Month: December 2020

The Jersey Zoo

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When I was twenty years old, I made a literary pilgrimage to the island of Jersey, to Gerald Durrell’s zoo.  I no longer remember how the idea came to me.  I’d read all of his books, some multiple times.  My Family and Other Animals was my favorite.  These stories of the Durrell family were recently popularized on television. But I was a fan of Gerald’s and Lawrence’s books long before that.

At the time of the trip, I was part of a study abroad program in France.  We students were given a week or two break between the intensive language course in Pau and the beginning of classes at the University of Bordeaux.  Most of the other students had already made plans.  I hadn’t formed any strong friendships yet, and neither had another student named Jo.  She and I decided we would travel together.

Jo had the face of a fox, reminiscent of Jodie Foster: pointy nose and chin and a thick shock of chestnut hair.  We hitchhiked out of Pau, catching a nightmare ride in a sports car with a young Frenchman.  I scrunched up in the back—no seat–while we rocketed through the night.  I asked him to slow down, and he just laughed.  It felt like the devil was at the wheel.

We landed, rattled but safe, in La Rochelle.  The youth hostel there was closed for the season, but they kindly gave us beds.  The heat was off.  Luckily, we had sleeping bags.  The next morning we had bowls of café au lait and bread for breakfast. 

Eventually we made it to St. Malo on the English Channel.  A storm had just passed through.  The sea was still rough.  We bought tickets to take the hydrofoil to Jersey.  Knowing my sensitive stomach, I swallowed some Dramamine.  The trip across was a rollercoaster on waves.  It seemed like everyone but me was seasick.

My memories of this pilgrimage are sadly slim.  Jo and I found a pension to stay in.  Then we made our way to the Jersey Zoo.  Durrell wasn’t in residence.  The zoo was small and clean; the animals well cared for.

We met the person in charge, a man with the wonderful name of Quentin Bloxam.  I recall sauntering along the narrow country roads in beautiful autumn weather, eating wild blackberries off the bushes. I fantasized about tossing out my French studies and working at the zoo.

Durrell opened the zoo in 1959 with the intent of preserving endangered species.  Today it is a much larger operation than the zoo I visited in 1971.  You can check out its website at

http://wildlife.durrell.org/park-animals/

Unfortunately, Jo and I were ill-suited traveling companions.  One problem for me was that she liked to “share” the food that I’d ordered for myself.  Who knows which of my habits irritated her?  Yet, after we returned to Bordeaux, we never willingly interacted again.

How I would have loved this opportunity!

Ashes

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Cremation, that’s what I choose.  Even though it’s not a Jewish custom.  When I first pondered the question of my remains, probably a decade ago, my first idea was to have my ashes planted under a tree, a maple or a gingko because I like the shape of the leaves, at the Siddha Yoga Ashram.  At that time, students of Siddha Yoga could participate in a program called Trees for Eternity.  People planted trees for loved ones around Lake Nityananda.  I used to walk around the lake and read the plaques.  Sometimes people hung crystals or windchimes or mala beads from the branches.

That choice disintegrated when the ashram ended the Trees for Eternity. Maybe they ran out of room. My next thought was to have one or more family members visit the ashram with my ashes concealed in pouches under their pant legs.  They would walk around the lake and surreptitiously dribble my ashes on the path while scuffing them in with their feet.  This is what Steve McQueen and the POWs did in the film The Great Escape.  The film was based on the book The Colditz Story, a true story about Allied officers who were imprisoned in an old castle or fortress.  They got up to all kinds of escape-related mischief, digging tunnels (the dirt from which they spread in the prison yard as described above) and even building a plane inside the walls of the prison—if I’m remembering correctly.  But I digress.

Now that even day visitors are restricted at the ashram, I have to come up with a better way to dispose of my ashes.  I don’t really cotton to having them sitting around in a box or urn somewhere, whether in a columbarium or some person’s basement, like my ex-husband has done.  He’s got his father’s ashes and his brother’s sitting in his house.  I don’t mind Tio Jose’s spirit hanging around the property, but Abuelo should definitely have been put to rest years ago.  His ghostly cranky energy is not something you’d want to entertain.

My thoughts fly west then, to the Pacific.  To Malibu, to Escondido Beach, where I spent the happiest summers of my young life. The house on the dunes smelled of sea grass matting.  I slept and woke to the sound of the waves.  The mornings were misty, the dunes were hot, the waves were rough, the two dogs ran and barked.  It was glorious. 

Now there would be a place to set those gray particles of bone free.  Let them blow out over the ocean I loved. 

Blessed Breath

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Blessed breath

sustain me

past the virus end,

not mine.

Blessed breath

hold me steady

in warrior pose

while the world

struggles through

Saturn in Aquarius.*

Blessed breath

fill these lungs

with compassion.

Ease judgment.

Blessed breath,

sacred air

that swirls and curls,

breathe me

from the dark

into the light

all these precious days.

*Saturn enters Aquarius on December 17 until March 2023.  In the airy climate of Aquarius, Saturn turns its slow and steady gaze outward, reordering structures and boundaries in order to make connections, distribute information, and develop innovations…Altogether we can expect deep-seated changes in our underlying values and the way they manifest into aspirations in relationships and work.