inside of the Schubert Theatre had ever looked like before. Same for Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Same for the show we saw, "Memphis". Same for hearing the licks played by the sixteen year old guitar player, Solomon Hicks. Same for Alan's Uncle Leo's sense of humor. I had no idea. That's what I thirst for.

That's why I read.

When I read a new (terrific) book, I am not a zombie. I am alive, lively, excited, filled with ideas. Or those (too few) times when I write a poem or create a piece of art - - these my consciousness becomes highly aroused because , even though the "doing" part comes from inside me, I have no idea what's going to occur, no idea about the finished state, and that's excitement, folks. At least for me. Writing anything carries that kind of color. It's something I've never seen before, even though I realize we all think approximately 98,000 thoughts a day and they pretty much duplicate each other day after day after day... still, there are always emergencies and accidents and chaos still strikes and chaos isn't always bad........

......anyway, I'm still just thinking. I don't KNOW anything, none of this is knowledge, it's all just thought, and not very deep thought, at that. Just random thinking. Oh, the allure of one's own mind, huh?

What a great place to come home to.

NEW YORK WOULD BE GREAT WITH JUST.........

............a few hundred thousand less people. At least that is my humble estimation. Because the people get in the way. You wanna see the new Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met? Sure, go right ahead. Except all you'll see is one thousand peoples' butts. On the other hand, we were in the fourth row at the Broadway show "Memphis" (Schubert Theatre, no less) and the people we were looking at were terrific actors, singers and dancers, all terrific. And, because they were terrific, we became terrific, too. There's something about being so close to that much talent that rubs off. Excitement, zest, ability, all that, rub off. Alan and I walked out of that theatre feeling like a million bucks. The violinist (who probably played with the symphony at night), along with the bass player and somebody else I can't remember - under a bridge in Central park - were so good they made my teeth ache. Scads of musical talent in Central Park. Not to mention the incredible beauty of the place, especially, for me, the amazing basalt formations filled with mica.

We had drinks several times at the Plaza, I had a make-over at Bergdorf Goodman (unfortunately I still look like me but I did walk out of that place feeling glowier), We paid a visit to the St. James Cathedral, walked our feet off at the Met Museum, visited the Museum of Folk Art which was a big disappointment to me - come on now, folks, this is New York! You can do BETTER than this! A few quilts, a primitive painting of Abraham Lincoln....NO. You can better than this. I did steal a bunch of their advertisement-postcards and send them out because I liked them so much, so the visit wasn't a total bust. We had fabulous food - Alan ate all kinds of spaghetti, ziti, eggplant and pasta, because he's six foot one and he can do it. I ate steak and salad, knowing that the pasta would stick to my hips like mama sticks to daddy.

Times Square nearly put me into a catatonic state. I just wanted to escape. Somehow, Alan was able to keep his cool. Right in the middle of Times Square, with what seemed to me to be two thousand people going this way and two thousand people going that way and another couple of thousand people going ways nobody had even imagined going before, and they're talking and yelling and Alan's speaking to me, pointing things out, "Baby, see that bridge over there? Remember that Simon and Garfunkel lyric about.....that's the bridge they were writing about!" And I couldn't think. I couldn't respond. For hours I just couldn't respond. The only words I could think of were either ironic or sarcastic or both. Not because I felt mean, but because...what can you say when you are in a state of shock? "Wow" sounds sarcastic. "Really!" sounds juvenile. "Geeze" sounds juvenile. He kept pointing things out and I kept thinking things like, "Where is the button that turns this part OFF?" And it's not just the people, its the overhead ads. Flashing. Flashing. Don't talk to me about hell. Times Square is hell. There is no devil, there are no flames, there is no fire. There is just Times Square.

We went to the famous Stage Deli, one of the three most famous delis in New York. Sandwiches as high as three or four books stacked together. Unbelievable. I loved the waiters. European, all of them. Older gentlemen, all humorous, each of them had developed their own style, their own schicht (sp)...I asked the waiter, "How's the meatloaf sandwich?"

"Ahh," he said, "I dona like the meataloaf."
"You don't?" I asked.
"Nah," he said. "Maybe you lika the meataloaf here, I dona like it."
"I'll take the meataloaf," I said.
"Yeah?" he said. "You're not from America," he said.
"Where are YOU from?" Alan asked him."
"I'm not saying," he said to Alan.
Alan ordered chopped liver.

We didn't order any of those huge disgusting sandwiches, but the sandwiches we did order were more than we could handle. Later, he did tell Alan where he was from but I can't remember now (it's early Saturday morning) where it was.

That evening, we went to Junior's for cheesecake. I have never had such cheesecake. It was like swallowing the entirety of Marilyn Monroe. Oh my God. If Times Square is Hell, Junior's Cheesecake is Heaven.

We stayed at the Warwick Hotel, where Cary Grant lived, for twelve years. Other famous people lived there too. The Beatles stayed there. I can't remember the rest. We stayed there. That's good enough for me. The weather in New York was warm to hot. Every day we were there. It was a miracle. We went to Central Park again a few days later but we didn't go through Times Square to get there this time, so I had my adjectives back and I could exclaim about the beauty of the place. Alan said he liked me much better with adjectives.

And then, New Jersey. Home of the foot long hotdog (I gobbled mine right up), the famous thin crust pizza (Alan once - well, twice) - ate two large pizzas and each time won a tee shirt for his magnificent feats (I think I could have done the same but I CHOSE not to)..... home of the gorgeous boardwalk which cuddles right up next to the great Atlantic ocean. We stayed in a hotel right on the ocean, drank our drinks in a Tiki-like place right on the beach, stayed in a fabulous hotel with a spa (I had a facial, he had a very fancy foot massage, we both had hot stone massages)....and then there was the day we were walking on the boardwalk and strayed into one of the many shops there, looking for something to bring home to Aleister. A very nice looking older woman helped us. Alan, who is extremely friendly, paid for whatever we bought, and exchanged words with the sales-lady. "Where are you from?" she asked him. "Washington State," he said, "but I used to be from here. From Jersey." "From here?" she said. "What's your last name?" "Schein," he said. "My dad owned a gas station a couple blocks from here." "And your name is Alan," she said. "And you're my cousin." "Oh my god!" he yelled and they threw themselves into each other's arms. She was his cousin Shirley. He was her cousin Alan. She was just a tiny bit of a thing who, in her eighties, decided that, to make ends meet, she needed to find a job, and so she did. Oh my God, indeed. It was wonderful, to see that. If you're looking for examples of people who love family, like Alan does, like all his family do, you should have been there to see that. AND then they all get on the telephone. "Now, who can I call?" she said. I don't know how many times I heard that said during the Jersey part of the trip. "Now, who can I call?" Telephones, "real" ones, are still good for something, let me tell you. Telephones are still alive and well in Jersey.

I met his eighty-some year old next door neighbor (from childhood) Lydia, who stood up for Alan when his parents were disappointed in him. We paid a visit to her. She walks with a walker, but otherwise seems to be in good health. They knew about each other's families, their children, grandchildren, and, at the end of the visit, she teared up and said, "Alan, I always thought of you as my own child. Now. Who can I call?"

I met several of Alan's best male friends and their wives.His friends have several names. Barry is called Punky and Harold is Byrde and Froggy is...I'm not sure who Froggy is other than he is, unbelievably if you met him, the coach at Mammoth University, and we ate dinner at Byrde and ALice's house and Barry and Laurel's house and onenight we went with some of these friends to a blues club and heard some blues and suddenly a large black woman sat down beside me and we locked eyes and I said, "Who ARE you?" and she tossed it back, saying, "Well, who are YOU?" and I said, "You want the true story or the other one?" and she said, "Tell me your Soul story," so we talked back and forth for a bit and then a young man, her sixteen year old son, dressed in a white tuxedo jacket and black slacks, got up from her table and went up on stage and played some of the best blues/jazz guitar ever. Ever. Sixteen years old and he plays at New York's Cotton Club. And his Mama and I were holding hands and moving back and forth and when that kid was done he got the first standing ovation that club has ever seen or given. Solomon Hicks is his name. Watch out, America. Solomon Hicks is gonna be part of America's soul story.

I need to go back around now and tell about our first two days in Jersey (we hit Jersey first and then left for New York) where we stayed with Alan's older sister Fran and her husband Leo. And,to my wide-eyed delight, they were delightful. Alan and Fran seemed to forge an even-tighter relationship, Fran is as honest and gracious a hostess as they come and Leo couldn't be more charming or more humorous. He comes from that same part of town and that same time that gave birth to Woody Allen and Carl Reiner and, although his hearing is going, he's superb fun. We were wined and dined and, on Mother's Day, their daughter Amanda came home to celebrate which was especially nice. Two friends rounded out dinner on Mother's Day and I fell in love with the entire family. I gave Fran my blog address but I doubt she will read this...if she does, thanks, Fran, you're terrific. You too, Leo. You're the mensch. You're the Brooklyn Bridge.

My blog is giving me signals that they are about ready to close me down or shut my shutters or something...so I'll shut my own shutters ("you can't fire me, I quit!") and leave for now. Oh and I haven't even said a word yet about airports. I've got a whole blog in me about airports. Oy.

So. While we were gone to New York I had my entire house painted in seven or eight different colors. I'd hired a project manager to oversee everything and keep sending us pictures so that I wouldn't freak when I got home - - and I didn't freak - - but it will take a week before I find my Q-tips or my shoe horn. I love the colors. Some may find the marigold color of the downstairs hallway too....much...but not me. I think it's great. I think it gives one the feeling of being crushed by one of Van Gogh's sunflowers. One by one.

And what could be better than that?

Alan, Angela and Aleister

Here are pictures of Alan and me, Angela and me and Angela, me and Aleister. How is it that all three of these people's names begin with the letter A? It can not, of course, be significant in the least, but still.....well, it's just one of those
things. Aleister is young, Angela is what "they" call beginning-middle-aged and Alan and I are hitting the early-elderly wall, although we don't see it that way. Why, Aleister told Alan that he, Alan, looks to be in his forties - and he told me I look fifty-seven. I tried to get him to lower his estimation of my age just a little bit more and I managed to bring him down to fifty-two but he would go no lower. If I remember correctly, Aleister used to be sweeter.

Before he could speak.

Alan is my future husband. We've set the date for September 24rth, hopefully at the Unitarian Fellowship, which is a beautiful place, surrounded by trees. The wedding could be indoors or outdoors and you can all be invited, if you are good. If I don't die in New York, where Alan is taking me this coming May, I will be at the wedding as the bride. I am afraid of New York, mostly because of the movies, which, despite Woody Allen's brave attempts, have not done New York any favors. I would feel much better if I could be followed around by Woody Allen's fabulous background music....perhaps Alan could arrange that. Alan, who is from the Jersey Shore and no, he doesn't watch that TV show, in fact, he detests that TV show, although he has never actually sat down and, God forbid, watched it, is equally familiar with New York, swears I will love it. The cheesecake. The bagels. The pizza. Central Park. The Metropolitan museum. Broadway plays. And all I can think of is all the weight I will gain and what shoes will I wear? I, who have never been in a larger city than Seattle (well, I was in Chicago once, but my father drove as fast as he could and kept yelling at my mother to "Lock and duck! Lock and duck!") so I didn't really get a good feel for the place.....have a basic inbred fear of large cities. Seattle and Portland are large enough for me. I am not a big city girl. I am a small-town-with-a-good-book-store type of girl. I'm plenty neurotic, but I don't think I am neurotic enough for a huge place like New York.

On the other hand,I don't blend well. I want to be the center of attention. I don't want somebody dribbling mustard of my hot dog. What if somebody mistakenly dribbles mustard on my hot dog? What if I get mugged on the subway? What if Alan loses me? What if I wrench my neck by gawkingup at all the skyscrapers? What if I wear the wrong thing? What if what if what if what if............

Wild horses couldn't keep me from going to New York. Wild horses couldn't keep me from visiting Alan's friends in Jersey. I wanna see, I wanna see, I wanna see. I'm see I'll see Robert De Nero bopping down the street. I know I'll see Anna Winotaur dashing into the lobby of some chic building. I'll follow her. She'll take a look at me in one of my LOGGER'S DAUGHTER skirts, grab me by the arm and photograph me for Vogue. How can she not? Of course she will. Oh my God! And I can't wait to meet Alan's sister Fran and Fran's husband Leo who comes from the same area as Neil Simon and Woody Allen and is therefore hysterically funny, not to mention Alan's Jersey guy friends, all of whom have Jersey mouths on them. Can't wait. Can not wait. Can't wait to walk through Central Park with.....can't wait to see a Broadway play with........can't wait to eat New York pizza with.......can't wait to do ANYTHING with......because he is so likable. Know what I mean? He is just so .....likable! But he's not a pushover, not by any means. So listen here, you crazy-ass New York subway guys, don't f___k with Alan Schein, because, like Aleister says, "He's forty years old and he rocks bigtime!"

Look out, New York! The Schein Man is comin' home.
I'll be the short woman hiding behind the slice of pizza.

GOODBYE, ELIABETH TAYLOR

Who said you could go, Elizabeth? Who said you could leave us here alone without any other dangerous stars to blink at and perhaps go blind because of one silly human blink? Who were you, you broken British tower, you short stumpy thirst quencher whose eyes befuddled so many men, you nearly conquered a certain part of the world in your time, and you kept on conquering and conquering, bashing down knights and paupers, never flattering falsehoods, flashing your diamonds around because you loved them, you loved them, and that was so utterly unAmerican of you, wasn't it, weren't you, because we Americans don't like to admit we love anything that's gorgeous and nonessential, no, not us, uh-uh, we are Puritans and you weren't a Puritan, nothing like that, were you, you ravishing golden sword, and now your Parade just drifted by in some L.A. hospital which had to be, which had to be way too mundane for you. I said that, not you........

Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, whom I adored even more than Debbie Reynolds, whom you did wrong but you did it in such a way, so openly and nondefiantly, so transparently, like a circus queen, no,like an entire circus act without a net, (I remember THE SEATTLE TIMES headline, when I was twelve years old, reading "Elizabeth Taylor Says Needs Only Four Hours Sleep At Night") so intimately, that even my childish mind knew you were right, you were playing by a different set of rules than Debbie's poor little housewife rules and that girls like Debbie could never ever win and should never even try to win but should just step out of the way and allow the wave to happen, allow the tree to fall in the forest, allow the tiger to chew up its prey, allow the inevitable bombs to inevitably fall.....because you can not fool, you can not out talk, you can not out walk, you can not stop Mother Nature. Even if it's wearing the largest diamond in the World, you can't, you can't, you can't. Just step aside, dearie, step aside. Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, my cousin Linda and I would walk through the Silverdale farm fields looking for tokens, for broken pins or bottle caps or crow feathers and send them to you along with little girl notes, and you would send back pictures, signed pictures, pictures signed with ink, and we would spit on our fingers and rub our fingers on your signature to see if the ink was real or not, which ruined the signatures but satisfied our hearts that it was you, you, your hand which signed the photographs, never stopping to think that the world held secretaries, that you paid secretaries to sign those pictures, those millions of pictures MGM shipped out to little farm girls like Linda and me....and we would pin these ravished photographs on the walls of our Grandpas chicken coop and sit and eat stolen peas and smile and feel like the biggest little girls in all the world, yes, us. Yes, us. Yes, us........

Oh, Mrs. Lavender, with that almost-Betty-Boop voice toppling out of that most beautiful face of yours, that seriously beautiful face which was not a joyful Rita Hayworth face or a happy Doris Day face but a solemn face, a face that said, "...and I MEAN it...", "...and I MEAN it...".....oh, Mrs. Lavender, owner of that almost implausible voice, I heard them call you "One of the last of the great Hollywood goddesses", but that is not true, you are THE last of the Hollywood goddesses, there is no other, there is no one left, not one. You have held the throne for decades now, and you have tried to hold on to a life of your own, as well, marrying and unmarrying, sipping teacup after teacup of ashes, ashes, your body torn apart by pain and the surgeon's knife, I hope you are sitting next to Shakespeare now, I hope you are back again in Mike Todd's arms, I hope you are well again, no scars, no audience, no pulp magazines, no pain patches, no crutches, no pumps, and you live and you live and you live and you live......only for you...........