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Ch … Ch …Changes: Progress, Schmogress

Posted in Friends, Health, Island life, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles on May 19, 2009| 1 Comment »

The Indian Ocean Playground

The Indian Ocean Playground

My post from yesterday on disappearing places that exist only in memory without a time bubble for backwards traveling apparently sent more than a few readers traipsing down the dirt track of memory for some revisiting.

A comment from a long lost friend … reason #396 that I’m happy to be online, the reconnection thing that happens more often than it could without the sort of access to the world a blog allows … (Thanks, Ali!) brought another to my mind.

Even though I’m only five minutes away from the setting for memories galore, I haven’t walked the rutted way to what was once my favorite beach in Seychelles in a couple of years. I just don’t have the heart.

This end of Mahé is in full development swing, so what was my little corner of paradise is now looking a lot like Joni Mitchell sounded.

I could rail against the dramatic changes to my neighborhood, and in fact I have, but there are smellier fish to fry these days that sap energy and … well .. progress is progress and money makes the world go around and sustainable development is an oxymoron in any language, and there’s not a bloody thing I can do about it.

So, instead of spending my days allowing myself to be perpetually annoyed by the sound of cement mixers clanking and huge trucks chewing up roads and blocking traffic and legions of Chinese, Korean and Indian workers wandering down my road looking for coconuts and throwing rocks at my dogs … who are simply doing their job of keeping legions of strangers from my house … I try very hard to focus on the fact that I was lucky enough to know this place before the world caught on.

The area now under rapid and extensive development … and right behind my house, for the most part … was, in 1993 when I first landed here, without a road of any recognizable variety. Yes, there was a dirt track, and some hearty souls with sturdy vehicles did drive it, but only the most intrepid of tourists wandered this far, so I would go weeks without seeing even one person who hadn’t lived down this way for most of their life.

Strangers attracted attention, and those aimlessly drifting would be asked their business, then either aided or warned away if said business was deemed to be possibly shifty.

Back then, those of us considering a stretch of sand to be “our” beach were right piqued to find other bodies soaking up “our” sun and swimming in “our” bay, and a count of more than two or three extras had us grousing on about how crowded the place was.

We were always topless, and often bottem-less, as well, but presently tan lines are de rigueur with construction workers being pretty much of the same ilk worldwide … providing stimulation for hoards of wankers lurking in the undergrowth is neither appealing nor conducive to relaxed paddling.

But I did know it when, and the Anse Soleil of bygone years exists in my mind’s eye. Too bad the present version is more like a poke with sharp rebar.

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Existing only in memory: Whiskeytown

Posted in Family, History, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , , on May 18, 2009| 17 Comments »

Hiding the ghosts ..

Hiding the ghosts ..

A prompt from NPR inspires today’s post … a quick dash down Memory Lane on a Monday morning that goes way, way back … thanks to a project being conducted on places that now exist in Memory only.

There are a lot of those stuck in my head … The Milk Farm (always known as “The cow that jumped over the moon” amongst us Hanks kids), The Golden Eagle Hotel where we roamed at will, Grandma Hattie’s apartment in San Francisco … but what popped immediately into my head was a sometimes stop in my father’s wanderings of the back roads between hunting and camping trips on hot summer days.

Whiskeytown, California … In the 1950s and 60s my father used to drive us through a small Northern California town of a couple of streets with clapboard houses, a store and very little else. It was scenic and pioneer-flavored, being a relic of the days of Gold Fever and expansionist mentality. We’d stop, buy a soda and stroll around soaking up atmosphere and sensing ghosts amidst the minimal hustle and bustle a population of under 100 could manage to stir up.

Dad was big on history, so related much about the time the town thrived, including tales of hardships and hangings, imagination fodder for hot and thirsty pre-teen kids primed for adventure after hours in a car, even with all verses of “Sixteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest” and “The Big Black Bull Came Down From the Mountain” sung loudly while passing the miles.

Sometime in the mid-60s we made a special trip … the final visit. Within a week, the town was to begin the process of being covered by millions of gallons of water that would fill the space behind the new Whiskeytown Dam.

Whiskeytown looked exactly as it always had to my brothers and me, with one exception … there were no people. The houses, rundown as always, stood, but doors were ajar offering a view into formerly private spaces littered with broken bits of furniture and odds and ends of life not worth toting away. Ghosts seemed much more tangible as we walked from building to building, tentative in our snooping but fascinated.

In my mind, the town remains, somehow preserved in all its dilapidation at the bottom of the lake and the ghosts still walk there, unaware of the elemental changes to their old haunt.

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Friends For Life

Posted in Friends, Health, Island life, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Peeps on April 26, 2009| 11 Comments »

Robbie ... a photo of an old friend, by an old friend ...

Robbie ... a photo of an old friend, by an old friend ...

There has never been any doubt that I’m social.

My brother once remarked, perhaps disparagingly, that there is NO ONE I won’t talk to. Although that’s not completely accurate, I do believe that I can learn something through conversations with most people, even if we don’t happen to speak a common language.

So, no surprise that I’ve taken to online social networks like a termite to timber. Not only have platforms like facebook, myspace and Twitter allowed me to reconnect with friends I’d thought I’d lost forever, new people have come into my life … people I don’t want to imagine being without.

I hadn’t spoken to my high school bud, Virginia in 30-some years, but now we’re in touch almost daily. Robbie, my bbff and neighbor in a previous life had all but disappeared from my radar until he joined fb and skype, but we now wet ourselves on a regular basis and give each other stomach cramps from the laughs we share.

My cyber sister, Jo, and I have never met, but our lives intersect sometimes hourly, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who thinks my exact thoughts as often as she does.

Thanks to the Internet, my love life is … well … lovely, or as lovely as long distance relationships can be.

A week or so ago I trimmed my facebook friend list by 100, as I’ve arbitrarily set a max of 500 and had exceeded that limit. I’m already back up to 450, so I may have to up my quota, but even though this can stretch me a bit thin I do have some level of closeness to each and every one of the people who poke and chat and banter and comment on my status as if they cared.

My up-close-and-in-person friend clan is large, too, and even though scattered around the world, we remain close. I’ve not seen Michael in years, nor Magnar in months, but I have a pretty good idea of what’s up with them, and they with me.

Turns out, that all this friend stuff may keep me and my friends alive.

As this article in the NYT reports, that’s just what friends do.

Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends.

And luckily for some of us, the role of friends is even more important than that of a spouse.

Bella DePaulo, a visiting psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose work focuses on single people and friendships, notes that in many studies, friendship has an even greater effect on health than a spouse or family member. In the study of nurses with breast cancer, having a spouse wasn’t associated with survival.

(I think I’ll tattoo that somewhere: … having a spouse isn’t associated with survival. Funny thing is, that’s exactly what all my friends told me when Mark bailed, bless them!)

Anyway …

Friends. I love mine.

Now, if I could only get that damned Rembrandts song out of my head …

Photo credit: Trudy Fisher

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PP Reader Survey … Inquiring mind wants to know

Posted in Adoption, American thoughts, Cambodia, Celebrities, Entitled to opinions, Family, Fun, Health, I wanna, Island life, love, Music I like, My Chinese Checkered Past, Older women, science, Sex, Seychelles, Writing for a living, Writing for fun on April 9, 2009| 5 Comments »

Please click here to fill out a few little boxes that may lead me out of some of my cluelessness …

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Blasts from the past … what a hoot and a half

Posted in Music I like, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , , , , on March 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Not every step in my journey through this life has been fun … far from it … but some have combined hilarity and joy so effectively that they resonate and stir a smile up even years later.

I’m grinning this morning thanks to a comment that appeared on a post from a while back, a blast from the past, sweet and beautifully written, from one of the guys who staggered along with me for a few years back in my Rock & Roll roadie days.

John was the bassist with the mostest in Spider Kelly, a whip-smart (and yes, his wit could sting), shy, brooding gangster in his 20s at the time who provided moments that I strongly suspect were formative and to this day can make me, in present vernacular, lol.

He is still making music, as his myspace page clearly shows, and listening to the offerings there conjures a clear image of him as his voice fills my computer.

Speaking of his myspace page … I’ve nicked a vid from there, a shining moment from another band we hung with in the old days, Little Roger and the Goosebumps, that I haven’t thought of in years … the song, not the band. (Rick and Roger … you are NOT forgotten!)

Enjoy …

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Coming up … not a fun 10 days …

Posted in My Chinese Checkered Past, On getting older on March 1, 2009| 6 Comments »

I’m off to Singapore tomorrow and will be gone for a bit more than ten days. This is not a pleasure trip by any means, and is, in fact, one I’m not looking forward to in any way.

Due to issues that have more to do with money and timing and the end of an era that saw me insured, I’ve scheduled a visit to my cardiologist who just happens to be in Singapore.

Certainly a case of BTDT when it comes to procedures and process … angiogram that requires a night in hospital, and whatever other treatment might be necessary (hopefully none, thank you) … I have never done this alone before.

Not much still lingers around the edges of Mark … or at least not much pleasant … but I have to admit that I will miss having a face behind the glass as dye and camera are threaded up to my heart through my femural artery and tinkering happens.

I’m so loopy when going through this all, due to the drugs they give me, that every time I’m in Mt. Elizabeth hospital is like the first for me … I remember almost nothing one trip to the next … so I had to call Mark for a rendition of what’s happened before to prepare myself for what happens next.

So …

I’ll be away for a while, but will post again when I can.

I’m a big girl and can do anything, and do it alone when need be, but I will appreciate all good thoughts and energy coming my way.

You all are a huge part of my support system and are much appreciated.

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“Milk” … pay it forward

Posted in American thoughts, Celebrities, My Chinese Checkered Past, The USA from the outside in, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

I recall with perfect clarity the moment I heard the news the San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk had been murdered.

From Diane Feinstein, at the time a SF Supervisor:

“Today San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of immense proportions. As President of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to inform you that both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed”, then adding after being drowned out by shouts of disbelief, “and the suspect is Supervisor Dan White.”

Shaken to my core, like so many at the time, I watched reports of the killings … developing great respect that continues to this day for Diane Feinstein who held a bleeding head as life poured out … and the subsequent joke of the Dan White trial.

Years later, my brother starred in “Philadelphia”, the first mainstream film to feature a gay lead character, and about popped with pride as a legion of movie fans learned lessons in compassion.

(An aside … This was also the most difficult role for me to see Tom in, and I still can’t watch the film without falling to bits. In fact, I’ve only seen it 3 times even though it lives in my DVD library. The first time was with my best friend, Robbie, who has AIDS, setting me thinking that from then on I wouldn’t see a film about an illness without doing so while sitting beside someone living with said dreaded disease. “Sybil” would be hard, though, since, as far as I know I don’t have any friends that are multiples … but, then again, may I do … )

Robbie sent me a link today from the Courage Campaign about the film “Milk” and the acceptance speech given by Dustin Lance Black when winning the Oscar.

I’m passing this along …

“When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married.” — Dustin Lance Black, accepting an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, February 22

One speech can change the lives of millions.

For Dustin Lance Black and millions of gays and lesbians, it was Harvey Milk’s “Hope” speech and the life of the man who gave it.

And, for millions of people watching the Academy Awards last night, it was Dustin Lance Black’s Oscar acceptance speech, channeling the spirit of Milk with a universal message of hope and determination in the aftermath of the passage of Prop 8.

Last night, Black and Sean Penn won Academy Awards for their wonderful work in the creation of “Milk” — the film chronicling the life and times of Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in American history. Cleve Jones, who worked with Milk in the 1970’s and pushed for many years to get this beautiful film made, smiled proudly from the audience.

If you have not seen Dustin Lance Black’s short, but moving acceptance speech — broadcast to over 30 million Americans Sunday night — please take a moment to watch it now. Then sign our note of congratulations to Dustin, Sean, and Cleve and thank them for their life-changing film. If you feel so inspired, please write a short note letting them know how “Milk” has touched your life:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/ThankYouForMilk

As Dustin put it backstage in an interview after his acceptance speech, he felt that this appearance on the Oscar stage was an opportunity to “pay it forward” to millions of people — especially teenagers living in fear of what might happen if they come out:

“For me, the whole thing was always to… pay it forward. You know, Harvey gave me his story… Oh, I’m going to cry [pauses to compose himself]… Harvey gave me his story and it saved my life. And I just thought it’s time to pass it on… The only thing I really knew I wanted to say was to tell those kids out there that they’re going to be alright.”

They are going to be OK, but only if we all follow in the footsteps of Harvey Milk and continue fighting for equality for all Americans.

You can help Dustin Lance Black pay it forward now by sending this email to your friends and family — especially the people who most need to watch his inspiring acceptance speech. Then sign our congratulatory note to Dustin, Sean Penn, and Cleve Jones and consider adding a few words of your own about what “Milk” means to you:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/ThankYouForMilk

Thank you for sharing this momentous speech with the people you care about the most and giving them the opportunity to share it with their loved ones as well.

Rick Jacobs
Chair

P.S. In addition to being the driving forces behind making “Milk” a reality, Dustin Lance Black and Cleve Jones were both active in working to defeat Prop 8 before the election. And they were both in the streets in the aftermath of Prop 8’s passage, protesting the enshrinement of discrimination into California’s state constitution. Cleve also gave the keynote speech at the first Camp Courage in Los Angeles and plans to attend the Fresno training on March 7-8.

Please thank Dustin and Cleve now for bringing Harvey Milk’s life to millions of people and for their ongoing activism in the movement to restore marriage equality to California:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/ThankYouForMilk

…………..

Courage Campaign Issues is part of the Courage Campaign’s online organizing network that empowers over 600,000 grassroots and netroots activists to push for progressive change in California.

I have not seen the film … and am hoping someone sends me a DVD when it’s out in that format. I did, however, live the history.

How far have we come? A long way, no doubt, but there is still far to go.

My friends are no longer dropping like flies and funerals don’t happen monthly as they seemed to some years ago, but as long as anyone considers a person’s choices in love a reason to reduce the value, restrict the rights or condemn in any way, the fight is still on.

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I hate the turn of the year …

Posted in Children, Family, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , , on January 2, 2009| 15 Comments »

I can’t believe I am composing this post … especially after the last one.

I learned yesterday that my ex-husband, Scott, killed himself on Tuesday. He would have been 60 on the 27th of this month.

I have been in contact with his wife, Lauren, lending as much support as possible as she tries to absorb this shocking turn of events and wonders: WHY? WHY? WHY?

They have an 11-year-old son … now the same age as Scott was when his father died, also at 58, a tragedy he never learned to live with.

Scott and I were together for 13 years through the ’80s and early ’90s .. the formative years for my older kids … and our relationship was tumultuous, some would say toxic, for most of that time.

It was “Life in the Fast Lane” in every way, not unusual for the time … not one bit healthy, but also never dull.

He was an ad man, so we lived in a social whirl, drove fast cars, traveled the world, drank and smoked too much, and fought like caged ferrets … others referred to us as “The Scott and Sandra Show”, being so drama-charged in our interactions that it was hard to miss the “entertainment value” of our dysfunctional team.

He was an unfaithful spouse, a good-looking man-about-town charmer with a smile that lured women like rats to peanut butter. He was self-involved and often cruel … but I loved him for a long time.

In 1993, I bought myself an around-the-world ticket and left for a year. I needed to get my head together, and couldn’t do that while in the same house, or hemisphere, with him. My kids had grown and moved out and I felt I had completely lost the plot.

He threw a huge party for me, and gave me a compass. He pasted a photo of him inside it and wrote, “So you find your way back” across it.

I didn’t. I found Mark instead, so my return had me staying for only 3 months … time enough to pack what I wanted to take of my old life for my move to England, and to get divorced.

For the past 15 years, he would often phone when drunk and want to talk about our life together. I was the repository of memories … him retaining very few details … and he mined that in me when he could, asking for names and dates and places and recollections.

He contacted me two weeks ago, wanting to give some comfort over the breakup of this marriage of mine, and told me that it had taken him four years to get over my leaving. Whether or not that was some sort of “clearing the decks” act, I will never know, but there was no indication that anything was seriously amiss.

He left no note, and the questions fly around the thought of him at a million miles an hour from hundreds of people.

I cannot believe I end another blog with this, but RIP, Scott. You live in my heart, and always will.

I hate the turn of the year …

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May Auld Acquaintance Never Be Forgot

Posted in My Chinese Checkered Past on December 31, 2008| 6 Comments »

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The 19-year-old me ... mother of 2

The 19-year-old me ... mother of 2

I have been writing much about new love and the wonders it brings, but today is New Years Eve day, and this one … like every one since 1967 … requires that I take some time to dwell on an old one.

I was 16 on this day 41 years ago, in love and feeling as though my future was secure.

Sure, many 16-year-old girls are convinced that their soulmate has found them and that happy-ever-after is a done deal, and perhaps that was the case for me then, but Gary … Gary Wayne Boggs … was special.

Gary and I had been together since I was 14 … a long relationship for a teen … and he was my salvation.

My family life at the time was rocky … to say the least … and his home, complete with his mom and his twin brother, Greg, was my bolt hole, my safe place, the roof under which I could relax and be myself.

I was a wild child, and it being the 60s … we were, after all, only a few months from the “Summer of Love” … had all the chance in the world to live up to the title is spades. I counted amongst my friends Hells Angles and drug dealers and Black Panthers and rock stars … it was California, you see … and I had very close to no parental supervision.

My time was my own, aside from infrequent required check-ins, and no one cared much where I went or what I go up to.

No one, that is, but Gary.

He was 19 in 1967, and had for 2 years taken it upon himself to see that I had someone to answer to. He was patient and understood that I had wings that needed testing, so gave me room to do just that, but it was clear that I would have ‘splainin’ to do if I disappeared for a few days or appeared suddenly looking rode hard and put away wet.

He protected my virginity as if it were some treasure I had no right to squander, and more than once was sent for when I got myself into situations where dire consequence was inevitable.

How many times the sound of his Harley would thunder from the street signaling a saving grace that meant that I would not have to pay the band even though I’d willingly, and stupidly, danced.

His plans were well-laid: I would have my time to grow up, to get all the wildness out of my system, to taste the fruits of the tree of knowledge, and suffer all consequences that would teach me, but not hurt me too seriously; then, when I’d finished school … university included … we would marry, have 4 kids, live in Berkeley, not far from his mother, and work to make the world a better place.

His determination toward this future was my touchstone and made all things possible.

On New Years Eve day 1967, Gary ran to the store to buy cigarettes for his mother … and himself, too, I’m sure, but that part of the story holds no guilt for anyone and wasn’t discussed. On the way home, a woman with 3 screaming kids in her Buick station wagon pulled out of a side road into the path of Gary on his Harley. She broadsided him, throwing the bike down, and Gary head first into a telephone pole. His neck was broken and he died instantly.

I wasn’t there for the aftermath, having been unceremoniously sent north to live with my mother, but will never forget the phone call from his brother that broke the news to me.

I still have the ring he gave me, but lost the drumsticks his mom insisted were meant for me … instruments of funny torture they’d been for years, but I can barely stand to remember those times, even now.

What he would have become is a question I ponder often … although so fully formed at 17 when we met that I can easily picture him pushing 60 … and what my life would have been like had I not been left to my own devices, and vices … by the following year I was pregnant and headed into a loveless marriage, shotgun-style … taunts me.

This will be the 41st new year that begins with him not in the world … the 40th that ends … and the world is poorer for the loss. For 41 years I have spent time with him on this day, remembering, wondering, and missing him.

Rest in peace, Gary. You live in my heart, and always will …

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