Forty-three years ago I was having labor pains this evening.  Sigrid was on the way!  She was born on the 22nd.

Saturday Robert and I drove up to a party at the house of Jerry Horowitz and his partner Thierry Cook.  Their house  sits on a hill surrounded by 11 acres of redwood trees.  Always an interesting bunch of people--artists, astrologers, landscapers, psychiatrists.

Sunday I potted succulents.  I find it so relaxing--especially when I pot on a table, and don't do it bending over!  I bought a pretty little while elephant with a succulent bouquet on his back.

The plant characteristics and names sound like theatre or poetry:

Crassula "Moonglow"

Hybrid between Crassula deceptor and Crassula falcata.  Forms an ornate "pagoda" with gray triangular leaves covered in "fuzz." Clusters of tiny apricot flowers.

Pachyphytum bracteosum

Bluish-gray leaves shaped somewhat like facedted "jellybeans." Native to Mexico.  Reddish flowers.

Blue Seaweed--Senecio citriformis

Small South African shrubby plant with blue-green, very succulent, tear-shaped leaves. Member of Compositae (Aster Family.) 

THE WORKSHOP 

The Esalen workshop for mothers and daughters was very rewarding for Sigrid and myself and I hope for the participants. 

Esalen faces the Pacific Ocean, and at all times the heartbeat of the waves is present.Exuberant and brilliant golden California poppies shower the garden walk to the Lodge for meals.

There were 33 women in the class (almost all were mother daughter couples (one women had two daughters in the class.) One of the mothers who attended with her daugther has 10 other children--a wonderful family from Mexico.  It was a treat for all the mothers and daughters to share time together for the special Mother's Day weekend--in such a beautiful environment as Esalen. 

The work of this seminar is about learning to share our lives as women, loving, respecting, and accepting each other as separate people. 

Sigrid led us through daily meditations and yoga postures and mudras (hand-gestures) for opening and clearing the heart and mind. 

MOTHER'S DAY PRESENT

Sigrid's Mother's Day present to me was a beautiful necklace and a box of notecards featuring my grandson Trevor's (5) painting (the school printed boxes of notecards from the kindergarten class paintings) A wonderful present. 

EMBARASSING MOMENT 

On Friday night Sigrid and I had stopped in after our massages for the Friday night teacher's reception at the home of Nancy Lunney and Gordon Wheeler, the program directors of Esalen.  A few workshop leaders were there, including author Wes Nisker (his workshop was on Buddhist meditation) and another interesting man who had apparently just finished a lecture.  I thought Nancy introduced him as Bob Ash. (I actually think my hearing is starting to go.)  

We were all chatting and then five of us just happened to leave at the same time to head over to the Lodge for dinner.  "Bob" as I was calling him, chatted graciously to me as I inquired innocently about his work, what he wrote about, where he spoke, and so on.  In the lodge he invited us to sit at his table. My friend Lynn Fielder and her mother were there for the seminar, so they joined the table as well.  Lynn whispered to me,"Isn't that Robert Reich?"

Bob turned out to be Robert Reich, economist, professor of public policy at the University of California, author, and the former secretary of Labor under the Clinton Adminstration.  I am so embarrassed to say that I did not know who he was, and had been asking him about his work in such a simple-minded way.  I have to say, for such a highly accomplished person, he is one of the most disarming, modest, gracious, and down-to-earth men I have ever met

Below is his short bio.  Now I know.

Have you ever had such an embarrassing moment?

Robert B. Reich
    Robert B. Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written ten books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Reason. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. His weekly commentaries on public radio’s "Marketplace" are heard by nearly five million people.

A client sent me one of her favorite poems.  She's a photographer, an incipient film-maker moved by great passions, and she works at Apple.  You can see her nature, I think, in her choice of this poem by D.H. Lawrence.

I'm off for Monterey tonight.  I'm meeting Sigrid a the Monterey Airport tomorrow and we'll drive down to Esalen together.  The Mother Daughter workshop starts tomorrow night.  I'm looking forward to it.

Auggie and Anders were spraying their water bottles in the backyard this afternoon.  I was busy trying to pot the new magenta iceplants I had foolishly bought just before leaving tomorrow, so they wouldn't dry out over the weekend.

The boys left and the garden became quiet.

A butterfly fluttered down to rest on one of my purple-pink flowers (which I don't know the name of).  Does the butterfly have a name for this flower?  Maybe she says, "Look!  There's one!" (whatever it is) 

Robert and I were out walking and we passed a woman on the sidewalk.  "Do you want to see something cute?" she said. (Of course, my mind immediately assessed that she looked harmless.  My age, brown outfit, no visible weapons!!)

She took us over to a tree and pointed out the tiniest little nest--with a hummingbird mother sitting in it.  Very hard to see, and about the size of 1/2 of a chicken egg.  With her head and bill pointed skyward, the hummingbird mother seemed to be meditating quietly...waiting...for Mother's Day.