FUNNY THING ABOUT WRITING A NOVEL. It hardly ever pours out onto paper in sequence. That is, you don't often find a writer starting with Chapter One and then proceeding neatly to Chapter 75 or whatever the conclusion is. I recall in my first novel, Dreaming Maples, the first 50 pages I wrote -- where a young woman nine months pregnant takes a long and risky ride on the back of her boyfriend's motorcyle -- ended up about three-quarters of the way through the book.
So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that here it is Chapter 62 of Sister Mysteries, and I'm finally getting around to writing some very critical material that probably belongs in Chapter One. This chapter also answers a question that my dear writer friend Peg has been asking for about 18 years: why is the narrator writing this story? What's at stake for the narrator?
Until writing this new chapter, I could never answer that question to Peg's satisfaction. No matter what I wrote, she didn't seem convinced that the narrator, i.e. me, had made it clear why she was the one chosen to tell Renata's tale. Well, so, now I am going to send this chapter to Peg to see what she thinks.
The nice thing about writing a novel on a blog is that it's such a deliciously fluid medium: you can link Chapter 62 with Chapter One and move easily between the two. The reader can skip and skate through the book exactly the way she wants to.
Still, that doesn't explain the contradictions between the events narrated in this chapter and those described in Chapter One. Clearly, one version of events has to be a lie. The question is, which one?
The author is happy to let the reader decide.
*********
Dear Señora:
And now, this morning, I find you lying there in your bed, not speaking, staring wide-eyed into the ceiling.
The sun has not yet cracked over the horizon. As soon as I awoke, I crept into the convent kitchen and boiled water for your tea. Walking very softly, I carried the cup up the stairs to your room. Your door is ajar and I knock softly and walk in. Your eyes are open and riveted on the ceiling, and so I know immediately that something is wrong. Your expression is fixed, your face a coffee-colored mask. I set the tea down on the night table and place one hand on your forehead. Warm. I pick up your hand, which lies limp on the sheet. It too is warm, and the skin of the back of your hand is soft but the palm has that dry papery feeling I know so well.
"Señora," I whisper, leaning over to put my lips close to your ear. "Can you hear me?"
Your lips are parted but frozen. You don't move a muscle. Only an occasional blink of your eyes and a faint breath when I put my finger beneath your nose tell me that you are still alive. I set my ear on your chest and there is a slow and steady beat. But what has happened to you? Is it a stroke? And if it is, what can I possibly do for you here? What can be done for a stroke victim in 1884?
I drop into the chair beside your bed. The other nuns will be up for morning prayers before long. What will they do? Bring the doctor I suppose. But for what purpose?
I sit here with tears gathering. I sit here thinking that you are nearing your end. We've had such a long history together. I don't want to let you go. And yet, I know better. I know that you came to me for one reason only, and that soon your mission will be accomplished. I just wish you could live forever.
But then I realize, you do live forever. Or at least, your spirit does. You exist beyond the convines of time and place. When you first came to me 18 years ago, I was living through hell. I had dropped so low that I saw no reason to get out of bed. I thought I would never emerge from that dark grey tunnel of despair. It was such a hellish time. I saw a series of doctors who didn't have much of a clue what to do. One or two of them wanted me to have electroshock treatment, or ECT. And I was petrified. I didn't want to have some machine sending shock waves through my brain, frying it from the inside out.
I remember two things about the morning you came: the snow outside the window was heaped in great mounds. We'd been having wicked winter weather that year, and it most certainly hadn't helped my mood. I remember too, me lying in bed staring into the ceiling, much like you are now. And of all things, I was listening to the flies. Flies in the middle of winter, crazed and buzzing around the light fixtures and against the window glass. Maybe their last desperate gasping to escape.
I remember getting up to pee. And seeing a rather large fly in the window of the bathroom. Quite unexpectedly, I reached over and very gently wedged it against the glass. I set my finger and thumb on one of its wings. There I was, I was actually holding a fly.
I carried it that way to the door that leads out to the balcony of my third floor bedroom. I opened the door and was greeted by a blast of cold air. And then I set the fly free. I watched as he (she?) zoomed off in a giant graceful arc and something shifted in me. How very strange, but somehow that gesture -- freeing the fly -- gave me hope. Put a small smile on my face.
Soon that became my purpose. I would get out of bed at least four or five times a day -- whenever I got up to pee or to eat something -- and I would set free three or four flies. One thing that mystified me, where were these flies coming from at this frigid moment in winter?
But no matter where they came from, they were there. And I got very good at catching them in my hands. Between my fingers. I was delicate but determined. I looked forward to catching them. I looked forward to liberating every fly that I heard buzzing in my bedroom.
When my husband happened to be in the room one morning, he asked me why I insisted on opening the door to release flies. Why, he wondered aloud, did I not just use the fly swatter? He was no lover of flies.
"Because I refuse to kill them," I said simply. But what I didn't say was, this act of freeing flies seemed to give my life some immediate purpose. It was after all, a kind of existential grip that had taken hold of me, that is, life had lost its meaning. I no longer felt that I was steering my life course in a direction that mattered. But here was something that if nothing else, was a satisfying distraction.
If I could do nothing else, I could release a few flies into the universe. Perhaps I couldn't relieve my own misery, but at least I could save these little black-winged creatures from their own misery.
My husband watched cautiously as I released another fly. Then he came up to me and gently folded his arms around me. "Just hold me," he said, his voice low and trembling. I felt so bad. I had become such a burden to my poor husband. He was so desperately worried about me. He had grown so frightened. But of course he had. For all intents and purposes, he had lost his wife.
I hadn't been out of a nightgown in weeks. I was surviving on a diet of soup and saltines, coffee and oatmeal and an occasional salad or an apple, sliced and smeared with peanut butter.
Worst of all, I had begun to say to my husband with some regularity, "I don't want to live another day."
I had also taken to praying to the Virgin Mary, asking for help from the divine feminine forces of the universe. Mary had never let me down before. When I had suffered cancer years before, and I was in the thick of misery with the chemo, I would pray to Mary, and something would always happen to relieve my pain. At the worst moments, I would envision myself protected -- tucked beneath her sky blue veil. That image comforted me so much. Now I needed comforting of a different kind. I needed her to help heal my troubled mind.
It wasn't long after I started catching and releasing the flies that you appeared Señora. I remember that morning so clearly. It was a Sunday and the sky was the crisp blue color you only get in the winter. My husband had to fly to DC for a meeting that afternoon and so he had left just after eight a.m. He was nervous at the thought of leaving me alone. "You must promise me you won't do..." and then he'd shake his head. He wouldn't finish the sentence.
"I'll be OK," I said, and then we kissed and he left, his forehead wrinkled in worry.
I had finished my morning coffee. I was waiting for my morning meds -- the ativan, the amphetamines, the noritryptiline -- to kick in. My neck and back felt really sore, and so I decided to pull myself out of bed to stretch my body a little. I lay on the braided rug on the floor, pulling one knee at a time up to my chest.
The rest of it is like a dream. An amazing and incredible dream. A dream that felt more real than real life. I lifted my leg a few inches and straightened it out and pointed my toe and suddenly there it was -- a low but persistent sound. Music. It started to grow louder and clearer. I could hear someone strumming a guitar. I looked over to the radio on my husband's side of the bed. Had I left it on? I know I hadn't. I hated NPR's Weekend Edition program so I would have kept the radio turned off.
But there it was -- guitar music, and it was growing so loud I could feel it right in the room with me. I didn't know it at the time, because I knew virtually nothing about flamenco, but that was a soleares I was hearing. Soleares a form considered the mother of all flamenco. The word solear derived from the Spanish word, "soledad" or sorrow.
I stopped exercising and sat up on the floor, cross-legged. I closed my eyes and just listened to the music for a minute or two. It was quite beautiful.
That's the moment you chose to speak. "Por favor, tu es Señora Ricci, sí?" My eyes flew open and my heart started banging in my chest like some kind of drum. Behind me, in the rocking chair across the room in the corner, I heard the chair squeak as it rocked forward. Slowly, I swiveled around. You were sitting there, filling up the chair with your portly form. You were dressed in black, and strumming a guitar. My arms and legs started shaking and it's a good thing I wasn't standing because I'm sure I would have lost my urine.
I didn't say a word. I just stared at you, with a million things flying through my head. The first thing I thought: you were the same color as the flies. You were completely in black, even your stockings, as if you were in mourning. The only color was the embroidery on your magnificent shawl.
I thought back to the question that the last doctor, the super expensive one in Manhattan had asked recently asked me. "Do you ever see things?"
"See things?" I asked.
"Yes, do you have visions?"
I remember thinking at the time that at least I was that sane. At least I wasn't psychotic, having visions. But now, what was this?
I covered my eyes with my hands, and shook my head back and forth, hoping to make you go away. But you continued strumming. I looked up. You were waiting for me to answer. You smiled and introduced yourself. "Yo soy Señora Maria Corazon de Ramos." You nodded your head once as if to give emphasis to the name.
I knew the word corazón meant heart in English. I wouldn't know until much later that ramos meant tree or branch.
"Wha...what do you want?" I croaked. In English of course. It never occurred to me to try Spanish.
You switched into broken English. "I am here to have your help if you please." It's embarrassing to admit this, Señora, but at first I thought you were offering me help, as in house help. I was just about to answer that I already had a house cleaner, when I realized my mistake. You wanted my help. SHE WANTED MY HELP? What?
"I ...I don't understand."
You nodded and stopped strumming. The guitar was a beauty by the way. Blonde wood. Just lovely. "Es importante," you began, but then you switched to English again. "Important, very important. You are a writer of stories, yes?"
I shrugged. By this point I was sitting up against the brass bed, my arms hugging my knees, as I was desperately trying to get my arms and legs to stop shaking. But I was still trembling and my mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls. The truthful answer to your question was, "No, I am not writing stories anymore." I had stopped writing just about the time I had started getting depressed. The reason I stopped writing had something to do with the fact that my last novel -- published in 2011 -- had sold so few copies.
My husband had tried time and again to convince me that the key to turning my depression around lay in finding the courage to start writing again. I hadn't found that courage.
"No stories anymore," I whispered. "I don't write anything more." I felt my throat grow thick. I felt tears gathering at the rims of my eyes. All these months, all these doctors, all these meds, and yet I still refused to label myself as, "MENTALLY ILL." But now, here, with this portly Latina woman sitting in front of me, in my fucking bedroom in my fucking rocking chair, how could I possibly resist that label? I was fucking crazy.
"Es important story that I need for you to write." She reached under her shawl and took out an old journal with a chiseled leather cover.
She opened the journal and in it were a stack of blue pages folded in half and tucked into the front cover.
By now I was feeling like I might need to throw up. I was so desperate for you to disappear. I wanted no part of your story or anything else. "PLEASE," I said, breathlessly. "Please go away," I pleaded. I started to sob. "I have been very very ill," I said, choking on my tears. "I have wanted to take my life. I cannot be cured. No one can help me. No one knows what to do for me and so...I really need you to...you must go."
But of course you didn't budge. You sat there and had such a calm look on your face. I found myself wanting to stare at your face, at its coffee color, at its sculptured flesh, at its slight sheen.
You stood up from the chair and walked over to me. You reached down and took my hand. And slowly you helped me up. I was shaking so badly that I had to let you put your arm around me. Your arm was strong and fleshy. I felt your bosom against my own skinny chest as we walked around the bed. I thought for a moment that you were going to put me back to bed. But instead, you helped me into the rocking chair. And then you made yourself comfortable taking a seat on my unmade bed, facing me.
"Señora Ricci, you need something to help you, yes?"
I snorted, and suddenly my nose was flooding, and I was desperate for tissues. She reached over to the night table for my Kleenex and handed some to me. After I had finished blowing my nose, I sniffled an answer. "I need help, yes I most certainly do." I was about to say, but not from you. Only you continued talking.
"This story" -- and here you held up the leather journal -- "is for me, so so important. Life and death important."
I inhaled. I had absolutely no interest in your story. I had only one thought, that you should disappear, taking your guitar, your flowered shawl, your journal and all those blue pages too.
"I'm sorry, but....you really should go," I whispered. How I wished my husband hadn't had to go out of town. I couldn't even reach him by phone.
"I will go I will. But may I tell you just why I am here? It will only be a moment of your time." I was about to say no but you plowed forward. "I am a poor old woman who made a big big mistake." You said the words "beeg" and "meestake." You stopped talking. You reached over to the tissue box and took one for yourself and dabbed at your dark eyes. "I let a poor innocent woman die," you said, and now you were starting to cry. "You see, I could have stopped it. The hanging" -- here your face crumpled up -- "would never be happening."
Hanging? What hanging? In spite of my impatience, my desire to see you go, you now had snagged my attention. And something else: seeing a poor old woman sobbing into tissues on my bed had struck up a chord of compassion in me. I was distracted at least for the moment from my own worries.
I waited.
"After Renata got hanged," you continued, "I could not live. I could not sleep or eat. Nothing was inside me but worry and regret. I prayed. I only prayed. I prayed in daytime, I prayed at night when I am sleeping. I asked the Virgin for help. I told her I would be happy to die myself if she would bring back Renata."
I blinked. Suddenly I was thinking not about how crazy all of this was, but how real you seemed to be. I couldn't explain it, but I just knew that you were not an illusion. You were a flesh and blood person. You were a poor old soul who needed help.
"Who...who is Renata?" I whispered in a raspy voice.
Señora, at that moment, your face collapsed onto your chest. You raised a hand to either side of your head. And then you just cried and sobbed and said nothing. You looked so pitiful that I found myself getting up out of the rocking chair. I came and sat there right beside you on the bed. I put my arm around your shoulders and squeezed you and tried to comfort you. It helped. At least you stopped convulsing and crying.
"I need you please so so much your help is what the Virgin said I would get."
"What?" I couldn't understand a word you were saying, Señora, as you have never had a knack for English.
You sniffled and wiped your nose. "The Blessed Virgin. In the nighttime she came to me one time. I was awake all night, not sleeping. And then she was there, glowing in golden light. She was so beautiful." Here you smiled and I saw your missing teeth. Your face was glowing and I found myself drawn to it once again.
"I need you, to write the true story of Renata, and if you do, then the Virgin promised it would all be mended and Renata would be free and not die like she did hanging from that tree. Will you will you please Señora Ricci, will you take this journal of Renata's and just write the story, so the whole world knows that she never killed Antonie?"
"Antonie? But who is he?" I was struggling now. I wanted her to go, but I also wanted to know more, at least enough to satisfy my curiosity.
"Antonie is cousin to Renata," you said simply. "And he also jefe, hmmm..." here you were searching for the word. "The boss. I am keeper of his house."
I reached over to the night table for a drink of water. My head was dizzy. And I wanted something to eat. But curiously, this was the first morning in months that I actually felt like getting out of bed.
"Would you like some coffee?" I said.
You shook your head. "Tea."
And so I put on my blue bathrobe, and you followed me down two flights of stairs to the kitchen, where I made you a cup of tea and kept listening while you pieced together your story.
Such a long, long time ago all of this seems. How quickly the years we've known each other have gone by. And now you lie there Señora and your time is up. Except, you would remind me of something that you said so long ago, that very morning when we first sat together at the oak table in the kitchen, you drinking chamomile tea and me drinking a second cup of coffee. You said "time is always there the same way and at the same time moments on top of each other." I was completely puzzled. I thought I didn't understand you because of your broken English. And then you said something else that intrigued me. "No one dies for good and doesn't come back another day."
Of course I couldn't possibly understand what you meant. It has taken me 139 years to understand.
Sister Mysteries is a time travel novel being composed on a set of two blogs (the other blog is Castenata.) It follows the life of a nun, Sister Renata, who in 1883 was falsely accused of murdering her cousin, Antonie.
Posted by Claudia R at Friday, February 22, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Chapter 61, Sister Mysteries: Renata Stubbornly Refuses to Turn Over the Missing Journal Pages
An hour passed. Señora Ramos fell into a deep sleep -- snoring soundly -- after finishing her cup of tea. I played the three or four flamenco songs I know by heart -- including the beloved bulerias -- and then started working on scales.
Soon enough, though, it occurred to me that Renata had still not returned with the journal pages. I set the guitar against the wall and went out into the hallway. In my imagination, Renata's room was on the first floor, a room that faced the tiled courtyard. As I recall, it was three doors further down the hall from Teresa's room. I closed Señora's door and descended the staircase, keeping perfectly quiet in my white socks. I made my way through the dining room and the small parlor and into the wing where the nuns' rooms sat, one after another. By this time, evening prayers were over, and most of the nuns had retired for the night.
I stood in the narrow hallway, where a single candle burned inside a glass dish. The low adobe ceiling was only a few inches above my head. If I was right, the door on my right was Renata's. But what if I had remembered it wrong? I'd disturb one of the other nuns.
I decided I had to take the chance. I set two knuckles to the wooden door and tapped three times.
No answer.
I knocked again, a little louder this time. Then I positioned my lips into the crack where the door met the frame and I whispered.
"Renata? Please, are you in there?"
Nothing. I was beginning to think I did indeed have the wrong room. I turned around and leaned back on the door and looked up to the ceiling. I was beginning to feel like a very unwelcome visitor. It occurred to me that I could simply stop all of this, and return to my laptop, where I belonged.
At just that moment, the door swung open and I felt myself falling backwards into the room. Renata was stronger than she looked, because the next thing I knew, I was looking into dark eyes. She had caught me!
"I'm so sorry," I stammered. She helped me back to my feet. "I really am not trying to harrass you, Renata, I just want to do what Señora wishes."
"Come in," she said. I entered the tiny convent room, which was even smaller than I had pictured it when I described it in the book. The crucifix loomed large over the narrow bed of straw.
"I would invite you to sit down, but this bed is ..."
"No, no need for that," I said. "I simply need those journal pages. I'll be off as soon as I have them."
"Yes, well, that's exactly the problem. You see, I am very reluctant to part with those pages. I've heard all that Señora explained, about the supposed miracle and the Virgin rewriting history. I hope you will excuse my skepticism, but I am still not convinced."
My stomach tightened and my face flushed hot. I felt a flood of anxiety rush up and down my arms. Had I really created this character who was so impossibly stubborn? I cleared my throat.
"I understand your skepticism," I began, speakly slowly. "I respect you for that, Renata. I do. But the trouble is, you are really stuck. It's just a matter of time before the authorities find out that you're back here at the convent and they will, as Señora says, lose no time taking you to the gallows. So please, I will get down on my knees and beg you if I have to, just give those pages to me so that the true story can be told and you will go free."
Renata sighed and sat down on the bed. "Maybe I go free. From what I've seen in the courtroom so far, it's going be very difficult to use a few handwritten pages from my journal to convince anyone that my case should be reopened. God knows how hard it would be to overturn my conviction."
"What you say is true of course Renata, but my God, we've got to try, haven't we?" My voice got louder, prompting Renata to set one finger over her lips, cautioning me to speak more quietly.
At that moment, an idea struck me. I had a lawyer friend back in Spencertown who worked as a public defender. He would be able to fill me in on how new evidence could be introduced after a conviction. But the one sticking point remained: I couldn't do anything without that new evidence in hand.
"I want to sleep on it," Renata announced, rising from the bed. She was wearing a simple white gown, tied at the neck with a blue satin bow. "It's been a long and tiring day, and I just don't want to make this decision tonight." She paused. "So if you don't mind, I would like to go to back to bed now."
I stood there, amazed. Here Renata was being offered a gift -- a painless way out of her desperate situation -- and yet, she was so nonchalant, as if it didn't matter that the death penalty awaited her. Could she possibly be so indifferent to the danger she faced?
She held the door open for me. I said a soft good night and returned to Señora's room. The old woman was sleeping quietly, so I pulled up her extra blanket and I left. It wasn't until later that I realized I had left Renata's guitar leaning against Señora's wall.
And now that I'm back behind the laptop, I'm altogether amazed by this puzzling situation. What could possibly be holding Renata back from handing over the journal pages? What did she have to lose?
When Señora first approached me so many years ago about writing Renata's story, she brought with her the nun's chiseled leather journal. She also carried a box filled with a stack of thin blue pages, all neatly written in Antonie's looping hand.
I had only to copy out the entries and set them in the proper order, which I had done, faithfully. I set them up in a blog called "Castenata."
Now, as I sat in my pale yellow study, staring over my laptop at the abstract painting of a sunset that sits over my desk, it occurred to me that I could simply make up the two pages. I have had plenty of experience exercising my fiction writer's mind. And judging by things Renata had written, and a few things Señora insinuated, I had a pretty good inkling of what the pages said.
But wouldn't this violate the whole arrangement I had with Señora? I had after all promised to write the true story, exactly as she delivered it to me.
It was late, I was tired, and so I went to bed. I pasted a post-it on my laptop, reminding myself to phone my friend David, the public defender, to talk to him about the case.
I yawned and closed the laptop. Happy to be back in my own century, where mattresses aren't made of straw.
Little did I know what havoc and insanity would greet me in the morning.
Posted by Claudia R at Sunday, February 17, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Loving the Most Lovable People on Earth
A few weeks ago, I started a volunteer job a couple days a week with an extraordinary not-for-profit organization in Great Barrington, MA. Called Community Access to the Arts, or CATA, the group provides an array of arts activities -- from painting and writing to dance, yoga and acting, to adults with disabilities. While CATA has been around for twenty years, I only learned about them through an ad they ran at the local movie theatre a year or so ago. I was intrigued. I adore art and music, and of course, writing -- which I've taught for years at the college level -- is like breathing to me. I really wanted to volunteer. But deep down, I had to admit to myself, I was a little bit nervous. Would I be a good match for this group? Would I have the patience and tolerance to work with people who were in some cases profoundly disabled?
It took one visit to dispel all of my fears. The moment I walked in the door, I was wrapped in a kind of loving glow that exudes from all of those who are involved in CATA. The truth of the matter: I fell totally in love with all of the adults that I met. There's a delightful young woman who was my partner rolling beads out of paper mache one day; then a couple days later, she and I sat side by side in the writing class composing a story about her clothes. There is another incredibly sweet older woman who remembered my name after only one introduction. And then there's a young woman who cannot speak. But boy oh boy can she laugh. One day when I walked in, she came running up to me and kissed my hand! I could go on and on: there's the woman who delighted everyone when she wrote about being a clothes "fashionista;" there's the man who always writes two stories during writing class. There's so many more people, so many people who just love coming together to enjoy the arts.
The staff and director of CATA are amazing too. The first day I walked into the CATA office, for my get-acquainted interview, I was greeted by Executive Director Sandy Newman, the woman who had the brilliant idea to start the organization 20 years ago. As we shook hands, I noticed her beaming smile: it was a genuinely happy smile. Curiously, though, the next person I shook hands with, Jeff Gagnon, CATA's program and marketing associate, was wearing the same exuberant smile. And so was the next person in the office. And the next. And the next. It's not often that you walk into an office where everybody just happens to smile as if they are truly in love with their jobs.
Last month, CATA won an award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council; the award recognizes groups and individuals in the Commonwealth state that have achieved outstanding accomplishments in the arts, humanities and sciences. CATA won for providing access to the arts. As it stands now, the group provides arts programming to some 500 disabled adults throughout Berkshire County. In the same week the group was recognized, they also had an art show in Lee, MA, featuring the wonderful artwork of many participants. It's inspiring to read about how volunteers pair up with participants -- some of whom cannot move their limbs -- to produce beautiful works of art.
One day as I was leaving CATA (and more often than not, I just don't want to leave!) I spoke to Sandy Newman. I told her that I was thrilled to have discovered this incredibly loving group of individuals. Working at CATA, I said, was a thoroughly affirming and inspiring activity. She smiled and nodded and acknowledged what everyone who works there already knows: that volunteering at CATA gives back way beyond imagination.
"It makes you appreciate every single thing," she said.
And it reminds you that every single person in the world is precious.
Thank you for this, CATA. Thank you to all the adults who participate, and thank you to all the volunteers too. It's been said countless times before, but volunteer work does wonders for the soul.
Posted by Claudia R at Saturday, February 09, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Friday, February 08, 2013
Visitors
The snow, fine as salt, is starting to fall, when all of a sudden three visitors appear.
They nibble around the trees and head across the yard and toward the forest.
Posted by Claudia R at Friday, February 08, 2013 1 comment: Links to this post
Monday, February 04, 2013
One Step Deeper into the Breathing Love Meditation
If you tried the Breathing Love meditation I offered a few days ago, you know that the technique relies on bringing your breathing and your heartbeat into some kind of rhythmic connection.
But now, I've discovered a way to heighten the feeling of self-love generated during this meditation. Those of you who are familiar with Sharon Salzberg's extensive work with lovingkindness meditation know that it always starts with you extending love first to yourself, then to a sequence of other individuals in your life, until finally you are sending lovingkindness -- or metta -- to all living beings in the universe.
So this why I've been focusing on the Breathing Love meditation -- because it seems like a natural way of generating self love.
To start, place your right hand underneath your left breast, flat on your chest, so that you can feel your heartbeat. (Preferably place your hand onto your bare skin as it generates more sensation.) Then place your left hand over the right. Notice that with your hands in this position, you are cradling your heart.
Start to breathe in rhythm with your own heart beat. Find a rhythm that feels comfortable to you. My own rhythm is
Breathe in, beat beat,
Breathe out, beat beat,
Breathe in, beat beat,
Breathe out, beat beat
You may find three beats works better between breaths. Or perhaps just one breath. Play around with the breathing until you find a pattern that works for you.
Once you have a steady rhythm going, turn your attention to your cradled heart. Imagine for a moment that you are now cradling a newborn baby. Imagine this baby's tiny head, warm and soft, covered with downy fine hair; imagine how the baby's head would feel in your hand. Imagine the baby's body nestled up against your heart.
Instead of holding a baby, maybe you would rather imagine holding a soft and furry kitten, or a tiny puppy. Imagine how sleek the puppy's fur would feel under your hands. Imagine how reassuring the warm body of the kitten or the puppy would feel against your heart.
Feel the love you have for this very lovable baby, or this very adorable furry kitten or puppy.
And now, holding onto that love, see if you can turn the loving creature you are holding into your own self. Maybe you can picture yourself as a baby. Or maybe you just want to let your adult body fold around that of the baby or the kitten or the puppy that you are embracing in your imagination.
Remember to keep breathing, and feeling your heartbeat. Keep returning the loving breath back into your heart. Let the warm reassuring feelings circulate through your chest.
This meditation may bring a smile to your face. Or maybe you'll end up laughing at the notion that you are cradling your own baby self. That's fine. Just try to stay aware of the sensations of your hands on the skin of your chest, and the reassuring feel of the heartbeat.
Remember, this is an exercise in self-acceptance and self-love. It's your own way of saying to yourself, in a physical and tactile way, "I am a lovable creature just the way I am." With this exercise, you are demonstrating that you can love and accept yourself without doing anything more than breathing and feeling the beating heart that keeps you alive.
Posted by Claudia R at Monday, February 04, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Saturday, February 02, 2013
Feeding on Light
Maybe because so many winter days are white and overcast,
the dawn of a clear sunny morning brings a thrill.
No matter that the frigid air will bite your skin if you step outside.
No matter that the sun may not last past noon.
It's still a gift to open your eyes to see the pine-treed hillside outside the window
turning gold in long lazy winter rays.
Downstairs, the sun streams across the kitchen, bathing the
cabinets. The same rays cross the threshold into the laundry room and
leave a tiny square of spring green light on the washing machine.
I set my finger into that delightful green spot. It's got promise, that spot.
The fruitbowl, with its orange, green and yellow curves and shadows,
becomes a still life painting.
And in the dining room, the long strips of light spread across the rug beckon to me.
I stretch out flat in one, as if I'm lying in a chaise lounge on the beach.
I stare right into the flood of sunlight coming through the window
and I am delighted to be blinded. I smile. I think Florida, I think emerald waves
and long white beaches. Palm trees and the smell of ocean breezes.
Bathing suits. Flip flops and suntan lotion and the grainy touch of sand.
Maybe because this morning's light is so rare, and I know there is no holding onto it,
(just now the sun slipped behind the clouds and all turned shadow)
Every place my glances happens to land -- on deeply furrowed grey bark, on the white pond, on green pine needles,
I let my gaze dally.
The day becomes a meditation, eyes feeding on light.
Posted by Claudia R at Saturday, February 02, 2013 1 comment: Links to this post
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Chapter 60, Sister Mysteries: After 18 Years of Writing, I Come Face to Face With Renata!!
Sister Mysteries, an on-line novel, tells the story of a nun, Sister Renata, who in 1883 was falsely accused and convicted of murdering her cousin. In this chapter, we see how she might finally go free.
Assisted by two of the other nuns, Bernice and Laura Lee, Teresa pulls Renata into the rocking chair. There she sits, slumped against one arm. Teresa runs for smelling salts, and Bernice boils water for chamomile tea. Laura Lee -- a delicate girl with dimples and great splotches of reddish-brown freckles -- holds Renata in a sitting position.
Kneeling in front of the chair, Teresa passes the salts under Renata's nose, until the smell of the ammonia starts Renata's head moving side to side. "Enough," she whispers. "Please no more."
Teresa pulls the salts away. "We have tea for you Renata, tea with gobs of honey. You must be so thirsty." She holds the cup up and takes a spoonful of the yellow tea. Blowing on it a few times, she lifts the spoon to Renata's open mouth. For the next few minutes, Teresa feeds Renata the warm tea. But soon Renata pushes Teresa's hand away.
"I must see Señora now," she whispers, wriggling out of Laura Lee's grip. "Please Teresa, please take me up to her."
"At least finish the tea, and put something solid in your stomach." Teresa bends closer and steadies a gaze at Renata head on. "I promise if you have a little of the rabbit stew we ate for dinner, and finish the tea, I will bring you to her."
Renata's face wrinkles up in disgust. "You know how I feel about rabbit stew. Just spoon me a few carrots and onions and some parsley and that will do."
Teresa rises, hands the mug to Renata. "You drink this up. And if you're still thirsty, Bernice will fix you a second cup."
After she has eaten half the vegetables that Teresa scooped into a bowl, and after she finishes most of a second cup of tea, Renata rises from the rocking chair. Teresa takes her arm and they pass through the convent's dining room and to the staircase. Soon they are in the second floor bedroom where Señora lies, her face small and almond-colored. Renata sits on one side of the bed, Teresa on the other.
Leaning forward, Renata whispers. "I'm here, my dear Señora. I am here beside you and I won't leave you."
Señora is lying in such perfect stillness that it isn't clear she is breathing. Teresa holds a finger below Señora's nose. After a few moments she takes her hand away.
"I have an idea," Renata says, getting up. "I'll be right back." She hurries to her old room, the straw mattress stiff and minus any sheets. Kneeling, Renata drags from beneath the bed the guitar she keeps wrapped in an old Indian blanket. She sinks to the floor and hums a low E, and quickly tunes the strings.
Soon she is hurrying back to the bedroom to Señora and Teresa, who smiles when she sees the guitar.
"It's worth a try, don't you agree?"
Guitar cradled in her lap, Renata plays the carcelero that Señora loves.
"In three days I've eaten
Only bread and tears:
That is the food
That my jailers give.
How do they expect me to live?"
She follows the carcelero with a soleares and a farrucca and finally, a rousing bulerías.
Señora is motionless, the music passing over her like a soft breeze. Renata puts the guitar down and takes Señora's hand and kisses it. "I know you can hear me," she says. "I just know you feel me here."
She takes out her beads and together with Teresa, they pray the rosary.
"It's late, Renata," Teresa says at the end of the prayers. "Tomorrow is another day. Please, I'll make your bed up for you. And I'll find a place for Arthur to rest downstairs. Come now. Let her be."
Renata wraps her rosary beads around Señora's hand, and places a kiss on the old woman's forehead. Teresa is out the door and Renata is just about to blow out the candle on the nighttable when she hears a soft groan.
Whipping around, she sees the rosary beads shaking in Señora's hand. "Teresa, Teresa, look!"
By now, Renata has Señora's hand in hers. "You're awake, you're awake!" It takes a few minutes before Señora's eyes open. She blinks. Her lips tremble, and Renata is sure she sees a smile on them.
"Oh my dear Señora you're back," Renata says in a hush. Señora opens her mouth but nothing comes out. "Don't try to speak. Don't."
Teresa and Renata stand there staring at Señora. The old woman opens her mouth. "Sietaté," she whispers in a hoarse tone. The nuns sit down. Renata takes both of Señora's hands in hers.
"Mi'ja," Señora begins. And then she whispers in Spanish. "It's my time. It's my time. I'm not long on God's good earth now."
"How do you know that Señora, you can't possibly know God's will."
Señora continues to speak to Renata in Spanish, in a hushed whisper. "There is no time for discussing this now. You must do for me what you have steadfastly refused to do all these months. You must find those missing pages of your journal and present them to the authorities. Please. Please, for me do this."
"No," Renata says, pulling back. "I won't do that. You know you can ask and you can beg, but I am not turning in those pages. Justice will be served and I remain in God's hands, with Mary to protect me too."
Teresa pipes up. "Señora is right. You've come back here now, Renata, and clearly there is no way we can protect you. Not for long can we hide you. The gallows is ready and waiting. The authorities will hang you as soon as word gets out. Please, abide by Señora's dying wish."
Renata rises, and turns toward the darkened window, her arms crossed. "I vowed I would never turn Señora in. I made myself a solemn promise. I can't turn back on that now."
Señora struggles to one elbow. And out of her comes a voice that I know so well. The voice in which she has spoken to me for the past 18 years. The voice that has pulled me back to Renata's world, time and again.
"Por favor Claudia," Señora cries out. "Ahora es muy importante que tu vienes aquí. Por favor!"
And as I sit here, typing, my laptop disappears and I let go of this world and move to the sound of Señora's voice. Suddenly I am in the room with the three characters whose lives I have entwined so tightly with my own.
Teresa and Renata stare at me. I'm wearing my blue bathrobe and white sox, and my hair must look like an awful fright. I haven't showered and I've got the sour breath one has after a night's sleep and a cup of coffee.
"Hola, Señora," I say and she reaches a hand out to me. Slowly I approach the bed. Renata's eyes are wide and forbidding and Teresa looks like she's seen a lizard crawl across the bed covers. I clear my throat and don't come any closer. "You don't know me of course," I say, my voice shaking. "But I am Claudia Ricci, a writer, and I love Señora as much as both of you."
"How could you possibly?" Renata asks, her voice shaking. "I've never seen you, nor has Teresa. Where did you come from?" Renata scans me head to toe and Teresa shakes her head vigorously.
"I understand completely," I say. "I've been working with Señora from afar. You would not believe me if I told you how far," I say. "It's much too hard to explain."
Señora sits up. She asks for her shawl and Teresa brings it to her and wraps it around her shoulders. Teresa and Renata stand beside her like protective soldiers. And then she begins to speak. Thankfully, she speaks in a slow Spanish that I can understand.
"This woman is writing your story, Renata. She's been writing it for 18 years."
I pipe up. "Actually it's exactly 18 years. Yesterday. January 25, 1995 is the day I started this book."
"What? What are you saying?" Renata takes a step toward me. Funny that I never thought her to be the least bit threatening before. "What book are you referring to? And what is this about 1995? And how could you possibly know me or my story?"
Señora smiles. "I'll ask you to be patient Renata. What you are witnessing here my dear is the work of the Virgin Mary. Her miracles, as you know, we can never explain. Miracles of Mary's making. This is one of those miracles."
"What do you mean?"
"The virgin appeared in a vision one night, right after you were hung."
"HUNG?"
Señora shakes her head. Her face is solemn. "You see Renata, time has come unhinged. After you died, I so regretted letting you sacrifice yourself on my behalf that I prayed continually to Mary for forgiveness. She came to me one night and said that together, we were going to rewrite history."
"Excuse me, Señora, but this makes absolutely no sense to me. Are you telling me you erased events that already took place."
Señora shakes her head slowly.
I decide to take a step forward. Renata tenses and steps back. "I am not here to hurt you," I say. "Please understand that's the last thing you have to fear."
Señora continues. "So why is Claudia here? Because I called for her. With Mary's help, I found Claudia, a woman who was willing to write the true story of Antonie's death. This woman you see here lives far into the future on the other side of the continent."
Renata collapses into the chair. "Surely you don't expect me to believe this," she says. She turns to Teresa who is just as dumbfounded.
"What Señora says is absolutely true," I say. "I come from a moment in history when we have such things as cars with engines and computers and mobile telephones and electricity and airplanes that fly."
"I don't believe it," Renata says. "I don't buy any of this silliness."
"You must listen," Señora commands. "You must listen Renata. If you fail to listen, you will most certainly hang, as you did the first time. The gallows is waiting and they will string you up in the hot sun in the courtyard without the slightest hesitation."
"I don't understand," Renata says. "How can this woman from the future help me escape? Does she takes me with her?"
The thought of transporting the nun back to Albany, New York, or to the little hamlet of Spencertown, where I live, makes me smile.
"No, Renata," I say. "I just write the story. It's up to me to make you see the wisdom of releasing those two pages from your journal. Those pages that cannot hurt Señora anymore. You were right when you first decided to hold them back, because the authorities would have hung Señora, a Mexican woman, without even a trial. A Mexican woman killing a white American man. But now Señora's time is up."
"How do you know that? How could you possibly know anyth..."
"Silencio!" Señora shouts. She lifts her pillow and takes out a piece of yellowed newspaper. She unfolds it. The headline reads in big block letters, "NUN FINALLY HUNG FOR THE MURDER OF HER COUSIN." Two columns of writing appear and in the center of the page is a very clear drawing of the nun swinging from a rope.
Renata gasps. Teresa cries out. "My God!"
"I hope you see now that the gallows is real," Señora says. "I hope you understand why the Virgin has interceded here. This is what happened the first time around. You did hang for Antonie's murder. You refused to produce those pages of the journal that tell the true story."
"Let me see that newspaper," Renata says snatching it away from Señora with a shaking hand. Sweat sprouts on her brow. "I don't know how this is possible. This is not ....this is...out of this world. This is impossible. This is ..."
"Un milagro," Señora says, finishing her sentence. "Yes, Renata, this is a miracle. That we are here, today, the three of us, with this woman writer from the future. This woman who in fact can save you. Give you the freedom you have so long deserved. Let her do her work. Give her those journal pages. Let her write them down. Let the authorities see the truth. Nothing can hurt me now. They won't touch me now. Not when I am this close to my hour of death."
Teresa speaks. "I am not sure I believe what I am hearing and seeing, Renata, but by God, this is indeed a miracle of some kind. I think this is your lifeboat Renata. You've got to cooperate. You've always told me that I would be the one to tell the true story after your death. It would be me who would reveal at the proper time -- after Señora's death -- what actually happened to Antonie. But now I see there is no reason to wait. No reason at all for you to die. And every reason for you to go free. You must do as she says Renata. You must trust this woman in the blue robe, because it is exactly the same blue color as the Virgin's veil."
Renata turns slowly to face me. I see her finely chiseled features, made sharper by the fact that she is so thin. Her hair is standing in a wispy black brush. She is as pale as cotton and even has some premature grey hairs. There has been so much happening to her since that chapter I wrote so long ago, when she supposedly turned into a flamenco dancer and danced on the table.
She reaches out one hand and I don't hesitate to take it. Renata's fingers are cool and slim and delicate. "It is a pleasure to meet you ma'am," she begins, "and even though I am still not inclined to believe that you are from the future, I have to say, Señora is rather persuasive with this newspaper she somehow managed to find."
I smile. "You know, it would have been up to me to produce that newspaper account," I say, "seeing as though I am writing the story. But more than anything in the world Renata, I wanted you to live. I never wanted to write the story of your hanging. Suffice to say it's quite nice that the Virgin Mary somehow made it possible for Señora to get that clipping -- without me having to do a thing -- to help convince you of my good intentions in writing your story."
Teresa is sitting down now. And shaking her head. "Amazing. Somehow the Virgin is helping to change history," she whispers. She opens her hands one to each side. "This is too much to take in all at once."
Señora turns. "Renata, find the missing journal pages please. Let Claudia have them for her story."
"No, Señora," I interrupt. "It's not my story. It's your story. And most especially it's Renata's."
"In any case, bring the journal pages to me," Señora says, slipping down under the covers. "And then, if you wouldn't mind, I would love a cup of tea."
And so Renata leaves the room to retrieve the missing journal pages. And Teresa goes downstairs to make tea.
And me? I pick up Renata's guitar and play for Señora one of my favorite flamenco tunes, a bulerías that my teacher Maria Z. taught me many years ago.
Posted by Claudia R at Thursday, January 31, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Breathing Love
On a day when the thermometer is barely able to reach five degrees outside, a very heart-warming meditation exercise has emerged inside.
I had heard about meditation practices that involve breathing love into your heart, or breathing in rhythm with your heart, but today for some reason I decided to experiment with it.
I sat there at the meditation table, candles burning. I had a very soft blanket covering my head to keep warm. I slipped my right hand into my nightshirt and placed it against my bare chest, right over my heart. I took my left hand and laid it over the right hand. Feeling the skin of my hand against the skin of my breast was very reassuring. Feeling my two hands covering my heart was also resassuring.
Feeling the steady beating of my heart brought a smile to my face and comfort to my mind.
I began to breathe in and out, in rhythm with my heartbeat:
breathe in, beat beat,
breathe out, beat beat,
breathe in, beat beat,
breathe out, beat beat.
As I inhaled, I imagined the love from my heart mixing with the air in my lungs and making a circle in my chest. Over and over again the love and air -- light, free and clear -- passed around and around my heart. This circular pattern felt so comforting, and so warm and energizing, as if I was reminding myself, or perhaps teaching myself in a new way, that it's OK, indeed, it's important, to feel a profound love for oneself. Sharon Salzberg reminds us of this principle in her lovingkindness -- or metta -- meditation. In that meditation practice, which ultimately involves sending lovingkindness to all beings everywhere, we start by sending lovingkindness to ourselves, saying:
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be free from suffering and fear.
May I live with ease.
In order to be loving towards others, we must first love ourselves. We must accept who we are, with all of our strengths and good traits, as well as our weaknesses. We must be comfortable in our own skin and hopefully, delight in our own company. What better way to remind ourselves of this than by engaging two of our most basic life functions:
heartbeat and
breathing.
Those of you who already meditate might want to give this one a try. And for those of you who say you can't meditate because your mind wanders, you may find it easier to concentrate on your breathing when you focus on synchronizing your heart beat with the in and out of your breathing.
I would love to hear from anyone who tries this exercise. Please feel free to write with feedback to claudiajricci@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, have a good day and stay warm!
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be free from suffering and fear.
May you live with ease.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be healthy.
May all beings be filled with lovingkindness.
May all beings be free from suffering and fear.
May all beings live with ease.
So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that here it is Chapter 62 of Sister Mysteries, and I'm finally getting around to writing some very critical material that probably belongs in Chapter One. This chapter also answers a question that my dear writer friend Peg has been asking for about 18 years: why is the narrator writing this story? What's at stake for the narrator?
Until writing this new chapter, I could never answer that question to Peg's satisfaction. No matter what I wrote, she didn't seem convinced that the narrator, i.e. me, had made it clear why she was the one chosen to tell Renata's tale. Well, so, now I am going to send this chapter to Peg to see what she thinks.
The nice thing about writing a novel on a blog is that it's such a deliciously fluid medium: you can link Chapter 62 with Chapter One and move easily between the two. The reader can skip and skate through the book exactly the way she wants to.
Still, that doesn't explain the contradictions between the events narrated in this chapter and those described in Chapter One. Clearly, one version of events has to be a lie. The question is, which one?
The author is happy to let the reader decide.
*********
Dear Señora:
And now, this morning, I find you lying there in your bed, not speaking, staring wide-eyed into the ceiling.
The sun has not yet cracked over the horizon. As soon as I awoke, I crept into the convent kitchen and boiled water for your tea. Walking very softly, I carried the cup up the stairs to your room. Your door is ajar and I knock softly and walk in. Your eyes are open and riveted on the ceiling, and so I know immediately that something is wrong. Your expression is fixed, your face a coffee-colored mask. I set the tea down on the night table and place one hand on your forehead. Warm. I pick up your hand, which lies limp on the sheet. It too is warm, and the skin of the back of your hand is soft but the palm has that dry papery feeling I know so well.
"Señora," I whisper, leaning over to put my lips close to your ear. "Can you hear me?"
Your lips are parted but frozen. You don't move a muscle. Only an occasional blink of your eyes and a faint breath when I put my finger beneath your nose tell me that you are still alive. I set my ear on your chest and there is a slow and steady beat. But what has happened to you? Is it a stroke? And if it is, what can I possibly do for you here? What can be done for a stroke victim in 1884?
I drop into the chair beside your bed. The other nuns will be up for morning prayers before long. What will they do? Bring the doctor I suppose. But for what purpose?
I sit here with tears gathering. I sit here thinking that you are nearing your end. We've had such a long history together. I don't want to let you go. And yet, I know better. I know that you came to me for one reason only, and that soon your mission will be accomplished. I just wish you could live forever.
But then I realize, you do live forever. Or at least, your spirit does. You exist beyond the convines of time and place. When you first came to me 18 years ago, I was living through hell. I had dropped so low that I saw no reason to get out of bed. I thought I would never emerge from that dark grey tunnel of despair. It was such a hellish time. I saw a series of doctors who didn't have much of a clue what to do. One or two of them wanted me to have electroshock treatment, or ECT. And I was petrified. I didn't want to have some machine sending shock waves through my brain, frying it from the inside out.
I remember two things about the morning you came: the snow outside the window was heaped in great mounds. We'd been having wicked winter weather that year, and it most certainly hadn't helped my mood. I remember too, me lying in bed staring into the ceiling, much like you are now. And of all things, I was listening to the flies. Flies in the middle of winter, crazed and buzzing around the light fixtures and against the window glass. Maybe their last desperate gasping to escape.
I remember getting up to pee. And seeing a rather large fly in the window of the bathroom. Quite unexpectedly, I reached over and very gently wedged it against the glass. I set my finger and thumb on one of its wings. There I was, I was actually holding a fly.
I carried it that way to the door that leads out to the balcony of my third floor bedroom. I opened the door and was greeted by a blast of cold air. And then I set the fly free. I watched as he (she?) zoomed off in a giant graceful arc and something shifted in me. How very strange, but somehow that gesture -- freeing the fly -- gave me hope. Put a small smile on my face.
Soon that became my purpose. I would get out of bed at least four or five times a day -- whenever I got up to pee or to eat something -- and I would set free three or four flies. One thing that mystified me, where were these flies coming from at this frigid moment in winter?
But no matter where they came from, they were there. And I got very good at catching them in my hands. Between my fingers. I was delicate but determined. I looked forward to catching them. I looked forward to liberating every fly that I heard buzzing in my bedroom.
When my husband happened to be in the room one morning, he asked me why I insisted on opening the door to release flies. Why, he wondered aloud, did I not just use the fly swatter? He was no lover of flies.
"Because I refuse to kill them," I said simply. But what I didn't say was, this act of freeing flies seemed to give my life some immediate purpose. It was after all, a kind of existential grip that had taken hold of me, that is, life had lost its meaning. I no longer felt that I was steering my life course in a direction that mattered. But here was something that if nothing else, was a satisfying distraction.
If I could do nothing else, I could release a few flies into the universe. Perhaps I couldn't relieve my own misery, but at least I could save these little black-winged creatures from their own misery.
My husband watched cautiously as I released another fly. Then he came up to me and gently folded his arms around me. "Just hold me," he said, his voice low and trembling. I felt so bad. I had become such a burden to my poor husband. He was so desperately worried about me. He had grown so frightened. But of course he had. For all intents and purposes, he had lost his wife.
I hadn't been out of a nightgown in weeks. I was surviving on a diet of soup and saltines, coffee and oatmeal and an occasional salad or an apple, sliced and smeared with peanut butter.
Worst of all, I had begun to say to my husband with some regularity, "I don't want to live another day."
I had also taken to praying to the Virgin Mary, asking for help from the divine feminine forces of the universe. Mary had never let me down before. When I had suffered cancer years before, and I was in the thick of misery with the chemo, I would pray to Mary, and something would always happen to relieve my pain. At the worst moments, I would envision myself protected -- tucked beneath her sky blue veil. That image comforted me so much. Now I needed comforting of a different kind. I needed her to help heal my troubled mind.
It wasn't long after I started catching and releasing the flies that you appeared Señora. I remember that morning so clearly. It was a Sunday and the sky was the crisp blue color you only get in the winter. My husband had to fly to DC for a meeting that afternoon and so he had left just after eight a.m. He was nervous at the thought of leaving me alone. "You must promise me you won't do..." and then he'd shake his head. He wouldn't finish the sentence.
"I'll be OK," I said, and then we kissed and he left, his forehead wrinkled in worry.
I had finished my morning coffee. I was waiting for my morning meds -- the ativan, the amphetamines, the noritryptiline -- to kick in. My neck and back felt really sore, and so I decided to pull myself out of bed to stretch my body a little. I lay on the braided rug on the floor, pulling one knee at a time up to my chest.
The rest of it is like a dream. An amazing and incredible dream. A dream that felt more real than real life. I lifted my leg a few inches and straightened it out and pointed my toe and suddenly there it was -- a low but persistent sound. Music. It started to grow louder and clearer. I could hear someone strumming a guitar. I looked over to the radio on my husband's side of the bed. Had I left it on? I know I hadn't. I hated NPR's Weekend Edition program so I would have kept the radio turned off.
But there it was -- guitar music, and it was growing so loud I could feel it right in the room with me. I didn't know it at the time, because I knew virtually nothing about flamenco, but that was a soleares I was hearing. Soleares a form considered the mother of all flamenco. The word solear derived from the Spanish word, "soledad" or sorrow.
I stopped exercising and sat up on the floor, cross-legged. I closed my eyes and just listened to the music for a minute or two. It was quite beautiful.
That's the moment you chose to speak. "Por favor, tu es Señora Ricci, sí?" My eyes flew open and my heart started banging in my chest like some kind of drum. Behind me, in the rocking chair across the room in the corner, I heard the chair squeak as it rocked forward. Slowly, I swiveled around. You were sitting there, filling up the chair with your portly form. You were dressed in black, and strumming a guitar. My arms and legs started shaking and it's a good thing I wasn't standing because I'm sure I would have lost my urine.
I didn't say a word. I just stared at you, with a million things flying through my head. The first thing I thought: you were the same color as the flies. You were completely in black, even your stockings, as if you were in mourning. The only color was the embroidery on your magnificent shawl.
I thought back to the question that the last doctor, the super expensive one in Manhattan had asked recently asked me. "Do you ever see things?"
"See things?" I asked.
"Yes, do you have visions?"
I remember thinking at the time that at least I was that sane. At least I wasn't psychotic, having visions. But now, what was this?
I covered my eyes with my hands, and shook my head back and forth, hoping to make you go away. But you continued strumming. I looked up. You were waiting for me to answer. You smiled and introduced yourself. "Yo soy Señora Maria Corazon de Ramos." You nodded your head once as if to give emphasis to the name.
I knew the word corazón meant heart in English. I wouldn't know until much later that ramos meant tree or branch.
"Wha...what do you want?" I croaked. In English of course. It never occurred to me to try Spanish.
You switched into broken English. "I am here to have your help if you please." It's embarrassing to admit this, Señora, but at first I thought you were offering me help, as in house help. I was just about to answer that I already had a house cleaner, when I realized my mistake. You wanted my help. SHE WANTED MY HELP? What?
"I ...I don't understand."
You nodded and stopped strumming. The guitar was a beauty by the way. Blonde wood. Just lovely. "Es importante," you began, but then you switched to English again. "Important, very important. You are a writer of stories, yes?"
I shrugged. By this point I was sitting up against the brass bed, my arms hugging my knees, as I was desperately trying to get my arms and legs to stop shaking. But I was still trembling and my mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls. The truthful answer to your question was, "No, I am not writing stories anymore." I had stopped writing just about the time I had started getting depressed. The reason I stopped writing had something to do with the fact that my last novel -- published in 2011 -- had sold so few copies.
My husband had tried time and again to convince me that the key to turning my depression around lay in finding the courage to start writing again. I hadn't found that courage.
"No stories anymore," I whispered. "I don't write anything more." I felt my throat grow thick. I felt tears gathering at the rims of my eyes. All these months, all these doctors, all these meds, and yet I still refused to label myself as, "MENTALLY ILL." But now, here, with this portly Latina woman sitting in front of me, in my fucking bedroom in my fucking rocking chair, how could I possibly resist that label? I was fucking crazy.
"Es important story that I need for you to write." She reached under her shawl and took out an old journal with a chiseled leather cover.
She opened the journal and in it were a stack of blue pages folded in half and tucked into the front cover.
By now I was feeling like I might need to throw up. I was so desperate for you to disappear. I wanted no part of your story or anything else. "PLEASE," I said, breathlessly. "Please go away," I pleaded. I started to sob. "I have been very very ill," I said, choking on my tears. "I have wanted to take my life. I cannot be cured. No one can help me. No one knows what to do for me and so...I really need you to...you must go."
But of course you didn't budge. You sat there and had such a calm look on your face. I found myself wanting to stare at your face, at its coffee color, at its sculptured flesh, at its slight sheen.
You stood up from the chair and walked over to me. You reached down and took my hand. And slowly you helped me up. I was shaking so badly that I had to let you put your arm around me. Your arm was strong and fleshy. I felt your bosom against my own skinny chest as we walked around the bed. I thought for a moment that you were going to put me back to bed. But instead, you helped me into the rocking chair. And then you made yourself comfortable taking a seat on my unmade bed, facing me.
"Señora Ricci, you need something to help you, yes?"
I snorted, and suddenly my nose was flooding, and I was desperate for tissues. She reached over to the night table for my Kleenex and handed some to me. After I had finished blowing my nose, I sniffled an answer. "I need help, yes I most certainly do." I was about to say, but not from you. Only you continued talking.
"This story" -- and here you held up the leather journal -- "is for me, so so important. Life and death important."
I inhaled. I had absolutely no interest in your story. I had only one thought, that you should disappear, taking your guitar, your flowered shawl, your journal and all those blue pages too.
"I'm sorry, but....you really should go," I whispered. How I wished my husband hadn't had to go out of town. I couldn't even reach him by phone.
"I will go I will. But may I tell you just why I am here? It will only be a moment of your time." I was about to say no but you plowed forward. "I am a poor old woman who made a big big mistake." You said the words "beeg" and "meestake." You stopped talking. You reached over to the tissue box and took one for yourself and dabbed at your dark eyes. "I let a poor innocent woman die," you said, and now you were starting to cry. "You see, I could have stopped it. The hanging" -- here your face crumpled up -- "would never be happening."
Hanging? What hanging? In spite of my impatience, my desire to see you go, you now had snagged my attention. And something else: seeing a poor old woman sobbing into tissues on my bed had struck up a chord of compassion in me. I was distracted at least for the moment from my own worries.
I waited.
"After Renata got hanged," you continued, "I could not live. I could not sleep or eat. Nothing was inside me but worry and regret. I prayed. I only prayed. I prayed in daytime, I prayed at night when I am sleeping. I asked the Virgin for help. I told her I would be happy to die myself if she would bring back Renata."
I blinked. Suddenly I was thinking not about how crazy all of this was, but how real you seemed to be. I couldn't explain it, but I just knew that you were not an illusion. You were a flesh and blood person. You were a poor old soul who needed help.
"Who...who is Renata?" I whispered in a raspy voice.
Señora, at that moment, your face collapsed onto your chest. You raised a hand to either side of your head. And then you just cried and sobbed and said nothing. You looked so pitiful that I found myself getting up out of the rocking chair. I came and sat there right beside you on the bed. I put my arm around your shoulders and squeezed you and tried to comfort you. It helped. At least you stopped convulsing and crying.
"I need you please so so much your help is what the Virgin said I would get."
"What?" I couldn't understand a word you were saying, Señora, as you have never had a knack for English.
You sniffled and wiped your nose. "The Blessed Virgin. In the nighttime she came to me one time. I was awake all night, not sleeping. And then she was there, glowing in golden light. She was so beautiful." Here you smiled and I saw your missing teeth. Your face was glowing and I found myself drawn to it once again.
"I need you, to write the true story of Renata, and if you do, then the Virgin promised it would all be mended and Renata would be free and not die like she did hanging from that tree. Will you will you please Señora Ricci, will you take this journal of Renata's and just write the story, so the whole world knows that she never killed Antonie?"
"Antonie? But who is he?" I was struggling now. I wanted her to go, but I also wanted to know more, at least enough to satisfy my curiosity.
"Antonie is cousin to Renata," you said simply. "And he also jefe, hmmm..." here you were searching for the word. "The boss. I am keeper of his house."
I reached over to the night table for a drink of water. My head was dizzy. And I wanted something to eat. But curiously, this was the first morning in months that I actually felt like getting out of bed.
"Would you like some coffee?" I said.
You shook your head. "Tea."
And so I put on my blue bathrobe, and you followed me down two flights of stairs to the kitchen, where I made you a cup of tea and kept listening while you pieced together your story.
Such a long, long time ago all of this seems. How quickly the years we've known each other have gone by. And now you lie there Señora and your time is up. Except, you would remind me of something that you said so long ago, that very morning when we first sat together at the oak table in the kitchen, you drinking chamomile tea and me drinking a second cup of coffee. You said "time is always there the same way and at the same time moments on top of each other." I was completely puzzled. I thought I didn't understand you because of your broken English. And then you said something else that intrigued me. "No one dies for good and doesn't come back another day."
Of course I couldn't possibly understand what you meant. It has taken me 139 years to understand.
Sister Mysteries is a time travel novel being composed on a set of two blogs (the other blog is Castenata.) It follows the life of a nun, Sister Renata, who in 1883 was falsely accused of murdering her cousin, Antonie.
Posted by Claudia R at Friday, February 22, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Chapter 61, Sister Mysteries: Renata Stubbornly Refuses to Turn Over the Missing Journal Pages
An hour passed. Señora Ramos fell into a deep sleep -- snoring soundly -- after finishing her cup of tea. I played the three or four flamenco songs I know by heart -- including the beloved bulerias -- and then started working on scales.
Soon enough, though, it occurred to me that Renata had still not returned with the journal pages. I set the guitar against the wall and went out into the hallway. In my imagination, Renata's room was on the first floor, a room that faced the tiled courtyard. As I recall, it was three doors further down the hall from Teresa's room. I closed Señora's door and descended the staircase, keeping perfectly quiet in my white socks. I made my way through the dining room and the small parlor and into the wing where the nuns' rooms sat, one after another. By this time, evening prayers were over, and most of the nuns had retired for the night.
I stood in the narrow hallway, where a single candle burned inside a glass dish. The low adobe ceiling was only a few inches above my head. If I was right, the door on my right was Renata's. But what if I had remembered it wrong? I'd disturb one of the other nuns.
I decided I had to take the chance. I set two knuckles to the wooden door and tapped three times.
No answer.
I knocked again, a little louder this time. Then I positioned my lips into the crack where the door met the frame and I whispered.
"Renata? Please, are you in there?"
Nothing. I was beginning to think I did indeed have the wrong room. I turned around and leaned back on the door and looked up to the ceiling. I was beginning to feel like a very unwelcome visitor. It occurred to me that I could simply stop all of this, and return to my laptop, where I belonged.
At just that moment, the door swung open and I felt myself falling backwards into the room. Renata was stronger than she looked, because the next thing I knew, I was looking into dark eyes. She had caught me!
"I'm so sorry," I stammered. She helped me back to my feet. "I really am not trying to harrass you, Renata, I just want to do what Señora wishes."
"Come in," she said. I entered the tiny convent room, which was even smaller than I had pictured it when I described it in the book. The crucifix loomed large over the narrow bed of straw.
"I would invite you to sit down, but this bed is ..."
"No, no need for that," I said. "I simply need those journal pages. I'll be off as soon as I have them."
"Yes, well, that's exactly the problem. You see, I am very reluctant to part with those pages. I've heard all that Señora explained, about the supposed miracle and the Virgin rewriting history. I hope you will excuse my skepticism, but I am still not convinced."
My stomach tightened and my face flushed hot. I felt a flood of anxiety rush up and down my arms. Had I really created this character who was so impossibly stubborn? I cleared my throat.
"I understand your skepticism," I began, speakly slowly. "I respect you for that, Renata. I do. But the trouble is, you are really stuck. It's just a matter of time before the authorities find out that you're back here at the convent and they will, as Señora says, lose no time taking you to the gallows. So please, I will get down on my knees and beg you if I have to, just give those pages to me so that the true story can be told and you will go free."
Renata sighed and sat down on the bed. "Maybe I go free. From what I've seen in the courtroom so far, it's going be very difficult to use a few handwritten pages from my journal to convince anyone that my case should be reopened. God knows how hard it would be to overturn my conviction."
"What you say is true of course Renata, but my God, we've got to try, haven't we?" My voice got louder, prompting Renata to set one finger over her lips, cautioning me to speak more quietly.
At that moment, an idea struck me. I had a lawyer friend back in Spencertown who worked as a public defender. He would be able to fill me in on how new evidence could be introduced after a conviction. But the one sticking point remained: I couldn't do anything without that new evidence in hand.
"I want to sleep on it," Renata announced, rising from the bed. She was wearing a simple white gown, tied at the neck with a blue satin bow. "It's been a long and tiring day, and I just don't want to make this decision tonight." She paused. "So if you don't mind, I would like to go to back to bed now."
I stood there, amazed. Here Renata was being offered a gift -- a painless way out of her desperate situation -- and yet, she was so nonchalant, as if it didn't matter that the death penalty awaited her. Could she possibly be so indifferent to the danger she faced?
She held the door open for me. I said a soft good night and returned to Señora's room. The old woman was sleeping quietly, so I pulled up her extra blanket and I left. It wasn't until later that I realized I had left Renata's guitar leaning against Señora's wall.
And now that I'm back behind the laptop, I'm altogether amazed by this puzzling situation. What could possibly be holding Renata back from handing over the journal pages? What did she have to lose?
When Señora first approached me so many years ago about writing Renata's story, she brought with her the nun's chiseled leather journal. She also carried a box filled with a stack of thin blue pages, all neatly written in Antonie's looping hand.
I had only to copy out the entries and set them in the proper order, which I had done, faithfully. I set them up in a blog called "Castenata."
Now, as I sat in my pale yellow study, staring over my laptop at the abstract painting of a sunset that sits over my desk, it occurred to me that I could simply make up the two pages. I have had plenty of experience exercising my fiction writer's mind. And judging by things Renata had written, and a few things Señora insinuated, I had a pretty good inkling of what the pages said.
But wouldn't this violate the whole arrangement I had with Señora? I had after all promised to write the true story, exactly as she delivered it to me.
It was late, I was tired, and so I went to bed. I pasted a post-it on my laptop, reminding myself to phone my friend David, the public defender, to talk to him about the case.
I yawned and closed the laptop. Happy to be back in my own century, where mattresses aren't made of straw.
Little did I know what havoc and insanity would greet me in the morning.
Posted by Claudia R at Sunday, February 17, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Loving the Most Lovable People on Earth
A few weeks ago, I started a volunteer job a couple days a week with an extraordinary not-for-profit organization in Great Barrington, MA. Called Community Access to the Arts, or CATA, the group provides an array of arts activities -- from painting and writing to dance, yoga and acting, to adults with disabilities. While CATA has been around for twenty years, I only learned about them through an ad they ran at the local movie theatre a year or so ago. I was intrigued. I adore art and music, and of course, writing -- which I've taught for years at the college level -- is like breathing to me. I really wanted to volunteer. But deep down, I had to admit to myself, I was a little bit nervous. Would I be a good match for this group? Would I have the patience and tolerance to work with people who were in some cases profoundly disabled?
It took one visit to dispel all of my fears. The moment I walked in the door, I was wrapped in a kind of loving glow that exudes from all of those who are involved in CATA. The truth of the matter: I fell totally in love with all of the adults that I met. There's a delightful young woman who was my partner rolling beads out of paper mache one day; then a couple days later, she and I sat side by side in the writing class composing a story about her clothes. There is another incredibly sweet older woman who remembered my name after only one introduction. And then there's a young woman who cannot speak. But boy oh boy can she laugh. One day when I walked in, she came running up to me and kissed my hand! I could go on and on: there's the woman who delighted everyone when she wrote about being a clothes "fashionista;" there's the man who always writes two stories during writing class. There's so many more people, so many people who just love coming together to enjoy the arts.
The staff and director of CATA are amazing too. The first day I walked into the CATA office, for my get-acquainted interview, I was greeted by Executive Director Sandy Newman, the woman who had the brilliant idea to start the organization 20 years ago. As we shook hands, I noticed her beaming smile: it was a genuinely happy smile. Curiously, though, the next person I shook hands with, Jeff Gagnon, CATA's program and marketing associate, was wearing the same exuberant smile. And so was the next person in the office. And the next. And the next. It's not often that you walk into an office where everybody just happens to smile as if they are truly in love with their jobs.
Last month, CATA won an award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council; the award recognizes groups and individuals in the Commonwealth state that have achieved outstanding accomplishments in the arts, humanities and sciences. CATA won for providing access to the arts. As it stands now, the group provides arts programming to some 500 disabled adults throughout Berkshire County. In the same week the group was recognized, they also had an art show in Lee, MA, featuring the wonderful artwork of many participants. It's inspiring to read about how volunteers pair up with participants -- some of whom cannot move their limbs -- to produce beautiful works of art.
One day as I was leaving CATA (and more often than not, I just don't want to leave!) I spoke to Sandy Newman. I told her that I was thrilled to have discovered this incredibly loving group of individuals. Working at CATA, I said, was a thoroughly affirming and inspiring activity. She smiled and nodded and acknowledged what everyone who works there already knows: that volunteering at CATA gives back way beyond imagination.
"It makes you appreciate every single thing," she said.
And it reminds you that every single person in the world is precious.
Thank you for this, CATA. Thank you to all the adults who participate, and thank you to all the volunteers too. It's been said countless times before, but volunteer work does wonders for the soul.
Posted by Claudia R at Saturday, February 09, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Friday, February 08, 2013
Visitors
The snow, fine as salt, is starting to fall, when all of a sudden three visitors appear.
They nibble around the trees and head across the yard and toward the forest.
Posted by Claudia R at Friday, February 08, 2013 1 comment: Links to this post
Monday, February 04, 2013
One Step Deeper into the Breathing Love Meditation
If you tried the Breathing Love meditation I offered a few days ago, you know that the technique relies on bringing your breathing and your heartbeat into some kind of rhythmic connection.
But now, I've discovered a way to heighten the feeling of self-love generated during this meditation. Those of you who are familiar with Sharon Salzberg's extensive work with lovingkindness meditation know that it always starts with you extending love first to yourself, then to a sequence of other individuals in your life, until finally you are sending lovingkindness -- or metta -- to all living beings in the universe.
So this why I've been focusing on the Breathing Love meditation -- because it seems like a natural way of generating self love.
To start, place your right hand underneath your left breast, flat on your chest, so that you can feel your heartbeat. (Preferably place your hand onto your bare skin as it generates more sensation.) Then place your left hand over the right. Notice that with your hands in this position, you are cradling your heart.
Start to breathe in rhythm with your own heart beat. Find a rhythm that feels comfortable to you. My own rhythm is
Breathe in, beat beat,
Breathe out, beat beat,
Breathe in, beat beat,
Breathe out, beat beat
You may find three beats works better between breaths. Or perhaps just one breath. Play around with the breathing until you find a pattern that works for you.
Once you have a steady rhythm going, turn your attention to your cradled heart. Imagine for a moment that you are now cradling a newborn baby. Imagine this baby's tiny head, warm and soft, covered with downy fine hair; imagine how the baby's head would feel in your hand. Imagine the baby's body nestled up against your heart.
Instead of holding a baby, maybe you would rather imagine holding a soft and furry kitten, or a tiny puppy. Imagine how sleek the puppy's fur would feel under your hands. Imagine how reassuring the warm body of the kitten or the puppy would feel against your heart.
Feel the love you have for this very lovable baby, or this very adorable furry kitten or puppy.
And now, holding onto that love, see if you can turn the loving creature you are holding into your own self. Maybe you can picture yourself as a baby. Or maybe you just want to let your adult body fold around that of the baby or the kitten or the puppy that you are embracing in your imagination.
Remember to keep breathing, and feeling your heartbeat. Keep returning the loving breath back into your heart. Let the warm reassuring feelings circulate through your chest.
This meditation may bring a smile to your face. Or maybe you'll end up laughing at the notion that you are cradling your own baby self. That's fine. Just try to stay aware of the sensations of your hands on the skin of your chest, and the reassuring feel of the heartbeat.
Remember, this is an exercise in self-acceptance and self-love. It's your own way of saying to yourself, in a physical and tactile way, "I am a lovable creature just the way I am." With this exercise, you are demonstrating that you can love and accept yourself without doing anything more than breathing and feeling the beating heart that keeps you alive.
Posted by Claudia R at Monday, February 04, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Saturday, February 02, 2013
Feeding on Light
Maybe because so many winter days are white and overcast,
the dawn of a clear sunny morning brings a thrill.
No matter that the frigid air will bite your skin if you step outside.
No matter that the sun may not last past noon.
It's still a gift to open your eyes to see the pine-treed hillside outside the window
turning gold in long lazy winter rays.
Downstairs, the sun streams across the kitchen, bathing the
cabinets. The same rays cross the threshold into the laundry room and
leave a tiny square of spring green light on the washing machine.
I set my finger into that delightful green spot. It's got promise, that spot.
The fruitbowl, with its orange, green and yellow curves and shadows,
becomes a still life painting.
And in the dining room, the long strips of light spread across the rug beckon to me.
I stretch out flat in one, as if I'm lying in a chaise lounge on the beach.
I stare right into the flood of sunlight coming through the window
and I am delighted to be blinded. I smile. I think Florida, I think emerald waves
and long white beaches. Palm trees and the smell of ocean breezes.
Bathing suits. Flip flops and suntan lotion and the grainy touch of sand.
Maybe because this morning's light is so rare, and I know there is no holding onto it,
(just now the sun slipped behind the clouds and all turned shadow)
Every place my glances happens to land -- on deeply furrowed grey bark, on the white pond, on green pine needles,
I let my gaze dally.
The day becomes a meditation, eyes feeding on light.
Posted by Claudia R at Saturday, February 02, 2013 1 comment: Links to this post
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Chapter 60, Sister Mysteries: After 18 Years of Writing, I Come Face to Face With Renata!!
Sister Mysteries, an on-line novel, tells the story of a nun, Sister Renata, who in 1883 was falsely accused and convicted of murdering her cousin. In this chapter, we see how she might finally go free.
Assisted by two of the other nuns, Bernice and Laura Lee, Teresa pulls Renata into the rocking chair. There she sits, slumped against one arm. Teresa runs for smelling salts, and Bernice boils water for chamomile tea. Laura Lee -- a delicate girl with dimples and great splotches of reddish-brown freckles -- holds Renata in a sitting position.
Kneeling in front of the chair, Teresa passes the salts under Renata's nose, until the smell of the ammonia starts Renata's head moving side to side. "Enough," she whispers. "Please no more."
Teresa pulls the salts away. "We have tea for you Renata, tea with gobs of honey. You must be so thirsty." She holds the cup up and takes a spoonful of the yellow tea. Blowing on it a few times, she lifts the spoon to Renata's open mouth. For the next few minutes, Teresa feeds Renata the warm tea. But soon Renata pushes Teresa's hand away.
"I must see Señora now," she whispers, wriggling out of Laura Lee's grip. "Please Teresa, please take me up to her."
"At least finish the tea, and put something solid in your stomach." Teresa bends closer and steadies a gaze at Renata head on. "I promise if you have a little of the rabbit stew we ate for dinner, and finish the tea, I will bring you to her."
Renata's face wrinkles up in disgust. "You know how I feel about rabbit stew. Just spoon me a few carrots and onions and some parsley and that will do."
Teresa rises, hands the mug to Renata. "You drink this up. And if you're still thirsty, Bernice will fix you a second cup."
After she has eaten half the vegetables that Teresa scooped into a bowl, and after she finishes most of a second cup of tea, Renata rises from the rocking chair. Teresa takes her arm and they pass through the convent's dining room and to the staircase. Soon they are in the second floor bedroom where Señora lies, her face small and almond-colored. Renata sits on one side of the bed, Teresa on the other.
Leaning forward, Renata whispers. "I'm here, my dear Señora. I am here beside you and I won't leave you."
Señora is lying in such perfect stillness that it isn't clear she is breathing. Teresa holds a finger below Señora's nose. After a few moments she takes her hand away.
"I have an idea," Renata says, getting up. "I'll be right back." She hurries to her old room, the straw mattress stiff and minus any sheets. Kneeling, Renata drags from beneath the bed the guitar she keeps wrapped in an old Indian blanket. She sinks to the floor and hums a low E, and quickly tunes the strings.
Soon she is hurrying back to the bedroom to Señora and Teresa, who smiles when she sees the guitar.
"It's worth a try, don't you agree?"
Guitar cradled in her lap, Renata plays the carcelero that Señora loves.
"In three days I've eaten
Only bread and tears:
That is the food
That my jailers give.
How do they expect me to live?"
She follows the carcelero with a soleares and a farrucca and finally, a rousing bulerías.
Señora is motionless, the music passing over her like a soft breeze. Renata puts the guitar down and takes Señora's hand and kisses it. "I know you can hear me," she says. "I just know you feel me here."
She takes out her beads and together with Teresa, they pray the rosary.
"It's late, Renata," Teresa says at the end of the prayers. "Tomorrow is another day. Please, I'll make your bed up for you. And I'll find a place for Arthur to rest downstairs. Come now. Let her be."
Renata wraps her rosary beads around Señora's hand, and places a kiss on the old woman's forehead. Teresa is out the door and Renata is just about to blow out the candle on the nighttable when she hears a soft groan.
Whipping around, she sees the rosary beads shaking in Señora's hand. "Teresa, Teresa, look!"
By now, Renata has Señora's hand in hers. "You're awake, you're awake!" It takes a few minutes before Señora's eyes open. She blinks. Her lips tremble, and Renata is sure she sees a smile on them.
"Oh my dear Señora you're back," Renata says in a hush. Señora opens her mouth but nothing comes out. "Don't try to speak. Don't."
Teresa and Renata stand there staring at Señora. The old woman opens her mouth. "Sietaté," she whispers in a hoarse tone. The nuns sit down. Renata takes both of Señora's hands in hers.
"Mi'ja," Señora begins. And then she whispers in Spanish. "It's my time. It's my time. I'm not long on God's good earth now."
"How do you know that Señora, you can't possibly know God's will."
Señora continues to speak to Renata in Spanish, in a hushed whisper. "There is no time for discussing this now. You must do for me what you have steadfastly refused to do all these months. You must find those missing pages of your journal and present them to the authorities. Please. Please, for me do this."
"No," Renata says, pulling back. "I won't do that. You know you can ask and you can beg, but I am not turning in those pages. Justice will be served and I remain in God's hands, with Mary to protect me too."
Teresa pipes up. "Señora is right. You've come back here now, Renata, and clearly there is no way we can protect you. Not for long can we hide you. The gallows is ready and waiting. The authorities will hang you as soon as word gets out. Please, abide by Señora's dying wish."
Renata rises, and turns toward the darkened window, her arms crossed. "I vowed I would never turn Señora in. I made myself a solemn promise. I can't turn back on that now."
Señora struggles to one elbow. And out of her comes a voice that I know so well. The voice in which she has spoken to me for the past 18 years. The voice that has pulled me back to Renata's world, time and again.
"Por favor Claudia," Señora cries out. "Ahora es muy importante que tu vienes aquí. Por favor!"
And as I sit here, typing, my laptop disappears and I let go of this world and move to the sound of Señora's voice. Suddenly I am in the room with the three characters whose lives I have entwined so tightly with my own.
Teresa and Renata stare at me. I'm wearing my blue bathrobe and white sox, and my hair must look like an awful fright. I haven't showered and I've got the sour breath one has after a night's sleep and a cup of coffee.
"Hola, Señora," I say and she reaches a hand out to me. Slowly I approach the bed. Renata's eyes are wide and forbidding and Teresa looks like she's seen a lizard crawl across the bed covers. I clear my throat and don't come any closer. "You don't know me of course," I say, my voice shaking. "But I am Claudia Ricci, a writer, and I love Señora as much as both of you."
"How could you possibly?" Renata asks, her voice shaking. "I've never seen you, nor has Teresa. Where did you come from?" Renata scans me head to toe and Teresa shakes her head vigorously.
"I understand completely," I say. "I've been working with Señora from afar. You would not believe me if I told you how far," I say. "It's much too hard to explain."
Señora sits up. She asks for her shawl and Teresa brings it to her and wraps it around her shoulders. Teresa and Renata stand beside her like protective soldiers. And then she begins to speak. Thankfully, she speaks in a slow Spanish that I can understand.
"This woman is writing your story, Renata. She's been writing it for 18 years."
I pipe up. "Actually it's exactly 18 years. Yesterday. January 25, 1995 is the day I started this book."
"What? What are you saying?" Renata takes a step toward me. Funny that I never thought her to be the least bit threatening before. "What book are you referring to? And what is this about 1995? And how could you possibly know me or my story?"
Señora smiles. "I'll ask you to be patient Renata. What you are witnessing here my dear is the work of the Virgin Mary. Her miracles, as you know, we can never explain. Miracles of Mary's making. This is one of those miracles."
"What do you mean?"
"The virgin appeared in a vision one night, right after you were hung."
"HUNG?"
Señora shakes her head. Her face is solemn. "You see Renata, time has come unhinged. After you died, I so regretted letting you sacrifice yourself on my behalf that I prayed continually to Mary for forgiveness. She came to me one night and said that together, we were going to rewrite history."
"Excuse me, Señora, but this makes absolutely no sense to me. Are you telling me you erased events that already took place."
Señora shakes her head slowly.
I decide to take a step forward. Renata tenses and steps back. "I am not here to hurt you," I say. "Please understand that's the last thing you have to fear."
Señora continues. "So why is Claudia here? Because I called for her. With Mary's help, I found Claudia, a woman who was willing to write the true story of Antonie's death. This woman you see here lives far into the future on the other side of the continent."
Renata collapses into the chair. "Surely you don't expect me to believe this," she says. She turns to Teresa who is just as dumbfounded.
"What Señora says is absolutely true," I say. "I come from a moment in history when we have such things as cars with engines and computers and mobile telephones and electricity and airplanes that fly."
"I don't believe it," Renata says. "I don't buy any of this silliness."
"You must listen," Señora commands. "You must listen Renata. If you fail to listen, you will most certainly hang, as you did the first time. The gallows is waiting and they will string you up in the hot sun in the courtyard without the slightest hesitation."
"I don't understand," Renata says. "How can this woman from the future help me escape? Does she takes me with her?"
The thought of transporting the nun back to Albany, New York, or to the little hamlet of Spencertown, where I live, makes me smile.
"No, Renata," I say. "I just write the story. It's up to me to make you see the wisdom of releasing those two pages from your journal. Those pages that cannot hurt Señora anymore. You were right when you first decided to hold them back, because the authorities would have hung Señora, a Mexican woman, without even a trial. A Mexican woman killing a white American man. But now Señora's time is up."
"How do you know that? How could you possibly know anyth..."
"Silencio!" Señora shouts. She lifts her pillow and takes out a piece of yellowed newspaper. She unfolds it. The headline reads in big block letters, "NUN FINALLY HUNG FOR THE MURDER OF HER COUSIN." Two columns of writing appear and in the center of the page is a very clear drawing of the nun swinging from a rope.
Renata gasps. Teresa cries out. "My God!"
"I hope you see now that the gallows is real," Señora says. "I hope you understand why the Virgin has interceded here. This is what happened the first time around. You did hang for Antonie's murder. You refused to produce those pages of the journal that tell the true story."
"Let me see that newspaper," Renata says snatching it away from Señora with a shaking hand. Sweat sprouts on her brow. "I don't know how this is possible. This is not ....this is...out of this world. This is impossible. This is ..."
"Un milagro," Señora says, finishing her sentence. "Yes, Renata, this is a miracle. That we are here, today, the three of us, with this woman writer from the future. This woman who in fact can save you. Give you the freedom you have so long deserved. Let her do her work. Give her those journal pages. Let her write them down. Let the authorities see the truth. Nothing can hurt me now. They won't touch me now. Not when I am this close to my hour of death."
Teresa speaks. "I am not sure I believe what I am hearing and seeing, Renata, but by God, this is indeed a miracle of some kind. I think this is your lifeboat Renata. You've got to cooperate. You've always told me that I would be the one to tell the true story after your death. It would be me who would reveal at the proper time -- after Señora's death -- what actually happened to Antonie. But now I see there is no reason to wait. No reason at all for you to die. And every reason for you to go free. You must do as she says Renata. You must trust this woman in the blue robe, because it is exactly the same blue color as the Virgin's veil."
Renata turns slowly to face me. I see her finely chiseled features, made sharper by the fact that she is so thin. Her hair is standing in a wispy black brush. She is as pale as cotton and even has some premature grey hairs. There has been so much happening to her since that chapter I wrote so long ago, when she supposedly turned into a flamenco dancer and danced on the table.
She reaches out one hand and I don't hesitate to take it. Renata's fingers are cool and slim and delicate. "It is a pleasure to meet you ma'am," she begins, "and even though I am still not inclined to believe that you are from the future, I have to say, Señora is rather persuasive with this newspaper she somehow managed to find."
I smile. "You know, it would have been up to me to produce that newspaper account," I say, "seeing as though I am writing the story. But more than anything in the world Renata, I wanted you to live. I never wanted to write the story of your hanging. Suffice to say it's quite nice that the Virgin Mary somehow made it possible for Señora to get that clipping -- without me having to do a thing -- to help convince you of my good intentions in writing your story."
Teresa is sitting down now. And shaking her head. "Amazing. Somehow the Virgin is helping to change history," she whispers. She opens her hands one to each side. "This is too much to take in all at once."
Señora turns. "Renata, find the missing journal pages please. Let Claudia have them for her story."
"No, Señora," I interrupt. "It's not my story. It's your story. And most especially it's Renata's."
"In any case, bring the journal pages to me," Señora says, slipping down under the covers. "And then, if you wouldn't mind, I would love a cup of tea."
And so Renata leaves the room to retrieve the missing journal pages. And Teresa goes downstairs to make tea.
And me? I pick up Renata's guitar and play for Señora one of my favorite flamenco tunes, a bulerías that my teacher Maria Z. taught me many years ago.
Posted by Claudia R at Thursday, January 31, 2013 No comments: Links to this post
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Breathing Love
On a day when the thermometer is barely able to reach five degrees outside, a very heart-warming meditation exercise has emerged inside.
I had heard about meditation practices that involve breathing love into your heart, or breathing in rhythm with your heart, but today for some reason I decided to experiment with it.
I sat there at the meditation table, candles burning. I had a very soft blanket covering my head to keep warm. I slipped my right hand into my nightshirt and placed it against my bare chest, right over my heart. I took my left hand and laid it over the right hand. Feeling the skin of my hand against the skin of my breast was very reassuring. Feeling my two hands covering my heart was also resassuring.
Feeling the steady beating of my heart brought a smile to my face and comfort to my mind.
I began to breathe in and out, in rhythm with my heartbeat:
breathe in, beat beat,
breathe out, beat beat,
breathe in, beat beat,
breathe out, beat beat.
As I inhaled, I imagined the love from my heart mixing with the air in my lungs and making a circle in my chest. Over and over again the love and air -- light, free and clear -- passed around and around my heart. This circular pattern felt so comforting, and so warm and energizing, as if I was reminding myself, or perhaps teaching myself in a new way, that it's OK, indeed, it's important, to feel a profound love for oneself. Sharon Salzberg reminds us of this principle in her lovingkindness -- or metta -- meditation. In that meditation practice, which ultimately involves sending lovingkindness to all beings everywhere, we start by sending lovingkindness to ourselves, saying:
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be free from suffering and fear.
May I live with ease.
In order to be loving towards others, we must first love ourselves. We must accept who we are, with all of our strengths and good traits, as well as our weaknesses. We must be comfortable in our own skin and hopefully, delight in our own company. What better way to remind ourselves of this than by engaging two of our most basic life functions:
heartbeat and
breathing.
Those of you who already meditate might want to give this one a try. And for those of you who say you can't meditate because your mind wanders, you may find it easier to concentrate on your breathing when you focus on synchronizing your heart beat with the in and out of your breathing.
I would love to hear from anyone who tries this exercise. Please feel free to write with feedback to claudiajricci@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, have a good day and stay warm!
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be free from suffering and fear.
May you live with ease.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be healthy.
May all beings be filled with lovingkindness.
May all beings be free from suffering and fear.
May all beings live with ease.
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