Beauty in Sadness?

Sadness is like an empty church
cold, but suggestive of the untouchable.
A tinge of hope lingers in the soul
with a wish for comfort
a desire beyond desire
for that place called home.

It's where the eyes ache
with unrealized tears,
the throat feels too small
to cry out or moan
to assuage the loneliness.

Yes, sadness is a place
confined and trapped
a place inviting escape.
Listen, outside the birds
are silent in the darkness.

It's too much to grasp.
to stretch a hand out in need.
In lassitude, the sadness
holds tight the promise
of freedom.

In beauty vines entwine
but strangle the fence.
Sadness demands fidelity,
demands attention.
Taste the tears and sigh.

by Elizabeth Munroz

What does it take to be a good writer? A shy withdrawn personality with awkward social skills? A mind lost in contemplation and fantasy? Being called loony, insane? A diagnosis of Schizophrenia? That's what Janet Frame thought the requirements were for several decades of her life. It made it difficult for her as well as others. Yet, her belief and her personality helped make her a poet, a good story teller and an award winning author. It's too bad she was misdiagnosed. She really didn't need the stigma of thinking herself a crazy woman!

Janet Frame was born in New Zealand of a simple hard working railroad man, and a brilliant woman with a "high class" ancestry. She led a life of material poverty juxtaposed to literary wealth. She was fortunate her mother was well versed in poetry, literature, and music. Like a bubbling spring she continually blessed her children with her treasures along with their milk. Yet, the best gift of her childhood was a fascination with words so strong that she actually collected them throughout her life, the way others collect figurines or baseball cards. Janet wrote of her earliest collected words:

"I remember learning to spell and use these words: decide, destination, and observation, all of which worked closely with adventure. I was enthralled by their meaning and by the fact that all three seemed to be part of the construction of every story --- everyone was deciding, having a destination, observing in order to decide and define the destination and know how to deal with the adventures along the way. Partly as a result of the constant coming and going of our relatives and of our own shifting from place to place, I had an exaggerated sense of movement and change, and when I found I could use this necessary movement to create or notice adventures I was overjoyed."

I once caught the tail end of a PBS program called "An Angel at my Table" about Janet Frame's life.  I was so fascinated, I kept wishing I had seen the beginning and one day learned it was being aired again. Needless to say, I made sure I watched it. Was the story exaggerated? How could someone live such an impoverished and tragic life and make a success of it? The film director, Jane Campion, who produced the movie, was enthralled with Janet Frame's novels from the age of fourteen, and many years later she visited her odd eccentric home.

 " ...she took me through the house and showed me how she worked. Each room and even parts of rooms were dedicated to a different book in progress. Here and there she had hung curtains to divide up the rooms like they do in hospital wards to give the patients privacy. On the desk where she had last been working was a pair of earmuffs.


"I can't bear any sound," she explained... "

It was amazing to me that Janet Frame had become a well published author with her history of mental instability. She claimed New Zealanders had been so starved for something to read that they accepted her. That doesn’t explain, though, why they gave her every possible award for her works. I think she obviously deserved them. She also became so well known in Europe and the United States that the year before she died; in 2003, at the age of 80, she had been nominated for the Nobel prize for literature. That's more than sufficient evidence she was a talented writer. It's probably a good thing she didn't win, as she might have been burdened by the two million dollar award. Even after all those years and success, she still led an incredibly simple life eschewing grandeur. I suspect she would not have known what to do with the money.

I chose Janet's autobiography based upon my deep interest in her life as portrayed in the movie, and correlations to my own. I wanted very much to learn her style and what she might reveal about her writing journey. One problem we all seem to have is that a movie never really captures a book we have enjoyed. However, it is just the opposite in this case. I'm glad I never read her biography first. Otherwise, I would not have bothered to watch the movie. I sadly trudged my way reading through her autobiography. At 435 pages it is not a fast read!

Her life story had originally been published in three volumes. (To The Is-land, An Angel at My Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City) But, I went for the copy that included them all. Except for the first section, I was so disappointed I almost decided to give it up. However, I felt compelled to present her story, and continued to read as I had put so much emotional and time investment into this project.

I had been hungry to absorb the intriguing details of her life as presented in the film. I wanted to learn more about the tidbits I found in researching what the critics and historians wrote about her and sought diligently for them in her autobiography. But, the cohesive details were lost to me. Her life story was boringly written as though a news reporter was presenting dry facts. This interrupted the flow of the her gifted prose so well done in her novels. You might say, then, why did I bother to continue reading, if it was so bad? Wanting so much to complete my own life story, I was searching for this mysterious power she had to write poetry and fiction and her own autobiography, that won her so much acclaim. Someone had found her writing more than acceptable, not only in New Zealand, but in other parts of the world, too. What more was there than the intriguing vignettes of her life I had seen in the movie? What made this woman tick? And what could I learn from her to improve my own writing?

What a dichotomy when comparing it to her fiction!!!

Even though I did not find Janet Frame’s autobiography to be the enjoyable read I had hoped to have, I gained a lot from it. I learned more of her personal life that explained her eccentricities. Perhaps she was a high functioning autistic as some have said. What I gained was the knowledge that to write is to write, to organize, to set aside time, to stay out of the way of distractions. All aspiring writers know this. Yes? But, foremost, I learned from Janet Frame, HOW she did this.

Story of a Dreamer

He sat on my knee and talked to me all night long -----every night, while I slept.  His voice penetrating my dreams and the dark spaces between.  Sometimes, in the lucid dreamstate he had taught me, I strained to listen.

“What was that you said?”  I asked, but he seldom repeated anything, as though he must continue piling message upon message.  Sometimes I just let him drone on in his stream of consciousness way.  Sleeping through much of it, I didn't’t attempt to stay lucidly awake.  It just wasn’t humanly possible.  Yet, I knew every word was of utmost importance.  After all these years, I thought it would sink in on its own volition.  The sleeping brain being a sponge, and all.


In the beginning we did this only a little bit. But as time went by, and his appearance altered from one being to another, the messages became more detailed, more intense and instructive. It was very satisfying on one level and very startling on another, as the things I learned began to bleed through into my daily life. A subtle intimacy had developed between us. I hadn't realized until later.


It was the night he sat on my knee, like a little shaman when he nudged my mind with urgency, “Now, pay attention.  You need to pay attention!”

“Okay, okay.  I’m awake.”  But, barely. I tried not to drowse but I couldn’t keep focused through the haziness of twilight sleep.

“I have to leave you,” he said.  “You have one year to live,”  he said.

That woke me up fast.  I tried to sit up, but he gently laid me back down, relaxed.


“You must learn this!” He urged. My attention was focused deeply.  “Good,” he intoned.


He led me through a new practice.  Traveling through my body beginning at my feet and working upward, with specific instructions for breathing and tonal qualities.  Fearful that I might miss something of his one-time-over instructions, I concentrated deeply, doing exactly as he said, observing each step of the way, experiencing, with as much clarity as I could muster, the newness of it all.  Yet somehow this was familiar.  Hadn’t we done this before?  We left the solar plexus and rose up to heart.  I opened to love and compassion and we floated there a moment.  Suddenly he reached into my chest and pulled my ribcage apart yanking it wide open.  The excruciating pain of it was more than anything I had ever experienced before; more severe than childbirth, more than bone cancer surgeries, more than falling in love, more than hating.  That kind of pain was nothing I could escape. It woke me completely.

“Look!” he said.

I obeyed, looking down from a great distance into the gaping wound of my heart in total amazement.  The pain disappeared, replaced by the magnificence of a brilliantly, pulsating spiral. The Universe alive before me, within me, all around me. Bliss..... Cool, deep, dark soothing velvet embrace of timelessness....


Just being.....in this all encompassing spaciousness beyond thinking...beyond words.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. So, eternity ended and I followed him back up to my throat where, surprisingly, he repeated the instructions precisely, without the spectacular accompanying visual effects until I was able to recall them verbatim.

“I have to go now,” he said. And was gone.


The pain in my chest was nothing compared to the resulting grief of losing my twenty-five year long relationship with my beloved teacher.  I didn’t even know his name.  Did he ever have one?  Didn’t matter. The apparition that had become such a part of me no longer existed.


Copyright: Elizabeth Munroz  

Cousins

Thinking of my nephew, Raj today. This is him on the left. My son, Xavier on the right. Me above.

The boys are about fourteen or fifteen years old so pic was taken about 1988-9 in New Castle, Indiana

Dream of Mom and Dad

Dream of Mom and Dad
Feel so sad
Grief
Heavy grief

I get a message
from beyond
"see Brother Frank"
"talk to Brother Frank"

He can tell you
what you need to know.
The message is strong
it's fervent, impressing me.

I  don't want to
see Brother Frank.
I want Mom
I want Dad
I dont need preachers

Then the text
messages begin.
Messages from Mom?
Could they be from Dad?

All of them religious
one after another
messages from the dead?
or a hoax?

~~~~~~~~~~~
Photo is of my parents taken in the 1980's at Canyon Country California
They are no longer with us.
This month Mom would have celebrated her 92nd birthday.

The Green Green Grass of Home

Aromas, California, earthquake country. Just had a couple good kaboom shakers a couple days ago! These pics pinpoint the exact spot. What an interesting life I lead. Standing in my kitchen, I heard/felt a BIG SLAM! I wondered if someone had crashed their car into the front of my house. But, a few seconds later, another SLAM. Well, of course a little quake. My, but it was a noisy one for only a 3 pointer. But if you're standing right over it, of course you feel it!

~~~~~
Note: photos by me

Divorce is Not Always the End

I had an unpleasant surprise today. My ex-husband died. He went in for an endoscopy. They sent him home after 45 minutes. In four hours he was coughing up blood. A short time later he was found unconscious, by his wife. Though and ambulance arrived, they were unable to save him.

For anyone reading this, please don't be in a hurry to go home after a procedure like this. Obviously the possibility of biopsy ended up badly. Also, if you ever cough up blood afterwards, get yourself back to the hospital. 

My daughter is beside herself, as are my grandkids. I am shocked. He was in good health, and only a year older than I am. I'm still in disbelief and sad for him, his wife, his kids from both marriages.

I guess once I drive the 400 miles to his funeral then it will sink in. It's kind of ironic. Isn't it? Here I am with Leukemia and doing well. He was doing fine and all of a sudden, died. 

Well, I guess it's true. And I mean this with no disrespect, but we all gotta go sometime. I know he would have preferred it the quick way and that is what happened. 

But, it's still hard on my daughter.

Rest in Peace, Duane W. Shuman. You will not be forgotten. 

Just Journaling

I have UVerse for my internet. It's been a pain in the arse! I was actually "tricked" into signing up with them. There was a commercial that AT&T kept running. It stated you could dump your home phone and still be able to use internet. They didn't specify it had to be their internet, though...UVerse.

I already had a local internet provider that I was very satisfied with. If I had any problems I could even take my computer in to the office and they would look at it. Not many internet service providers do that! But, I had dumped my home phone service which I got through them, AT&T cut off my connection to my local internet provider. After a month of going crazy without services (boy oh boy am I ever addicted to the internet!) and checking out all available sources, I was forced to take on UVerse for a year contract. I have until June before my contract with them runs out. I am hoping I can get reconnected with my original service.

Listening to the beautiful harp music from the CD I bought from Laura Simpson, the lady who was playing the harp at UCSF Medical Center. Sure is peaceful.

No wonder the harp is often portrayed as being an instrument of angels!

I've been attending college, but not going for a degree. I haven't the energy. When I had the bone cancer, I took a lot of courses and took them as credit-no credit courses as I didn't want to worry about a grade. I just wanted to enjoy life, not knowing how long I might have to live. Now it has come back to bite me in the backside. They have now changed the rules and all those previous courses are considered to be under "probationary status". This would normally prevent me  from attending, but as a disabled student, I can get that status rescinded each semester by a counselor. I only took one class last semester... memoirs writing. I've completed quite a bit the last two semesters. I was hoping I could repeat the class, but they have now dropped the class offering. The instructor will be teaching a different class next semester which I hope to add. I'm on the waiting list for it right now. It will be a combination of writing styles, poetry, fiction, essay, and some memoir.

I feel more inspired to write if there are others writing too. I haven't written a thing since last semester ended. I really do want to publish. I will do it myself. I have two author friends. One who has published in book form and one who has published in Ebook form. I will probably go the Ebook way. I can do it all myself. If a publisher likes my work, they can then publish in book form. But, I doubt anyone wants to publish a book about a woman fighting cancer all her life who also happens to be a low level Bi-polar. But, I do have contact with about 3,000 chondrosarcoma patients who might be interested in buying the Ebook. I'm not after money, just want to share my experiences in case it will help someone else to get through the same thing.

While I was taking the class last semester a young man was there who had spent the last seven years struggling with the type of leukemia that kids get. (forget which one). Technically speaking he is cured now. He sees my doctor's partner. Small world!

I did some research and learned that in my county, population about 250,000, the total leukemia patients diagnosed for 2008 were 32. No stats newer than that. I figure that young man in my class was one of those statistics at the time. Now, I have found another person with Leukemia. She is my age... sixty something, and has ALL. She is in the wait and see mode. I'm not sure I understand it. But, we presently have shared one email each and hope to meet up sometime soon. I have a bad cough right now, so I want to wait til it is better. I had gone to my local hospital cancer support group and they said that leukemia patients don't come to the meetings. I guess because we are such a minority.

44 Books I Read in 2011

/

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius *****
Author: Dave Eggers


Steve Jobs ****
Author: Walter Isaacson

The Emperor of All Maladies *****
Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Time Traveler’s Wife ****
Author: Audrey Niffenegger



No Impact Man ****
Author: Colin Beavan

The Son of Man ****
Author: Charles W. Johnson

The Help ****
Author: Kathryn Stockett

2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake ***
Authors: William Gibson, Yoko Ono, Barry Eisler, Jake Adelstein, & The quakebook community

Palm Trees on the Hudson: ***
A True Story of the Mob, Judy Garland & Interior Decorating
Author: Elliot Tiber

Jerome and the Seraph (Quantum Cat) **
Author: Robina Williams

Admit One: My Life in Film ***
Author: Emmett James

The Man Who Would Be King ***
Author: Rudyard Kipling

Soul Identity ****
Author: Dennis Batchelder

The Bookseller of Kabul ***
Author: Asne Seierstad & Ingrid Christophersen

To the Is-Land ****
Author: Janet Frame

An Angel at My Table ****
Author: Janet Frame

The Envoy from Mirror City ***
Author: Janet Frame

Writing Life Stories ****
Author: Bill Roorbach

Rainbows End *****
Author: Vernor Vinge

Labor of Love: The Story of One Man's Extraordinary Pregnancy ***
Author: Thomas Beatie

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping ****
Author: Judith Levine

Cats Are Not Peas: A Calico History of Genetics *****
Author: Laura L. Gould

Bel Canto ****
Author: Ann Patchett

Not Wanted on the Voyage ****
Author: Timothy Findley

Wake Up, I'm Fat! ***
Author: Camryn Manheim

Wrestling with the Angel: A Life of Janet Frame ***
Author: Michael King

Raleigh's Lost Colony ****
Author: David N. Durant

An American Childhood *****
Author: Annie Dillard

Pleasure: new poems ****
Author: Gary Young

No Other Life ****
Author: Gary Young

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan *****
Author: Lisa See

Porter Gulch Review 2011 ****
Authors: Many


The Funniest Cop Stories Ever **
Authors:  Tom Philbin, & Scott Baker


Pompeii: City on Fire **
Author: T.L. Higley


Memoirs of a Snowflake *
Author: Joe Vasicek


The Big 5-OH! *
Author: Sandra D. Bricker

Coffin Humor: A Short Story *
Author: John Brinling

Hilda - Snow White Revisited *
Author: Paul Kater


Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery **
Author: Barbara Allan


Fat, Forty, Fired **
Author: Nigel Marsh


The Apothecary's Daughter ***
Author: Julie Klassen


Boneshaker **
Author: Cherie Priest

Note:
I don't keep an ongoing list of my reading material. Perhaps I should in the future. I had to go through my list of purchases of hard copy books from Half.com and Amazon to jog my memory. After this, I perused my bookshelves and found a few more. Even though I have about 451 books in my Kindle. It was easy to compile.

It surprises me that I read all those. I have some others, too, which I started then set down somewhere forgetting about them. I didn't put them in the list.

I Miss You, Mom!

Rest In Peace

February 9, 1920 - December 14, 2006

Genevieve Evelyn Borden Deane, age 86, died at her daughter's home in Cedar Park, Texas on December 14, 2006, following a fruitful and fulfilling life.

She was born February 9, 1920, in Breeseport, NY
She was the Daughter of Myron Rockwell Borden and Orilla Brewer Davis

On May 16, 1937, She was united in marriage to James Deforest Deane in Port Allegany, PA.

Most of her adult life, Mrs. Deane resided in Niagara County NY where she and her husband operated their own business and later she worked for St. Mary's hospital in Lewiston NY. After retirement in 1980, the couple moved to Southern California and lived in Yucaipa, and Valencia, CA.

Mrs. Deane was a member of the Episcopal Church. And was a member of Gideon's International, Full Gospel Businessmen's Ladies Fellowship, and volunteered in the Ladies Auxiliary of Assembly of God San Bernardino California, helping to create quilts for the homeless.

Personally, her extended family included all the friends of her children who called her "Mom".

Among her interests, Genevieve was an avid seamstress sewing on her old Singer treadle machine, which later on was modified as an electric portable. She sewed by hand tiny stitches as her mother had taught her while quilting. But her favorite needlework was hand embroidery. Among pleasures in her life, she enjoyed gardening, antiquing, thrift shopping, yard sales, and swap meets, and collecting treasures such as sea shells and interesting rocks. She loved board games, cards, jigsaw puzzles and was an avid reader. In her early years, she wrote poetry which was recited on the WJJL radio station in Niagara Falls NY.

Genevieve attended Port Allegany High School in Port Allegany, PA and later graduated from Niagara Falls High School.

She is predeceased by her parents, Myron Rockwell Borden, and Orilla Davis Borden, her husband James Deforest Dean and sister, Carrie Borden Staples; brother, Alvin Borden, a son Lee Deforest Deane, and grandson, Raj Anil Megha.

Survivors include her four children, David, Lockport NY, Elizabeth Munroz, Watsonville, CA, Roger, Scottsdale, AZ, and Suzan Simpson of Cedar Park, TX. Her grandchildren include Christine Deane, Lockport NY, Laurie Blunk, Alta Loma, CA, Therese Burton, Chicago IL, Xavier Rodriguez, San Francisco, CA, Carl Deane, Niagara Falls, NY and Varsha Megha,  Austin TX. She is also survived by 17 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren who will surely miss her loving arms around them.

Great-Grandchildren include Moses, Brittany, Marquis, Andrew, Justin, Michael, Breanna, Chloe, Kezia, Moriah, Tiara, Kory, Storm, Jasmine, Sterling, Rain, Anjulique, Ashanti and Rajen

Great-Great Grandchildren are Daniel, Matthew, and Alexander


With special thanks and gratitude to my sister Suzan, who devoted herself to my mother that last year of her life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: new great-great-grandchildren, Rylee, India, and Raj have been born since 2006 with another one due any moment.

What Mother Wrote 1969

Lightening crackles across the sky and thunder's magnificent bass joins the foolish chirp of optimistic early birds as rain pelts off the eaves onto the once shiny, new green translucent plastic sheet now lying in the winter worn clay muck where I once thought roses would be blooming.

And that, in one overgrown sentence, that which became one grotesque paragraph, is the story of my life. Nothing more needs to be written. But since I long ago tried to prove myself poetic, I found I was only capable of writing terse verse, and am now much older and more foolish. I feel it might afford amusement to someone if I set down some of the bizarre consequences of this "Alice life". For it all seems to be a mad tea party. All the lovely dreams and the grand plans and hope are misshapen and run into  grotesque patterns as splashes of paint thrown carelessly at a canvas.

As a young and naive girl I used to fear that lightning would "strike me still in my tracks" somewhat like a pillar of salt. Oh how cruel, but now if it would be so kind. No. There's no chance of such a romantic fate for me and I now realize there never will be. I shall be as the green plastic and once shining and hopeful of giving grace and shady welcome from the hot summer sun or shelter from the beasts of snow and ice of winter but left discarded unused, to lie in the mud and be of no consequence. Just beaten down, marred and scratched, unbeautiful and useless. Never having been in the right place at the right time to add any beauty or serve a useful purpose. Scarred and muddy and discarded.

Written by my mother, Genevieve Borden Deane, April 10, 1969 at age 49

I recall the green plastic tarp she had placed over a too early planted rose bush, that had been trammeled by a rain storm and dashed her hopes for her garden to be.

I didn't know she wrote this piece. I just came across it yesterday while looking for some old family papers.

I recall it was a short time after I had gotten out of the hospital for surgery on my recurrent chondrosarcoma (bone cancer).

I suspect the stresses of that alone could have contributed to her despondent mood.

But, I'm sure there were other things going on in her life of which I am unaware.

I'm sure, by looking at the photos, you can see she was not always so morose.

Butterflies Over the Golden Mustard Fields

For ten years
we had a beautiful green garden.
For twenty years
the sun always shone on our thatched roofs.
My mother came out and called me home.
I came to the front yard
near the kitchen
to wash my feet
and warm my hands over the rosy hearth,
waiting for our evening meal
as the curtain of night
fell slowly on our village.

I will never grow up
no matter how long I live.
Just yesterday, I saw a band
of golden butterflies fluttering above our garden.
The mustard greens were bursting with bright yellow flowers.

Mother and sister, you are always with me.
The gentle afternoon breeze is your breathing.
I am not dreaming of some distant future.
I just touch the wind and hear your sweet song.
It seems like only yesterday that you told me,
"If one day, you find everything destroyed,
then look for me in the depths of your heart."

I am back. Someone is singing.
My hand touches the old gate,
and I ask, "What can I do to help?"
The wind replies,
"Smile. Life is a miracle.
Be a flower.
Happiness is not built of bricks and stones."

I understand. We don't want to cause each other pain.
I search for you day and night.
The trees grope for one another in the stormy night.
The lightning flash reassures them
they are close to one another.

My brother, be a flower standing along the wall.
Be a part of this wondrous being.
I am with you. Please stay.
Our homeland is always within us.
Just as when we were children,
we can still sing together.

This morning, I wake up and discover
that I've been using the sutras as my pillow.
I hear the excited buzzing of the diligent bees
preparing to rebuild the universe.
Dear ones, the work of rebuilding
may take thousands of lifetimes,
but it has also already been completed
just that long ago.
The wheel is turning,
carrying us along.
Hold my hand, brother, and you will see clearly
that we have been together
for thousands of lifetimes.

My mother's hair is fresh and long.
It touches her heels.
The dress my sister hangs out to dry
is still sailing in the wind
over our green yard.

It was an autumn morning
with a light breeze.
I am really standing in our backyard--
the guava trees, the fragrance of ripe mangoes,
the red maple leaves scurrying about
like little children at our feet.

A song drifts from across the river.
Bales of silky, golden hay
traverse the bamboo bridge.
Such fragrance!

As the moon rises above
the bamboo thicket,
we play together
near the front gate.
I am not dreaming.
This is a real day, a beautiful one.
Do we want to return to the past
and play hide-and-seek?
We are here today,
and we will be here tomorrow.
This is true.
Come, you are thirsty.
We can walk together
to the spring of fresh water.

Someone says that God has consented
for mankind to stand up and help Him.
We have walked hand in hand
since time immemorial.
If you have suffered, it is only
because you have forgotten
you are a leaf, a flower.

The chrysanthemum is smiling at you.
Don't dip your hands into cement and sand.
The stars never build prisons for themselves.

Let us sing with the flower and the morning birds.
Let us be fully present.
I know you are here because I can look into your eyes.
Your hands are as beautiful as chrysanthemums.
Do not let them be transformed
into gears, hooks, and ropes.

Why speak of the need to love one another?
Just be yourself.
You don't need to become anything else.

Let me add one testimony of my own.
Please listen as if I were
a bubbling spring.

And bring mother. I want to see her.
I shall sing for you, my dear sister,
and your hair will grow as long as mother's.

By Thich Nhat Hanh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First photo taken by my sister, Suzan Deane-Simpson
Second photo taken my myself, Elizabeth Munroz

Happy Birthday, Mona!

Swimming in the Air

When fishes swim 


in waters green


behind the cube of glass,


and wake me 


in the middle of dreams


with bubbles, 


speaking gibberish,


I lie there, staring


at tail fins 


sweeping my ceiling 


free of stardust cobwebs.


Then close my eyes 


to puckered up Kissing Fish


cleaning my eyelids of algae.


I worry when my babies 


swim in the air.


Won’t they drown?




~~~~~~~~


Elizabeth Munroz 1974

Garden Memories – Lilies

Looking back upon the past summer and the incredible heat of October, it seemed to me that Autumn would never truly arrive even though my Chrysanthemums insisted on their season. Finally, we verged upon November and I welcomed the colder weather so that I could get serious about my gardening. Like a greenhouse flower, I wilt in extreme temperatures. All the things I had left undone begged me to step outside and tackle them.

For me this was a time for general cleaning up and implementing my springtime plans. I had many ideas for enhancing my garden, and as I worked, I found that new schemes jumped into my mind altering everything. I have to admit that I am a spontaneous and haphazard gardener. While raking leaves in the area that I had intended to place some Jade plant, I suddenly daydreamed of it being planted with distinctive white Calla Lilies. I had recently excavated some out of a crowded corner of my yard just a short time before. Family members requested that I share my surplus. I had put them in containers in order to keep my promises to give them my lilies, just not so abundantly. I easily changed my "well thought out" plans and enthusiastically tackled my new Lily Patch when a parcel arrived.

I had forgotten my other previous autumn planting concept to create a bed of Stargazer Lilies, and here they were on my doorstep. I was so excited, it was like Christmas! Memory lapse made the surprise shipment even more pleasant. My mind overflowed with visions of pink splendor.

I recall my first introduction to Stargazers just seven years ago. Can you believe I had never seen any before then? Upon entering the home of a friend, I was assaulted by the most intensely breathtaking fragrance that literally commanded my attention. Instead of greeting my friend when she welcomed me in, I blurted out, "What is that incredible smell?" Then I saw the flustered look on her face. Some people think that the word, smell is not pleasant. My nose is in love with gardening as much as my hands, so smells of all sorts have very special appeal for me. I realized the error of my word usage, and quickly covered with scent. “I mean, that enticing scent!”

Smiling, she replied "Stargazer Lilies!" and led me to the exquisite bouquet sitting on the table in another room. I was astounded at their loveliness and have appreciated them ever since. Even though the fragrance can be profoundly concentrated (just one flower in the house can fill your home) I enjoy them. Last summer a catalog came in the mail with Stargazers on the front cover, and I made my very first mail order for plants of any kind. After receiving the package,  I quickly got them into the ground. I can hardly wait for spring’s warmth to bring forth my garden fantasies.

Garden Memories – Lilies
October 24, 2003
By Elizabeth Munroz

Originally published in
Gardening on the Edge: Journal of Monterey Bay Master Gardeners