June 19-20

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Father’s Day at the DeVore home, but here at the ocean I hear only the tranquil swish of waves and the caw caw of seagulls flying right past my sixth floor balcony.  On my fourth morning waking to dawn brightening over the grey water, I’m feeling rested after five hours sleep and ready to get back to my Joplin memoir on hold for past six weeks of sorting, packing, moving, travel, and all that happened here.  I read the draft in progress yesterday with fresh insight ready to expand and revise.  In those years (summers 1976 to 1979) I strengthened identities and convictions as lesbian and feminist, as scholar and teacher, and as mother bonding with my 9-12 year old daughter.  Getting fired from my first tenure-track job for writing a lesbian story radicalized my activism.

Cheyenne and I arrived here Wed.  My amazing granddaughter unpacked my entire Jeep in three loads and hooked up my computer, printer, and portable oxygen concentrator while I slowly moved in to this best-ever condo with two bedrooms, two baths, ample kitchen, spacious living-dining area that opens on to a wide balcony spanning both main room and master bedroom.  After unpacking, Cheyenne and I tapped like little nerds on our matching laptops facing each other at the dining table.  I’ve set up archives on my life in the bedroom. For reading I can lounge on either sofa or in the recliner by the balcony.

I’ve posted a picture of our ice cream celebration at Friendly’s that evening.  We were pretty pleased with ourselves.  Cheyenne slept till almost noon on Thursday when her mom arrived and we all went out to lunch at Grapevine Café attached to Green Turtle Market full of healthy gourmet treats.  My stamina wasn’t up for shopping, so I rested in my Jeep while they foraged and drove a cart around Winn-Dixie for groceries. Back at the condo, I realized I was in for the next four days until tomorrow when I fly to Denver.  L & C left about 7 pm Thursday, and I inhaled blissful solitude.

The euphoria I felt at Cape Winds condo in November has waned.  My fragility and inability to walk on the shore just yet deflates me some.  I could easily dissolve in tears if I let homesickness for Doris and everything I left behind take hold, so I don’t go there.  I do need oxygen when moving about in condo but can take it off while sitting.  I’m learning new skills for survival in this phase: move slowly, live consciously in each moment, meditate more, focus on one task at a time—enjoying a meal without reading, breathing consciously.  My arsenal of heart drugs and new caffeine-free life also keeps me slowed me down.

I’m reading slowly.  At Lisa’s house I read two novels (Kate Grenville’s Joan Makes History, a comic romp through Australian history lifted from a carton for Rollins, and A Mother’s Love by Mary Morris) and lots of newspapers and magazines. In my 3-4 days here I’ve finished three books—Atwood’s brilliant Oryx and Crake, Martha Egan’s delightful story collection La Ranfla and other New Mexico Stories, and The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power (1985) by Barbara G. Walker.  I’d started Atwood in Nov but would only allow myself to dip into this treasure at the ocean, so I read most of it here now.  As with most of Atwood’s negative utopias, it stuns me with the inevitability of our species’ self-destruction.  Martha’s stories brought me back to the loco ways in our land of enchantment.  I was there in spirit yesterday when friend and fellow activist Martha with Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water staged a demonstration against Intel, almost a chapter from Oryx and Crake or any doomsday prelude to Armageddon.  The Crone surfaced in a carton I thought was all Lesbian Nuns but turned out to be an odd mixture of books to give away and to keep.  My ecstasy discovering the ancient matriarchy during those Joplin years came back in a rush--my conversion to separatism, my radicalization.

Monday, June 20

Packing for Denver was easy since I’m taking no luggage except my so-called portable oxygen concentrator with its three heavy extra batteries for the four-hour direct flight and a shoulder bag with my drug arsenal in neatly prescription-labeled baggies, quart Ziploc of cosmetics, folder of FL Hospital and cardiologist reports, CD of stent insertion and catheterization (great for Monday night at the movies!),  snacks, journal, mini Motherpeace tarot, old Sunday NYT book reviews, and a treasure: original paper edition of Audre Lorde’s Cancer Journals inscribed to me by my old friend and guru Dorothy discovered in a box never intended to come to FL (more on the box later).

I leave my condo at noon for Lisa’s house.  We pick up the CD at Florida Hospital—not exactly on our way to the airport.  Flight departs Orlando at 5 and arrives in Denver at 7:15 MDT.  I gain two hours flying west.  Doris will meet my wheelchair outside Frontier baggage claim with a bag of slacks and shirts for our visit to my Denver pulmonologist on Tuesday and to take back to FL.

Thanks to Jan Zimmerman in ABQ for walking me through setting up my blog and now adding five of my favorite Albuquerque theater reviews in a side bar.  If you read my review of The Year of Magical Thing, click at the top for my review of for colored girls written the same weekend.  For more, go to http://www.talkinbroadway.com and write my name in the search box.  The link doesn’t seem to work this morning, so best way to find my reviews is URL above, search my name, and select a play.

Sunrise glowing orange now over the ocean on this Solstice morning.  Enjoy!