I want to write like a bird flies

And see what happens, and accept the results

Let’s try that then, shall we?

A giant liquid amber tree presides on my short street, my short street that I just realized comprises only two houses, on this side. Through the window above my desk she is absurdly tall. She is also beautifully proportioned, and I love to gaze upon her any time of day, but especially in the evenings, when the summer sun backlights every pink-edged leaf (for you see, she’s beginning to don her autumn coat) into a tiny, star-shaped, stained-glass window.

Each of these leaves moves independently of the others, nudged by the breezes that waft up from our briny bay with it’s keyhole entrance to the ocean. Each limber branch rocks of its own accord as well, and the effect is a symphony of movement that dazzles the eye. I never tire at gazing upon it.

The matching liquid amber right outside my living room windows is not as tall, but she is a mature lady as well. What’s more, she is right outside my window, as this property edges up close on the sidewalk. This means some of her branches are a mere foot away from my window; I can reach out and touch this tree. The effect is of being enclosed in her arms. With a bank of three nearly floor-to-ceiling windows facing this gorgeous dame, the effect is that of being perched in a treehouse.

The sun comes up to my left when facing the street, rising over the reservoir across the street here in Tuxedo, not far from Highland Hospital, a neighborhood in Oakland no one seems to have heard of. I love saying I live in Tuxedo.

Yes, I’ve moved yet again, the second time in two years. Unlike these trees rooted firmly in position, I’m becoming less and less stable — at least physically — as I grow older. Sometimes a shadow of sadness arises around this idea, but a wiser part of me believes it’s a good thing. A long time ago, I read something about how in Buddhist tradition, elders whose children have left the nest become forest dwellers. They reduce their possessions, entanglements, and complications and choose to live simply as they head with as much dignity as possible toward their eventual demise.

At 57, I know I’m not old-old, but you know what? I also know time is galloping by at warp speed, the decades fly by, and when I think about use-able years, well, I don’t got a whole lot. I realize I’ll probably laugh ruefully in ten years. “You had no idea how young you were,” I will think. This is the way. It is always the way, isn’t it?

So, yes, after a tumultuous summer in which my Peace Corps plan was dashed to the rocks, evidently by DOGE’s invasion of Peace Corps headquarters which happened a week or two before I was notified I wasn’t going to Tonga after all, a mere three weeks before my departure, when I was already packing, had already sold several pieces of furniture, had turned down jobs, and purchased Japanese booties for the ocean… I was rudely informed I was no longer a Peace Corps volunteer.

I would not longer receive quips of “Thank you for your service!” (which always surprised me) from various community members who learned of my new profession.

I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach for weeks. I feel it again now.

I left for Mexico City on a one-way ticket on the day I was supposed to leave for Tonga just for fun, and let’s be real, also in a fit of pique.

I stayed in shady, leafy, friendly Condesa, which is full of Americans and Europeans enjoying the many charming cafes, shoebox restaurants, and edgy bars. There’s a crackling energy on the streets. The shady parks with their soaring trees were clean and full of people: lovers on benches, families picnicking, one day a girl in a full-blown pink satin and voile princess dress, her mother carrying the train as she stepped gingerly over the puddles from the daily afternoon showers, her proud father snapping pictures, a little sister bringing up the rear.

I could relax there. The people around me seemed relaxed. No one seemed to be watching their back particularly. “Head on a swivel!” my neighbor K. says to me every time she sees me in front watering the young Roberts Sycamores I planted. “Head on a swivel, baby! You never know what can happen in this neighborhood, on this street especially.”

I’ve been here a little more than a month, and nothing too serious has happened yet, though two nights ago, someone stopped his white BMW in the middle of the street and vomited from the car, for a long time. It was dreadful, and sad. Cars low to the ground with bass-deep stereos turned way up troll up and down occasionally in the wee hours. I’m not too concerned, though when my son lived her, two unsettling incidents occurred, and he was only here a year or so. Both involved guns and a huge police presence; in one case a youth running from the police waving a gun jumped the neighbor’s fence just a few feet from this window and was hiding in her backyard. It was really scary for my son.

I tell myself the neighborhood is mostly fine, and I think it is, mostly. We’re at the edge of Glenview, which is a good neighborhood. We just happen to be on the wrong side of an arterial road.

When my son bought this triplex some years ago, there was a sea of cement in front, and the corner was hot, bright, and forbidding. Last year, he removed the cement between the street and the sidewalk, and I planted a young liquid amber to match the two matrons here, two Roberts sycamores, and some California natives: ceonothus concha, verbena de la mina, California fuschia, three types of sage, marjoram, and French thyme. In the shade beneath the liquid amber outside the three living room windows, I planted a wild current, a douglas iris, and heuchera maxima with yerba buena—all California natives.

I believe these trees will soften this corner, they already do, and that bad juju will melt away. This happened in another neighborhood in Oakland, in the San Antonio district, I believe. Many articles have been written about it. Someone placed a buddha and a few plants on a bad street, and slowly but surely, the mood and attitude of the street changed, and crime dropped.

I’ve thought about adding a bench in front, but I’m concerned it might become a gathering place for unsavory characters or a homeless person might move in, bringing their inevitable possessions with them. As much as I know homeless people need somewhere to sleep, that is not the reason I’m wanting a bench, so I’m avoiding that for now. We’ll wait and see.

It’s been a tumultuous summer, and that’s putting it mildly, what with B. refusing to get on his flight back to Venezuela in March, and the fallout we’ve been living, which has been extreme. We are all—my kids, B.’s child from a former marriage, B.’s family in Venezuela—trying to weather the storm as best we can. My son has pulled away. I have too. I blocked B. weeks ago and am beginning to feel a semblance of peace, at least over that part of my life.

I tell people often, you know all the people you step over in the street? Many of them, I am sure, had families who tried exhaustively to help them, to no avail. That is where we are. Yesterday my son said simply, “I’m done. We tried everything.”

We did. We really did try everything.

Mania is an addiction like any other.

I left a toxic job last week, and the very same day, a former client reached out on LinkedIn for a white paper and a video script. A good sign from the universe.

We are at the close of the first week of August, and I still haven’t been swimming, and I didn’t go swimming once last summer. I lamented to my therapist yesterday, “Can’t I just go swimming?” Lo and behold, he said I could. He said, take a day for self care. Let’s see if I can do it. Let’s see if I can get my anxiety to release its grip for a few hours.

I lift my gaze and see my tall, protective liquid amber sentry. Some boughs rock gently in the morning breeze. Leaves flutter and flicker. Their edges are already caramel-colored, and pink. One swings back and forth as if on a hinge; the tree will let that one go soon. Yes, leaves are already falling on our street. The green stars are turning red, and soon the gutters will be full, the branches will be bare, and I will be here, ensconced in my little one-bedroom tree house, braving the “winter” such that it is in the San Francisco Bay Area, the muted light, the faded colors, trying to carve meaning and purpose from this one life, this one shot we have here on earth.