Author: headwindjournal

About me and head wind journal A head wind is a wind that slows us down. Stops our forward motion, at least temporarily. During this lull, I feel the mind breezes. Like clouds above the ocean, they may take shape or drift away. I sailed into the blogging world in January of 2013. At the time, I was still working as a freelance writer, that is, writing for clients and the local newspaper. So I set up head wind journal as an outlet for my own essay writing – and for the photos I take while walking around. It’s been fun, more fun than working!

A Long Time Comin’

It’s been a long time comin’, my dear
It’s been a long time comin’, but now it’s here
It’s been a long time comin’, my dear
It’s been a long time comin’, but now it’s here
(Whoaaa)
— Bruce Springsteen

Standing in the windy walkway of the two-story office building, waiting for my appointment to arrive. It’s one of those plain, sad buildings that could be anywhere – and contain any type of business. I see names on doors I understand – Axis Chiropractic, Helping Hand Home Healthcare – and those I don’t – Smart Data Resources, Brown & Associates. (Dumb Data Resources and White & Associates would not be any clearer.)

I’ve come in the back way, so it’s a minute or two before I move to the front and look out. And it’s another half minute before the scene across the street registers in my brain. It’s a bare lot. A huge pit/hole in the middle. Bulldozers chomping away at the outer edges.

Wait! What was there? Oh yes, the Mexican restaurant, the classic one that stood for decades. When my appointment arrived, she reminded me that the restaurant’s parent company had filed for bankruptcy three years ago and that the restaurant across the street had been shuttered for two years.

So, although the change seemed abrupt to me, it had already been going on for awhile. Perhaps this is true of most change. Change is the constant, not the exception, even if we can’t see it.

I’ve been thinking about change a lot lately. My life has been full of changes. Nothing has ever stayed the same for long and if it does, I get restless, start pushing at the edges, seeing what I can move. And if I can’t move something, then I move myself. A new job, a new neighborhood, a new activity. I’m getting restless now, ready for some changes. Choices lie ahead.

According to my recent fortune cookie, I am in for some exciting changes – There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you. Well, hmmmm …

I like that better than the fortune I got a year ago – Be content with your lot. One cannot be first in everything.

I’m not as restless as some, those I know who are adventurers, who live/love to travel constantly. But I’m not change-adverse either, clinging to the rug that has been yanked out from under me, hoping it will take me for a magic ride and that I don’t have to get off.

Maybe most of us are a mixture. We love some changes and dread others. And that can change too.

There’s been times that I thought
I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come
Oh, yes it will
— Sam Cooke

Bye, Bye Boot Camp

Another new year. Time for reflection and possible resolutions. Time to assess where we’ve been, where we are, where we hope to be.

It’s tempting to measure, to assign a number on a scale, to compare and contrast.

On a scale of one to ten, say, how was this year? Overall, better than average, perhaps a seven. In some specific areas, the scale hovers at six, in others it reaches an eight with flashes of nine. Compared to former, low-dipping years, years when I lost a job or a when man I cared for developed cancer, or when my mother died, it’s been a good year.

This coming year I aim higher. Slight improvements will be just fine. Maybe accepting that the scale slides is good enough. Life is constant adjustment. It is rarely the same in all areas. We can do well in one segment: lose weight or win a contest, but not so well in another: develop an allergy to a food or a person.

I think that is why I love yoga so much. It reminds me of that. It keeps me grounded and balanced and yet still reaching farther and higher. And it doesn’t force me on days when I feel tired or insecure. I can rest and move gently, honoring myself.

To tell you the truth, I am tired of measurements, especially those imposed from the outside. As I watch people strap little instruments to themselves to measure footsteps and calories, I realize I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m not being critical. These measures work and have worked for me in the past.

I’m just being realistic about where I am. No more boot camp of the soul! I like gradual changes that grow from within, one step at a time, one day at a time. And even the realization that I am fine where I am and don’t need to change.

Happy Old and New Year!

So Many Messages

So many messages, so little time to listen and answer. So many ways to communicate, so few real connections.

It’s been a frustrating week trying to schedule interviews, receive feedback, even reach friends for fun plans. I’ve had time to work, which for me is usually writing, but without receiving the information I need, there’s nothing to write about. I can fiddle-fart around to some extent, researching and preparing, but sooner or later I face the void. Time hanging, like a cage dangling.

I don’t dare make plans. For example, my neighbor just asked me to go for coffee, but as soon as I do, someone will call or email needing a reply and the cage will clank shut.

Even going to a meeting at one of the most hi-techie companies around is not without its glitches. Here we are talking about a breakthrough product in communications, how it’s going to be exhibited at all the conventions, the project manager wound up like robot on speed. The poor people setting up the demo are struggling to catch up. They drove all the way down from L.A. the night before and arrived at the building early so they could be ready before the meeting. Someone was supposed to let them into the conference room. But no one came down, no one called, and we stood in the lobby waiting. I used the time to talk face-to-face, learning something about the product I needed to know.

Finally the manager arrived, all flustered, and we followed her into the meeting room. Apologies. “Someone was supposed to tell me you were here.” Who, I wondered. Who didn’t call whom? We all have cell phones and some have more than one.

I love my iPhone and need to upgrade soon. I have a dinosaur model and most of the time it works well, except when I leave it in another room, but that is not the phone’s fault. All my friends and family who have upgraded have had problems: phone calls going to the computer instead of the phone, contacts disappearing, ring tones fading away. It took me several days to reach one friend. She wasn’t getting my messages on her phone, nor was I getting hers. She blamed it on her upgrade. It’s true we are older, but we are not that technologically challenged.

The corker this week was a call from my sister. I was so happy to see her name light up on my phone, missing her after a visit 3,000 miles away. I can tell her about my week! Get some sympathy.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I butt dialed you by accident. I’m trying to clean up a mess. I reached up in my pantry for a bag of flour and spilled it on everything. There are poufs of white everywhere!” I tried to imagine how the poufs involved her butt and iPhone.

This was not the first time she’s pocket or purse dialed me. More than once, I’ve answered a call from her, said hello, and then listened to her and one of her daughters out somewhere, like in a store Christmas shopping, discussing what to get people.

I know what I want for Christmas, and the new year. To go back to the days when my sister and I used tin cans and a string in our grandmother’s garden.

My Hope Chest

I recently started a trousseau. No, I am not about to take a bridal leap with my possessions. But I’d like to fly into a new perch and so I’m preparing.

I don’t love my current home and want to move within the next year. In order to not feel stuck and to find a home that is right for me, it helps me to visualize it. I imagine and focus on location, layout, light. I see the entrance and the rooms – and I furnish them too. Where will my couch and bookcase go? Should I trade in for scaled-down models? Will my new interest in mid-century modern translate into a newer, more streamlined living space? Should I get rid of my seldom-used dining table and bring my office to the forefront? Should I go for a mid-century modern theme in other rooms?

Without realizing it, I already have some of that look and it wouldn’t take much to zap it up. My grandmother, who was ahead of her time, left me a Danish modern teak sideboard and some small tables and my mother some Metlox pottery pieces, which were made in our hometown of Manhattan Beach and where I worked while going to college.

Now when I’m out browsing, I keep my eyes open for these nostalgic pieces – old but ready for a new home, or new but with a decades-old design. For ideas, I’m visiting San Diego stores like The Atomic Bazaar and Boomerang for Modern. So far, I’ve purchased a set of coasters.

This is what I mean by a trousseau. Possessions for a new home. Visualizing and decorating. My hope chest. A symbol of meeting challenges and changes while still appreciating what I have and where I am.

As a bride, I didn’t have a hope chest. The idea for one occurred to me many years later, when I found myself in an unhappy relationship. I had moved in with a man too quickly and by the time I realized I’d made a mistake, I was stuck, at least for awhile until I could save money to leave. I began to visualize where I wanted to live. One day while out looking for something else, I fell in love with a kettle – bright iridescent red, green and yellow with a wood handle and space-age shape. I bought it and brought it home and tucked it away, gradually adding towels, spatulas, salt and pepper shakers in all the bright colors I imagined my new kitchen would radiate. (My boyfriend preferred black.)

It may seem like a silly thing, but gazing at that non-black kettle got me through some dark days until I moved it into my new home filled with light and ocean air and put the kettle on for a cup of tea.

Strolling Down Enlightenment Lane

Browsing in the bookstore recently, I realized I never look in the self-help section anymore. You’re more likely to find me in home improvement or garden makeovers or fiction or mysteries or current events. All of these appeal to me more than the excavation and renovation of my soul.

The last self-help book I bought used gardening metaphors such as digging, planting seeds, watering – so many that even this metaphor lover wanted to brandish her pruning shears. Not that the advice was bad – how to grow a good life – but it was so simplistic and repetitive that I also wanted to throw a pot at the author. I put the book in my recycle bin. Maybe it would transform into something really useful, like costume jewelry or coasters.

Don’t get me wrong. I think these books serve a purpose. Understanding oneself is a worthy goal. If we face challenges or feel stuck, then reading and reflecting can help.

And it takes a lifetime. After a few decades of exploring inner and outer terrains, I don’t think I’ve “arrived” at any great pinnacle of enlightenment. However, I’ve earned the right to guide myself, to listen to my own voice rising above the chorus out there. And to like who and where I am, flaws and all. I will never achieve perfection and I don’t strive to.

Some people are lucky or smart enough to learn this early. They are happy to be, not that they are lazy or without problems. But I suspect many of us spend our lives figuring things out, extricating our own feelings and needs from those imposed on us by family and society.

In recent years, gardening and writing have captured my soul and so my strolls through bookstores usually wind up in the non-human improvement section – how to toil in the soil and earn a few bucks with words. Before then, I read dozens of helpful books on work, relationships and mental and physical well-being.

A few of these books stand out in my memory like light bulbs. No, searchlights. Much more than “self-help,” they are a rich mix of history, culture, and science, including psychology and sociology. In them I found help for myself – as well as a larger view and understanding of our common human condition.

“The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan (1963)

“Compassion and Self Hate: An Alternative to Despair” by Theodore Rubin (1975)

“Solitude: A Return to the Self” by Anthony Storr (1988)

“Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990)

“Women Who Run with the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (1991)

“The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron (1992)

Embarrassing Moments

Most of my most embarrassing moments – funny in retrospect – have involved mishaps with food.

In one college apartment, two just a few months apart.

My roommate and I had just moved in. We made a big chocolate cake. One night our next-door neighbors, two cute guys, knocked on the door. My roommate was out.

I invited them in, a little flustered. Not knowing what to say, I offered them cake. The cake was on top of the fridge. This was a tiny studio apartment, so even though the guys were in the living-sleeping area, they were looming right into the kitchen. In my nervous hurry, I reached up for the cake and pulled it down. Too fast. The whole cake went flying off the plate across the kitchen and landed near the guys’ feet.

We stared at the chocolate blob. “Guess we’ll see you later,” they said.

A few months later, I was dating another guy in the building on the ground floor. My roommate and I had gone grocery shopping. I saw my sort-of boyfriend sitting by his window, so I made a big show of leaping up the stairs, bags in my arms. I tripped. The bags fell over. Worse, I was stuck, landed awkwardly on my hand and couldn’t get up. We had bought malted milk balls and eaten some, so the little balls spilled out and were bouncing all around me on the stairs. My boyfriend ran out to help and he wasn’t sure whether to catch me or the malted milk balls.

I got through the next few years without too many mishaps. Well, there was one overturned chef’s salad in my lap when I tried to cut a stiff tomato wedge.

But then came Day One of a new job on a local newspaper. The reporter I was replacing took me to a luncheon to meet all the city officials: mayor, police chief, city manager, council members, etc. I was squeezing a slice of lemon into my iced tea and it slipped from my between my thumb and forefinger, catapulting across the room and landing on a council person’s plate.

“Good going,” said my reporter friend. “Great first impression.”

Since then I have been either more careful or lucky, who knows.

The other major food-related mishap was not totally my fault. A girlfriend and I had ordered special salads in a fancy restaurant, not knowing they were jello-aspic salads. Shaped and decorated like clown faces. As soon as the server put them down, the faces wiggled and wriggled. We started laughing and couldn’t stop. In fact, we had to leave. I guess you had to be there to appreciate the enhanced vision.

Love Thy Selfie

Since we now can take and post instant pictures of ourselves online, have we become more self-preoccupied?

Not necessarily, according to Grant Barrett, co-host of “A Way with Words” on KPBS radio. In an interview last December, he identified selfie as one of 2013’s new words. People have always been self-absorbed, according to Barrett. Now it’s just more evident.

Who posts the most selfies and where? Nearly half of all selfies are posted on Facebook and the median age of self-snapping posters is 23. More women college students post selfies than men. The city with the most selfies on Instagram is Makati, Philippines and city with the second-most is New York.

It’s not at all surprising that younger people lead the photos-of-me pack. They use social media more, they’re having fun, they’re showing off to one another for sex or romance or just because. And let’s face it, no pun intended, they have better-looking faces and bodies to show off! Most people under 25 look good in burlap sacks in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Nor is it surprising that those whose work depends on physical appearance post more photos of themselves. Actors, models, physical fitness buffs have always loomed large on billboards, magazine pages, paparazzi viewfinders. I’m getting used to seeing photos of my yoga teachers demonstrating poses or new forms of yoga, such as shavasana in a trapeze or down dogging on a paddleboard.

I wonder if there is any correlation between age and the size/closeness of ourselves in our selfies? The older we get, the less inclined we are to stick our wrinkled noses on the lens or open the aperture to bare midriffs. But we can still look reasonably okay as far away as our arms will take us standing near the oldest tree in the world, or even better, the oldest person.

To me, the fun part of selfies is sharing what we are doing, alone or with others. Exploring a new restaurant, city or country. Reuniting with family or old friends. Celebrating birthdays and other special days. Taking in a sunset, welcoming a new dog or cat.

Recently I knew three couples who don’t know each other who were in Paris at the same time. Sure enough, there they all were on Facebook, smiling and smooching in selfie close ups, the Eifel Tower rising from their heads.

I have other FB friends who seldom, if ever, post selfies, preferring jokes, hi-tech advice, cat and dog videos, political opinions, interesting articles and creative work. These are all good too, and maybe the fact that they don’t have to post selfies is a good thing. They care more about the life of the mind than they do outward appearances. Their ideas are more apt to help the world than one more shot of us smelling flowers.

Or are they? Maybe our selfies are a way of reminding ourselves and others that we are here, every day. Every moment of every day, no matter how small.

Quick! I see a photo op. Good light, the right angle … click!

Way Stations

A way station.

A place to stop and rest while on a journey.

I’ve made use of way stations, large and small, throughout my life.

As a kid, the tiny train station halfway between home and school. It was only a mile to school, but to my sister and me trudging along the highway in the snow in the Montreal winter, often below zero, it seemed never ending. Not to mention numbing. Despite our layers of clothing, hats, gloves, mittens, we froze. The little station was our warming refuge. We climbed the stairs, ran in and hugged the pot belly stove. Then made it the rest of the way to school hands and feet tingling.

A big, white Victorian hotel in the Green Mountains of Vermont. My grandfather knew the value of way stations, always stopping between Montreal and Cape Cod, stretching our 400-mile journey into two days so we could relax and look out over rolling lawns and play shuffleboard, and so he and my grandmother could enjoy their scotch at gloaming (Scottish for twilight). This was a treat for my sister and me, since if our father had been at the wheel, it would have been a mad, crabby, eyes-on-the road dash each way. No stopping for ice cream, let alone overnight lollygagging.

Other images float up from memory. A bench overlooking the ocean or outside a store, a cubbyhole in a library, a shady spot under a tree, a stoop or doorway, a friend’s spare bedroom or hidden garden, a wide wall next to a museum, a shack in the woods, a diner on an empty road.

Most airports, yes! I have always loved airports, the excitement of new journeys, leaving and arriving, sitting and watching. Today they are less restful, with security checks, long lines, more frequent delays. But there is more to do – eat, drink, shop, gamble, get a haircut, manicure, massage, watch TV, hold meetings, use computers and gadgets, even sleep in some. If I ever blow the whistle on someone, I could hang out like Edward Snowden in the Moscow Airport, although from photos, it didn’t look as if he got a haircut during his weeks there.

Actually, I’m living in a way station today. That is what my current house feels like. It does not have a sense of settling in for the duration, or much duration beyond a year or two. I moved to get out of the storm of rising costs, rents. On my journey, I’ve known for awhile I need to simplify, but I wasn’t quite ready to leave a home I loved. But here I am! This way station is comfortable and convenient. It appeared at the right time. It is a place to rest and reflect awhile, to rejuvenate, before I get back out there on the road.

Saluting the Sentry

I barely noticed the little tree out front. Like a sentry, it has stood silently upright for a year, in the strip between the lawn and the street, guarding the house. Now that the days are longer, you’d think I would have noticed it more. But sadly, I haven’t. I’ve taken it for granted, or worse than that. I’ve not seen it as distinguishable from the view Out There, beyond my front window.

If the tree had feelings, I’d say I know how it feels.

But suddenly it has erupted into a frenzy of red blooms. Pink red, to be exact, like dark watermelon or some varieties of geranium. It makes me so happy I want to bury my face in it. If it were larger, I’d climb it, but it’s not big enough yet for human exploration.

I wonder what it is? I recognize some local trees, but not this one. I snap photos and iPhone them to my gardener and nature lover friends. Do you know what this is?

One friend who lives in Ohio and worked at a botanical garden said it looked like a plum tree, but plum trees bloom in the spring, not the summer. She said it looks more tropical. My other friend who teaches nature writing doesn’t know either.

So I’ll break off a few leaves and blossoms and take them with me to the nursery. Now that the sentry has shown its colors, I want to fully acknowledge it. And I want to know how tall it will grow. How many years will it stand? And does it have to be protected from seasonal hazards? Bugs, traffic and fire pollution, drought? It seems to be doing fine without water, so far anyway.

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According to the cute guy at the nursery (a bonus for my visit), the tree is a crape myrtle, also known in more recent years as crepe myrtle. It is an evergreen shrub, drought resistant, and often used along our San Diego sidewalks. It does well in all warmer climates around the world, having come originally from Southeast Asia. It can grow up to 25 feet tall and even taller and makes a nice shade tree. It often has more than one trunk. Its flower petals are crinkled, like crepe paper, thus the name. It is one of the longest-blooming trees, from July to September in our hemisphere. It is slow to grow, but can live as long as 150 years.

In mythology, the myrtle tree is associated with Venus and is a symbol for love, peace, fertility and rejuvenation. Sounds good to me! And I salute you from now on.

Pssst … Have You Heard?

Recently a friend said she thought it was okay when people expressed opinions about how others should live. “Who knows what unresolved dreams they have for themselves? At least it’s better than gossip, isn’t it?”

No, I don’t think it is. In fact, I think it’s just another variation of gossip. But this got me to thinking. What is gossip? Is it good, bad or in between? Does it serve a purpose? Is gossiping so engrained that we can’t help it, or should we work to minimize or eliminate it?

There is a saying, attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt (but not verified): “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

As with almost all sayings, this appears snappy and smart, but upon closer examination doesn’t hold up. Many of us have minds that are ever changing – small one minute or day, large the next. If we are analyzing ideas, how can we not mention the people who create them, write about them, or run for public office spouting them? We are not either/or, one way or another and neither is gossip.

The word gossip has a variety of meanings. Its Old English origin is godsibb, from god and kinsman, meaning godparent. In Middle English, it came to mean a close friend with whom one reveals personal information about others. Today, this can mean anything from “chatty talk” to sensational facts or rumors.

There are times when I would prefer to hear gossip – for example, if a co-worker overhears the boss saying there are going to be layoffs, or if a friend sees my husband kissing another woman, or if a neighbor reports a stranger lurking on our street or that another neighbor is in the hospital. This is information I can use to protect myself or to help someone else.

There are times when I do not want to hear gossip – the malicious kind making fun of a person or spreading untruthful rumors. Whenever I do hear unpleasant gossip, I picture 18th century ladies in wigs surveying the ballroom and clucking away behind their fans.

Some gossip kind of falls in the middle. So and so’s marriage is in trouble. Did you hear his wife ran off with the gardener? Did you know she had to file bankruptcy? This information may or may not be useful. It sometimes gives us a momentary high, like chocolate. “At least that hasn’t happened to me,” we think. But then it leaves us with the sugar blues letdown and a bad taste in the mouth as we realize it could happen to us and most often people need our compassion.

I think spouting off about what someone else should do can fall into this category. From our safe vantage point, it seems reasonable that someone should start her own business or leave an unhappy marriage. But we are looking at these situations from the outside, not the inside, and we don’t fully understand what the person is thinking, feeling, dealing with. For us to assume that we do is arrogant – that same high-minded attitude that is glad we are “above it all.”

I usually don’t offer my family, friends, or anyone, advice unless they ask for it. I am not perfect. I do indulge in chocolate. I may think to myself, “He should leave that job or that woman,” but I try not to say it out loud. And if it does slip out during idle chatter, I hope my fellow gossip reminds me I am on a healthy diet and that I need a clear mind and heart.

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A note about the photo: I took this in 1980 while covering a garden party for a local newspaper.

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