The real life adventures of a zeroine

Dream

2010-03-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

'Dream' and 'Feathers in the Saplings' are two of several exercises from a workshop with Octavio Solis through Playwright's Foundation. See www.playwrightsfoundation.org for info on future classes.
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DREAM

In the living room of a nice house, high on a hill. Cherry wood paneling, leaded glass windows, a dramatic view of a distant mountain. ZERO enters with a MAN and WOMAN interested in buying the house.

ZERO: Let's start here in the living room. It's actually much nicer now that the walls are wood. Darker, yes, but this color. Look at this color. Yum! I've always loved cherry. Such depth and warmth. You don't see that too often. The windows. Gorgeous. And the view through them - still spectacular!

WOMAN: What's this here? It looks like there was some sloppy craftsmanship where the walls meet. I can see inside there. What is that in there?

MAN: Honey, that's just normal movement. We're on a steep hill. Things move. Things move when you're at the top.

WOMAN: But if it was all just done. I'm just saying. I can see inside, is all. And there's something in there.

ZERO looks inside the walls and begins to tear and pull back the paneling, As she does, thousands of tiny bones fall out and onto the wood floor.

ZERO: Oh yes, of course. These were the birds that used to live in the walls. Tiny little lives that never made it. Barely ideas. But it's only because the raven stopped coming to feed them. She used to appear, huge and magnificent - I never had to lift a finger. She took care of everything. All her little minions were fed. The house was so well insulated then. You'll probably want new insulation. I'd imagine you'll want some pink fiberglass job or an R rated foam board of some sort. I preferred the birds.

WOMAN: I see.

MAN: I see.

ZERO: I'm sorry - I've said something. Something to upset or insult you? What do I know, maybe you prefer birds. It's just not for everyone. The raven. Her visits. You know, she could be - I suppose I could see how the uneducated - the uninitiated and uninspired - how they would be threatened by the raven. She was - or is... Goodness it's been so long I don't even know - just breaks my heart...We'll just say was. Was, oh... She was actually bigger than the whole house. The Takahashi's next door, complained bitterly and without end when mamma raven would spread her magnificent blue back wings. The whole sky would darken. I put up these little spikey things you see on the window ledges. Eventually she stopped coming. Oh how I wish I'd plucked out my own heart and impaled it there so she had somewhere safe to land. Damn Takahashis. Shall we move along downstairs?

As they walk downstairs, the house disappears and they are on a wide and lonely beach. There is a small row boat on the sand. It is quite foggy.

WOMAN: Ooh, I like it here. Soft.

MAN: We'll take it!

ZERO: This isn't actually for sale. It's time we all got in that little boat and started rowing.

WOMAN: I can't swim.

MAN: I have tennis elbow.

ZERO: Fine. I'll row.

They get in the boat and ZERO begins to slowly row them out.

ZERO: I know it seems like we're just heading aimlessly out into the fog. But there is method to my madness. As the sun begins to burn off the fog, you'll get a brief glimpse of where we are. Just don't look down.

WOMAN: What's wrong with looking down?

ZERO: Oh goodness, dear. It's always better to look up! That way you won't mistake the shadows you think are clouds passing in front of the sun for the frenzy of sharks swimming under the boat. Hands in the boat!

MAN: But what about these people out here for the 4th of July? All these people swimming? Shouldn't we tell them? Warn them?

ZERO: No need to upset anyone. The sharks are not for them. They're for you. I told you not to look down.

WOMAN: I want to go home now.

ZERO: To that old bag of bones? There's no insulation dear. Don't be silly. The whole place is under construction. No, no. Farther out! We'll keep chasing the fog until there are no more shadows.

The sound of oars in the water
Face to black

Feathers in the Saplings

2010-03-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

Lights up on ZERO sitting on the couch, dressed in a white undershirt and men’s boxers. Her hair is piled on her head like a bird’s nest. She wears fuzzy socks and has wrapped herself in a blanket. She is surrounded by mountains of crumpled Kleenex and has obviously been here for days. She stares out as BULL, a tall man wearing an elaborate bull mask, white tennis shoes, khakis, and a blue oxford shirt enters. ZERO doesn’t look at him.

BULL: Interesting housekeeping, Zero.

ZERO: I’ve been waiting a long time. Months. Last 4 days on this couch I haven’t moved. They said you weren't coming back. I lost hope you might. What's the point of being tidy? No one here but us chickens. Chicken. Singular. You're not real.

BULL: Shouldn’t change the fact you need to keep things tidy.

ZERO: You’re one to talk. I’m not the one they still gasp about in Gumps. What a mess that was.

BULL: When was the last time you were in Gumps, hmm? (off her expression) Ya. I thought so. Gumps was ages ago. Good lord. let it go. Things change. I changed. I’m simply saying you know the outside reflects the inside. Look at you - your hair. Are those my boxers? And my place is obviously a mess. So... Here we are.

ZERO: My place. Ya. So. Here we are.

BULL: Still looks like my place. So... what? Do I say it or what. Do I need to say it? Is that what this is all about? You know it’s not like me to say it. You want this from me and it's not like me at all.

ZERO: You need to say it.

BULL: Ahhh. Little Zero. My sweet nothing. You know this already.

BULL touches her shoulder and she looks up.

BULL: What do you really want me to say anyway. I’m sorry? I’m sorry it was sudden? It was selfish? You know better than to expect anything different. Besides, I was ... called away.

ZERO: That's not it and you’re not sorry. Don’t say you’re sorry. You’re not. And what do you mean, called away. Who called you, God? You were never wrong about anything - but you're telling me you were wrong about this? There's a god? /That's ironic.

BULL (dismissively): /No. Jesus…God.

ZERO: Jesus? Jesus called you away?

BULL. No! No. It’s an expression. I’m expressing my exasperation. Never mind. I was called away by a whole group of … You know - I saw you found those maps in my office. Those detailed charts of Iraq?

ZERO: Ya.

BULL: Well it might have something to do with that.

ZERO: Wait. What? What would you be doing in Iraq?

BULL: Oh, well... It all started back in the Gulf War. Part of a big bovine experiment in the desert. Shhhh… Top Secret.

ZERO: So wait. You really are here now? Flesh and blood? I’m not hallucinating? I haven’t eaten in weeks, you know. I’m not clear on anything anymore. I've been waiting here, really, really needed some good news, and here you finally are, right in front of me. I felt your hand on my shoulder and I can see you and ... God, it's so good to see you! ... I told them. I knew you'd come back. Maybe all hush hush or something. But I always suspected. We never saw ... They wouldn't open it - the bag. Said you were in no shape to be seen. But it just made no sense to me. No sense at all you being gone and everything left unfinished that way. I knew it! It was what, the CIA or something? The CIA called you away?

BULL: Sure. The CIA...

ZERO realizes it’s all bullshit.

ZERO: Why do you do that? That was just cruel. Not funny.

BULL: (laughing) Eat something.

ZERO: You’re not here. Not really. And you’re not going to say it. Even now. All this time, I wait for you to haunt me, to come back and… Just come back and maybe, just maybe say it. But even now you won’t. Even though I know you can. I know you can, you just won’t. Selfish.

BULL: Genius is pain. For everyone. Oh little nothing.... Nothing to say! I was here. Now I’m gone. Life's a veil of tears, over too soon. Always leave them wanting more. You don't get it. You don't have to. Come on. Grab those bootstraps. Buck up! There's more room for everyone else now. More room for you, if you think about it. Especially if you clean this place up. You're swimming in an ocean of used tissues in here. It's kind of disgusting.

The door bell rings

ZERO: Shit. Who is that? I’m a wreck.

BULL: Language. Get the door.

ZERO: Sorry. I’m just not expecting anyone. I’m a wreck.

BULL: Who cares? It’s expected.

ZERO goes to the door

ZERO: Hello?

ZERO opens the door, looks down and finds a music box. She brings it back to the couch.

ZERO: No one was there. Just this.

BULL: Open it.

ZERO opens it. It plays Noyana Phezulu, a Zulu lullaby

BULL: Remember this? You’re mother used to find you standing straight up in your crib in the middle of the night. Singing to this lullaby. There you’d be, little baby in the dark, hanging onto the bars of your crib like the little prisoner you were. Singing and singing in your sleep.

ZERO: I did that for years, actually. I wasn't asleep. I used to think it would keep me safe. The singing. I thought I could lull my captors to sleep. (singing) Noyana, noyana, noyana, noyana, noyana, noyana, noyana phezulu. (speaking) Are you going, are you going, are you going, are you going, are you going, are you going, are you going to heaven…

As it plays, a fine mist emanates from the music box. The mist gathers into the form of a man. It is the GOD OF WIND. He is larger than life and annoyed.

GOD OF WIND: That is the last time I sign a contract without reading the whole thing through. Tiny freakin’ space. I am the GOD OF WIND! Just because I can fit, doesn’t mean I should. They just take advantage. Bastard dispatchers! They take advantage and…Ah – you don’t care. I can see your sleepy little eyes going half-mast. You and your boring little mortal issues. With your death and your taxes, your thwarted passions, your puny loneliness, your dwindling twitter flock and blank Facedbooks, your dropped calls and sluggish internet. You know, I could open wide those little slits. It wouldn’t take much for me to blow your mind. I COULD WAKE YOU UP, LITTLE SLEEPWALKER!

GOD OF WIND picks up a leaf blower and begins to blow all the Kleenex across the room and off stage. Zero is unimpressed.

GOD OF WIND: Ahh… Never mind. I’ll stop. I’ve been told I can …go on a bit. Long winded, they say. So what needs sweeping away? What do you need? Tornado? Hurricane? Hurricane I need to make a conference call.

ZERO: Sweeping away? Nothing! No! Don’t – if you’re here to... I know it was you who took him away in the first place. Please just don’t again, right now. Not yet. I've been waiting. I need this. I need to hear it first.

BULL: She thinks she needs to hear it.

ZERO: I need to hear it! I deserve to hear the words.

GOD OF WIND: Little nothing. It was said a thousand times and a thousand ways. Flimsy things, words. Feathers in the saplings. Just listen, sweet nothing. Listen while the sun sets.

ZERO tries to protest but the sound of a strong wind drowns her out. BULL and the GOD OF WIND ride it out of the room. The wind fades to silence. ZERO sits on the floor and opens the music box. As the sun sets, she's cast in a warm glow. Shadows from the bars on an unseen window fall across her face and the rest of the room. She looks out and sings 'Noyana noyana noyana noyana...'

Fade to black

My Dog is an Ageing Rockstar

2010-02-19T10:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the old girl

scared the Jesus peddlers

from the front door.

She didn't mean to be unsettling.

Its just how she looks -

imposing, road weary.

It's clear she already knows

a thing or two about the woes of being

lost until you are found.

Today, as winter's dark clutches

loosen in the morning sun,

she is followed around by the usual

relentless paparazzi

of adoring juncos,

perky chickadees and such.

She sleeps all day,

like a rockstar,

as they twitter and spar
over the precious bits of her shed coat,

so last season.

Wings flash upward

as they steal off,

furry little keepsakes in their beaks,

while her arthritic legs twitch,

and she dreams of

her wild, glory days.

I doubt she's even aware
of her future influence.

Waving like lighters in the stadium
for a final encore at the end of the last set,

high in all the neighborhood pines,
and waiting in their pearly rocks
to be born on her soft, warm strands,
early clutches of new fans.

Strange Gift

2009-10-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

Clouds enshroud the steep slopes
as we scramble overland and
unprepared toward the ridge,
my sisters soldiering ahead,
short sleeved in the growing cold.

I keep slow company with your pale proxy,
bolstering his faltering steps
as we clamor over boulders
and rugged underbrush like antelopes
toward the coordinates.

We stop as the Lost River
continues wandering in the mist below,
undaunted and deaf
to our sudden, sharp breath
as we spot what is not
sage or tree or rock.

Running toward your wreckage,
I almost hope to turn back time
with every hurried footfall,
and find you waiting patiently,
puzzled and amused
by our tear stained faces.

But there, a violent knowing
bears down on wide, broken wings.
Instruments lie scattered
amid the tiny shattered pieces,
Your far flung vest,
Your hat,
Your shoes in the fuselage.

They found you,
as you entered this world,
barefoot.

The clouds open up
as my legs buckle
under now crushing certainty.
We wail our hopeless whys
amid the broken branches
and are soon soaked to the skin,
our shoes heavy with rain.

I knew enough
to gather your flowers
below the tree line,
but struggle now
to open my hand
to leave them here.

You knew better
than to ever promise,
but said you would try
to be home, not alone
atop a White Knobbed mountain,
today, my birthday.

Still, sinking into this muddy earth
I know in my bones
you did not suffer.
I coil around this strange gift
swaddled in mist,
and shuffle down the mountain
to my delivery home.

August 23, 2009
for Daddy

Danielle Thys©2009

Button button

2009-06-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Last day of the Do-over fast.
Fingers are crossed and candles are lit.
If I had dice I’d be blowing on them.

Come on, squirrel eyes!

I wait until 9:30AM and call the vet.
I have been thinking about a name.
Wingnut?
Foxy Brown?

“Hi! I brought in a little fox squirrel yesterday with...
Yes, that’s me!
Did you hear its amazing story? Two days ago, I...
Uh huh... Mmhhm...
I know it's Spring and yes, you must be very busy.
Ok... ok...
Oh. Wow. Really?
So, what do you do in a case like that?
Well, is that really necessary? Have you already...
Because I asked you to call first if you were going to...
I... I just wanted – And I asked you to call me first, so I ...
It’s such an amazing story –
I just –
And you just...

No, no, no...
I understand...
West Nile Virus.
But you don’t know for sure?
Yes, I can hold.”

This fast sucks just as hard as the last one.
Do over, schmoo over.

“Yes, I’m still here...
Really?! You still ... You haven’t put her down yet?
Please don’t! I’ll be there in 10 minutes. Thank you.”

I run down to the vet to say goodbye to my crazy, possibly contagious squirrel. This is SO not the metaphor I was hoping for.

Suddenly I realize I’m not really caring as much about the squirrel as I am about the story. The story - which is supposed to have a pretty little bow on the end of it – and now it’s ruined by some tiny fucking mosquito with West Nile Virus. What am I supposed to do with the ending now? What does any of it even mean now?

There’s no lesson.
No poetry.
There’s just a dead squirrel and somewhere in my backyard,
a cloud of disease-ridden mosquitoes.

It makes no sense.

I sit with other comrades, baby birds and lost possums held in their laps. Clearly none of us in this waiting room are the surviving fittest. They call me into the florescent lit back room where I see her near the floor, along the back wall, inside one of a row of little acrylic boxes marked:

“Wildlife”

She has her face buried in her food bowl, oblivious.
Heavy hearted, I look her into her eyes one last time.
Like little black buttons.

“I’m so sorry sweetheart. I really am.
You’re a good squirrel.”

The vet's assistant is disinterested and losing patience. I'm just another one of those cooing, weepy people she tolerates every Spring.

I leave the vet, remorseful I ever saw the squirrel as a story. Sorry that in my opportunistic, twisted mind, if even for a moment, she became anything other than another living creature in need - a brave little soul that struggled up a grueling hill for hours and hours in search of me and my help.
And I turned that valiant heroism into her death march.
And wrote about it.

I am an awful person.

I get home, call my mother, and tell her the truth. She says she had a feeling that squirrel was not well. So I break down and really tell her everything.

How useless I feel.
How I can’t help anyone.
How I know I can’t force her to deal with her disease.
How even my best efforts send the innocents their graves.
And now, I can’t even keep bad news from someone who is already dealing with cancer.

The next day, my mom decides to have surgery.
And I break my fast.

My sisters and I start buttoning down our schedules to make sure we’ve got the pre and post-op care covered.

The eldest's au pair has returned to France early. It will be a while before her child care issues are handled so she will come post op.

The youngest can come for a few day right away, but is nursing a newborn and can't stay more than a half week.

The doubter will come from Europe for the remainder of that week and I will arrive conveniently after her departure, during the week of the surgery.

We have a plan and are ready to snap into action.
The world is starting to make sense again.
But a tiny thing lurks in the dark of the doubter's mind.
And everything is about to change.
All over again.

Do Over

2009-06-09T00:56:00.001-07:00

4PM
Again.
Day 9 of my do-over 10-day fast.

I start the day with a renewed, if shaken certainty I'll soon be riding high on the flip side of these recent, dark days. The weather is cooperating and even if my cell phone and Internet were shut off this morning, the gig from a couple days back finally paid in glorious cash a couple hours ago, so my signals are restored and most folks are none the wiser.

Things are looking up.

I prop the front door open wide and catch up on email, draft contracts for the event space I market, design a poster for an upcoming gig, send out head shots and resumes, and continue my daily haranguing of agents, endlessly beating the waters to keep myself from drowning.

Ain't love grand?

I was the only one (in my immediate family) on the East Coast with my mother when the cancer diagnosis came in, so I stayed for a month when I'd only planned to be away one week. Living hand to mouth as I do, I knew the financial consequences of extending my trip would be dire. But I am the only one of my sisters in any position to take time off at a moment's notice.
One of the few perks of being a starving artist.
It's cold comfort given how much I want a child, but for what it's worth, not being a mother also provides me a freedom to alter my schedule without much preparation.
That seems to have been of use of late.

Apparently for at least one family member, my increased availability is not meritorious enough to warrant approval for my choice of career.

Surprise, surprise!

One of my sisters (I'll call her the doubter) recently voiced her extreme contempt for my being in the arts. More I hope, because of her concern for the financial instability it causes, than for the general unsavoriness it seems, from her perspective, to foster in my social circle.
But I have my doubts.
Must be genetic.

The pierced and tatooed post punk Shakespeareans, wandering suspiciously in and out of my seedy Tenderloin rehearsal studio with their platform biker boots, same sex partners and dreadlocked rasta grins, must terrify and confuse the doubter on some deep and murky level.

Says she, "It's just irresponsible and stupid to burden the family the way you do. You need to buckle down!"

She may end up being right.
Not about buckling down. God knows I work my ass off.
But it's true.
Poverty ain't easy.
And amazingly, years ago as a senior level administrator, even with my lowly state university and art school education, I once had a higher annual income than any of my sisters with their multiple Ivy League PhD's and MBA's.
I just couldn't afford the ulcer, the miscarriage and all that therapy.

In all these years, I've never asked the doubter for favors or money, but I suppose it's my poverty that embarrasses her. If I'm kind in my thinking of the reasons we clash, I say she lives outside of the country, we rarely see one another, and she has no interest in what I do.

So on a good day, I imagine her rants are rooted in a vague and unsettling worry about my future well being. She can't imagine life without someone to cook and clean for her.
Our worlds and expectations are just so different.

I've heard that in certain Hispanic cultures, there's a daughter slated to fill the position into which I have fallen. She's expected to forgo marriage and motherhood to keep the familial house and care for the ageing parents.
She has a place.
An accepted function in the family unit.

Sadly, we're not Hispanic.

But I digress!
It's a gorgeous, sunny day and the front door is wide open.
I sip tea and post a tweet about wondering what sad fate met my sweet little squirrel, sorry I couldn't help her more. The cat is going in and out and scrambling around on the wood floor...

... Wait a second ...
The cat never scrambles around on the wood floor...
What is that noise?
I lean back in my chair and catch a glimpse of it from my office
right before it disappears under the sofa.
A squirrel's tail.

What the hell is going on here?! Is it raining squirrels? Is this some unmentioned sign of an impending apocalypse? Is there some nest of wacko squirrels that got overturned and I can expect a squirrel invasion for the next few weeks?
Whatever.
I don't care.
I have a chance at some rodent redemption and this do-over fast may end well after all.

I lie down in front of the sofa to look underneath. It can't be yesterday's squirrel. That squirrel was badly injured and would never have been able to climb the enormous, steep hill back up and over, then around the house to the front door.
It would be like climbing Kilimanjaro - with no map or supplies, and a spinal chord injury.

Yesterday's squirrel is gone.
(Remember that, kids: Carpe Sciurus - Seize the Squirrel)

I used to care for the mice my cat would injure as part of presenting them as gifts to me.
I know.
I can hear you groaning now.
But honestly, I had a wonderful vet who was totally with me on this, never charging me to work out the dosage of antibiotics and establish a routine of care. I had a whole string of little wild mice for awhile there.
They preferred Macadamia nuts.
Next favorite was Pepitas.
Then peanut butter.

I have Macadamia Cashew nut butter in the fridge and think I can coax her (to me, all squirrels are now females) out from under the sofa with an irresistible trail of little appetizers. I break a saltine into four bits and spread the nut butter on them. Sure enough, in short order, my new little friend comes venturing out.

But something is odd.

Her legs don't seem to have very coordinated movement.
It could be the minimal clearance under the sofa forcing her to slither around on her belly.
But ...
Wait ...
The fur on her back.
The little missing patches of fur, the nick on the right ear ...
I look into her big, sleepy black eyes.
Good lord.
There's no question...

It is the same squirrel.

I simply cannot believe it. She had to have crawled all day long to get back up to me! It's an absolutely Herculean feat of strength and determination. And memory, I guess. Rodent redemption, indeed! I am utterly amazed I get a second chance to help this poor creature.

My cousin comes through the front door. This lovely home belongs to her. I used to act as a sort of property manager, living here and overseeing the renters with whom I shared the house when she took a job in Massachusetts. After a number of years, she eventually returned. Repeated attempts at subtly asking me to please move out proved unsuccessful, and she seems to have resigned herself to my continued presence here, referring to me as her "artist in residence". I owe her a massive debt of gratitude for such generous patronage. Of our entire, enormous extended family, we are the only ones of our generation, single and childless. So though we make odd housemates, somehow it makes sense.

In addition to the house, we share a deep love for animals. After the incident yesterday, she offered very kind, sympathetic words, and we shared memories of our beloved grandmother's elaborate squirrel and bird houses.

There was the little table where the squirrels would actually sit in chairs just their size and eat dried corn cobs. Quite civilized!
There was the whirligig where her squirrels would leap and go for a crazy Ferris Wheel ride while attempting to get corn cob treats.
Mama fed many of the birds by hand and they would regularly come inside the house to receive their unshelled peanuts.

Clearly, the apple did not fall far.

"It's the same squirrel..." I whisper.
"Are you sure?!"
"I'm absolutely positive. I can't believe it, but I am positive!"

We devise a plan.
My cousin prepares her very swanky kitty carrier with a faux sheepskin rug and appetizers, while I conveniently fail to mention my previous day's abandonment of the blue kitty carrier down on the hill.

I put on two pairs of gloves and get a dishtowel.
My cousin gingerly tips back the sofa and I plop the towel on the hapless squirrel who makes no attempt at escape.
It's all so incredibly easy!
I pick her up and put her into the carrier. Voila!
Off to the vet we set. Awestruck and incredulous.

Of course, now I can't tell my mother any of it because I already told her there was nothing wrong with the squirrel yesterday. No worries. We'll see if our friend makes it through the night. Based on the movement in the squirrel's hind legs, the vet's first guess is that this is a neurological issue, not a spinal injury as I suspected.
Good news, I think... I'll happily care for a crazy squirrel.

My fast ends tomorrow.
Good news is coming.
I can feel it.

Carpe sciurus, if you can.

2009-06-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

It's 4PM.
Day 8 of the second 10-day fast I've done in a month.

Usually at the end of my seasonal fasts, the whole world opens up to me and everything I've been hoping to accomplish suddenly has a red carpet rolled out to stroll down. But on the last day, Day 10 of the first (and usually only) fast this Spring, my mother was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive cancer.

I guess I wanted a do-over.

I am on the phone with my mother and we're arguing.
Again.

The PET scan is back and the initial Dermatopathology and Otolaryngology diagnoses, biopsies, pathology and radiology reports are all reconfirmed. The main treatment recommendation is still an intricate and lengthy surgery that will likely leave her disfigured.

For a woman who has no trouble admitted to distrusting people she finds unattractive, this surgery must feel like a death sentence.

To make matters worse, she entrusted her rosy future to the good old-fashioned capitalistic greed of unbridled Wall Street thieves and is now having to deal with her retirement money vanishing in a blip.

The euphemism du jour is "right sizing". Like so many, she's doing the senior citizen scramble: trying to wiggle out from under a fresh, steamy pile of credit card debt and cramming her future into a tighter fixed income. With a mix of emotions, she's bidding adieu to a half century of crap and heading back California, where once she snapped her pseudo-bohemian fingers in North Beach bars to applaud her beatnick neighbors' proto poetry slams.

She'd rather live in the desert, I know.
Katchina dolls and Navajo rugs, Hopi baskets and Apache tears fill her Vermont mill. She longs to wear her cowboy boots and squash blossom necklace. To smell the sun-baked earth and toasty sage. To feel dry wind whip across the mesa.

But it's all about negotiating and compromise now, and part of her knows she has to be closer to us. So she'll come here, resentful of her new dependence and the close, watchful eyes of her children and grandchildren.

It's a new chapter in her life and it's hard enough to face, even without a face that scares children in the aisles of the neighborhood Safeway.
She wants to date.
She wants to reinvent herself after decades of slogging it out in the lonely, frozen Northeast. She doesn't want to look like a monster, and has convinced herself, against all assurance to the contrary, it's not cancer.

"I get it. Really I do. But come on, mother. It is cancer....
No... No It does NOT just disappear because you don't believe it.
I don't care what Oola said about her husband's prostate... You don't have one... no, I'm sorry... thinking you can't get cancer because you drink red wine is just ridiculous.
Look at the PET scan again.
YOU HAVE CANCER! "

Thunk!
Thunk.
...ttthunk.

I hear something fall, first onto the roof, then onto the deck in back. I continue with my now daily cancer rant into the phone as I look over the edge of the deck and see a squirrel doing somersaults in the garden. At first I think it's playing, then I can see it must be injured. It's the perfect excuse to end the conversation.

"Ma. I've gotta go. I can't talk to you about this anymore today.
And you'll find no quarter with me or any of us.
You're being incredibly selfish. And vain. It's CANCER...
There's a squirrel just fell off the roof. I gotta go."

Prior to the call, I was at an audition I doubt I'll book. I am wearing high heeled black boots pulled over fire engine red pants with a white riding jacket. (Don't ask.) As I find myself slipping even farther down the steep, poison oak covered hillside below the garden wall, trying to coax the injured squirrel into the blue kitty carrier, I know I am providing ample reason for my buttoned-down neighbors to ernestly wonder about my sanity.

"Please please... Sweetheart... Little One...
No no no no... Come ON!
Not another tree!
Please don't climb up, you'll just..."

Thunk!
Ooooph!
Onto its little back.
I feel the impact in my own spine.

It's shaking and now I'm just undone, mascara staining my face. My hair, this morning neatly in a bun, is now a wild blonde frazzle, full of blackberry brambles. Based on it's uncoordinated herky jerky movements, I think the squirrel must have suffered a spinal chord injury.

I approach quietly and nearly have my hands around it, but it scoots away again, further down to where it finds a precarious foothold at the base of a bush.

So I decide, this is it.
It's going to die.
I refuse to be some giant, freakish weirdo in bright red pants, chasing it from this mortal coil to the Great Acorn Field in the Sky. I'll just sit with the squirrel...
Just sit and be a comforting presence in it's boat across the river Styx.

So I do just that, black tears running silently down my contorted face as I tell the squirrel she's a good squirrel and apologize deeply for frightening her.

I can see she's got mange and is missing little bits of fur on her back.
A little nick on her ear.
I actually have no idea if it's male or female, but decide it's a she as I am now feeling a deep kinship with the squirrel - both of us falling from great heights, helplessly scrambling to avoid the inevitable, and frightened of an unknown fate.

I am the squirrel.

It occurs to me I can't help anyone today.
Not myself.
Not my mother.
And certainly not my furry little friend.
Maybe it's never my place to do more than try.
But now it's time to give up. To let go. To be resigned and accepting of what will be.
I am about a foot from the squirrel.

We are face to face.

I put the blue carrier to the side and for the next ten minutes, am a bedraggled, inappropriately dressed heap on the dusty hillside, attempting to make sounds a squirrel might find reassuring. I don't care about the neighbors or the fact I've ruined my favorite boots. My attention is focused and ... it actually seems to be working! The squirrel's big black eyes get droopy and I suddenly change my mind about sitting here and letting her die. I just can't! I reach out and nearly have her - but she slips again, and so do I - down, down, down.

I am now far from the house in the backyard of someone I never knew to be a neighbor. And they're home. I can hear them inside as I skulk like a madwoman around their children's play structure.

One final lunge and I have the squirrel in my hands!

Then I remember the blue carrier is still uphill at the Bush of Brief Consolation. The squirrel tries to twist around to bite me with her frighteningly yellow teeth, so I let her go and she scuttles under a barbecue.

I decide then, to leave.
All of it.
The squirrel.
The carrier.
My hopes of convincing my mother to have the surgery.
My hope of booking the stupid commercial.
My faith that this second fast will end better than the first.
My hope that my boots will ever look like new again...

I head homeward, up paved streets a quarter mile, miserable and defeated. It's just a fucking awful, awful day. When I get home, the phone is ringing.

"What happened with the squirrel? Is it ok?"

I look at my desk, piled high with unpayable bills and summon a smile as bright as the Arizona sun.

"It was fine, Mother.
Playing in the garden.
It just scampered away."

The LifeSaver Center of the World

2009-06-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I feel compelled to find a deeper meaning in what may truly be unrelated events. I know better. I know the world to be a dangerously meaningless place where coincidences are simply that, and god is not hiding in the details. God's just hiding, afraid to face the mess s(he) created.

Several times over, I have experienced the full fist in your face truth of this randomly violent and chaotic universe, and I know better than to try to make sense of anything. But it's hard wired in me. Whether or not I try, there they are - the far flung pieces that seem to beg me to fit them together. The metaphors that explain the pain and turn it into poetry.

So I believe in something. I don't even know what that something is, to be honest, other than believing there's more to the space in between things than just space...That nothing is really something. I guess that means I believe in nothing.

Or rather, the somethingness of nothing. Not really in the Buddhist sense - though there were once semi-regular sightings of me at Green Gulch and Tassajara. I am not motivated to be that structured or ritualistic anymore. Besides, gas got expensive. I believe in nothing and, as distasteful as I find hero worship, I think there's something heroic in that.

I am a zer0ine.

Believing in nothing is just the bump I need to get me through my day, and until further notice, I'll just keep riding the wheel of fortune around and around, convinced there's some greater purpose to it. A purpose I will never know and will always feel foolish trying to understand. Zer0ine...the word itself is a metaphor with the number "0" a perfect, sweet nothing at its absolute LifeSaver center.

Kinda poetic, isn't it?