Have you ever had one of those moments where you felt compelled to reach out to someone, or do something right that very minute? An impression planted in your mind, settling down right between your eyes. It’s beyond explanation, an urge you can’t shake. Like a deeper knowing. For me, I can count these times on one hand. And one of them happened on Friday.

Friday was a really trying day for me. I was overwhelmed and just trying to make sense of some things. So I gave myself a time out, and luckily Dean stepped in to take Milo. I have a secret place in my old neighborhood I like to go just to sit and think, and clear my head. There’s an opening that looks across the valley. You can see downtown Oakland, the Bay Bridge, downtown San Francisco and even Alcatraz on a clear day. Plus, the sunsets are royal.

So I was driving there, no music this time, and two words touched down, nearly forming on my tongue. They sat there bold, unfleeting, like a visit from an estranged relative settling into your sofa. The two words were “Maya Angelou” – and I was driving up to the village where I knew of two bookstores along the way.

When I went in, the first store owner told me they couldn’t get any of her books. Since her death, distributors couldn’t keep them in stock. So I headed across the street expecting the same news, but was told out of her 30 books, they received 1 copy of her very first book earlier that day. And I’ll be damned, the one I was looking for.

Luck??

So as I was paying, I chatted with the store owner about the writer Colum McCann, seeing his new book on the counter, telling him how I loved Let the Great World Spin. We compared it to his new book Trans Atlantic that the owner was currently reading.

“His style is a little different from Maya Angelou,” said a stranger who’d just walked in, standing behind me, seeing Maya’s book go into a bag.

“Just a little different,” I humored him. At the same time thinking he’d better not try and bogart my book, as I snatched up the receipt.

“Did you know she used to live a couple blocks from here, a big white house over that way?” the man pointed.

The store owner and I looked at the guy dumbfounded. “Really?” We said at the same time, as I recalled a few mentions of San Francisco in a late interview.

“She was a good friend of mine,” the man continued. “I spent many nights at her dinner table. She was the best conversationalist I’ve ever known. We’d arrive at 6 and leave at 11, and it only seemed like minutes had passed. She was so enchanting.”

And then as he talked, it set in. At that very moment, things around me crystalized: the owner’s eyeglasses, the weathered book bindings, the stray hair on the man’s neck. The ground lifted a little, and we were suspended in time. And then it made sense, that urge to do something, to be somewhere right away. And I smiled thinking I live among the footsteps of a poetic, revolutionary soul.

Some people talk about “putting energy out there into the universe,” how it comes back to you. I think of Maya Angelou as my Soul Godmother that’s passed. In fact, I even referred to her that way days before. But I’d call a moment like this something else. Something other than a rotating wind that whips back over an even plane. It’s a 2-way dialogue. “Ask and you shall receive.” I’m forever humbled and grateful for the care I’ve been given by Him over the years.

Some pearls of wisdom from my Soul Godmother, Maya, from my freshly minted I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings:

“Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.”

“A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.”

“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.”

May your spirit live on, Maya.

You said of all your roles and accomplishments in life, the most important was being a teacher to others (this coming from a tour de force: multi-Grammy winning musician, dancer, poet, writer, mother, professor). No wonder you were given over 50 honorary degrees in your lifetime. [And to think you were a young mute for 4 years, afraid of your own voice.]

May your sentiments always live on, and may we always remember to “look for rainbows in the clouds”.

M

All day I have been thinking about my blog, anxious to post. Even though I wasn’t sure what to write about. I kept waiting to be able to sit down and see where the page would take me. Just an hour of absolute quiet in the house, a spicy chai latte and the sunshine coming through our living room window. But that stolen hour never came today. And now this girl is beat.

Because this morning – while Dean cheered on the 49’ers in the playoffs in the city, I was chasing my runningback Milo down the halls of Babies R Us. If there is one store where people can’t give me the stink-eye when Milo smashes into their cart, or pulls crap off of shelves, this has to be it.

All was fine, until the creepy professor dad in white knee-high sport socks and cargo shorts sidled up next to us at the toy cars. That holier than thou, I’ve got my kid under control look. While Milo, my Godzilla toddler wedged himself in a mini convertible police SUV then refused to disembark when ordered to. And so ensued a string of outbursts ending with his limbs going rigamortis on the astroturf platform. Then again onto the dirty linoleum floor.

You can imagine what came next. I forget why I originally went to Toys R Us/Babies R Us in the first place (oh yeah, to look for toddler bedding) – needless to say, this never happened.

Then upon putting what should have been an exhausted boy to bed for his nap – a new game of violent Twister occurred, right before he spider-monkey’d his way over the two tall chairs in front of his toddler bed. So that rendered utterly useless. And so we are napless. And crazy. And that’s just a couple setbacks today out of 10.

So finally, here I am now chillin’:

I swear this kid has aged me by an extra 50 years just in these last few months.

But if I made sidetrack for a bit – let our eyes feast on this fashion foray above. Pink poly pants, mod paisley cut-off tunic, turquoise earrings and flapper headband. Seriously, how dope is she? Let’s not forget the Seinfeld sneakers. And please don’t forget the stash of stogis. Because when I’m really up there in age, I am totally gonna rock that shit too, from all my favorite decades. All at once.

I had no idea where I was going with this post, but what the hell – that’s the fun of it sometimes.

So we’ve landed in a bizarre golden dream, and I can feel the arthritis creeping into my fingers. (No ma, it’s not from drinking Diet Coke.)

On that note, I’ll pass you the geriatric halo and bid you good night.

All I could think about this morning were persimmons. I have no idea why. We took our Saturday stroll to the Farmer’s Market. Each step over crunchy Autumn leaves closer to the farmhands yelling “PERSIMMONS” in their different dialects.

When I was eight living in Mesa, AZ – I gorged myself with oranges. Nothing fancy like persimmons. We lived on Concho Street, a square suburbia lot with a swimming pool, bermuda grass and a giant orange tree in the back that bared fruit as big as a baby’s head. You could hear the seismic boom as each one fell to the ground. Thunk. Thunk. I remember our Spaniel mix Daisy that stood at attention, her front paw up and frayed tail straight, pointing and saluting each miscarriage. It was the summer that never ended. I tasted and excreted those damn oranges. I inhaled their white veiny wedges. The sticky juice running over my lips, dripping down my collar-bone, staining my navy floral swimsuit.

I don’t have this same hope for persimmons. I only hope for something new.

So today I left the Farmer’s Market with a bag of persimmons, a package of Wasabi almonds and 2 Afghan bolanis. If the CIA ever profiled me based on the contents of my bag they’d deem me pschitzophrenic: Profile 1: organic bohemia. 2: Nostalgic for those Asia de Cuba nights. 3: Local hippie supporting third-world fare.

But I am craving some different lately. Something fancier than the norm. Maybe because  I’m trying not to look at a bleak month (or two) ahead since my freelance job let me go last week. Soon after my boss quit. They said their budget was tightening and they couldn’t afford to keep me. And they said it with one week’s notice. Right before the holidays. I’m forever at the whim of the almighty corporate budget. And budget, you can suck my d*ck.

Also, what sucks is that Christmas is next month. And I don’t know what kind of numbers my husband is looking at next week with the end of the sales quarter. And I don’t know how I’ll buy all the station parts to add on to Thomas the Train.

So for now, I will hang on, stay positive–make persimmon muffins (since that Martha Stewart crumbly cinnamon thing was way too many complicated. And I really don’t ever want to be connected to Martha Stewart, even through a recipe).

I’m going to remain a hip-hop dancing housewife with chocolate-hued nails that bakes with her buttcrack showing late at night while swilling some vino.

Oh wait.

How you like these muffins?

Here’s where I got the recipe if interested. Still a little fussy with the French gourmand version, but they are too die for, thank you.

With confection, brown sugar and sweet kisses.

Good night.

M

From one of my all-time favorite wordsmen:

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness. 

– Pablo Neruda

Dear Milo,

One of my first memories of childhood is the sand slipping through my fingers on a San Diego Beach. I am three years old with long braids and blunt bangs and the world has first turned itself on. It’s a beaming sun with booming waves, and the saltwater is spraying my face. I am happy, and loved. I am free. I am three.

This past weekend I saw this same joy in your eyes. You navigated the sand, all the while staggering in those size 7 feet.

The Carmel breeze tousled your hair and you stood at the edge of the water, completely idle. Motionless.

I found myself speechless because never once in your short time on this earth, have you ever stopped moving. In the womb, a thousand iron-clad kicks, and with your first steps, an awkward mad dash.

And now the surfers slip past us in rubbery black suits, only to glide over a roiling dark universe.

I want to tell you as far as your 21-month old eyes can see that this is real. Not a fleeting dream. Not a YouTube clip on my phone. Not merely a doctored photo (filtered, yes). Layer by layer, as the wires fuse in your mind, it will start to make sense. And you’ll begin to grasp the mystery, the beauty, the pain in this world.

But for now we’ll welcome the sand wedged under our nails. We’ll chase each other through sharp blasts of wind. We’ll yell in words that make no sense while the wind lifts our hair for exclamation. And I’ll remember you this way forever.

But I’ll also remember you like this: The boy with the nose that never stops running. The boy who already craves independence. The boy who inspects everything with his hands: abandoned crab shells, soggy tennis balls, strings of seaweed, cigarette butts, and the irresistible clump of “POO”.

I love you Boo.

Your beachbound mother forever.