Things Grow Here

Parallel Lines

There are some days that
Who you were
And who you are
And who you might become
All co-exist.
Without blame
Or guilt or anger
Or even fear.

I think of those days
As days where
I am inside my story.
And it feels layered
And shuffle-able.
Ten years ago right up next to today.
And next year somehow coming before
Long ago.

Yesterday was one of those days.

I Lyfted up into Laurel Canyon
With Mitch.
To our friend Chris Young’s house
For one of those dual purpose parties.
Book release and good-bye in this case.

The book being released:
Chris’ Green Witch’s Guide To Magical Plants and Flowers.
26 Love Spells From Apples To Zinneas.
The good-bye
Was to this property
The land on which
He had learned the magic.
(They call it Little Sur.)
The place where he quit his job
As a TV exec
And one day at a time
Became a Gardener.
It’s not that he set out to do it.
But change happens.

There is something about this place.
Things grow here.
A garden variety bird of paradise
Plucked for not fitting into a friend’s garden
Here has become almost primordial in scale.
Are those giant white cups actually lilies?

Things grow here
Where wildness meets tendering.
I was one of those things.

Before I tell you how I grew
And why you care
I should mention -
Because context is everything -
That yesterday
Besides being the first day of Fall
As we who worship the earth call it
Mabon -
Ma/Bon -
The bon ma
The Good Mother
The first day of Fall
The Fall equinox scientifically
Equal parts of light and dark
Parallel lines.

It’s harvest time no matter what
And for us of words
The harvest is memories
And I had been charmed to this place
Which was like a secret field
I’d forgotten I’d planted.

And for deeper context
Yesterday was also
The 45th anniversary of Blondie’s
Parallel Lines.
One of the great records of all times.
Sure.
How miraculous to be here for it.
Because she is a friend of Chris’.
In fact has written the intro to his book.
She’s actually been here.
They have a signed toilet seat to prove it.
She has stood in this spot most likely
And in the way that there is no time
This goddess of my girlie days
Is standing there with me
In the kitchen
With a lukewarm cup of black coffee
In an old Parallel Lines mug.

Once I had a love it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Running through my head.

And while Chris runs in with a bleeding leg
A cactus has stabbed me that never happens!
And I help Jon patch him
I’m jumping mental lanes
Parallel lines

I’m hearing this record
For the very first time
Still so young
I believed I knew who I was
And would be forever.
And ten years ago was it?
Maybe a dozen now
Being in this kitchen
Chris in his rocking chair
Me wandering in from the guest house
Where they were sheltering me
As my life
As I
Was falling apart.

I’d gone sober
And was facing divorce
Foreclosure
Bankruptcy.
And I was also coming back to life.
Like a field I’d planted
And forgotten about.
And now here
In this magical place
Reanimating.
Things grow here.

I remembered the nights on the hammock
My now ex was living with me still
And sometimes after he’d fallen asleep
I’d escape out to the garden
And cocoon in the hammock.
Letting the moonlight
Dissolve me into nothing.
Which is one way to grow.
Things grow here.

I stood gripping that Parallel Lines coffee cup
WIth that iconic picture of a girl woman
Hands on hips
In her white mini
Bossy but fragile
Soon turned out I had a heart of glass
I had wandered away from the socializing up by the pool
And found myself wondering
How she is still her
And isn’t.
How I am that me
But not.
How Jon and Chris are now packing up
Getting ready for a life as ex-pats.
Joining the ranks of magic wand-ering Americans
Looking for the enchanting place
That can become the home they’ve lost.
We’ve lost.

So this place will be gone.
Well not gone
But not here for me.
And changed for sure.
It’s not hard to imagine
The new owners won’t want this kitchen.
And with all this land
Will find a way to build
A second bathroom.
One that Debbie Harry won’t ever pee in.

I lean
The sure to be demoed ceramic counter
And let it all swirl.
Jon and Chris’ stories
My own
Blondie’s.
Harvesting memories.
And making a new one.
Parallel lines bend.
Hard straight lines
Can curve
When warmed.
Loved memories somehow
Vere towards each other.
And sometimes away
Protecting each other
From colliding.

Make new memories
I was instructed when I lived here.
I did.
I do.
Memories are seeds that grow
You don’t always know what kind of plant they will be.
They combine and recombine
Into a constant morphing garden.
But it’s a garden that becomes
Ma-bon
The good mother of all that is
If you keep adding to it.
New memories
Take the sting
Out of regrets.
We learn to have no regrets.
As the Big Book says.
By creating.

Things grow here.

I re/mind myself constantly
The word creativity
Comes from a word
That means to grow.
We think of creativity as making things.
But no.
Growing.
Sure growing while we are making things.
And always choosing to make things
That will help us grow - change.
Growing things are never parallel.
Growth is never a straight line.

This morning
I Wikipedia-ed Parallel Lines.
To find out the story of how it was made.
As it turns out
An LA producer
Took this punk NY band
Into the studio
And turned them into a pop sensation.
Blondie changed
As they made this hit album.
For Chrysalis Records.
How perfect.
They went into the cocoon
And dissolved and became.

And the end of the day
Mitch and I stood
At the bottom of the stone stairs leading up to the garden
The Ma-bon sky turning that perfect un-blue
That sets off the inky tree silhouettes.
I started singing
So many thoughts and feelings…

What are they?
He asked.
I didn’t answer
Becuase I had no words yet.
Only pictures.
I knew they would come
When we were cocooned in the car
Driving down the hill
Back to our lives.

Things change.
We had changed.
I was in a life now
With this man whom I loved
And when I had lived here in the garden
It was only a whisper of a possibility.
Maybe it had been the magic
That the aloes and lilies and birds of paradise
Had worked on me while I dreamed
In the hammock
Of I life I couldn’t yet imagine.

Some days
Who you were
And who you are
And who you might become
All co-exist.
Without blame
Or guilt or anger.
With love.
Some days
The parallel lines bend.
This Ma-bon
Was one of those days.
May you be blessed
With friends who tend you
And who you can tend.