All Night Craps

My mother resisted growing older with all her might. She gloried in her younger days, when beauty was more important than the brain she hid under all that flaming hair. She loved being impulsive, daring, naughty—and she loathed anything that compelled her to accountability, like budgets or rules or authority. If she'd been born in my generation, she might have been a hippie who did art, drugs, rock and roll, and palm reading. Or maybe not, since she absolutely loved high-end designer fashions, expensive shoes and purses, and really good liquor. Not something a hippie would aspire to.

Because my mom was Peter Pan with female plumbing, there were plenty of times I acted the part of Mother. I looked after her, did her errands, cared for her when she was sick, let her cry on my shoulder. I'm talking about her in her prime and me from about 10 years old and up, not in her dotage!

Point? Perhaps it's no surprise that I could be a priss-pot about my mother's behavior. I cringed when I saw her partying, dancing, drinking, flirting... maybe some of that's normal for any kid who sees their parent(s) "being cool" (as if!). Some of it was well-deserved, too, because Kay was one loose cannon full of herself and that always worried me. Consequences were more my thing than hers.

One of her great enthusiasms was gambling. OMG. It's too bad my grandparents sold off their piece of the Las Vegas Strip back in the day, because my mom would have had a blast running a casino. She could have sashayed around in flashy clothes, maybe done a little cabaret, had personal power and minions, a nanny for her kids, and lots and lots of nightlife, her favorite. Las Vegas would have appealed to the cowgirl in her, too, when she felt like trading sequins for a pair of good boots and a cadillac with horns.

It seems natural, given her personality, that craps was her game of choice. She didn't have the patience for poker and she poo-poo'd blackjack; but she loved the high-wire thrill of a craps table.

When my husband and I moved back from the UK to California, Mom had a boyfriend who owned a place at Lake Tahoe. We all loved the natural beauty: the smell of pines, the blue icy lake, the rising Sierras. Mom would buy summer flowers and we'd fill up huge containers on the deck with pansies and lobelia. It was like camping with benefits, fresh air and campfires and bathrooms and beds. But, of course, there were also casinos, right over the Nevada line.

I remember one night in particular. We had dinner and then hit the casino for a little fun. My idea of gambling, just so you know, was $30 worth of coins for the slots. I was happy as a clam to sit there, drink the free booze, and pull the arm. (These days, the slots are digital and you push a button and somehow, it's just not the same.) My husband had a flurry with blackjack and roulette, then he was pretty much done. After a couple of hours, we were ready to head home—but not Kay. One aside, in case you don't know this: drinking alcohol at high altitudes can knock you on your butt. A couple of free cocktails and I was woozy enough to sit down outside. We waited. And waited. Finally, we gave up and caught a cab home. My mom's boyfriend decided to hang with her, which ended up being until the wee hours of the morning. To our astonishment, Mom won $9,000 (fyi, that's the equivalent of more than $40,000 today) and was officially escorted from the casino to her car so no one would rob her on the way out.

I'd love to say it was Mom's psychic abilities that allowed her to win all that cash, but it wasn't. She might feel good or bad about a particular roll ahead of time, but in general, she was just hog wild, laughing with her fellow players and sucking up Scotch and water. Otherwise, she would have made a whole bunch more money. She did  had a flair for commodities at one time—that's a blog for another day.

When our friends, J and B, decided to tie the knot in Las Vegas, they invited Mom and I to attend the ceremony. Mom had counseled them over time and predicted that their romance would blossom and J's career would take off—both of which happened—so they loved her to bits. We sometimes stayed at their place in LA. (They're still happily married after all these years and doing very well.)

The night before the ceremony, we cruised the Strip, had a lovely dinner, and went back to our hotel. It was pretty much a repeat of Tahoe, with different actors. I was sharing a room with my mom and turned in around midnight; the wedding was taking place at 11:00 the next morning. I didn't sleep well. Hours passed and my mom didn't appear. I tossed and turned. The sky paled and still her bed was empty. I thought of calling the manager. I didn't, though, because I knew where I'd find her: still standing at the same craps table I left her at the night before.

I look back on that event and wonder, why was I such a wet blanket about it? She was a grown-up, she had only limited funds and credit, so she couldn't get herself in too terribly deep, and it wasn't my problem if she looked like hell at the wedding. But when she dragged herself in around 6:00am, haggard and stiff from bending over the table for hours, I scolded her the way she scolded me when I was 18 and out all night with a boyfriend! Why did I bother? Why did I take that stance? Why was I such a party pooper?

I can only think that it was my job. One, ironically, that my mother assigned to me at an early age and who then became the victim of it. Growing up, my brothers referred to me as "the little Mom"—and that was no compliment, I can tell you!

She was so vibrant, so restless and hungry and impetuous...and the more she was that way, the more responsible and guilty and afraid I became. I needed stability but I wasn't getting it anywhere. Her marriages fell apart, her romances imploded, her finances soared up and down, and she still rode hell bent for leather through life. Sometimes I got swept along, giddy with luxury, indulgences, risk. You can't live beside a flame without wanting to stick your fingers in it at some point!

And, to use another metaphor, you also can't help but get tarred by the same brush.

I've never been the thrifty long-term saver that my brothers are. I may have been the ant to my mother's grasshopper, but my own legs were plenty long, too. I lived impulsively, romantically, without a plan. I didn't buy life insurance or invest in a 401K or consider saving for a mortgage. I craved stability but couldn't seem to find the way to achieve it as my own marriages and romances imploded. Even now, I tend to go for long periods trying not to spend, and then go on a shopping spree and feel guilty afterwards. The difference being that my expenditures are probably 15% of what my mother's would have been.

She never set aside anything for the future, for a rainy day. Not even her own funeral costs. She worried sometimes as she got older, wondering how she was going to make ends meet, but she also never stopped working. She knew retirement was not an option. She had windfalls, often just at the right time. She also had financially generous friends and clients, bankruptcies, and the luck of a...well, I don't know what. Something very lucky.

Worrying about my own life as the economy hits the crapper and I get older and less employable, I sometimes draw upon my mother as an example and an inspiration, ironic as that sounds. She believed that, as long as she was alive and had enough currency to stand at the craps table of Life and play the game, that was all that mattered.

I know how she felt.

If she were here, I wouldn't scold her. Not one bit.

While I Wait

I've been out of work for a long time. I've been freelancing, but it's been a river that's slowly dwindled to a trickle, and it's just not enough to get by. I've been fortunate and sold some stuff to get by. I've looked for a job and I've finally gotten a foot in a couple doors—but how will it turn out?

This is when I really miss my mom. Like a smoker misses a cigarette, knowing it's bad for her, even after years of not smoking. Who still remembers the thrill of inhaling smoke and taste and nicotine; the power of exhaling, dragon-like, into the air. The business of something to do while waiting: the pack, the cigarette, the lighter, the engagement of hand and mouth. (Yeah, I still remember and its been decades since I touched a cigarette, and I was never a full-time smoker.)

Mom's psychic ability was my crutch, my personal peek into the future. Even when it was flawed or wrong, it was something to cling to while waiting for life to manifest itself.

Now, there's only me to whom I can ask the question, "What's going to happen?" And I'm not good at answering. I'm better at answering how I feel, what my gut tells me, but even that changes depending on how stressed or excited I am. I've consulted my cards, and they give me patterns; they reveal the confusion and fear I've been under. The guile and diplomacy required in job interviews. The potential of being a hardworking apprentice that makes less. The nebulous fluidity of mood that is the Moon. The competition I'm up against.

The cards have told me for a long time that I will work as an apprentice, either because I'm new at the tasks I take on or because my wages are going to be entry level again. Maybe both! At the moment, this could apply to either of the situations I'm pursuing. A man will be the boss. Ditto on that one.

What my mom was so brilliant at was traveling down both paths for her client. If she was here, she could tell me which job is the best fit, will make me the most satisfied, has the most potential for growth. Sometimes that information is surprising—because it might not be what you expect. It might be that the comforting, reliable, job is the best one, even if it isn't the most exciting.

However, just because she could see down both roads didn't mean she could predict which one would end up the winner. If it was a level playing field, then her advice could really facilitate a decision. But if one job was going to be offered and the other withheld, she might not be so good at predicting that—especially for me. She wanted me to get what I want. 

As I've said before, you still have to endure the life that occurs until whatever happens happens. You have to make the journey. You may as well "give it up to God" and let it all flow, let go of the fear and stress and wait to see what will happen. You can't do much about it, once you've put on your best show, sent the thank-you notes, revealed your enthusiasm and capability. 

I guess I still believe in destiny. If I'm supposed to get the job I want, I will. If I don't, there's a reason. Pattern-making human as always, justifying the outcome. If I don't get either? Well, that will suck. But it won't be the first time. 

Sometimes I think it will go one way, sometimes the other. I don't know if my gut is telling me how it's going to end up or whether I'm just bracing myself for disappointment.—or if I just don't want to look at what I really feel because it's not what I want. Another reason to stop making myself crazy and just wait and see.

So, yeah, I wish my mom was here to tell me. But I know in my heart it would only be something to do while in the waiting room, a smoke to soothe my nerves. It wouldn't change anything.

Secret Garden

When the freeway was built in Marin county, it cut through the neighborhoods of San Rafael and San Anselmo, creating pockets of culture composed of artistic, aging hippies, affluent young professionals or older, more rural, residents. Shanna was an artist living in one of these pockets in San Anselmo. In the spring of '91, my mother and I went to see some of her work. 

The street has a 1950s feel, lined with small clapboard houses sitting on tiny, manicured plots—all except for Shanna's. Her home is a rambling rural oasis, hidden behind overgrown shrubbery and a line of massive acacia and live oaks. A small, rusty wire gate huddles in a hedge, bearing a hand-scrawled sign that says, “Please latch the gate and bungie it. Beware of dogs.” These come running out as we enter: a young, brisk Sheltie-cross with a long, inquisitive nose, and a shaggy, older dog, greying around the muzzle and walking stiffly. His milky eyes peer at us, and he gives a mournful “Yowww” as we approach the house.

Shanna emerges from the house to greet us. Her handshake is firm and dry, but her voice is soft and her manner a little shy, although she has met my mother once before. It's hard for me to determine her age. She has a youthful shape to her face, which is fair, blue-eyed, and devoid of make-up. Her hair is long and thick, with bangs cut across a slender forehead. But there is a lot of grey streaked among its blonde, and her cheeks are lined and rough from being outdoors.

She leads us to her home up a sidewalk speckled with vivid emerald moss and surrounded by dozens of large metal containers filled with dirt. Most of them have small green spears breaking through their soil. A few lilies-of-the-valley are up in one, and a cluster of paper-whites in another; Shanna is an avid grower, if not a gardener. Certainly, I have never seen such masses of English violets in a California yard; they bruise the shadows with their rich, purple color.

The house is light blue and a mix of shapes.  Some of it is square, with large dusty windows at yard level; they hang at odd angles. Parts of the house appear to have been tacked on over the years, none too skillfully. The whole place looks as if it would fall over from a single blow. The front porch needs painting and some carpentry on its stairs. It holds more plants, a scarred wooden end table, and a sagging couch covered in dog hair. Mother and I cast surreptitious glances at each other. Shanna has gone in to get her sculptures; we are obviously to stay out here and view them. Shall we sit on the couch and risk the furry web and possibly rich smell of dog? Mother, being more fastidious, decides against it. I brush quickly and hopefully at a small square of couch and perch cautiously on the edge.

The house is dark inside, Shanna explains as she re-emerges, too dark to see her work well. She puts down two large cardboard boxes filled with newspaper. Inside are all her current sculptures, carefully wrapped. The dogs lie comfortably at our feet as we begin the process of revealing her work...

I'm unprepared for the delicacy and warmth of her art. Palm-sized figures of creamy, unglazed porcelain emerge from their sea of paper, mer-animals of every species and pose: laughing pigs with curled legs and hooves; fat, happy cats, sleeping or playing flute; supine elephants, entwining trunks; goats, sheep, hippos in tender pas de-deux—all skillfully carved and lifelike, except for the fact that their nether halves are fish. Each scale is carefully tooled. Tails toss and curl like a sailfish's fin, or lie in rippling serenity. There are a few people, too: mermaid mothers playing with their babies, or cuddled up with mer-cats and dogs. Merchildren laughing and holding pets. I notice all the women's faces look a little like Shanna.

Soon the couch is a colony of strange and wondrous creatures. I am enchanted, and it's hard to choose between them. Mother decides on a pig and a small cat, licking its fishy tail. I choose a mer-cat that looks like my Duchess—fat, furry and curled on her back in blissful slumber.

Shanna tells us about an upcoming exhibition. She wants to design a display for her creatures, something that resembles a rocky beach but is light and easy to carry. She does not drive, she explains. She has no car. Through these intimations I also understand she has no husband, no lover, no steadfast friend to take her under his wing. She begs rides to the shows. She sallies forth on foot to shop in the nearby stores. In the heart of an affluent, mobile culture, Shanna remains a rural anachronism, contained by her own—what? Fears? Poverty? Artistic sacrifice?

After each piece is laboriously rewrapped, Shanna shows us her kiln. It's in an old barn, cluttered with equipment, hay and the strong smell of chickens. She picks up a mask, an interesting head made of equal parts of bear and crocodile. “It cracked, you see,” she says. “It was so thick, and I rushed the drying process. It was ruined. I do better with the small pieces.” She introduces us to her goats, two wall-eyed Nubians kept in a wire yard of hay and hard-packed dirt. There is an old orchard here, and its abundant apples hang on the leafless branches or lie on the ground, copper and bronze with rot. A large ginger-colored cat comes by, ignoring the eager interest of the dogs and allowing me to stroke it briefly. There is a vegetable garden adjacent to the goats, too; it contains some wilting cabbages and thick-stalked onions.

Mother and Shanna talk about the goats, and I wander back to the gate. There are ducks in the front yard now, flapping and quacking by a small pool. The cat follows me and sits beneath a bush. The overall effect of this aging, chaotic garden and ramshackle house unsettles me. I feel as if I wandered into a fairy tale—Rapunzel perhaps—where (unlike the Disney version) the King, gazing from his castle, is surprised by the wild, magical grounds of his neighbor, the witch. In the original story, he trespasses into those grounds to pick campion for his ailing, pregnant Queen. It is an act of courage, not just because he risks the witch's righteous anger but because he leaves behind his pristine world for something wild and strange. Something that lives by different rules. Something enchanted.

I sense the same enchantment here: the delicate spirit of Shanna, living behind a simple, lonely heart. The whimsical, engaging art hidden in the shadowed, unkempt home. The rural, fecund garden thriving among trim suburban yards. What must her neighbors think, gazing over the wire fence? What do I think, having braved the grimy porch and walked among the weeds? 

I touch my little mer-cat, wrapped in paper, and smile.

The Real Rescue

Obviously, this was written before my mother died...

Mother talks about dying all the time these days. Well, she has for years. She longs for it sometimes, because she’s so f’ing bored and in pain from her arthritic knees. Sometimes I have a passing urge to pick her up, part and parcel, and move her into my home. To give her relief, to take away the worry of her self-supporting existence, so she would have enough money and not have to pay rent or work. A house without stairs to climb. A place for her dog and cat, where she could be pet-sitter for my own animals when I’m at work or on the road.

But the problem with sharing a home with my mother is that she takes over, just like bindweed. She wraps herself around your time, your rooms, your television shows, and twists them into whatever she wants and needs. After a while, there’s no space for you anymore. You can’t breathe. And she always wants more, and she takes everything you do for her as her birthright. Too proud to sustain gratitude, too critical to be polite.

I've talked extensively about Rescuing and the real irony is, my mother was my Rescuer of choice for most of my life, even when I was married. Because I ran to her for everything. We had our moments of separation, of discord, but eventually, we circled back into each other's orbit. When I was done with marriage, I moved back in with her.

I've likened us to two dragons, locked mid-flight in mortal combat, breathing fire on each other.

In hindsight, I realize that I've been my mother's Rescuer, too. Like me, she's gone through marriages and relationships, hoping but not finding. In the end, she's had to build her own business and pay her own rent, stand on her own feet—and through all those times, she ran to me just like I ran to her. We are the Important Relationship in each other's life. We've outlasted the princes and there are probably no more coming at this point.

But even though we've tried, it hasn't been possible to establish a healthy footing.

The last house we shared, I had a huge bedroom downstairs with it's own television and fireplace. Nice, right? A good solution for separate spaces. My mother was always calling down to me, "When are you coming up? What are you doing?" If I was playing guitar and singing, she'd interrupt me with this question (even after I asked her not to). It wasn't enough to be in the same house. She wanted my company there, next to her, watching what she was watching on television.

She also had the habit of talking to my animals while I was downstairs getting ready for work in the morning. "Hasn't she come up to feed you yet? She's a bad mommy, isn't she?" Like that. I knew if I stayed any longer, I was going to stab her in the neck and throw her down the stairs, like a cheap horror film. When the chance came, I packed up and moved—first to the East Coast, then to the MidWest. For almost the first time in my life, I stood on my own two feet. No man. No mother. No family.

This is the last part of the process: to live far away from her, on my own, and discover my spirit's natural shape. My brothers are not always happy about this, especially as her health falters. They are near, I am not. They have to deal with her, I can hang up the phone and go on with my day.

So now, when I feel this deep impulse to gather her in and take care of her again, I resist it.

The Good Ship Lollipop

Shirley Temple Black died yesterday at age 85. Like most of my generation, I enjoyed her movies as a child, her brightness and dancing, her timely sense of pathos or courage. Her movies were before my time but, like generations after me, we all enjoyed them via reruns or DVDs and have this shared legacy of a cheerful little girl who overcame being an orphan, a scullery maid, a kidnapped companion kept away from her goats...

If you said, "Grandfather! Grandfather" with an accent in our house, we knew just what the joke was. (For those of you who don't, it's a quote from "Heidi.")

But what if there had never been a Shirley Temple? What if, instead, it had been another little girl? What if, in fact, it had been my mother?

Here's how the story goes, according to the way my mother told it, although it's been some years since I heard it...

When she was a little girl, living God knows where (I don't remember but from the photo it looks to be in the Southwest somewhere), her family was approached by "a man from Hollywood." Probably a talent scout or a producer. He was looking for the next child star. Shirley was a no-name at that point.

My mother was tiny for her age, had a wealth of very curly red hair, and was probably pretty cute with her big green eyes. The only photo I have of her is when she's around two and she's frowning, so hard to tell from that. She was different from Shirley, but her mouth could be a similar rosebud and goodness knows it could pout like Shirley's did!

This isn't the photo I was thinking of, but I'll have to try and dig up the other one.

Anyway...this gentleman wanted to take her back to Hollywood with him. He wanted my grandparents to sign a contract. I guess he convinced them because things were set into motion and apparently everyone was ready to go. Only, just like something out of a tragic Shirley Temple movie, the night before they were supposed to clinch the deal, my grandparents' house burned down.

Mom never talked about all the stuff they lost, that wasn't part of the story. I do know that their collie, Laddie, perished in the fire. (I still can't really think about that and I wish she'd never told me, but I understand why that made such an impression on her tender, animal-loving heart.)

My grandparents, staggering under this tragedy, reversed their decision and Mr. Hollywood went to knock on other front doors.

I never understood why they didn't go ahead. I mean, yes, they'd just suffered a great loss. But on the other hand, little Kay might have been their meal ticket for years to come, and help to make up for that loss and then some. Couldn't Grandmom have climbed on the bus with her daughter and left Grandad to work on salvaging things? Maybe not. Maybe in those days it was different, and maybe it was too much.

All I know is, that was the end of my mother's shot at stardom. Shirley was found and cast, and the rest is history.

And maybe that's what started the whole deal. Maybe they recounted this twist of Fate to little Kay as a child. Maybe it made her think she was Somebody, and that she'd missed her chance to prove it. Maybe it was the foundation for all the ambition and haughtiness and desire for the Best in Life that burned inside my mother, making her a swan among the ducks, an alien changeling that didn't fit the rest of her family. Something sure did.

She hungered for celebrity, and she found it in many smaller ways throughout her life. She hit the big time in her 40s as a psychic and was even courted by the prestigious William Morris Agency. But—and here's another head-scratcher—she turned them down.

The flip side of my mom's drive to be famous was a fierce need to be in control. Of f'ing everything and everyone! It made her family crazed, it ruined her marriages, it spoiled some of her best chances. My mother would rather be a big fish in a small pond than the reverse. She feared that the William Morris Agency would "control" her, manage her, and she couldn't stand the thought.

"They'll take a big cut of everything I earn," she said.

"Yeah, but Mom, ten or twenty percent of a whole lot of money is worth it," I said. "A hundred percent of nothing is...well, nothing."

But that's what she opted for. So Sylvia Brown was all over the place with books and interviews and fame. My mom did lots of good stuff and made some impressive appearances. But her books were small potatoes, and she ground her teeth every time Sylvia came on TV. There but for Fortune...

Maybe we all make our own Fortune. We get these chances, and we turn them down, sometimes for a good reason—sometimes not. Mom could have been singing "The Good Ship Lollipop" and I could've grown up in the Hollywood Hills. We'll never know.

Resting Places

In a movie, a woman visits her son’s grave in northern France. He was killed in the War and she comes over from England periodically to talk to him.

I’ve never visited my father’s grave, although I remember very clearly the day we put him in it: the gray flocked casket that seemed too small to hold his tall, big-boned frame; the horrible clot of pain in my throat that seeping tears only slightly relieved. To weep openly, deeply, would have felt like letting go and I was afraid of where it would take me. So I stood in agony while they lowered him into the ground. And I never went back.

As I watched the movie, I wondered about this need to visit loved ones in a cemetery. After all, it’s only their bones, and they are not really there. I have visited my father frequently, but from wherever I was—driving, usually, across country as I fled from West to East Coast and back again, wandering, searching, living my life in geographical phases. I've felt him near me, I've talked to him, wept for him, prayed to him. I've retained a warmth from my early childhood toward him, culled from photos where I sat on his lap and he read to me, this little big-eyed girl with bangs and a ponytail. I remember the smell of his pipe tobacco and the way he cleared his throat before he spoke, especially if he’d been pondering for awhile. He wore Old Spice and I loved the fragrance and the shape and design of the bottles.

While alive, my dad was gone more than he was home, and there are great blank stretches where I don’t remember him at all. For having two parents, I was still a latchkey kid, coming home to emptiness most of the time. Later on, when he remarried, theological differences fenced us off from on another. We never reconciled those, but we overlooked them as he fell ill and death became a reality for both of us.

The preacher of the big church where they held his funeral spun stories of who he was—as if he even knew—mentioning me only among the children and stepchildren that Dad left behind. He talked about a person who had nothing to do with years of being my father. Someone who wasn’t always wrapped up in Jesus, who smoked a pipe and flew planes and sailed in on a carrier to us, with the smells of fuel and tar and salt water, and the cry of gulls above. That person wasn’t present in the church, and lives only in my heart now. So what would be the consolation of going to his grave? Maybe the tangible proof of his former existence, a spot where you can focus your thoughts and send them out to his soul, wherever it is? Perhaps that is the solace of a headstone, the place where you can take time and remember.

I don't have a home, even after all these years. I have places that I live and like, but even a decade living in the same place has not made it Home. For me, the old adage has become Truth: Home is where the heart is, and mine is scattered across the world with my siblings, my son's family, my grandchildren. Through choices and circumstances, I am an exile. I hope to not be one forever.

My mother wanted to be cremated. That meant that when she died, there would be no place to visit and ponder about her or chat. She would be scattered somewhere, and the thought pained me, it gave me grief and even a little terror. Gone is so gone. Whatever may be afterwards, you're still gone from this plane of existence. Feeble and aging as Mother was, at least she was a phone call away.

As it turned out, my mother's cremation—and the scattering of her ashes—is painful for me to contemplate, even now. She died in a nursing home after an eight-month descent into dementia via a series of vascular strokes. In the end, her brain forgot how to swallow. Such a simple function, but without it, she was doomed. She couldn't eat or drink or receive oral medication. Since she didn't wish her life to be artificially prolonged, the only decision was to keep her comfortable and let nature take its course. Dehydration. Not in a desert under a hot sun but in a bed in a cool room. Almost all of her children were there the last night, saying goodbye. I kissed her forehead and her eyes flickered open when I spoke to her, but I'm only hoping when I say she knew I was there. I hope she did. She died in the early morning before we could to her. But I knew when I kissed her goodbye the night before that I would never see her again.

Afterwards, it should have been a straightforward process to deliver her to the crematorium. But that's not what happened. The doctor who signed her death certificate at the nursing home made a mistake when noting down her meds and cause of death; this triggered an inquiry, and my mother's body was taken in a bag to the coroner's for medical exam. Everything was settled and the inquiry went away, but the result was that she went from the coroner's to the crematorium as a naked body in a bag, not as someone washed and dressed in a favorite outfit, as I always imagined.

Because of this hiccup and the time it took, I was already back home by the time Mom's body was released. We'd had a private celebration of her life and death at my brother's home, but no formal funeral—she didn't believe in them and thought they were a waste of time. She'd made no provisions, no will, she had nothing but a few personal possessions that we'd already taken care of before the nursing home. My mother never took care of business if she could avoid it.

But this last process was unsettling and irregular. At any rate, my brothers received her ashes. My sisters-in-law and I suggested that she be scattered from a boat into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps off the coast of Monterey or Carmel, which she loved.

Now, I love my brothers deeply; they are the best men I know, and I hope we walk this road for a long long time together. But their feelings toward Mom were a lot less explored and resolved than mine. Their anger was still fresh and simmering, breaking through the crust of civility like lava through the earth. Their reactions to her death were conflicted—and they are, all of them, (fiscally) practical men. So instead of paying for a boat that would take them out onto the ocean and scattering Mother's ashes there...they took her to a quiet local beach, said a prayer, waded in and dumped her just offshore. And guess what? Her ashes were caught and tumbled by the waves and slopped back up onto their legs and the beach where people walked and ran their dogs.

To their due, they were shocked. They expected the ashes to sink. I don't know why they didn't wait for a time when I could be there. I am unhappy that they wouldn't fork over some money to have a proper ceremony out to sea. My mother's decline and death were not what I would've predicted, and they stunned me; but her final disposal grieves me still. Not for the mingling of ash and sand and sea, but for the lack of beauty and ritual that we all deserve when our time comes.

I want to be cremated, too. But I've asked that it be in a lovely meadow or forest somewhere, under sun and shadows and birdsong. As much as I love the ocean, it is too deep and watery, too turbulent and volatile, for me to enjoy ending up there. It is, by its very nature, a place that does not rest.

The perfect place for a woman as restless as my mother.

Wrong Number

When I was 19 and looking for the Great Love of my Life to marry, my mother was still in the early days of her psychic powers. I consulted her like an oracle, often and eagerly. I pestered her for reviews of current crushes to see if they were worthy candidates. I had her look into the future to describe the man I’d finally choose to fall in love with. So she did. She described in great detail the big house I’d live in, the kind laughter of my husband, and the large, jeweled, heirloom ring he’d give me as an engagement present. It all came true—for my best friend Kathy. She married her boyfriend just a few months before I married mine, I was her maid of honor, and the details fit down to the sparkle in her (heirloom) ring.

Mom had seen correctly—but she’d misinterpreted. Both events happened around the same time, Kathy and I were close, and I'd even dated her husband before she fell in love with him. I was a member of the wedding party and I got to walk around in the big house of Mom's vision. So it's not surprising her wires got crossed. It was something she would hone over the years and get better at when dealing with clients. Perhaps less so with me, her daughter, for whom she had hopes and dreams; it was harder for her to "see" for her family with the same detachment and accuracy.

Romance is always a popular topic for prediction. It's probably what most women want to know about, whether they’re looking, suffering, escaping or embarking on. I've said before that, during the early years of my marriage, a dependency on my mother's visions put me in harm’s way. And it did.

My family lived in California at this point. So my husband and I, and our new baby, joined them there after he resigned from military life in the UK. The differences that existed between my husband and I in terms of values, cultures, and upbringing had already created cracks in our marriage. He didn't want to go to counseling and he was uncomfortable talking about it; I, patterning myself after my maternal role model, already had one foot out the door. Frankly, I'd had it there for a long time, only I was terrified to take the next step.

As my marriage crumbled, I sought desperately for my next Rescuer. So I consulted my longtime Oracle, and Mother described him in detail: tall, articulate, passionate, intelligent. With a very fast green car. Someone I had known in other lives. Someone with whom I would experience passion and romance. This eroded my marital commitment even further and gave me a fierce hope.

Though I could not imagine how I would meet such a man. Every day, my husband went to work and I stayed home with an infant—but with no car, very little money, and no social peers. We'd bought a modest house in a blue-collar neighborhood; to me, it may as well have been on the moon. (FYI, I had a strong intuition NOT to buy the house but it came too late and we were committed.) For friends I had the choice of a woman with a tribe of children and a smelly house full of sticky furniture or a shy, quiet Asian mother with a toddler girl, who was new to our culture. They were both lovely women in their own ways; it was me that was the fish out of water. I spent my time pushing my son's stroller to McDonald’s or bumping over parched, drought-stricken fields, soon to be developed. I felt like I was in hell. Where was I going to meet this prince? At the local golden arches? The cut-price supermarket? The dry, thorny meadows? You had to know where the princess lived before you could climb her tower and set her free. And I wasn’t likely to run into anyone.

My mother’s psychic ability seemed a lifeline to me in these unhappy times. She disliked my husband anyway, and was glad to predict a new love in my future. (He, in his turn, recognized the enemy when he saw her, so the feeling was mutual.) When I could escape to my family, she and I spent hours shopping, lunching, and spinning dreams about my life to come. She was totally sympathetic and indignant about my situation and my husband. And, miserable subordinate that I was, I told her everything. Even when I knew I shouldn’t, when shame flooded me, I confided in her—knowing she would never forget or forgive, even if I did. A hard word exchanged, the nasty mood of an hour or two, might pass and be resolved between me and my husband; we did have our happy moments, when we were kind to one another and tried to be committed to our child. But Mom would not move through that transition with us. She would keep a detailed emotional ledger on every complaint I made and she would hold a grudge forever.

I knew this. She had grudges against people who had been in their graves for decades. A comment from her mother-in-law, who thought Mom should get up and serve her husband regardless of Mom's pregnancy, was still brought up with indignant fury as fresh as the day it happened—despite the fact that this woman died when I was a child. Mother had a fierce tenacity toward any slight. So it was symptomatic of my toxic co-dependency on her, my immaturity, my desperate need for approval and for "being on her side" that I so inappropriately shared my unhappiness with her. Even when I knew both my husband and I would suffer for it.

The wisest thing my mother could have done would have been to tell me nothing about the future; to urge us both to counseling; to tell me that marriage is always hard work and that swapping one Rescuing Prince for another is just trading one set of problems for another. But how could she say any of that when she didn't know it herself? How surprising is it that I emulated my only role model, one who spent most of her life going from man to man, looking for just the right Rescuer to get her through life without fear or harm or want?

It's not healthy to be dreaming of a stranger while you're married to someone else. It's cowardly to wait for a rescuer instead of declaring your own freedom or, even better, working on the relationship you hold in your hands. I considered myself a smart person but that didn't mean I couldn't also be a foolish one.

One day the phone rang. When I answered it, there was a mix-up between the man who was calling and myself. He asked for me by my first name, then started trying to help me remember him. And I’ve lived so many lives, in so many places—well, I just suck at remembering names, faces, events, people, details. My head spins sometimes when two threads of the past come into juxtaposition. 'Don’t you remember?' my brother will say about a childhood event. 'We did such and such with so and so. It was important. You were there. You felt this way.' And I won’t remember any of it. So when I couldn't recall this guy on the phone, I didn't immediately conclude that he was a stranger. Eventually, we figured out that it was all a misunderstanding. He'd misdialed. We didn’t know each other at all. It was another girl of the same name. I hadn’t erased him from my overfilled memory banks, I’d just never known him.

And that's when the harm occurred. That's when the potent New Age brew of clairvoyance, reincarnation, karma and destiny led to a conclusion as flawed as Mother's prediction about my wedding. Maybe I’d known this man before, in another life. Maybe this was the universe delivering to my doorstep. Maybe this accident was really Fate stepping in, and I was talking to my Rescuer on the phone!

I'm going to digress for just a moment. Years earlier, when we moved to Virginia Beach, Mom had a client who was in love with a bus driver. During her reading, Mom gently probed the details of this relationship. The woman confided to her that she based it on the local paper's daily horoscope. Every day, she read her horoscope and applied an interpretation of it to her (quite imaginary) love relationship with the bus driver. Every day, he drove by her house. Well, yes...because that was his route! He'd never said anything to her, aside from the normal pleasantries as she entered the bus. The rest was all in her mind, distorted and made to fit, because of her belief in a newspaper horoscope. Mom and I shook our heads in amazement; how could a woman be so delusional?

I can tell you how because I did it myself.

I talked with this stranger on the phone. More than once. For hours. Laughing. Sharing. While my husband was at work. It wasn't long before he wanted to meet me. Wrapped in my dreams of longing, colored by my mother’s predictions, I agreed.

We discussed arrangements. But my stranger-prince wanted me to come to his apartment. We could swim, he said. Bring my suit. I wanted to meet at my mother’s home, around people I knew. Meet my family, I said. He didn’t like that. He demurred, urged, demanded. I started to tremble. I started to feel fear and to hear deception in his voice. He wanted me alone. He wanted sex. He wanted me away in his world, where no one could see. I argued with him and said no. I told him never to call again. I hung up, shaking.

I realized that I had almost allowed my illusions, my need for rescue, my dependence on prophecy, to potentially put me in the gravest harm. It’s ironic that my mother didn’t foresee this danger. But this was a situation I had NOT shared with her, and she was not always good at foreseeing danger in my life. Not even the greatest of them, which came later and which I've blogged about (read Didn't See It Coming).

Fortunately, I had never given the guy my address and this was years before Caller ID. He knew only my first name. He never called again and after a while, I started to feel safe. But I also felt sick because I'd been stupid, and only my common sense reasserting itself had helped me dodge a bullet.

Years later, Mom's prediction about the man in my future was proved right. I did meet a passionate man in a fast green car. Right in the hallway of her own home. Face to face, green eyes looking into my brown—and it was like lightning striking. Metaphorically, I jumped into his arms and demanded succor. My Prince at last! My rescuer!

In a way he was, but not as I imagined. This is life, not the Hallmark channel.

I divorced and married my new guy. In retrospect, I value the spiritual gifts he gave me, the journey we made together, for it was part of the learning and healing that led me to self-worth and independence. But I would pay the highest price for this "rescue." My first husband became an implacable enemy. As a result, I would lose most of my son’s childhood, the sweetest part of my motherhood. I would experience the greatest loss I have known in this life.

I would also learn that the only person who was going to rescue me was myself, and that was as hard and stoney a road as any storybook quest.