I’m waiting my turn to submit a routine blood sample. The agency I use is located within a small shopping center in
Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The door opens from a sidewalk into a large square
room: a slate-grey carpet, big windows on one wall, seating around the perimeter in
apple green vinyl, to blend with the wall behind my chair; the wall I can see
is beige. There, a couple in their seventies; he's reading his tablet, she's
like the younger woman to my left, tapping her toe, nodding her head, to the
rhythm of Motown on the radio. I think if there must be music piped in here,
Motown is ok with us.
FWIW: This acronym blusters
self-effacement with an undeniable need to express. None of that has to do with
this.
My first experience of acute pain
that became disabling occurred in 1989 -- suddenly, it seemed. We were renting
a railroad flat, first floor above a garage,
in a flat section of San Francisco. The day my ovary ruptured, I happened to be
alone in a room with one window looking out on a wall of the building in which
I lived, overlooking an alley between ours and the next building. I couldn't move or get to
a phone, and all I could see was light on the exterior wall, which was
transformed from an ugly nameless beige to a square of sublime yellow light, to
which my spirit clung until the eruption in my belly settled into dull
ache. Afterward I promised myself I would never forget that
clinging to the light.
 |
| ©2002 Ravenna Taylor, "Subito," oil on canvas, 22.5 x 21 inches |
A long recuperation followed
after surgery, during which I decided that I really needed to live in a place
that had more pleasurable possibilities than the plaster ceiling and the curve
of the crown moulding in the living room of that Edwardian flat. In a few years more, we were living in a small house we'd bought (with the help of my
father-in-law, RIP) on a hillside above the valley in which we'd rented. Selling
points had been trees: two Acacias in front that completely filled the living
room window, and were themselves filled with chattering birds; and at the back, a towering
and beautiful Monterey Cypress tree to view through the bedroom window, which
overlooked a steep drop and would have had quite a long view to the east if not
for the tree -- but there are views all over the SF Bay area and who needs a
long view at home, when there's a Monterey Cypress about 150 years old or so to
enjoy? We were high up in the top of a tall tree, on a raft in the sky, in my
imaginings.
As it turned out, my neighbors
needed a view instead of a Monterey Cypress, and had the tree cut down, after
we'd been there about 10 years. They went away for that period so they didn’t
have to witness the assault on a vitally healthy mature tree. I actually did
wail and scream and cry. And then I started to envision a move to a place where I
would be surrounded by trees and rivers. The increased value of our SF house
made it possible for us to have an old clapboard farmhouse with a big old barn,
and a pond, near the Delaware River in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. It took a
few years to make it happen, but we’ve been here ten years since September.
 |
| ©2001 Ravenna Taylor, "Instrumental Dwellings 7," mixed media collage, 6.75 x 7.25 inches |
A few days ago, I was at home only because my gym
was too crowded to enter, hence I happened to be present for the four
minutes it took as the day-long storm's twilight tinted wet orchard grass heads and
turning leaves to the color of a faded rose. We make the most
of such “events,” while life often makes demands for resilience
and optimism; my store has run low, Nature never does. I have told myself that
something needs to change; a part of me, reflecting upon the fact that it’s now
10 years since my move, wonders if it is conditions that foster this, or is it my inner rhythm,
a ten-year cycle that propels me? Not either/or, possibly both. Things change anyway, one might
as well choose sometimes! There have been setbacks, and nothing
to crow about for years. I'm looking for high points, the crow caws in the tree's pinnacle.
Today the woman who took my blood, wearing apple-green pants, was managing the
place entirely alone -- her co-worker was sick. With each new client, she
apologized for the wait. She didn’t complain but didn’t conceal her situation
behind a false cheer. She was a human being doing her job well, pleasantly answering the
phone while filling out forms, once or twice breaking into part of a song on
the radio. She was my good news for the day; I wanted to be hers. I thanked
her; I acknowledged her situation, I told her about the woman in her seventies
tapping her toe, and the woman who came in after me and smiled at everyone in
the room, about how in the waiting room, her clients were enjoying the music
she’d selected. The phrase “tickets to paradise” came up in a song, and she
said she wished she had some, she’d go for sure. I confided that nothing
especially good had happened to exult in for some long time, but I look
around every day and think it doesn’t get a lot better than where we live. Of
course, she probably grew up around here and doesn’t have the perspective I’ve
gotten from moving around so much. I hope she might be on the uprise of a wave, one
that will propel her to newly changed conditions, the kind that don’t
demand resilience and optimism, and a continual search for silver linings.
That’s all.
 |
| ©1996 Ravenna Taylor, "Another Migration," watercolor, gouache, 30 x 22 inches |
Addendum: This morning (April 6, 2014), I found this poem by Mary Oliver, and I've decided to add it to the end of this post.
Singapore - Mary Oliver
In Singapore, in the airport,
a darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women's restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something
in the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that's not possible, a fountain
rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and
neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor,
which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as
hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don't doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop
and fly down to the river.
This probably won't happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn't.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
the light that can shine out of a life. I mean
the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
the way her smile was only for my sake; I mean
the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.
