Eugene Ruggles 1935 - 2004 (photo)

Gene Ruggles  and Shirley Kaufman in Petaluma

Gene Ruggles was an old friend of my mom's from North Beach. My mom, she got around, sometimes she'd bring her City friends home to meet my grannie and me in Forest Knolls. Gene Ruggles and my grannie got on like a house afire. She would make Irish sodabread and brew a pot of strong tea liberally laced with Irish whiskey, which she kept hidden in the bedroom closet, for Gene.

They'd talk of things Irish and politics until the sun slipped behind Mt Barnabe to bathe in the ocean. Then, when the stars studded the sky, my mother and Gene would stagger down Arroyo Road, half-lit, to Sir Francis Drake Blvd. more than a mile away, and hitch back to the mysterious City. Sometimes I wonder what they talked about as they wandered down that dark country road to civilization.

TYGER, TYGER

TYGER, TYGER

The moon’s tears splashed into the ink dark lake,
a harvest of light rippling the sky
She leans down, offers it up to the stars.
They say Ithuriel’s spears watered heaven with his tears.
They say Blake saw God in an apple tree when he was four.
He spent the rest of his life looking up in the orchards
But God was busy saving Ireland, the land of saints and poets.
And the fey world fled with their celestial constellations in tow
to take root in Blake’s orchard. The apple fell far from the tree
and flourished in Avalon, Anglesey, the Isle of apples.
Amid the oak groves, druids climbed towards the sky
harvesting mistletoe with golden scythes under an equinox moon
But this island was their last stand, their last resting place
Before the Romans drove them underground for good.
They became fossil stars trapped beneath the skin of the earth.

6/04, 9/08

Oh what a beautiful morning freewrite

Sigh, I’d like to think everything‘s going my way, like in the song, but sometimes it all feels so hard, so futile. Last night I slam-dunked the book on women’s depression. I didn’t seem to fit the major categories, but I answered six of the 10 warning signposts, which, according to the author, puts me in the definitely depressed camp. Let’s see: am I in the major league or the minor league? 

With self-help books, the bases are always loading, and it’s always spring training camp at the box office—as we are a nation that legislate happiness for all—indivisible, even. We are so preoccupied with our own petty unhappinesses, it’s a national pastime. There is an entire section dedicated to self-help in the bookstore. Instead of being positive, we are perennially positive that something must be wrong, and we’re on the verge of either going into, or coming out of depression. We are all hanging 10 on the stasis shelf of unhappiness. Personally, I view it as an indulgence of extreme self narcissism. 

And then I thought of how we live in such uncertain times—ever since 9/11, our collective perception has changed, to say that of the middle ages milieu, or should I say, mayhem as 3/4 of Europe died of the plague, and if not the plague, then the crusades polished them off. It’s a wonder that we were able to re-populate and replace ourselves as it were. Obviously, the survivors did not live a monastic life, they were like the newly introduced rabbits, populating themselves to kingdom come. After all, someone had to fill the churches of Christendom, lest the infidels sweep across the steppes in the footsteps of Genghis Khan. 

Today Neil asked one of his students to play Maria in West Side Story, the Juliet scene, and she said oh no, not me I am too cold. She was the niece of the president of Afghanistan, and she said if that scene were to happen in my country, if some Romeo snuck into my courtyard, I would’ve been beheaded. She said so matter-of-factly, that she could no longer react. She felt nothing at all no depression, no reprehension or horror as she views us as the infidel in this country, where happiness and justice are legislated for all, but not from within the war zone.

6/4/2004 Writers’ Group

If. Whatever's burning up your mind, freewrite (Merrill Gardens journal)

And so they asked me, it was my turn, and I had asked them to ponder on "if." A hypothetical question, but also a loaded statement in a rest home. Especially when asked if you had to live your life over. By asking them probing questions, I was asking them to not only to delve into the past, but also to share their souls with each other. 

Many of these folks had lived together for years and still didn't know each other's life stories. I thought, these were the lucky ones, the ones who lived charmed lives, an ambassador, a designer, a concert pianist, and an organizer. What emerged, was that each, thinking the others life was more glamorous than their own lives. Envy. 

One person chose to say her life was perfect. She was content. Another devalued her life experiences. We all gave her a mouthpiece. And another added her story to the collective invisible pile, as if the laundry of the soul was laid out to dry on the breakfast table. 

Then it was my turn. They called in the chips, and here I was, 3 to 4 decade younger than there, feeling valueless and fragile and the Oldsters were telling me that I still had plenty of time left. But I was not convinced. 

Madeline Bedal from Montana, who took just turned 91 wasn't with us. I miss her terribly, as she is my touchstone for the residency. She, who was a kindergarten teacher, who became legally blind, who thought she had nothing of value to contribute, told us extraordinary stories of her pioneer childhood, enthralled us.

I savored those bittersweet precious moments as we made plans for the future, knowing that nothing is really certain, not even the next time that we will meet. And we met fully in the moment and made plans anyway. These senior citizens and I are sharing our life stories. I told them that it felt like I had a roomful of grandparents, and they all smiled and laughed. We reaffirmed each other's existence.

Enroute to the senior center Alene (?) and I pass the scene of an accident, a young man being lifted up on a gurney all cerulean and blue, the colors of the sky. His car looked like in overturned beetle. An SUV had run right over it. I wondered would he make it.

I couldn't help but think of my cousin Sinead emerging from her own darkness, thankfully oblivious to her ordeal, her memory having been wiped clean, her slate blank, so that she couldn't bear witness to the darkness that she had experienced. She fought back. She fought back the darkness, not ready yet. She  began to remember and she raged and raged against the dying of the light. She did did not plant go gentle at that junction of "if."

6/4/2004 Writers' Group

• In the rain without an umbrella, freewrite
• Madeline Stannard Bedal Chapbook
• Della Madeline Stannard Bedal obituary
• EGRETS FOR SINEAD