A tiny flutter, a flip, a fine tuned movement and I know that you are there.  You exist because we made you, because we held our breath and hoped that, someday, you would come.  Little did we know that you were simply waiting in the wings, coiled & ready to spring at the slightest nod from us.

We’ve seen your picture; a grainy, grey image, but already you have hints of my features.  Your chin is rounded, like mine, and there are the ever so slight shadows of those infamous Cherokee cheekbones which run thru my side of the family.  Your eyes look big and though the genetic odds are stacked against it, I secretly hope that they are blue.

You like music with a beat and applesauce, blueberry smoothies and the sound of Edgar’s voice.  Your not too keen on peanut butter or the alarm clock, which I fear is a trait you’ve already inherited from your aunt Aubrey.

These are things that I know and like your first crude photograph, these truths are blurry and soft around the edges but they are the evidence, however hazy, that you do exist.  Those other things, yet formed and too distant to know yet, we can soley dream about.  And as we wonder & muse over who you will be, we can only hope that you are as excited about this epic journey as we are and that you know, even deep within your bodily cocoon, that you are ours, little one, all ours.

My father’s lands and those of his father & his father’s father are still in my family.  We own mountains, rivers and trees as much as men can own nature and our name echos thru the history books of those wild places.  We were pioneers in the forest and explorers in the rugged, rocky landscape which surrounds the little patch of mountain dirt where I was born.  It is a place where a child can run free through the cedars, where seasons are strongly defined, and where everyone who knows anyone, knows us.

It is a legacy we struggle to hold onto~as we venture out of the shadow of the mountains and scatter throughout the rest of the world.  Yet, that untamed terrain has shaped us, and the same pioneering spirit which sent my great grandfather trekking across a dusty wagon trail flows through all of our veins, sending most, if not all of us, on our own twirling adventures across this great earth.  Yet that piece of mountain, that patch of blue, that dash of green holds us all captive and inevitably, we all return.  Whether that’s for a lifetime, a day, a month, a year or only for a fleeting moment, there’s something in that mountainous breeze which heals us, for it’s the place our blood calls home.

We, as restaurant minions, rely on the steady flow of hungry stomachs and harried schedules to make our living.  We exist in a world without benefits, sick pay or overtime and we stand for hours on our feet, often without a break.  Yet when you walk in, we plaster a smile on our faces and bend over backwards to accommodate your whims and desires.  We cater to your real and phantom dietary needs, remember your dog’s name and keep on eye on your children as they wreak havoc around us.  And there are those of you who recognize this, who acknowledge that we strive to make things run smoothly so that you may relax and let others feed you.

Then there are those of you, the bastard tippers out there, who feel entitled to belittle us, who treat us as little better than serfs and even seem to enjoy it.  If you were President of the UN or some exotic sultan of Agraba, I’d deal with it; not because you were inherently better than me but at least then I’d understand why you acted like such an elitist, pompous ass.  Usually though, that’s not who you are.  Usually, you are some mid-level banker or a disgruntled housewife whose Starbucks habit has nearly drained her monthly alimony and for some reason unbeknownst to all us restaurant workers, you feel superior to us and will go out of your way to win this little power struggle you’ve concocted in your feeble mind.  I choose to work in restaurants for a number of reasons: the flexibility, the cash on hand available and because restaurant environments are generally fun to work in.  Yet don’t think for an instant that because I wait on you, you are inherently better than me.  I have a college degree, I graduated at the top of my class and there’s a lot more going on behind this smile of mine than you might suspect.

So for those decent tippers out there, thank you.  Thank you for realizing that what we do is not always easy.  For those of you who’ve erred on the side of tipping, there’s always redemption, but know this~I may not spit in your food, or purposely drop your silverware on the floor or do a plethora of other nasty things I could think of because that is beneath me.  But I will remember your face and I’ll be sure to tell everyone else that I’m working with what kind of person you are and the next time you come in, you most likely won’t get that smile or such prompt service.

The other day, while out for an autumn stroll, Edgar and I decided to do our civic duty and pick up trash.  Tired of seeing me reach for a piece of gritty garbage with my bare hands, my horrified husband had produced a garbage pick, the kind that old men in New York City aimlessly walk around with, and after arming ourselves with a trash bag; we were set.

Now, unlike my former LA barrio, my Victorian hometown is relatively clean and picturesque.  At least that is what I thought prior to our trash expedition.  I suppose one is bound to find more garbage when actually seeking it out but I was still disgusted by the sheer volume of crap we collected in a five block radius.  The majority of it was fast food containers and candy wrappers, which I believe points pretty clearly towards who the primary lazyass garbage offenders truly are.  Then, there were the few odd pieces we ran across which we harder to imagine, such as not one but two full sushi trays laying haphazardly on the side of the road.  What was that? A drive by sushiing? Who drives down the street, eating a food which is hard enough to conquer on a non-rolling surface and then tosses the whole thing out of the window?? Twice??

Maybe I’ll never know the answers to what makes some people totally disregard their fellow human beings as well as nature.  Why do some think it is perfectly acceptable to leave their empty big gulp cup’s and McDonald’s wrappers in the middle of the road? Or why others toss their candy wrappers out the car window as easily as taking a breath.  The only thing I know for sure though, is those kind of people, the medicore, selfish, trash makers; are the majority behind what goes wrong in this beautiful world and I thank my lucky stars that I’m not one of them.

“When I close my eyes I see Hawaii and all of her hidden secrets, and I know that I belong there….” Anna Dickinson

My sister Anna longs for a place which is luscious and forever green, a place of soft winds and oceany whispers.  She comes from a land filled with giant, jagged mountains, as I do, where the green is darker and the winds fiercer.  It is a land, our land, that is rugged and often wild, not quite tamed yet still ferociously beautiful.

Yet I know why she yearns for the softness of Hawaii and smells Plumeria blooms on still Northwest nights.  For the island is where she found herself, where all that she wanted had come together for a brief moment in time and she knew that she was living her life the way it was meant to be lived.  Like all fond memories though, it has sweetened with time and the rough edges that existed have been smoothed out and glossed over.

I know the way she feels because it is the same for me when I dream about LA’s gritty streets.  I can close my eyes and feel the warm Santa Ana winds drift over my skin and the pulse of humanity & the beat of urban life throb under my eyelids.  It was the place where I discovered who I was and where my life, however fleetingly, held everything I could have wanted.  And when we dream of these places, our adopted lands, I imagine we both ache to return and the hunger to relive those days, at times, seems unquenchable.  Yet things change and the place & the world we long to revisit, may no longer exist; at least not as it does in our memories.  So what must we do?? Wrap up those times in a crimson cloth and stash them away for future rainy nights?  Or return to those places, knowing full well that all may be different but still somehow be able to summon the courage to start over again anyway?

A threshold I fought so long to keep at bay and the turning point I was so vigilantly avoiding, suddenly seemed inconsequential & unnecessary.  The line I had built in the sand had eroded and I crossed it so shockingly easily, it felt as if it hadn’t ever really existed.

And having set foot on the other side, the world remains the same yet unbridled.  For now there is no invisible line defining me, no future goals pushing me down, no facades of childhood holding me back. There is only the present, the very real now, which pulsates inside me and lures me onto an unknown journey from which, at last, there is no going back~

A few years ago, while I was living smack in the middle of Hollywood, I came home from work for a brief bite of something before rushing off again.  I probably changed my clothes, since working with coffee all day tends to permeate everything with its blackened aroma and I know I watched a little TV.  During the limited time, that brief half hour lapse, someone or something was shanked, stabbed or seriously maimed right underneath my living room window.  I did not realize this however, till I went to leave and found a rather large pool of fresh, sticky blood soaking into the sidewalk.  I didn’t hear a scuffle, a yell, a shriek, or even a murmur.  Nothing.

And as shocking as it was to emerge from my idyllic apartment and stumble into a potential crime scene, having already been properly jaded by city life, I tiptoed my way around the blood stained sidewalk & wearily peered into the bushes for a corpse. I made to my car and drove off.  I called my sister to warn her about the biohazard at the foot of our stairs and that was it.

I did wonder how someone could lose that much blood so quietly and vanish into the summer night even more stealthily.  Yet it wasn’t until months later, when the great blood stain was brought up during a conversation with our downstairs neighbor, that I realized that maybe I should get out of the city for a bit.  Apparently, he had recently been regaling his sister back in Wisconsin with hard-edged LA stories and had mentioned the giant puddle of blood.  “What did the police say?” she had shrieked and I looked at my neighbor knowingly.  Cause he knew what I knew and that was, that neither of us had bothered to call the police.  In fact, it hadn’t even occurred to us. For we were city dwellers, in one of the biggest centers of urbanity on the planet and well, people bled everyday down here.

Shut up.  Just shut the hell up.

You sit there, at the bar, screaming at the TV, giving anyone within a mile radius of your bar stool a play-by-play of the lame basketball game which is blaring out of all three, oversize televisions behind my head.  You flail around as if you were an injured teammate, begging and pleading to just be let back onto the court.

No one wants to hear your chatter, nor witty band camp comments.  Stop with the text message reciting, the minute facebook updates of fellow bottom dwellers like yourself.  Your opening line, forced upon those misdirected few who wander too close,  is sad and stale…just like your haircut.

And after nearly three years as your neighborhood beer slinger , I am certain it would break your heart to know that these are the memories of you that I am taking with me. Sure there were  moments of interest and the mirage of concern over your double shoulder surgery or your son’s epilepsy was hazily genuine.  But months and years later, when I have long ago escaped the oily stench of pepperoni and your perfume, you will still be at that bar, watching the same boring ass game on even bigger TV’s and I’ll be thanking the heavens that I no longer have to listen to your drivelous prattle or wonder if your haircut, indeed, will ever change.

There’s a little country lane outside my hometown named Springhetti Road.  Just before it merges and disappears into the unromantic & all too common Broadway, it rises over a crest and the entire valley spreads out before you; nearly as far as one’s eye can see.

No matter my mood, that little patch of asphalt can lift my spirits and transport me  nearly anywhere.  I can be twenty years old again coming home from college or if I squint my eyes just so, I may be 10 miles up the 101 on the outskirts of LA.  Maybe I’m returning from a city book signing or on my way home from a European tour.  I could be eleven years old again, with my tanned legs sticking out of the passenger window of our old VW van with my mom’s Pearl Jam bursting out of the radio.

For the thirty seconds it takes for me to traverse that road, I can be anyone or anywhere.  And every night, after clocking out of my thankless job, I look forward to that moment, when I hit that crest and I am suddenly transported somewhere else, miles and years away.

Plastic plates.  The place isn’t bad enough already without adding cafeteria style dishware to the menu.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned to my boozy ass of a boss that we needed more salad plates.  I show up a few days later to a plastic atrocity, stacked 30 high on the crumb littered counter.  We may not have linen napkins, but my god, I thought we were above toddler plates.  Couple this with adding hamburgers to our Italian menu and the gas station quality, see thru napkins, it’s obvious that my boss doesn’t give a damn and that I need to get out of there.

It’s a long time coming and I know that I’ve complained about my indentured, marinara infused servitude to practically anyone within a mile radius of my lips; but this is it! I refuse to use the plastic plates, secretly stashing them under cupboards and behind doors but I shudder for the day when all the porcelain ones are finally gone and I, with a hanging head and a depressed air, must use the plastic horrors thrust upon me to take out soup or coffee.  And so my friends, I am pleading with you, don’t let me fail in my mission! Push, prod and paddle me into leaving this place and escaping the inevitable disgraceful plastic plate fate which only awaits me there.