Dear Chico's Arms

Dear Chico's Arms, 


You reached out to me when I was 18, your creeks strung across the valley.
Blue oak. Red bud. Sycamore. Salmon.


I walked over your bridges and my heart spoke an easy "Yes."


Those college days were just a taste, a lick off the top of a Shubert's 
Chico Mint melting ice cream cone

Humboldt Park, artist: Gregg Payne

I graduated, my family came
"What a cute town..."
"This is a bubble world..."
"What do people do here, just sit on their porches all day long and socialize?"


Somedays, yes.


You didn't want to let me go and 
I resisted too, and then
San Francisco called. There's work there. I had to go.


Your arms rested, warmed by the hot valley sun, your hands dangling in the branches of almond trees, gray squirrels tickling your belly. Your arms are patient arms. 


And in between them lies a womb more fertile than any I know on Earth. I came back to you, fell in love 30 miles north in the cold Sacramento River current, and I missed you. The night sky was brighter there, your small-city lights tumbling on a navy blue blanket, dulling the radiance of stars. But in my heart, I longed for the human spirit lights, the Chico community, a tribe more starlit from within as any I've seen on Earth. 


Some say there's a giant magnet under Chico. 


Years passed and you welcomed me back to a sanctuary home, sycamore limbs cradling my nighttime breath, Little Chico Creek singing prayers around the dinner table. 

And I'd stay there, in and out for years, true to my fluttering gypsy soul, tucked in and held by you. Chico. Valley town, soil rich, rice fields in rain land of entrepreneurs giant wind chimes, earth-loving beer makers, MaMuse harmonies, bike touring adventurists. Chico. "Little boy." College town.

Your arms are so rich, and they cannot offer the ocean. Fertile river mud, not sandy salt kissed air. So I left again and frolicked in a crisp ocean way, southern sunny heaven. 


And as the mist filled my joyful heart as I slept in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, you held space for newborn Buddhas, one after another, seed by seed soaked in full sun, filling your fields. I could hear their giggles from afar, and so, one day, with no clue why, I came north again. 


And until today, I've never known the sound of stillness as it curls up in my lap, purring, soft like silky peach fuzz, eyes like crystal. We blend together beneath this giant wind chime, as summer turns to fall.


Your playmate, 
Rio

Note to a 3-year-old Friend

Dear Graciela,

Today I had the
really, if I think about it,
unfathomable blessing of spending
three hours with you
you who came through two of
the dearest friends life's given me
Nicholas and Emily

Graciela at 7 months

All of what you came to share
would splinter specks of light
to fill a thousand suns
and blind me
in this moment
if I looked

As it stands, the way you ask
"Tia can I wash dishes with you?"
at three, pulling up a chair
beside me at the sink,
soaping up the small plastic yellow spoon
"Tia can you hold this so I can rinse?"
"Be careful with Mommy's glass..."

Shy with hellos and goodbyes
you say "I'm here"
with your eyes
and tell the truth when
Mama comes home from her new haircut
blue feather braided into black hair
"Mama I can't see it!"

Truth from a 3-year-old's soul
three just on Earth
this time around
Infinite, by all other means

I assure you, passionate little angel
what you came here to
teach us, your parents, passersby, me
is being heard.

Our hearts sometimes shudder with the sound
as you shake our comfort zone reality
with the wisdom of beyond our eyes
and sometimes it will seem like
nobody is listening
our heads so far perched above
the child's
perfect presence horizon

But I promise
on some level
Your love is landing
voice of a dream bird
singing our dream song
Young friend,
your love is landing.

-Tia

What the Heart Knows

Dear Heart,


As I sit with the thought of you
and all you know
this morning
across the table from a friend whose skin
whispers
like Spanish moss
my chest expands on its own
to make room
for all you know


Your wisdom is wider than
all the world's libraries
your capacity to feel 
packs eight thousand words into none

You know wholeness
you can't break
though we might feel your power
shattering universes of feeling 
inside of us
this is simply 
our watery bodies speaking
their greatest gift
our capacity to feel




We need not fear that shattering
it is what widens our world
Let us love 
with the all of you


Passionately,
Your devoted student

Farewell to Luna

Dear Luna,


You left your body on Monday and I want you to know
how much you touched our lives
for the eleven years you shared with us.

Luna grooming her sweet self near Mt. Lassen

In Alaska, in Chico, in Baja
in the mountains, at lakes, at sea
on rafts, on trails, in sand
in creeks and under the
dining room table licking up scraps
dropped by your vivacious new
human sister Morgen


Glancing with pure devotion at Marko
Snarling ever so gently when 
children stumbled over you
Snarling not so gently when Lusa nipped at your ankles


Batting your whispery white eyelashes at
the three dozen compliments strangers gave you
every time you walked down the sidewalk
I am Luna, 
Regal Snowy White 
Star of the Dog Universe


I always felt softened
to be with you
In a world of rough edges and splintered lines
you were the perfect blend of
icicle feather, angel paw


Your Earth tribe will miss you, sweet one.
We will always love you.


Tia Jessie

Dear Baby Boy Soul

Dear Baby Boy Soul,


Are you calling to me?
I dreamt of you last night. Someone in India had asked me 
to care for you while traveling. For two weeks, 
you'd be mine to watch and care for.



And in that dreamscape
where all lines cross and 
one reality becomes another
you felt like my
little boy.

Then one day our group of travelers went to the mall. 
A tall girl I'd befriended walked beside me. 
I'd dressed in a pink and orange silk sari
wide skirt flowing at my ankles
just like the tall American girl.




Somehow
she was holding you now.
"I'm going to hold him for a while," she said.
My heart agonized
I had loved holding you 
it was heaven
and I'd waited all day to be with you again
your soft brown hair and chubby thighs that felt like
my hands were designed to hold them
as you sat on my hip


"No you're not," I said to the girl. 
"i've been wanting to hold him all day
and he's my responsibility. I'm watching him."


"Well, too bad, because I'm holding him."


I stood there, shocked
jaw dropped down toward the layers of 
pink and orange 
floral print silk.


Fighting energy does not belong around babies
I would not aggressively grab you from her arms
She would give you back later


But the grief...
Baby Boy Soul


Are you real?
Like in Velveteen Rabbit, are you real because
I love you?


Will you pass through my body someday
bewildering me with the sheer miracle of growing
from seed to full human being?


I would die with love for you every day.


Am I going to have you? And if not, why do you keep 
showing up in my dreams?


Mama

Charm, Power and the Human Heart

Dear Old Lady on NPR,


This morning as the day opened up before me, your voice crackled into my cottage. You were at a diner having breakfast with your old lady friends when a charismatic NPR reporter handed you a microphone. 


Two years ago he asked you, "How do you feel about Obama?" You were optimistic, and perhaps even as enamored with his charm as I was. Swept off your Aerosoles. 


I remember how I felt two years ago. I hope people don't expect a dozen miracles a day from this man. He is one man. We have a whole Congress, a whole complicated and complex system, a huge web that influences what happens in the political and economic landscape. It's ignorant to perceive the bulk of the power, and place the bulk of pressure, in his hands. 


We are here to awaken. And when we "go to sleep" and expect people in influential positions to "make things good" for us, we choose not to play an active role in shaping our world. And in that very moment, our world ceases to meet our deepest needs, because we are made of Source, God, Love, goodness... and we get to create what we want. To deny this gift is a tragedy. 


As you well know, Obama is criticized by every corner of the political map these days. Some of it makes sense to me because we put our faith in leaders and when they aren't able to live up to what they said, or to our expectations, we naturally feel disappointed. 


But all the rational claims and criticisms in the world, however fact based, will never outweigh the power of the human heart. And in my heart, I know Obama is an exquisitely beautiful soul with noble intentions and tremendous courage. 


In moments of fear, sadly, humans tend to blame. We don't see the power to create inside of ourselves, so we project the power elsewhere. But you didn't seem to do that as your elder-wisdom permeated my morning air. You still believe in Obama. You see his heart, and you see that he is a loving human being. Your eighty years have polished you with the sheen of forgiveness, of leaning into light. Of choosing to see the good in people.


You stand for that. Thank you for seeing with forgiving eyes. 


Jessica

Dear Self-Doubt

Dear Self-Doubt,


You spent the morning with me. Even after a bowl of fresh fruit, delicious gourmet granola and fresh local goat milk yogurt, even after a big cup of coffee and a walk with the dog, you were revved up and ready for the day. Disappearing during moments when I was being fully present, you returned when I turned my attention toward the past or the future.


You hung out with me as I searched for a place to live, and creased my forehead wondering if I'd ever find a place I loved as much as my Cardiff cottage. You considered which actions I should regret from the day before. You held a sermon inside my head scanning for ways I could be a better daughter or a more loving mother to my dog. You wondered if and when I'd ever live my dream. I almost let you take the reins again all day.


Then you met my friend Dresden. Within minutes of showing up, she and I were engaged in a Gmail chat session about living our dreams: about writing. We made a pact that every day for the next 30, we'll each spend 30 minutes writing. And publish it. 

Writer's Pact Girl

An hour later, you met Serra. She texted with an invitation to come swimming in her huge pool on this hot Labor Day. Swimming with bright-eyed children whose presence is like Buddha. 


And by noon, you met Randy. And like a parched field during the first few minutes of rain, within an hour spending time with this exquisitely beautiful friend, I could barely hear your voice at all. 


Self Doubt, I'll never hate you. You are welcome in my life; I am having a human experience. You are a facet of my perception and you want to be loved. That's the only way you'll find your place, wherever it is, at peace.  I'll just make sure to spend more time nurturing the friendships that help me to feel peace too.


Jessica