The Coat
I got a phone call that Momma was sick, maybe something with her appendix... She was taken to the hospital... and the proposed simple operation turned into a body overtaken by cancer...
That was 1981 and I was ten years out of the purgatory called high school... I fumbled for a year or so, believing my creative writing teacher who told me, "Robert, if you want to be a poet, write poetry. Don't go to college: they'll turn you into an English teacher." This was 1971 and the height, or depth, of the Vietnam War: the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Creedence, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: Woodstock Dreams... My long hair, peace signs, hippie friends, and "Give Peace a Chance" wasn't sufficient articulation for "What do you do in your room all day? Where do you disappear to at night? When are you going to get a job?" How does one say "Revolution and Power to the People" in words other than those that penetrate to the point? How does one say that John Lennon made sense, while Richard Nixon, the President, was crazed -- without sounding like John Lennon? And then the kicker from my Mom, "I can hardly wait until they take you in the Army." And that while helping her cook dinner... She didn't knock me on the side of the head, though, when I said I was a conscientious objector and I'd either be going to jail or Canada... at seventeen, I of course didn't appreciate my Mother's life-dedication to her family: certainly didn't appreciate the hard labor involved in "home economics"...
Yeah, I wanted to turn a white sheet of paper into blood: I wanted to turn my insides out, pluck out the instrument called "heart" and slam it down on the table beside me and watch it ooze and move until it stopped its pulsing and no longer had a choice but to start talking to me... I had to hear what it had to say... Still, money became a problem, so I did what poets do: I got a job, an apartment, and books... and a desk and never enough time to write, yet page after page somehow filled with words... "If you want to be a poet, write poetry..." and buy your rice and beans and red wine and books: Snyder, Rexroth, Bly, Reps, Basho, Ryokan, Ginsburg, Kerouac, Cohen... and Merton and Gandhi... and music... and how to expand and explore consciousness and soul: beads, chanting, river-watching, mountain climbing... and laying on the carpet in front of the television as Ping-Pong balls bounced in a big cage: 365 of them until the cage ceased its spin and an arm would reach in and pull out a ball and read the little slip of paper inside the ball: 365 days of the year: the order of the draft...
Following the hallowed lead of Whitman, I published chapbooks and read where I could... worked... and lived... and then that phone call and cancer. Well, that changed things. During chemo, I was blessed with the discovery that Momma liked lentil soup: well, I could cook a wonderful lentil soup: "Would you like me to cook some for you?" Lentils became a bridge to the conversations impossible at seventeen... But the cancer was explosive and wouldn't retreat, it just kept attacking, and Momma (who was always slight of figure) just slowly disappeared before disappearing... she was determined, though, to see one more Christmas with her family...
I opened the wrapped package that had my name on it: a golden colored coat. I was very grateful for the coat, though sorry she could no longer eat... But Momma said she enjoyed the smell of the lentil soup anyway... Then another phone call: "Momma is in a coma." Going home to watch the death of a parent is a rending of the soul really unlike any other... As it inevitably will, time kept passing... and the pauses between Momma's breaths lengthened. I sat holding her hand and reliving our lives in my mind... Dad and family would come in the bedroom as they were able: I knew why I was compelled to stay at her side, still there was no way of coming up with a different story... with the pauses between her breaths lengthening even more, I called Dad into the room... he took my place and held her hand, rooting for her to somehow keep breathing... a single tear escaped her eye: I quickly scooped it up with my finger and blessed myself with it... and then she simply stopped breathing. Dad was quick to start CPR... I had to pull him off her and tell him to let her go...
January 1, 1982 Momma died. March 1, 1982 I quit my job (though not the poetry). April 7, 1982, with a couple of friends, went out to Soledad Street in Salinas with 65 egg-salad sandwiches to give to the homeless in our Chinatown... Byron Perkins, a railroad conductor, gave away a promise that we'd be back the next day: and another little Catholic Worker experiment in community and service for peace and justice began... Finally, I was going to try attempt the translation of Gandhi, Lennon, and Merton into a lived experience... and so begin to uncover the layers of hope and change within a seventeen year olds' "Give Peace a Chance"...
The days kept on their steady march through the summer months and on into autumn: nothing out of the normal. We began to expand our menu as the days got colder to include soup and pasta a few days a week to go along with the sandwiches... as the field work slowly stopped for the year, a trickle of farm workers would come into the soup line for a few days, rest at the Mission or wherever they could, before jumping a train leaving town... One blustery day, after receiving his lunch, a Mexican field worker came back up to me and asked me for my golden coat...
Having been increasingly inspired and motivated by the words and examples of Dorothy Day and Francis of Assisi, I was cut to the quick by the question. My coat was the last gift I was ever going to receive from my Mother: yet, here was someone whom Dorothy and Francis said was my brother: and that "my" coat in fact really belonged to him. I had no choice but to give him the coat... just a few minutes later a train inched down the tracks heading South... and in a Southern Pacific rail car, four heads popped up along with four arms waving goodbye... and on one of the arms a golden coat...
Winter came with a goodly amount of rain and cold: and, of course, donations of cold-weather gear for us to distribute to the homeless: including coats... I finally gave in and put on a green one... Every-once-in-awhile I'd have a pangs of regret about my Mother and a missing golden coat... The months passed though, and with the arrival of March the migrant farm workers began their journey back to the Salinas Valley and, while waiting for work, join in our soup line... One day, I was surprised to see a beaming man standing before me pointing to the coat he was wearing: no longer golden, but now a deep earthy brown: as if the coat had been blanket and tent as well. We briefly embraced as he said "Gracias!" one more time...
Many times since then, I have wondered if ever I would feel worthy of the Mother and Heart that gave me life and a golden coat... Do you think, in the Mystery of things, that she saw me give away the coat that she had given me as a last Christmas present? The view from sixty is different from the view of seventeen -- to be sure -- but I'm still writing poetry, listening to Lennon, and studying Gandhi and pondering one more attempt at creating a community "of possibilities"... and so the view from "here" is increasingly comfortable in the "humble skin" of gratitude and giving: and what a difference that is: and can make... One could actually say that "home economics" is "Earth Economics": and that to revolve all politics, religion, economics, and culture around gratitude and giving is the quantum shift we've been searching for... summarized by the passing of a coat from one hands to another... and another...
That was 1981 and I was ten years out of the purgatory called high school... I fumbled for a year or so, believing my creative writing teacher who told me, "Robert, if you want to be a poet, write poetry. Don't go to college: they'll turn you into an English teacher." This was 1971 and the height, or depth, of the Vietnam War: the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Creedence, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: Woodstock Dreams... My long hair, peace signs, hippie friends, and "Give Peace a Chance" wasn't sufficient articulation for "What do you do in your room all day? Where do you disappear to at night? When are you going to get a job?" How does one say "Revolution and Power to the People" in words other than those that penetrate to the point? How does one say that John Lennon made sense, while Richard Nixon, the President, was crazed -- without sounding like John Lennon? And then the kicker from my Mom, "I can hardly wait until they take you in the Army." And that while helping her cook dinner... She didn't knock me on the side of the head, though, when I said I was a conscientious objector and I'd either be going to jail or Canada... at seventeen, I of course didn't appreciate my Mother's life-dedication to her family: certainly didn't appreciate the hard labor involved in "home economics"...
Yeah, I wanted to turn a white sheet of paper into blood: I wanted to turn my insides out, pluck out the instrument called "heart" and slam it down on the table beside me and watch it ooze and move until it stopped its pulsing and no longer had a choice but to start talking to me... I had to hear what it had to say... Still, money became a problem, so I did what poets do: I got a job, an apartment, and books... and a desk and never enough time to write, yet page after page somehow filled with words... "If you want to be a poet, write poetry..." and buy your rice and beans and red wine and books: Snyder, Rexroth, Bly, Reps, Basho, Ryokan, Ginsburg, Kerouac, Cohen... and Merton and Gandhi... and music... and how to expand and explore consciousness and soul: beads, chanting, river-watching, mountain climbing... and laying on the carpet in front of the television as Ping-Pong balls bounced in a big cage: 365 of them until the cage ceased its spin and an arm would reach in and pull out a ball and read the little slip of paper inside the ball: 365 days of the year: the order of the draft...
Following the hallowed lead of Whitman, I published chapbooks and read where I could... worked... and lived... and then that phone call and cancer. Well, that changed things. During chemo, I was blessed with the discovery that Momma liked lentil soup: well, I could cook a wonderful lentil soup: "Would you like me to cook some for you?" Lentils became a bridge to the conversations impossible at seventeen... But the cancer was explosive and wouldn't retreat, it just kept attacking, and Momma (who was always slight of figure) just slowly disappeared before disappearing... she was determined, though, to see one more Christmas with her family...
I opened the wrapped package that had my name on it: a golden colored coat. I was very grateful for the coat, though sorry she could no longer eat... But Momma said she enjoyed the smell of the lentil soup anyway... Then another phone call: "Momma is in a coma." Going home to watch the death of a parent is a rending of the soul really unlike any other... As it inevitably will, time kept passing... and the pauses between Momma's breaths lengthened. I sat holding her hand and reliving our lives in my mind... Dad and family would come in the bedroom as they were able: I knew why I was compelled to stay at her side, still there was no way of coming up with a different story... with the pauses between her breaths lengthening even more, I called Dad into the room... he took my place and held her hand, rooting for her to somehow keep breathing... a single tear escaped her eye: I quickly scooped it up with my finger and blessed myself with it... and then she simply stopped breathing. Dad was quick to start CPR... I had to pull him off her and tell him to let her go...
January 1, 1982 Momma died. March 1, 1982 I quit my job (though not the poetry). April 7, 1982, with a couple of friends, went out to Soledad Street in Salinas with 65 egg-salad sandwiches to give to the homeless in our Chinatown... Byron Perkins, a railroad conductor, gave away a promise that we'd be back the next day: and another little Catholic Worker experiment in community and service for peace and justice began... Finally, I was going to try attempt the translation of Gandhi, Lennon, and Merton into a lived experience... and so begin to uncover the layers of hope and change within a seventeen year olds' "Give Peace a Chance"...
The days kept on their steady march through the summer months and on into autumn: nothing out of the normal. We began to expand our menu as the days got colder to include soup and pasta a few days a week to go along with the sandwiches... as the field work slowly stopped for the year, a trickle of farm workers would come into the soup line for a few days, rest at the Mission or wherever they could, before jumping a train leaving town... One blustery day, after receiving his lunch, a Mexican field worker came back up to me and asked me for my golden coat...
Having been increasingly inspired and motivated by the words and examples of Dorothy Day and Francis of Assisi, I was cut to the quick by the question. My coat was the last gift I was ever going to receive from my Mother: yet, here was someone whom Dorothy and Francis said was my brother: and that "my" coat in fact really belonged to him. I had no choice but to give him the coat... just a few minutes later a train inched down the tracks heading South... and in a Southern Pacific rail car, four heads popped up along with four arms waving goodbye... and on one of the arms a golden coat...
Winter came with a goodly amount of rain and cold: and, of course, donations of cold-weather gear for us to distribute to the homeless: including coats... I finally gave in and put on a green one... Every-once-in-awhile I'd have a pangs of regret about my Mother and a missing golden coat... The months passed though, and with the arrival of March the migrant farm workers began their journey back to the Salinas Valley and, while waiting for work, join in our soup line... One day, I was surprised to see a beaming man standing before me pointing to the coat he was wearing: no longer golden, but now a deep earthy brown: as if the coat had been blanket and tent as well. We briefly embraced as he said "Gracias!" one more time...
Many times since then, I have wondered if ever I would feel worthy of the Mother and Heart that gave me life and a golden coat... Do you think, in the Mystery of things, that she saw me give away the coat that she had given me as a last Christmas present? The view from sixty is different from the view of seventeen -- to be sure -- but I'm still writing poetry, listening to Lennon, and studying Gandhi and pondering one more attempt at creating a community "of possibilities"... and so the view from "here" is increasingly comfortable in the "humble skin" of gratitude and giving: and what a difference that is: and can make... One could actually say that "home economics" is "Earth Economics": and that to revolve all politics, religion, economics, and culture around gratitude and giving is the quantum shift we've been searching for... summarized by the passing of a coat from one hands to another... and another...