Tango by the Venetian Well


I was looking through some pictures of family trips we've taken and was reminded of a vivid experience we had in Greece a few years ago. This was one of those moments that will be burned in my memory forever. David and I were having dinner with the kids on the island of Corfu, at an outdoor restaurant called the Venetian Well. It's named for a lovely 17th century well that was built when Corfu was under Venetian rule. As we sat outside eating our dinner, this unassuming couple got up and danced the most beautiful tango. It's hard to describe, in that this dance was, as the ratings go these days, barely PG, yet at the same time it was the most truly erotic thing I've ever seen. The boys were, as the Brits might say, gobsmacked. In this poem, I've tried to describe what we saw:


One August evening,
in a plaza where people dined and drank
by a Venetian well,
the music changed.

A young man and woman,
both wearing jeans and t-shirts,
stood, embraced, and danced the tango.

Faces
touching, chest-to-chest,
they moved as one, stepping and
gliding
quickly then slowly
then quickly again.

As the couple danced,
diners put down their forks and wine glasses,
very carefully,
and fell silent.

The song ended, and the plaza was quiet
but for a soft textured shhhhh as the woman
dragged her foot, clad in a Converse sneaker,
up her partner’s leg in a final caress.

The dancers stepped apart
and sat back down at their table.
As if coming out of a trance, the people in the plaza
looked around them,
and then down at their plates,
and began to talk and eat again.

While There is Time

Like most parents, probably, I often rush around trying to do "just one more thing," and find myself reminding the kids to do the same. But as my boys grow up, I realize that there's a certain amount of time I have to get things done in a day, and then there's a certain amount of time I have left before they will be off to college and out of the house. In all of my going out and coming home and trying to get everything done, I want to pay attention to things I love about being their mom.


Boys, quickly,
take out the trash before the garbage truck comes
while there is time

Add your jeans to the load of laundry I’ve just started,
while there is time

Let me quiz you on Spanish pronouns before school,
while there is time


While there is time,
Talk to me in the car about what you did at school

While there is time,
Sit and read with me by the fire

While there is time,
let me put my arms around you
and rest my chin on the top of your head

Check Engine Light

This poem is not quite a fully formed thought. But what I was trying to express is that, while I'm a fairly careful, risk-averse person, I sometimes find myself inadvertently engaging in risky behavior. Not the hang-gliding or swimming-with-sharks kind of risky behavior, but stupid little things, like procrastinating about car repairs, or putting off those annual doctor's appointments that become more important as a person approaches certain ages, like 40 (sigh).
One of my new year's resolutions is to make these "fix-its" and preventive measures a priority.


I take vitamins,
eat my greens, avoid hazards
like base-jumping and
gator-wrestling and going
to the ATM
after dark. So why do I
keep driving around
with the check engine light on
in my car, as if
daring the metal beast to
buck me off and leave me stranded
by the side of the road?

Summer in Seaside Heights

I recently stumbled upon an appalling, fascinating spectacle: the new MTV reality show “Jersey Shore.” If you haven't watched it yet, don't. It's pretty awful. But what I find interesting about the show (for about five minutes, anyway) is the cadence and rhythm of the characters' speech, and their often startling choice of words. Pauly D, "The Situation," and the whole gang have a colorful way of speaking that their west-coast counterparts, on equally bad MTV reality shows, just don't have. This is a “found poem,” full of actual quotes from the show. With thanks (and apologies) to E.E. Cummings and the good people of New Jersey for the inspiration.


I’m beatin’ up the beat
that’s what we say
When we’re doin’ our fist pump
I mean this situation is gonna be indescribable
You can’t even describe the situation that you’re about to get
intothesituation

Don’t get the spins. Seriously.

I’m gonna break it down dancing
I love the beats
I got my creepy patent move
We’re bangin’ it as the beat builds

G.T.L., baby. Gym, tanning, laundry.

Listen let’s go back to the house and get some pizza

Sisters and Brothers



When I hear the line in Dr. King’s speech about his hope that one day in Alabama, “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers,” I can’t help but think of three of my favorite kids, who happen to be people of color, and happen to be adopted. My community is not very ethnically diverse—lots of shaggy-haired blond kids here—so the boys and girls of color really stand out and usually enjoy something like celebrity status. I don’t know if this is exactly what Dr. King had in mind, but I think it’s a good thing!

My friends Pamela and Andrew Herrick adopted their youngest daughter, Catherine, from China when she was a year old. For work-related reasons, the Herricks are living in Asolo, Italy, and Catherine and her older sister Caroline attend school there. What I find so amazing is that little Catherine was born in China, became a California kid, and now, as a five-year-old, speaks Italian, correcting her parents’ pronunciation or vocabulary when need be. She is a character.

Cora Metherell, who is of Latina and African-American descent, was adopted at birth by our friends Sarah and Mark. Cora is now almost three years old, and more beautiful by the day. She’s the little girl jumping off the boat to her mother in the picture I posted.

Vasco, ten years old, is from Malawi and is in the process of being adopted by Cathleen Falsani and Maurice Possley, also close friends of ours. How they found Vasco and the chain of events that brought the three of them to Laguna is too amazing for me to tell here. Plus, Cathi and Maury are famous writers who can tell the story much better than I ever could. Anyway, I had some fun writing an ode of sorts to these three children, whom I love dearly:



Catherine, Caterina, China doll of the Veneto,
Smarty-pants mascot of Café Centrale:
May you eat your vegetables and grow,
so your stature matches your attitude.
May you never be far from your stuffed Kitty,
and may you return to us soon so I can hear you say,
Gelato limone, per favore

Cora Cora from Bora Bora,
Miss Thing, precocious princess of Brooks Street,
the best two-year-old snorkeler there ever was,
the fastest-running little girl on two feet,
amazing eater of grown-up things like salad
and stinky French cheese:
May you always be fearless like your daddy
and adventuresome like your mom

Vasco, Capital V, you own the letter V!
 (I’m just glad I get to have a V in my name like you)
Mini-Jimi, micro-Spiderman, Chocolate Ninja,
super-striker for the almost-undefeated Fat Pandas:
It was really good of you to come all the way from Malawi
so we could be lucky enough to know and love you.
May you keep outgrowing your clothes and shoes
and may your strong, beautiful heart take you everywhere you want to go
 (just remember to save a tickle-hug for me)

Open and Shut

Earlier today, I was playing tennis with my kids at Alta Laguna Park. Suddenly the weather changed, and I felt as if I were in some kind of time warp. We were only an hour or so into our Sunday recreation, when some rain clouds gathered, the temperature dropped, and the place just emptied out. (I know, I know: my friends and family in colder climes are rolling their eyes right now!) The afternoon had barely started when it was rolled up and packed away; the day, compressed.


The day unfurls,
yielding tentative winter sunshine
Tennis players shed layers as they warm up and start to sweat
A child’s birthday party is set up, a riot of shiny balloons
against a milky sky
Mountain bikers speed out on the trails,
then disappear into sagebrush
Then, a change
It looks like rain
Jackets go back on as the tennis players catch a chill
A silvery balloon escapes the remains of the birthday party
and drifts away
The mountain bike riders return in a hurry,
glancing up at the darkening sky
A cold breeze blows
It feels like rain
The day snaps shut

Saturday Disarray

There are Saturdays like the ones you see in commercials on TV, gloriously full of things like family outings to the farmer's market, soccer games in which your child's team wins in a shut-out, and maybe a walk on the beach with the dog, whose coat is especially lustrous in the late afternoon sun. And then there are what I think of as "maintenance Saturdays," in which the house is such a disaster and the laundry pile so high that you don't know where to start, and as soon as you finish your coffee you wonder if it's too early to have a Bloody Mary. Today, for me, is the latter. Here's the haiku I wrote:

my desk is a mess
dishes clutter the counter
mirroring my mind?

Cowboy, Rest in Peace


I learned this week that Cowboy, the most colorful of Laguna Beach's homeless population, had died. I didn't know him personally, but I was saddened to hear of his death, and kept thinking about him. Cowboy was a Laguna icon, and I feel that his passing marks the end of an era.

I wrote this poem as a tribute to Cowboy, a complicated, troubled soul, which I guess we all are in some way. The photo, and quotes that appear in the poem, are courtesy of Stu Saffer's online local newspaper, Stu News Laguna.


“The most recognized of our city’s homeless for the past 15 years is dead. ‘Cowboy,’ Charles Reginald Conwell, 58, was struck and killed in the 1700 block of Laguna Canyon Road at 6:34 Saturday evening.”

The icon of Heisler Park,
The skinny, jangly, boot-wearing standard-bearer
of the way things used to be:
Cowboy, rest in peace.

Cowboy and his kind, “hobos,”
my children call them romantically,
were model vagrants then, their only crime:
public intoxication
again and again and again.

Summer’s sad, urgent wave of squatters—
younger, more violent—made him a relic.
Memories of Frisbee games on the boardwalk
with Cowboy had to be set aside.
It was serious now.
Time was short, people afraid.

Did Cowboy sense that his kind was obsolete?
That the days of hobos jumping trains,
of benign town drunks receiving the blessing of the locals,
were no more?
Did he feel a push—
changing times, fallen economies, shifting populations
—and surrender?
Cowboy, rest in peace.

“Police said he was hit by a mini-van heading west on Laguna Canyon Road as he walked across and into the path of the van. He was not in a crosswalk, police said. It was unknown if he was en route to the homeless sleeping facility located close by.

Conwell was knocked off the roadway and the police log indicated that he was ‘…bleeding, breathing and unconscious.…’ Paramedics took him to Mission Hospital Laguna Beach where he was pronounced dead a short time after his arrival.”