QUAIL MUTTERINGS #34. The Circle of Life (March 2, 2015)

Posted on March 3, 2015 by chivarnado

Oh, father and mother, sister and brother
If it feels nice, don’t think twice
Just shower the people you love with love…

I inserted the CD into my truck player and rocked out in excitement as I drove down to San Diego on Thursday morning to help out and “Be There” with my daughter. Jessie had called earlier saying that she was feeling “Different,” and her contractions felt stronger than the Braxton Hicks she’d been experiencing this week. Caught up in singing along with James Taylor I missed the turn and had to backtrack to her street.
I lay down on the bed beside her and held her hands. We practiced breathing together. After a walk with her auntie, who lives in the front house, she was following what she’d learned in the Bradley method classes. Opting for a home birth thrilled me. The same wonderful midwife who had delivered Jessie and her siblings was now going to assist her in the magical circle of life. I brought a salad for us to share for lunch. Sean came home after his morning shift, grabbed a snack and changed his clothes. Kali, my other daughter, arrived and shortly after Deborah, Sean’s mother, joined us.
Early labor progressed and we talked quietly between contractions – allowing silence for Jessie to focus inward when she needed to. Her dad came in for a while and rubbed her feet joining in the camaraderie that this phase permits. Other family members came and went enjoying the concentrated calmness surrounding us. Hours later we called the midwife.
The midwife’s colleague and her apprentice came first pulling a wheeled, medical suitcase. Things continued in a relaxed manner and Diane came later with her own medical bag. We all listened attentively as she monitored baby’s heart tones. She asked Jessie, “How are you feeling?”
“Alright, I guess,” Jessie said. I don’t have anything to compare it to.” We laughed. In the evening there was a smorgasbord in the front house that other family members had prepared. By then, there were three aunties, a cousin, Jessie’s dad and his other daughter and wife on the scene. We spelled each other so that we could grab sustenance for the long night to come. They partied way into the night with puzzles, movies and socializing. Two of them had just flown in from Northern California.
Meanwhile, in Jessie and Sean’s tiny abode, we helped Jessie out as best we could. During the first half of the night the midwives slept in the front house as Sean, Deborah, Kali and I lay down with Jessie, rubbed her legs, fetched her water and Gatorade, helped her to and from the bathroom, or held pressure on the heating pad against her back. By midnight, she only wanted Sean lying in front of her holding her hands and breathing with her.
“Don’t leave me,” she kept saying.
“Don’t worry. I won’t, Honeybuns,” he’d say.
“Relax your legs. Limp legs now,” I’d whisper. “Relax your jaw. Put your feet down.”
Jessie wanted to spend more and more time upright, but it could cause her cervix to swell. I spread a blanket and pillows on the floor so she could spend some time on her hands and knees. This worked for a while.
Sometime during the wee hours Diane came back and took Jessie’s focus away from Sean allowing him to fall asleep beside her. Contractions slowed down, but remained formidable. Dozing in chairs, or on the little floor space in the one room dwelling, each of us snatched minutes of shut-eye time. Power naps. Diane worked her wonders with my daughter, coaching Jessie through the intensifying storm within her. It became clear to Diane that Jessie needed to lie down more, as this brought on harder contractions and more progress could be made. Time was marching on and Jessie was getting tired.
When morning came one of the aunties stuck her head in the door, “There’s coffee.”
I have to say, we all perked up with that offer. As I brought back two cups for Sean and me, Jessie said, “No coffee.”
I darted back out the door gulping mine down and leaving the cups outside. The smell was too much for her. She’d already thrown-up once. Poor Sean never did get his cup of coffee. Or any breakfast. She held him tight. Diane said that our core group was good to have on board. Any more made for too many people without jobs to do. And the space was so small. The others would not be coming in now as this labor became longer and slightly worrisome. More concentrated efforts needed to be made without distractions. Each one of us women in the room with Jessie and Sean had gone through natural childbirth ourselves and were knowledgeable about it. We made a good team.
It was getting close to mid-day when Jessie was finally ready to push. In order to make a long story short, I’ll be brief here. With a harrowingly tight cord behind baby’s neck, meconium staining, and a rare velamentous insertion of the umbilical cord that the doctors and ultrasounds had missed, we were touch and go for a while. Thirty hours after the initial labor pains little Seamus cried his way into the world. He had to be suctioned out and prodded to get the junk out of his lungs. Afterward, we were so grateful that this all took place at home. If Jessie had been in the hospital there most likely would have been a caesarian section and neonatal intervention along with a longer stay away from home. Thankfully, we had avoided all that. Everything worked out all right in the end.
Jessie and Sean became the proud parents of Baby Seamus (eight pounds, eleven ounces). I became a granny, for the second time, of another beautiful, loveable grandson. Ian has a brand new cousin and Kali became an auntie. Generations go on and the circle of life comes around. So –
Father and mother, sister and brother
If it feels nice, don’t think twice
Just shower the people you love with love…

Chi Varnado is a contributing writer for The San Diego Reader. Her memoir, A CANYON TRILOGY: Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire and her children’s book, The Tale of Broken Tail are available on www.amazon.com. Chi directs the Ramona Dance Centre. Her collection of essays, Quail Mutterings, can be found on www.chivarnado.com.

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #33. Go As A River (February 22, 2015)

Posted on February 22, 2015 by chivarnado

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #33. Go As A River (February 22, 2015)

Why must we spend the majority of our precious, limited time doing things that really don’t matter in the big scheme of life? Things like repeated phone conversations to various companies or agencies that don’t seem to be familiar with the information that we had just called about the day before. Sometimes a business might have been bought out by a larger one or a merge has occurred or the entity grows to take on more than it is effectively capable of handling. For whatever reason, more and more of my time appears to be eaten up by these fruitless, frustrating endeavors. For me, these repeated conversations to the same person, or someone new, are extremely irritating and should, by all rights, be completely unnecessary.
For instance, one of the local propane companies can’t seem to get their paperwork and billing straight no matter how many times they reluctantly try. No one person is held accountable anymore. The big picture is somehow out of their reach and inaccessible.
“It’s not my fault…”
“Well, what can you do about it?” I ask.
Nothing really, is the underlying response. The maddening, circular conversation continues.
“Go as a river,” says Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh.
I’m trying, but it’s downright hard.
Two weeks ago Kent and I went to Deer Park for a “tune-up” as we like to call it. This beautiful, peaceful Buddhist monastery lies in the hills above Escondido. After gathering into a circle and singing some songs together we embarked on the walking meditation. Consciously lifting one foot and placing it in front of the other we become aware of the earth below the soles of our feet and how our movements affect everything around us. It’s wonderful to experience the silence that a group of a few hundred fellow brothers and sisters are capable of when everyone is practicing mindfulness. I love coming here and not having to talk much or listen to unsolicited, endless banter. We’re all working on being more conscious, compassionate individuals.
As we begin our ascent up the mountain trail the familiar fragrance of lilac filled my olfactory senses. I closed my mouth and inhaled deeply. Coming around a bend I saw the source: a Lakeside Lilac loaded with vibrant, dark blue blossoms. I nodded my grateful, appreciation to my fellow earth dweller. Gazing across the valley I began wondering about where the dirt road in the distance went. Was it heading to a new development? Was it a fire road? And then I noticed that I had slipped back into that ‘thinking habit.’ I returned to my breathing again. In, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, present moment, wonderful moment. I redirected my attention to each step and paid attention to my feet landing on the outside of my instep.
Somehow I’d merged to the inside of the group and found myself bothered that others had closed in around me. I side passed my way toward the outside edge of the moving river – back to my natural comfort zone. Again, I realized my slippage into ‘thinking’, but continued anyway.
This walking meditation seemed a parallel to life. We go along happy and secure and then along comes an illness or event that damages the peace we’d been experiencing. And then, perhaps, we’re content again until we get yet another incorrect bill from the propane company. I mostly wish this wouldn’t happen, but I also wish that I didn’t let it get to me so much and permeate any other peace that I may have been enjoying. But it does. My attempt at this point is to watch my irritation and notice what it does within my body and little by little let it go – until the time comes when I, once again, must do my best to rectify the details with the propane company and sincerely hope that THIS TIME the matter at hand will be settled once and for all. At least for these current invoices.
Kent and I ate the delicious vegan lunch prepared at the monastery, in relative silence, up in the garden by the lily pond. A small sign with Peace is Every Step, written in beautiful calligraphy, peeks out from behind some foliage and I hear a distant bell ring. I stop, close my eyes, and take a deep, appreciative breath.
At a little before 2:00 PM we wandered back down to the meditation hall to take part in the “Deep Relaxation.” The monk speaks softly, off and on, calmly guiding our attention to various organs in our body, to send each one our loving kindness and appreciation for the job they do. Lying on our backs we heard a Native American flute, a didgeridoo, a soft beating drum. Without turning my head and opening my eyes I would have never guessed that all this music came from his expertise playing a long segment of PVC pipe! I closed my eyes and returned to my breathing. In, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, present moment, wonderful moment…

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #32. Ramona’s own NUTCRACKER is Here! (December 9, 2014)

Posted on December 9, 2014 by chivarnado

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #32. Ramona’s own NUTCRACKER is Here! (December 9, 2014)

Now back from Thanksgiving break we resume our classes and rehearsals for The Nutcracker. Everyone seems refreshed and gung-ho to amp up our march toward the performances. The vacation did us all good for we are now ready to put on our dancing shoes and slip into whatever character roles we are set to assume. For some, there are multiple parts which make for interesting personality changes. I love it when the students transform into their new identities.
The Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier arrive an hour early on Tuesdays to rehearse their five-minute duet. The nuances in the music and choreography dictate the timing and steps, and provide the base for them to come into their new identities.
“Hold your landing longer.”
“Stay with the music here, but push it there.”
Don’t forget to point that back foot and flare the leg. Beautiful!”
And so go my comments to carry the dancers closer to the desired ends. The Snow Queen stays later on Saturdays to rehearse her dance, as Clara gratefully sits down to remove her pointe shoes.
“I remember when I was the clown doll,” says Helen who’s now playing Clara. “I loved that dance. I think it was my favorite part.”
This surprises me since it’s a short, silly kind of part. I remind her of playing the “Jittery Fairy” in Sleeping Beauty. She agrees that she enjoyed that one as well.
Over the weekend I’ve pulled the Christmas-wrapped boxes out of our barn and brought them to the studio to use as props. The Intermediate children need to get used to carrying them on stage, in the beginning of the story, and putting them in the right places under the giant Christmas tree. They have already practiced galloping around on stick horses with the beginners. Act I in The Nutcracker is colorful and festive. Countless repetitions of all the dances in order, without pausing, are necessary for the ballet’s preparation. Drosselmeyer, played by Morgan, almost always brings laughter from the cast as he continuously makes impromptu changes to his dance. Or when he fills in for other dancers, engaging in off the cuff, exaggerated movements. Morgan also plays the Cavalier, a soldier, and the Mouse King. It’s so rewarding to me when the students transform and become their character enough to feel at home in it and act accordingly. When they take ownership of the role and adjust it for themselves, that’s when I get the biggest charge. I am then entertained by what the story has become after I’ve put the basics onto their bodies.
This year, the Ramona Dance Centre is staging two performances of The Nutcracker. The first is on Friday evening December 19th at 6:30 PM in the Olive Peirce Middle School Performing Arts Center. The second one is the following afternoon, Saturday December 20th at 2:00 PM. Tickets are $5 at the door. In connection with the Saturday matinee we are holding our Reunion. This is to celebrate thirty years of story ballets and thirty-five years of teaching. At least two alumni will be guest performing – including Erica Buechner who now dances professionally in San Diego. I’m hoping many prior students and parents will join us at the Reunion. It’s a potluck, so come one, come all and have a ball at Ramona’s own Nutcracker Ballet. For more information visit www.ramonadancecentre.com.