Moments of Grace

5 am this morning and I feel the nudge of a cold, moist nose prodding against my hand which is dangling weightlessly off of the bed.  I am in a deep sleep but I feel myself slowly rising up from underneath my dreams as if soaring towards the surface of some deep body of water.  I open my eyes to see the face of my twelve and a half year old dog, Becca, grey around her chocolate brown eyes, constant companion, strictest confidant.  This is one of the very few faces in the world that can get me to do just about anything regardless of how deeply I am sleeping or how intensely sore my body aches.  Very barely clothed, I follow Becca to the sliding glass door in our bedroom and pull it open.  I look out on the enormous body of water which covers the horizon before me.  I scootch down onto my heels just in case there is the chance of a low-flying helicopter catching sight of me at this barely lit breaking of dawn.(as if there is any possibility of that)  Becca searches for the perfect spot as I try to bring my weary eyes into focus.  I remind myself as to how incredibly lucky I am to live here, on the Pacific ocean, and in my mind I send out several prayers of profound gratitude.  The first one naturally goes to God.  How solacing it is to believe, with all of my being, that Adonai is always close, in all of the details, in me.  The second prayer goes out for my husband.  Keep him safe in all of his travels throughout the day.  Keep him safe, dear God.  Keep him safe.  The third, to my four daughters.  Thank you for choosing me to be your mother.  I am here, I am here, I am forever here...  I look up into the sky.  In my line of vision, there is the Century Agave plant that I first wrote about back in April.  Bright yellow flowers bursting against the early breaking dawn.

And busily buzzing around those blossoms is a tiny wisp of a bird, a Hummingbird who has made this possibly one hundred year old plant, its home.  Her color almost equal to that of the flowers, I know this must be a female as male Hummingbirds have ruby-red throats and pointed tail feathers.  Females have a more rounded shape to their tail feathers.  She zips along from flower to flower, sipping the sweet nectar.  At first, I watch in complete amazement.  I have seen countless numbers of Hummingbirds throughout my lifetime, but my fascination with them never dulls.

I think to myself that I wish I had my camera and then I remember that it is sitting right next to my bed.(It is usually only an arms length away)  I scurry over to pick it up hoping that the Hummingbird will still be there when I return.

And she is.  Like an angel bird foreshadowing the harbinger of a beautiful day to come, she flits from flower to flower making me almost happy to be awake at 5 am in the morning.  I put down my camera and watch her for several minutes longer.  I want to dream about Hummingbirds when I crawl back under the covers again.

Becca trots back over to me and I kneel down to scratch behind her ears and kiss her stinky head.  To me, she is so beautiful.  I give her a "cookie" which she takes back to her bed to eat.  I settle back into the warmth and security of my bed.  When I look down at her again, she is contently snuggled back into her bed, breathing deeply, almost softly snoring already.  I sink slowly back down in to the realm of dreams, my breathing in perfect sync with the rhythm of this morning.

When I rise up again many hours later, the sky is cerulean blue and the flowers on the Agave plant are now a bright Crayola yellow.  Becca dances in front of me to let me know that it is time to get out of bed for the day!  I reach down to scratch her on the head, but she inches away from me coaxing me out of my bed.  I laugh as I follow her to the back door.  We walk out the the edge of the bluff but instead of looking down to the water, I immediately am drawn upwards.  To the top of the Century Agave plant, to the buzzing of a Hummingbird's wings, to the sky, to the sun, to God.

May you take notice of enough details in your day to remind you that there is always a reason to say thank you. Sometimes, you might have to search for it a little harder than other times, but it is there.  It is always there...

Blue

Momma Agave plant reaches her stalk high up into the moonlit sky.  She began to flower a couple of weeks back and I keep an eye on her with an almost incorrigible curiosity.  It is as if I should look away, I will somehow miss something.  Something I might never witness again.  As I wrote about several weeks back, these particular plants only flower once every one hundred years or so.  I am awed to be present during this part of the plant's life-cycle because of the infrequency with which it occurs.  It truly is something to witness as these plants remain quietly dormant for most of their lives and then suddenly,  as the silent timing of nature takes hold and a stalk reaches gracefully upwards into the sky, the Agave plant is transformed into something much more ethereal.

There was something about the way in which the moon colored the sky, two nights ago, a cerulean blue, celestial and other-worldly.  Looking up, I traced the lines of the giant stem with my eyes, noticing the way in which each branch, each bud, each flower, stretched mightily for the heavens.

And then I found myself doing the same, fingers clenched together over my head ascending skyward toward the Divine.  What is it that seems to draw our souls upward with a longing that is difficult to describe?  And yet, I believe that you know what I mean as I write this...

*Thank you for your kindness, your prayers, your energy, before, during and after Friday's court hearing.  Turns out, that there is no clear-cut law(actually none that either attorney could find) stating that someone who is not a parent seeking custody or visitation with a child(or children) is responsible to pay attorney's fees to the individual who is being sued, win or lose.  That being said, our case is so unusual that the judge does not want to leave room open for an appeal which could take up tens of thousands more in dollars and two more years in court.  Also, judges do not like to be overturned on appeal.  So, the ordeal continues.  Both attorneys must submit briefs stating their arguments and cite laws that will show that it is, or is not,  legally necessary for me to pay my niece's mother's attorney's fees.  We will then head back to court in July to proceed from there.  From where we are standing now, it does not look as if she has a shot at receiving a penny from us, which is good because we have already suffered and lost too much.  And she is nowhere near being a "poor widow".  She received an enormous worker's comp settlement after suing my brother's employer.  He was not on the job when he died.  It is a wacky world we live in.

It Would Have to be During my Century, Yes? YES! or How the Agave Plant Made me Cry

When I cannot write for a while, not only do I miss you, but I feel as if I am leaving you wondering.  I begin to experience "Blogger's guilt" a term that I just aptly came up with to describe the loyalty which I have come to feel towards my readers, including the ones whom I have become friends with, the ones who pop in only infrequently, and even the anonymous readers who have never left any comments.(I would love it if you would de-lurk for a moment just to say hello, but if not, that is okay too unless you are my long-lost aunt;))  There has been a lot of minutiae going on lately, both large and small, and whenever I sit down to write, it seems that something commands my attention and I am whisked away from my laptop in a whirlwind of sudden commotion.  This past week has been Passover for our family and while preparing our Seder for twelve or so people last week, our ceiling sprung a leak meaning NO water for most of the day until nearly the time when our Seder was supposed to begin, at which point my dear husband tore out a portion of our kitchen ceiling locating the leak and completing a good portion of the work for the plumber who then stood in my kitchen and quoted me $468.00 while I stared at him as if he had a third eye knowing that I was in serious need of a hot shower before our guests came.  His final remark, "Well, dinner smells good, anyway."  Would you like me to pack you a Tupperware along with the $468.00 that you are about to rip me off for too???  How about you pay me for the time I spent solving the issues you are having with your pre-teen children, hmmmm?  On the same day, my constant companion, our dog Becca, lost complete use of her hind legs and had to be brought to the Vet for X-rays only to find out what we had suspected all along.  A portion of her spine is no longer viable and she will never regain the use of her hind legs.  And even though we have known this has been coming on for quite some time(She is 12 and 1/2 years old), it is a very bitter pill for me to swallow.  Everything else is healthy about her and so, from now on anytime she needs to move around, be it changing positions or going outside to the bathroom, one of us must completely support her rear legs by roping a towel underneath her belly and letting her lead with her front legs.  Believe me, I am not complaining because she is still around and she is still my best bud, but it just hurts my heart to watch her lose her mobility.  We are researching different options that will make it a bit easier for me to help her move around.  I know that they make "wheelchairs" for dogs, but unfortunately, that would not be a practical solution for our old girl.  So, I do my best to anticipate her needs and she does her best to communicate them.  We have been together for so long that we communicate telepathically.  And then there was the miserable realization that I have been manipulated by someone whom I had already washed my hands of, years ago, but who managed to do it again with me as a willing volunteer this time.  If I told you who it was, you would not believe me(and it might break your heart, too), so let's just chalk this one up to my extremely soft heart and move along.  No regrets because I can never regret anything I do out of love and empathy.  Never...

But none of that is what I came here to write about today.  It just explains a bit about why I have been slightly distracted lately.  It also helps to explain my Blogger's guilt.(You never call, you never write...)  Here is what I really wanted to share with you.  Leave it to nature to put things into amazingly clear perspective.  As you know, for the past several years, we have resided more than half of the time in our beach house.  And on the corner of our lot overlooking the Pacific, there has always been a rather large cluster of prickly plants which our gardener labeled as Agave plants.  They resemble Aloe plants but the tips of their leaves contain very sharp, thorn-like edges that really hurt if you happen to brush by them by mistake.  This plant is also extremely prolific in that it produces "pups" or baby Agave plants on the paths all around it.  Instinctively, we began removing the pups because the mother plant is so extremely large that we did not want to have our yard overtaken by the little pricklers.  A couple of weeks ago, a giant, very phallic, asparagus-like stalk seemed to sprout from the center of this plant overnight.  It seemed to go from invisible to ten feet tall before we even noticed that it was there.  When my husband began to refer to it as "the penis plant"(yes, leave it to a guy;)), we decided that we not only needed to photograph it, but that we needed to research what the heck was going on with our Momma Agave plant.  And so, I began the Google search.  Turns out, there are several subspecies of Agave plants many of which make lovely ornamental additions to a western yard.  This one, however, not so much.

What I discovered about our prickly Momma plant and her pups is that she is an Americana Agave, also known as the Century Agave.  The leaves, if broken open, release a highly toxic, highly allergic type of substance which will burn skin upon contact.  This is not a rash to be messed with as it will blister and can last up to a month before healing.  We did not know this when removing the pups from the pathways.  The other thing, and this is really the point of my story, is that there is a reason that this plant is called the Century Agave.  That asparagus-looking thing in the center which none of our neighbors have ever seen before, will eventually flower and put on an amazing show for us.  BUT, after the stalk dies off, it will take the Mother plant with it and in its place will be left a huge mess that is nearly impossible to remove once dead.  It is recommended that once the flowers on the stalk begin to die off, the stalk, which is very thick and very coarse, be sawed off and removed.  That will hopefully preserve the life of the Momma Agave plant.  The interesting thing, of course, will be the removal of the stalk without having anyone come in physical contact with the inner goo.  Therein lies the fun.  One must wear protective clothing and protective goggles in order to safely handle this type of plant and even then, who knows?  Now, this is the part that fascinates me beyond comprehension.  The Century Agave only flowers once a century.  That is once every 100 years or so.  Remarkable.  Truly remarkable.  And when I stare out at this Agave plant, I cannot help but basque in the wonder that someone, 100 years ago or more, pulled that baby out of the desert and planted it right here on our bluff.  Not knowing that in 100 years, we would be sitting here looking at the very same plant as it puts on a spectacular show.  100 years.  Who knew?


Nature certainly has a way of putting a spin on how infinitely small we really are in comparison to so much of what is around us.  And as I gaze at the Momma Agave and her maturing pups, I cannot help but relate to her in so many ways.  I mean, here I am, and here are my babies ages 17, 19, 21 and almost 24.  When someone meets their children or their children's children in 100 years or so, will they somehow sense the spirit of who I once was and how those individuals made their way into this world?

Above is a picture of our yard which was taken on February 24, 2011, only eight short weeks ago.  See the Mother Agave plant in the background of the picture?  No stalk visible at all.  Now the stalk reaches way up into the sky like Jack's Beanstalk in the children's story.  Only this one took 100 years to reach its glory up toward the heavens.  And soon enough, it will be gone.  Which is why the daily stuff does not matter so much to me anymore.

Love to you.