by Analyn Revilla

I was at a busy intersection on Slauson the day before Halloween 2021.  The van was loaded with large pumpkins and sundries to carry the entire household (humans, dogs and chickens) with food and snacks (the latter considered not as food, but necessary) for three or four days.  The weather was chilly, and I recognized LA has a fall season.  Some deciduous trees had turned their colors to yellow and brown, and dropped their foliage everywhere.  

The intersection at La Cienega is always backed up, and Saturday afternoons aren’t different from the other days.  My eyes wandered as I noted all of the cars sitting idle.  All were pretty much the same:  SUVs, trucks, sedans, vans.  Ho hum… until I spotted one SMART car.

It looked smart.  The shade was an unusual creme neatly outlined by a piping design, akin to a Coco Chanel suit.  I don’t know anything about SMART cars, other than they’re still being sold in Europe, and it’s pretty much dead in the United States.  The Europeans like their compact cars which makes sense when navigating the narrow streets of cities, towns and villages – at least of what I’d seen in my limited travel experience of Europe.  Anyways, it made sense and indeed smart to travel in compact cars in small streets.

Now here’s what struck me as weird.  As I sat in my wide and roomy van, I noticed an arm connected to a hand with fingers that held a lit cigarette.  Why was that odd to me?  I started to see more details.  The opened sunroof billowed smoke into the atmosphere above, while the arm, like a puppet, was drawn in and out of the driver’s side window consistently and rapidly! The pace was like a matador swiftly and adeptly moving a red cape as a bull charges at it. The tease, the dust, the heat and the cry of the crowd incests the animal further, making it charge more furiously towards the bullseye.  This arm was flicking ashes on the street after each inhale of nicotine.  

I watched in wonder for a little while, until I awakened to the trick my mind was knitting together – the juxtaposition of a chain smoker in a teeny car with S M A R T smattered across the back.  I laughed. We are humans. We are inconsistent. I simply love it.

“We’re all bozos on the bus,

so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.”

Wavy Gravy

by Analyn Revilla

In the heat of the afternoon I cleaned the chicken coop and its surrounding grounds – it is one of the methods to keep down the fly population, and it is a labor of love.  The chickens did their thing as I did mine.  Occasionally I’ll see a chase when a rooster haunts after his favorite gal.  Sometimes all of the roosters will gang up on one hen.  I haven’t gotten used to this behavior, and instinctively I want to interfere, but refrain from it.  I really don’t understand their chicken-logic.  I think it’s a territorial thing when the dominant rooster will not accept being cuckold by a lesser chicken in the order of chickendom.  

This afternoon, “Henri” was the energetic one and reigned terror in the roost.  I always watch my back when I’m working in the garden.  In the past, he’s attempted attacking me with his dance and jumps that aim his talons at me.  I meet him straight on.  If I back down then I’m sunk forever.  Despite my bravado, it still scares the heck out of me.  Lucky for me, I have an ally in “Number One” (that is his real name), the main rooster who keeps order in his domain.  He’s smart enough to know not to bite the hands that feed him. “Number One” will peck and chase away “Henri” as soon as he sniffs “Henri’s” evil thoughts.   But, even with “Number One” nearby, I still keep something at hand to fend off “Henri” should he have it in his cuckoo-brain to go-for-it.

As I raked and raked the ground while keeping an eye out for “Henri”, I wondered how pleasant it would be without him around.  I’ve threatened him numerous times that he would make a tasty pot of Coq-au-vin if he keeps up with his nasty behavior.   After 3 years of living in the near-terror of having this nasty rooster around, today I finally asked myself more than once if it would be nicer without him around.  

The action of raking and raking, then dumping the manure mixed with dirt into the garbage can, and sweating in my farmer’s uniform of coat and boots under the blistering sun, I started to melt. 

“Wouldn’t it be nice?” I pondered.  “Wouldn’t it?”  

I questioned my own thoughts.  The little urban farm looked cleaner as I moved from one side of it to the other.  My thoughts became less clouded as my body drenched in sweat was refreshingly fatigued.  As I gathered my garden tools and walked out of the little farm I felt less inclined  to be rid of “Henri”.  I came to the conclusion that without characters like “Henri” life would be less interesting, if not only less hazardous. Another day, and again, “Henri” and I have come to a truce.  I went inside, peeled off my wet clothes and showered away the dirt and salty sweat.

Without the “Henris” and “Number Ones” vying for the top roost and the best girls, then my chickens would just be hollow zombies.  There wouldn’t be that tension and heat that sizzles the mystery of what it is that we do.

by Analyn Revilla

We share the universal phenomena of life, love and death and everything in between.  As human beings we move and travel in linear time in our mind and in the cycles of the season with our senses. 

We pass our minutes, days, weeks, months, years and decades like the spokes of a wheel marking the miles and miles of the journey with selfies, postcards and worries. 

We cry tears of joy or sorrow. We burst out laughing in madness or glee.  It’s really a wonder to me how full life can be.

After many false starts I am still here.

I’m learning to surrender to the wonder of it all. 

As I drove home from my other job, navigating the streets and freeway traffic, I knew I had to write something. Maybe from fatigue or emptiness, I toyed with the idea of conveying silence.  Words can make a lot of noise. One word can be loud.

So let me try singing silence to you.

Just be still.

Just be.

After spending a week in the hospital as someone dear to me recovered from surgery I felt moments melting together. The thought of losing someone to their last breath condenses time. I don’t mind now that he doesn’t pick up after himself. I will miss it if I lose him.

by Analyn Revilla

In Edmonton where the winters are very cold and can last into early April the lilacs bloom heartily and they are sweet smelling.  A childhood memory is cutting down the tall stalks from the ancient bushes across the street from my home.  I made leis and crowns of the little blossoms that I plucked from the frond, like pinching bits of cotton candy from the cone.  

The common name of lilac is derived from the Persian word for blue.  Here is why:

Where they grow native, a lilac bush will appear in ordinary spaces making them extra-ordinary for a short period of time.  I’ve seen a single bush soften the harshness of concrete and metal with the wanton splay of branches, laden with French white lilac blooms. Syrina Vulgaris is native to the Balkan Peninsula where it grows on rocky slopes.  Perhaps it is the lilacs’ nature after all.

T.S. Eliot used lilac in two of his poems: “Portrait of a Lady” and “The Waste Land”.  In the latter he recognizes the lilacs by…

This lilac that has captured my imagination since childhood is more than sweet and heady.

CREDIT ELISE SULLIVAN

all

most 

eveynite 

‘i’

floss

crooked 

teeth

wine-stained

grinning

ahhhhhh

ain’t

no perfect

here

alright

goodnite

~*~

spillchecker, grimmer-checker

sucker

fo’writin’

po’et

ree

dee

fy

zee

b o t  

dew-naught

dee

ny

y’self

yo’

godgivengenie

us

all

— Analyn Revilla

by Analyn Revilla

Can I just be honest and admit that sometimes I feel envy…

It’s a hard knock to realize that some dreams aren’t meant for me.  This struck me not long after my husband died so suddenly.  We spent years building towards a dream. We wanted a farm with our animals and to live simply on love, song and wine.  We were getting so close to it, then poof!! All that disappeared one crazy day three years ago.

Sometimes you just want to say ~#$@0WTF!%8* 

After convalescing for three years I’ve learned to breathe again.  I had jobs to keep things going.  I made new friends while some dropped off, and those who stayed have sustained me. Thank you.  I learned new skills. I became an urban chicken farmer and a yoga teacher.  My three dogs and I, along with sixteen chickens, are generally doing pretty good:  there’s space to grow in our little home in South LA, I haven’t caught COVID, there’s internet, there’s food in the fridge and the ‘bestest’ is plumbing!  I can turn on the taps and there’s cold water and hot water, and I can mix the two to a perfect temperature, under which I can luxuriate for a decent amount of time. I also have a boyfriend now who keeps me grounded when my head is in the clouds, or lifts me up when I am blue or feeling Holly Golightly’s “mean reds”.

I still beat myself up when I catch myself thinking, “Hmmmm.  I wonder what it’s like to drive a new car, especially that sleek Tesla”, or that I’m working at some kind of artsy project.  I can even envy a dog with its head out the window of a car while its floppy ears and gorgeous fur is blowing in the wind like some 70’s TV commercial for shampoo.  I wish I was like that dog being taken out for a drive to the beach.  “Rover” is beautiful and carefree.

I try to practice what I teach in my yoga classes to “Allow and accept where you are today”.  

I recently finished reading “Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life” (authored by HRH, 14th Dalai Lama and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins).  Rather than focus on what I don’t have, appreciate what I have, because life is short.

Another imagery that brings it home for me are these lyrics from “Time” by Pink Floyd. 

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over

Thought I’d something more to say

“time” by Pink Floyd

One form of happy is to keep my envy in check.  Next time I witness something that stimulates my sense of lack, I pause and tell myself, “Some dreams aren’t meant for me”, then keep calm and ride on, hangin on in quiet desperation.

by Analyn Revilla

Sometime today, a man calls his doctor to say he’s running a little late.  He is literally five minutes away, and that he’s already in the parking lot and he’s awfully sorry.  He’s at the lobby where there are elevators to choose from – one side leads to the West Wing while the other goes to the East Wing.

An elderly man approaches the elevators.  He is confused as to which elevator to take.  Meanwhile, the other man, already late for his appointment, realizes he’s in the wrong building.  He had transposed the building address of 2634 to 2143. The other building is another ten minutes away. Then there’s also the problem of finding parking.  The elderly man looks to the left then to the right and then at the address written on a piece of paper. He shoots a helpless expression to the other guy.

Anxious that he is already late, and his doctor had arranged for a technician to come specifically to give him an EEG test, he asks the man where he needs to go. He verifies the name in the directory listing and escorts him to the correct elevator.

Driving to building 2634, he considers calling the office again to let them know he’s running later than he said earlier.  He reconsiders. It wouldn’t make sense, because he had already said he was ‘only 5 minutes away’. That was twenty minutes ago.

When he walks into the doctor’s office, the EEG Technician named Melinda is clearly unimpressed. She is due at another location for more EEG exams after his appointment. The receptionist is uncomfortable. He attempts to ease the tension by first offering a box of See’s chocolates to her. She smiles generously with a warm ‘Thank you.’ Then he draws a second box of the same for Melinda, but her trite ‘Thank You’ and tense expression only deflates the mood.  She marches him to an examination room.

Inside, she asks him to roll up the sleeve of his left arm, and as he does this he exposes a bruised and swollen forearm. ‘Where did you get that?’, she asks him.  ‘At the Endocrinologist’s office when they tried to draw blood.’ he says.  That was less than a week ago. Her left eyebrow lifts. ‘Really.  Which one?’  Upon giving his answer she says, ‘My husband and I go to his office. He is an excellent doctor, but I never let them take my blood there.” She pauses. ‘They just don’t know how to draw blood over there.  Someone should tell them.’

Having something in common between with them, he senses a softening of her eyes and her lips. She assures him the bruising and swelling will clear up. After an hour of running tests, before he leaves, she tells him that she has a sweet tooth and the chocolates are perfect.

If seeing is believing then all I want for Christmas is that we see…

It is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

There’s Christmas music 24 hours of the day (radio, TV, internet, on the streets, in your head, the one that you hum unconsciously).

There are Christmas lights and decorations on lawns and stoops of homes along the quietest streets and the busiest corners.

There’s anticipation in the air for some mystery and wonder.

There is a Santa Claus that lives in everyone’s heart.

Though without the means or the money, and there are miles, rules, illnesses and the pandemic that separate us from our loved ones, there is still the wish, hope and desire in our hearts and imagination to make dreams come true.

Believe.

Peace Y’All.

Painting by Tom Browning. Courtesy of Santa’s Time Off.

Today was the second day of winter, December 22nd, 2020.  Yesterday, the Winter Solstice, also the shortest day of the year was when two planets (Jupiter and Saturn) appear closer than it has ever been since 800 years ago.  It is known as “The Star of Bethlehem” (aka “The Great Conjunction” – During the 2020 great conjunction, the two planets were separated in the sky by 6 arcminutes at their closest point, which was the closest distance between the two planets since 1623).

When I was a very young girl my dream was to be an astronaut.  In 2nd grade, during class, I stared out the window and imagined being in space, while the teacher’s voice droned on like an unidentified buzz. I looked towards the azure and wondered what’s out there? and where and how do I fit in in this enormous puzzle?

Funny, many many decades later, I am still the same in my thinking, though the desire to be an astronaut has long passed.  What do I dream and hope for now?  I am at the arc in my life, the shooting star no more, and the trajectory is the downward bend.  This is a combination of losing momentum and gravity pulling my mass towards the center of the earth.

This is life.  Decay is inevitable.  I accept… though I still struggle.  Surrender is not easy when I remember how I used to climb tall mountains, and ran down the trail fast – hopped from rock to rock, light on my feet and my shirt drenched from clean sweat.  These days, I sit in front of a laptop with a tape over the camera, hiding from unknown intruders while my fingers hop over letters and special characters that decorate virtual documents and pages.

One definition of life is a measurement of time.  In the obit section, a name is listed with a date of birth and a date of death.  There was a beginning and then an end.  Between the bookends describes what the person did and who was left behind.

Imagine a straight beam of light shooting out of a super giant star, like “Deneb” (10 to the 5th degree in solar units luminosity).  Its light has been traveling for several light years to reach our eyes.  One day, the bright light of “Deneb” will fade and die.  But we wouldn’t know this in our human life, because the light reaching us now is a view of the past.  “When we look out across the Universe, we’re also peering back in time.” – Ethen Siegel, Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/09/07/are-any-stars-visible-in-the-night-sky-already-dead/?sh=287b5f77809f 

As a kid looking towards the stars I was seeing myself but not recognizing myself.  I was searching for the self, when I already am the self. I see therefore I am.