Maureen Taylor's "The First Lie"

The first lie I remember telling my parents was a bold one. I was eight, a “good girl”, and I was eager to try out my brand new set of tempera paints. So I went outside and I looked for something that needed painting.

My family lived in a pretty white Colonial, meticulously clean, and antique-filled, but obscured by a miserable looking front yard. According to my parents this was due to the ancient Sequoias that majestically stood on opposite sides of what was supposed to be the lawn. Apparently the tree roots were shallow enough to prevent any potential ground covering from filling in, and so the grass was spotty and brown, at best. The giant juniper bushes in front of the kitchen and den windows downstairs (my mom feared passers-by would peer in and see all that my family was up to if we ever removed them), did not complement the dead lawn effect. And two more giant juniper soldiers stood up straight and tall against the house, guarding the front door and daring anyone to touch the shiny brass knocker. A wobbly brick walkway split the dead grass straight down the middle, and on the sidewalk end of that runway was a step down, flanked by two seat-height pedestals. They were also made of brick, and a neat pattern formed on the top. This was the place, I decided. This was where I’d begin my artwork. I would make the front of our house just a bit more bright and inviting.

So I painted one. I didn’t try to hide it. There I was, right there on Webster Street with plenty of neighborhood traffic, carefully painting each brick square atop the pedestal a different color. It was beautiful, and so much fun! I became engrossed in my work, and I must have been out there for at least an hour, oblivious to everyone and everything going on around me. I wasn’t concerned about keeping my artwork a secret. In fact, I never even considered the possibility that I might be doing something wrong. As far as I knew, my family was still inside, going about their own business.

Later that evening when Mom and Dad were getting ready to go out, my dad called me into his bathroom, which overlooked Webster Street – and the front walk. The bathroom exuded all of the warmth and good smells of my parents: shaving cream, hairspray, cleanliness, and just a hint of that “glass of personality” my father referred to before attending social events.

My sister and I often voluntarily hung out in my parents’ room as they prepared to go out for their typical weekend social or business party. Kate and I would sit on the bed consulting my mother as she labored over her decisions of what went with what, and which earrings she should wear. Well, actually, my sister helped her. I just sat there pondering how difficult it seemed to just go out for such a party. And when I did offer an opinion, the response from my mom was often something like “Really? Don’t you think, though, that this works better?” I would nod obediently. What did I know about fashion? I was just waiting for my dad to come back in from the bathroom so I could watch him tie his tie while he made me laugh with his funny comments.

But on this occasion, my dad didn’t come back into the bedroom. It struck me as odd that he called me in to him. My dad was peering through the curtains that covered the bathroom window (whatever the juniper soldier did not), all clean-shaven and wearing his dress pants. It then occurred to me that maybe I had done something that might have upset him.

“Maureen, do you know who did that?” He was pointing outside. Uh-oh. Why didn’t he call me Mo? He used my real name. I joined him at the window.

“Did what?” I asked innocently, though I knew very well what he was talking about. I didn’t even think about what I was saying.

“Somebody painted the bricks.” He turned to look at me. I continued looking out.

“ Hmmm. I think I saw Sean Bourke out there earlier today.”

My parents did not associate with the Bourkes, even though they lived just across the street and one house over. They were “difficult” neighbors, so Sean Bourke was easy to blame. Certainly any follow-up with his parents would be highly unlikely.

My father looked at me straight in the eye. “Really,” he said. He said it. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah,” I continued, a bit too easily, “maybe he did it.”

Again my dad said, “Really.” Then he offered me the chance to come clean: “But you don’t know that he did. Are you sure you don’t know how this happened?”

I looked him straight in the eye, and I knew there was no turning back. I was committed. Shaking my head, I lied, “No.”

“Will you please go wash it off so it doesn’t stain the brick?” This was a direct command, so of course, I did.

I had lied to my father, my hero. I had not wanted to disappoint him by admitting that I, his little girl, his baby, had done something that made him mad. I preferred making him laugh his from-the-gut belly laugh and seeing his eyes sparkle when I sang “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow” just like Annie herself. In order to keep things neat and tidy with my dad and with my family, I was quickly learning that to avoid conflict of any kind, even if it meant lying, was the safest route to take.

Craig Klein's "The Early Bird Club"

Cock-a-doodle-do, and good morning to you! Welcome to the early bird club. I’m your host, Craig Klein, inviting to join me for the next few paragraphs as I explore and explain some of the joys and drawbacks of being an early riser.

I’ve always gotten up early, as far back as I can recall. When I was a child growing up in rural eastern Kansas, my daily chore was to go to the hen house and fetch the eggs for breakfast. This was always well before dawn. As a child, I reasoned that folks somehow thought that the chickens would be more forgiving of the early hand, one that reached under their nesting bodies before they could muster enough consciousness to peck bare knuckles with the force and rapidity of a jackhammer on concrete. Needless to say, I needed to be especially vigilant as the egg taker, ever wary of the dreaded beak. In other words, I arose both early and alertly.

From that point forward, I would always be up with the sun, down with the moon. To this day, I’m fully awake and rarin’ to go at 5:30 AM. Each day. Every day. The world is such a special place in the wee hours as the sun prepares to make its daily debut.! Birds sing, deer forage, dampness and dew hang on everything outdoors. It’s a delightfully quiet time. You know how sound carries long distances at night because the usual background din of human activity isn’t there...the distant siren or train whistle that seems to float on the ether? Now, imagine that with everything fully lighted. To me, this is how day life must have felt before the coming of overpopulation and the industrial age. Perhaps this is why some still choose to live in isolation. I don’t really know. What I DO understand is that one can be contemplative in a way like no other in and around the dawn.

Of course, there are some practical benefits of getting going early. No traffic whatsoever, easy parking, no waiting lines anywhere. Yes, the morning world is one of ease, and low stress, too. The people you do meet all seem to share something deeper, something visceral, something unspoken. I know what it is. We are drawn to dawn, each and every one of us. We know it. We sense it. Our conversations always seem to center on that which I’ve already described. A new bird someone saw or roses in bloom are equally as exciting to the early riser as any political contest. After all, both are world events, in a manner of speaking.

You must be wondering if there’s a downside, and the answer is yes. Early risers do grow weary in mid-afternoon, frequently needing a cat nap at that time of the day. It’s our concession to the late-rising majority of our species...that which allows us to keep going until 5 PM or later just so we can meaningfully interact with the rest of our kind. As for going out late to dinner or parties, in general we can forget it! I almost never go to an event that starts after 8 PM. The reason is simple. Bedtime’s at 9. My 8 hours of rest always begins by then. I can’t help it; I’m preprogrammed for the long haul.

I’d like to continue, but it’s now 8 AM and the rest of you are waking up and my phone is ringing. There goes my window of composing opportunity for today. But another one will come tomorrow, and each and every day thereafter. By the time most of you reading this open your eyes, I will have already finished writing this piece. You see, the birds are singing. It’s my song!

Sophia Pelafigue's "Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler--Let the Good Times Roll"

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler--Let the Good Times Roll
by Sophie Pelafigue

“Cher Baby, come here and give me some sugar,” my grandfather Dee Dee would call to me in his thick Cajun-French accent when I stepped off the plane at the New Orleans airport. I would fly from Orange County, California to visit my grandparents in a small town called Grand Cateau, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou. Other than those warm greetings, almost everything seemed strange and unusual where my dad spent the first 18 years of his life.

The St. Charles highway snakes away from the suburban sprawl of New Orleans and into the inhospitable landscape of Cyprus trees, swamps, and sugar plantations. As the road narrows to a one-lane highway near Lafayette, I notice small groups of people sitting on front porches watching the world go by. Having always lived an agrarian lifestyle, Cajun people live life much slower and simpler than what I experienced in the fast paced world of prosperity and the sharper image.

Fullerton, a city about 10 minutes from Disneyland, provided an ideal setting for someone oblivious of traffic, pollution, and uptight attitude problems. As a young girl, I could visit ‘The Greatest Place on Earth’, swim in the ocean on a hot sunny beach, or shop for clothes at any of the 12 malls within a 30-minute drive. Although I enjoyed these pastimes when I lived behind the plastic curtain, they weren’t filled with the colorful characters that made up my family portrait.

My grandfather, the town sheriff, acknowledged everyone he passed in Grand Cateau. He stopped the car to talk (in French) to anyone close enough to the car to hear him. No one seemed rushed or annoyed as he lovingly introduce me as his “petite-fille (granddaughter) from California”. Once when I was eight years old, a woman name Willie Mae smiled, nodded her head, and knowingly said “California? We know what you all do in California.”

Having no idea what she meant as I gave a puzzled look and asked “What?
What do we do in California?” I felt uncomfortable as she just kept shaking her head saying, “uh huh, we know!” Dee Dee didn’t try to explain what she meant but instead told me her family name, who her children were, and how she was related in some way to our family: The Pelafigue’s.

Throughout my elementary school years, my best friend’s name was Jenny Brown. How I wished to have a name that could be said on the first try and have little potential word play. I cursed my unusually difficult last name: Pelafigue. As one official after another would read “Parker, Pierce, Peterson,” there would be the inevitable pause…..and then the attempt “Pel, Pel, Pel a…..oh I don’t know, Sophia.” Usually, I tried to stop them after the first pause and would call out “here!” in order to save myself the agony of name mutilation. While in Grand Cateau, I could rejoice in hearing my name said with the proper accent on the second syllable. I also realized that everyone else’s name was as unusual as mine: Daigle, Petitjan, Pitre, and Jagneaux.

Cajuns center their social gatherings around food. On every special occasion, some family member hosted a crawfish boil (“bol”). As a way to honor our family traditions, we got together on long picnic tables to suck on and eat dozens of pounds of live crustaceans. (There are photos of me as a two-year old baby, sitting next to three laundry baskets of crawfish waiting to be eaten.) Eating from a communal serving place creates a sense of purpose and helped me work through some of the silent pauses that come from not personally knowing countless numbers of family members.

I remember slurping crawfish juice next to my dad’s best friend, Bubba, from high school as he told me, “Yo daddy and me used to fish for crawfish down on the bayou when we were boys. Did he ever tell you about the time when a big water moccasin fell into the boat yo daddy just pulled it right out with a stick. He was never afraid of anything. He is a true Louisiana boy.” Dad left Louisiana (the day after his 18th birthday) to join the Air Force. Although most of his friends and family never moved farther than 20 miles of where they were born, they still viewed him as the first-born, second generation, male Pelafigue. He could do no wrong.

Since I becoming a vegetarian, I have had difficulty time finding food without the essential Cajun ingredient: Meat. Not being overly concerned with cholesterol levels and heart disease, people from the south use some form of meat in everything they cook: boudin (seasoned pork and rice served in a thin sausage casing), andouille (stuffed large intestines), chaudin (stuffed small intestines) chourice (stuffed stomach), tasso (pork or beef jerky), as well as a glob of grease in everything they cook. Of course, I can’t forget to mention the ever-popular Cajun dish, Gumbo, which contains any combination of different meats the chef has laying around the kitchen. I have had more than one confused great auntie stare at me in shock as I delicately tried to tell her I actually chose to eat the Wonder bread and American cheese I found in the fridge, because I would not eat her blessed boudin. Perhaps my unusual choice of diet was part of what Willie Mae talked about when she eagerly inquired about Californian’s alien traits.

In addition to good food and company, most social events include live zydeco music. People of all ages seem to have no inhibitions about getting up to dance, clap, and sing in front of each other. Visiting as a teenager proved particularly painful as I watched with embarrassment as people smacked their legs, hooted out loudly, or jumped up and grabbed a dancing partner. The closest I had been to shaking my booty was to do the limbo at the roller skating rink on Saturday night. I certainly did not gyrate my body in front of people and clap along with smiling musicians with strange instruments.

Fortunately, after my term as a teenager passed, we discovered an outrageous musical experience. Each Saturday, a zydeco breakfast in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, goes down just outside of Opelousas. The music starts at 9:00 a.m. and does not stop until 1:00p.m. No one leaves his or her table, so you must get there by 8:00 to sit down. After you have eaten, there is no reason to sit down because everyone is up dancing in whatever small space they can find.

Since getting married, I have kept my family name (who would have thought!) and I try to listen to my dad when he details particular experiences of his childhood. Although my grandfather has since passed away and my grandmother now lives in a care home, we continue to go back to New Orleans and Grand Cateau to “laissez les bons temps rouler” every chance we get. I often hear people make endearing comments like “Cher baby” when my daughter Amelia passes and I can hear my grandfather’s sweet voice and see his sparkling smile as I arrived from California years ago. As I watch Amelia boogie freely around on the dance floor, I begin to wonder whether boudin could be made with tofu.

Lee Roscoe Bragg's "Take Only Pictures, Leave Only Footprints"

Why did the coffee smell so much better? I don't know if it was the crisp, earthy air, or the knowledge that I would soon hear my grandfather patting biscuits into the Dutch oven and dredging the trout in flour before frying. If I hurried I could be the first perched on the rock nearest the fire, enjoying its heat as I savored the delicate flavor of the fish with the airy lightness of his biscuits. My father, the fisherman, had left camp before dawn, treasuring this time on the river most of all. With his morning contribution to breakfast he would sit and sip his coffee until my mother emerged from their tent so they could enjoy the meal together.

I've grown up within this culture; camping, hiking, exploring the wild country. Always careful to leave no trace of our being there - except on film. The pictures never as vibrant, but a useful link to the memory of that breath-taking view from the top of the ridge, or the numbing splash into the glacial lake.

Hauling a 21 foot trailer behind his old Chevrolet pick-up truck was my grandfather's preferred mode of camping. He was never in the trailer, living and cooking outside, but its double-bed was his great joy. My parents camped with a tent while my brother and I slept outdoors on folding, canvas cots. Giving up the cot in exchange for the quiet and solitude found at a primitive campsite was an easy sacrifice, and my high school weekends and summers found me in high altitude at the end of a long, steep trail. Close friendships were formed, a self-reliant group seeking a different sort of entertainment from most of our peers. Sunsets would be celebrated on an overlook saying good night to the world. Dark brought on campfires and singing into the night.

The wilderness has been my extended-ed, my summer school. It has taught me the importance of timing. Set up camp first as thunder showers come on so quickly, hang your supplies high and away unless you want a bear and hunger for dinner, when the sun sets, it's dark. You may be only five miles from the drug store but that's an afternoon's excursion, down the mountain, up the mountain, on foot.

The hike out and back to the drug store raised my usual preparedness to a new level. Whatever the circumstance, I would pack to be ready for it. But who wants to carry it? What to leave behind? Time to prioritize - another wilderness lesson. At first I had to write up a list with approximate weights, drawing a line through that pair of sweat pants that was oh, so comfortable and warm, knowing my jeans would do. My scout leader was horrified to discover that a friend and I had carried this to a new level by sharing as much as possible, including the toothbrush, which was much easier to share than the spoon.

Why go to all this effort? Who wants to sleep on the ground and go without a hot shower, to say nothing of the other bathroom luxuries? Or eat what looks like dried sticks and berries, even after being soaked, and cooked over a stove the size of my coffee mug?

We hikers are so thankful that others ask themselves these questions when they drive by us, tired and filthy at the trail head. Their disdain for discomfort is the only way this rugged land will remain the unpopulated wilderness we enjoy. From their speeding cars they cannot see the craggy granite ridge lines, the chilling waterfalls from the melting snow, or the meadows of wildflowers in riotous color. They think only of their creature comforts, not realizing that it's leaving those comforts behind that rejuvenates and expands the soul.

Of course, I married a backpacker. While I had grown up car-camping, discovering backpacking as a teenager, he was introduced to backpacking through his youth-group. Side-to-side campsites filled with tents, ice-chests, and screaming children were not "real camping". Relating stories of my camping childhood, ending with the declaration that I would not carry my pack, the baby, and the diapers (in and out of camp) he reconsidered. We have a beautiful photograph of me eight months pregnant sitting in a meadow of tall grass with our oldest daughter standing in my embrace. A later photo catches him on a riverbank teaching three little girls how to skip stones. The timer on my camera captured the five of us bundled in jackets, caps, and gloves gathered on a small ledge overlooking the shadowed Tuolomne River with the glowing orange sun sinking behind the surrounding mountains.

The garage shelves hold five backpacks now, as we shop for the sixth. In June we introduced our new son-in-law to backpacking up the Tuolomne River in Yosemite, revisiting our sunset ledge. The first week of August will find us up Redwood Creek swimming in the cool, green pools created by the incredibly sculpted boulders, sitting absolutely still while watching the golden eagle preen himself on a snag across the creek. We will gather to admire the sunset and bid the day good-night knowing that our daughters will be doing the same, wherever they are.

In the back country you only have what you carry. Setting up camp takes but a few minutes. After that it's just you and the beauty, and the peace that surround you. They invite you to sit and look, admire, see...think, dream. Bells don't ring, horns don't honk, neighbors don't yell across the street. You have the time and inspiration to become comfortable with yourself, and regain your perspective. And finally to become aware, once again, of how truly

Anna Moore's "Desert Non-Native"

When I was young, walking was exercise. Now my partner and I may take walks to get out of the house, but we plot our course based on the gardens we want to revisit and stop long enough at each that we achieve no aerobic exercise. We walk quickly past the houses that are clearly maintained by the mow and blow workers. They are all alike, great expanses of green clipped short as a golf course, flowers contained in perfect rows and catalogued by color. There is no personal touch, no evidence of a gardener. Two blocks up the hill, we tarry at the yard with three kinds of lavender, rubbing the purple blossoms and breathing in the spiciness; stretch our arms wide underneath the grand oak three blocks over; point out new pink geranium in the cottage garden a few blocks south. “Look at this gorgeous yard,” I say, stopping. “I wonder what lucky people live here.” Sun pokes me with an elbow. We are home.

When we first bought our little bungalow, the yard surrounded by a white wrought iron fence was solid St. Augustine, the rugged thick carpet of green that so many of our neighbors adore. It will grow anywhere and spread everywhere, under soil leaching Mulberry trees and across cement. The first project, even before we started refinishing the floors inside, was digging out great expanses of the “perfectly good sod” and starting our cottage garden. For the last three years, we have woven the people in our lives into these beds, a daily reminder of our family friends. Sun’s mom got us started with coreopsis, gaillardia, lambs ears, and iris from her garden. Another friend gave us violets, Mexican Primrose, and even a surprise Japanese anemone. When the glads come up, I phone Michael, who gave us the bulbs when we left Humboldt County. We talk each other through our gardens, feeling connected by bloom and season, successes and disappointments.

Many people in our community stop to talk when I am out working in our cottage garden, and most lament about the yard on the other side of our garage. “Your yard is coming along nicely,” one woman said. “It’s too bad about those neighbors.” I explained that there are no neighbors; the scraggly weed-ridden lot is part of our property and has posed a problem for us, its borders less defined and a plan harder to sketch out. Our gardening cohorts see endless possibilities. “Put in more fruit trees!” “Wouldn’t an arbor be nice?” In the spring we scour the Descanso and Huntington plant sales for suitable natives, salvia and buddleia, plants who will survive with little water. We cannot resist looking at all of the plants, picking up abutilon, a flowering maple, for their lantern-like yellow and orange blossoms. The work we do does not make a dent, and the next trip to Rainbow Nursery brings friendly criticism from the owner. “Your yard looks awful,” he says. “It looks awesome,” I counter. “I walked by there yesterday and it’s all weeds,” he insists. “Don’t count on it changing until September,” I say. I have done my reading and know better than to plant during the inhospitable summer months. We will get busy when winter temperatures will allow new additions to rest and settle in. These additions will not bring instant gratification, but I have also learned that, gardening takes patience, but come spring, we will be rewarded.

For every person excited about our progress, there is another who asks when we are going to rip out the small house and use our land to build a real house. Two blocks east, a lot our size is getting two “real houses.” They must be 2,000 square feet apiece. We can see grand curving staircases through still-empty doorways. I’m sure the family will enjoy their indoor, air-conditioned clean space. They will need air conditioning without the two oaks that used to shade the property. On our own property we have added a trellis and climbing vines to cool our house. Across the alley, the once-a-month mower and weed-eater could care less that this addition cooled our house at least ten degrees last summer. As I prune back the Cecil Brunner, he appears. “I was wondering when you were going to get out here and trim. You know, you can’t let your plants grow out into the alley.” I am speechless and left to wonder if he is the one responsible for the tire track through the thick nasturtiums. Our whole stretch of alley has greened so nicely now that the honeysuckle has covered the six-foot fence, softening the border between us and the Southland attitude.

The neighbor is as unknowing as the electrician who insisted that we needed an outlet for our sink to run a garbage disposal and looked clueless when I said we didn’t need one. “We compost,” I explained, seeing nutrients re-enter the earth. He truly sees garbage. I want to pull him out to the black bin, pry open the door and place some of the dark, rich soil into his hands. What a triumph that handful of dirt is after a year and a half of nothing. “Put in your grass clippings,” Sun’s dad said. “Keep it wet,” her aunt suggested. Then when I started adding last year’s leaf mold project into the mixture, I got heat and moisture and bugs and results! I have created a home for the worms who will keep my plants healthy. In the back of my mind is the memory that Michael trucked in horse manure to speed the composting process. I will have to buy a truck to get my own manure. This does not sound unreasonable, even to my ever-frugal self.

Who is this person? My Saturdays have evolved from spending all day mowing and tending to what lawn we do have to getting through that task as quickly as possible so I can get to planting, pruning, and propagating. Some days I am so muddy from my morning tasks that Sun will not let me in to pee. “Shed the pants and boots or go down to Starbucks,” she teases, eyeing my earth-covered lower half. I have been packing the soil around the new avocado whispering encouragement to the roots. Please feel at home here. Feel the warmth and nutrients pressed against your roots. Press back into our soil. Spread your roots and bring us fruit. Give to this land as we do. We will live off of this land, planting ourselves as we create an ecosystem that feels right to us.

Some days, our neighbors and I arrive home at the same time. We nod at each other as I remove my helmet, but they are already inside when I emerge from the garage. Bag still slung over my shoulder, I snack through the vegetable garden on strawberries or snap peas. I swing through the back gate and check the progress of the creeping thyme and rub a soft ear of chocolate mint to release its smell. I hear the music of finches at play in our mallow hedge. I breathe peace.