Oh Rosie, I am crushed to see this. Your friendship was so precious to me. Every conversation lifted me up, and  my visit to San Fran to see you left me with so many great memories. Thank you for so many things, hours at the coffee shop in Ellicott City, book talks, introduction to new books,  and mostly your wisdom; you are a rare gem. Luke and Andy, my condolences and very best wishes to you both. Your mom treasured you so very much. Andy, I would be so grateful if you could give me a call-719-439-8420

Rosie dear, rest in peace, I know your spirit will soar to the next adventure.

All my love, Ellen

“MOTHER’S WOMB CAN TRANSFIGURATE”

The menacingly loud city is outside. But here, inside my mother’s bedroom, the sounds of San Francisco subdue into a gentle churning that lulls me to sleep. A block away, the diesel torque monster of the 24 bus roars to power it’s passengers up Courtland Aveneue. But in here, that same roar is a soft harmonic duet partner to the constant lulling grind of her alarm clock’s gentile electric motor.

This is a memory from 1971, of one day I had come home from school. I had ridden those roaring buses, having myself been delivered only an hour prior by the 24.

After the divorce of my parents, 8-year-old me feared moving to the city, the big, terrifying San Francisco so full of big kids who wanted to beat me up. So my dad told me of the time he went to court my mom in San Fran, and he repelled attackers, all the while clinging to the small turtle he brought her as a gift. Thanks dad. I’ll be sure to have a turtle with me whenever I leave the house.

And so here is the apartment my mother rented. Here is her bedroom. Here is her bed. Here is her lulling electric alarm clock that I drew all over with a green felt pen. Here is me, kept safe by all of her rent money while she is still out. These molecules in barrier, structured just right to convert the 24’s vibratory roar into a sweet dim moaning. This is how a mother’s womb can transfigurate.

In the subsequent 40 or so years, my mother and I joined my second father for a life in Baltimore and D.C. suburbia. And here HIS suburban home mortgage money kept me safe. HIS calming lulled roar was gas powered lawn mowers.

Another “divorce.” Mom returned to San Francisco.

Now she lives a block from the N Judah instead of the 24. It’s not a roar. It is the heavy rumbling of steel wheels micro-galloping along the imperfect surface of steel rails embedded in concretes that reverb the pressures along to her apartment, where it permeates her dwelling as a low-end lullaby about people coming and going.

I visit my mom for months at a time.

Here each night I lay on her guest bed drifting to sleep. And here is the N-Judah lullaby. And here is her womb, transfigurated again.