THE BONES OF THANKSGIVING AND DRIFTWOOD ERRATICS

The last month or so will now and forever be marked in my memory as Election-Thanksgiving Season.  It has left me both shaken and stirred. 

I am an emotional martini.

At least three times so far this Election-Thanksgiving season I watched The Searchers for comfort and grounding.  A scene features Mrs. Jorgenson (played by the late Harry Carey's widow, Olive), describing a "Texican" as "a human man, out on a limb."

She goes on to talk about this, her home place.  She notes that it will still be such, even after many bones are in the ground. 

Yes.  Election-Thanksgiving season rattled bones.

Election season: tidal, moon-pull, vast, blind man's bluff.   

Here is me at high tide:

I want to read your election posts and rants and finger wagging and I'm right there with you and I like you and sometimes heart you on social media.  I scroll down to find everyone's rants, posts, latest scriptures and morality plays.  I try to find some way of fitting in while privately resonating with some of the aspects of other views.   Is everybody okay with how I think?  I promise not to mention that I listen to the other side and think about that too.

Me at low tide:

You will not be hearing from me.  I don't plan to ever, ever log onto my computer again.  I'll duck in to pay my bills, duck out.  I'll play Words with Friends, but that's it.  I am not on a side and I am not following you or anyone, Anymore, Ever, Period, Amen. Privately, I feel lousy and worried that I'm taking full advantage of Life In America the Beautiful but I'm not pitching in properly (i.e. Taking A Strident Never Wavering Ever Stand and Blaring About It). 

While the election tide is shifting continuously, I feel lonely for my homeland.  Being an American, to me, used to feel like an exhilarating airplane ride over amber waves of grain.  Now, it feels like a shouting match in which nothing ever gets settled while everybody's everything and the house we all live in burns down.   

When the election was finally over (sort of), Thanksgiving loomed.  For me, since Ted died, that particular day is an awkward day of avoidance and unwelcome feelings of free-floating melancholy. 

Melancholy -- from the Greek -- literally meaning the remembrance of past pain.  It's the feeling of homelessness in my own home. 

Ted and I always parlayed the four free days off work we received for Thanksgiving with three vacation days to have nine days of beach time with the kids and dogs.  We traveled to Lincoln City, Oregon in all kinds of weather and threats of tidal driftwood injury.

Our Thanksgiving lasted a week and consisted of getting up, getting wet from frolicking, drying our clothes on the wood stove, watching waves from a window while eating Bugels or Cheetos, redressing, getting beach wet again, drying our clothes on the wood stove and going to bed.  Our cabin had no TV or radio.

Come Thanksgiving day, we ate at whatever place was open, be it KFC or pizza somebody.  Eventually, Safeway started selling pre-cooked fixings and we moved a little closer to Norman Rockwell.  Feral cats hauled our turkey carcass under the house while we watched, transfixed and thankful to be chilled to the bone.

The best years were the ones during which we narrowly missed being marooned on the cave side of a huge rock formation, or almost lost a limb or two or worse to tide-shifting driftwood from Asia.  Ted was supremely confident of his family's resilience and strength and never worried.  My mind was always crafting what I was going to say to the authorities when the investigation began.

My kids are grown now, with families of their own.  Without Ted, without kids to herd, without the thrill of dancing around salt water moving erratic driftwood, I have no more idea about how to deal with Thanksgiving than a porcupine does a Barbie doll.  I'm prickly all day and I don't want to be with others.  And yet, I feel a longing for my family and feel like a lost pilgrim.  This year, I wound up at a combination Thanksgiving and birthday party for a friend that had some family members present. 

Actually, the Thanksgiving meal and birthday party combo suited me just fine.  I was with people I am keen on, with kids making noise and breaking things.  Next year, however, I may go back to Lincoln City for the week.  I want to get in my car and make a long drive, with the wonderful emotion of homefulness creeping up on me and expanding along the way.   

Homefulness is that feeling we get when our plane lands on home soil, or we are finally arrived after a long time away.  The feeling of being in home's way is both the journey and the arriving.  To think of seeing one's people again, the embrace of someone we long for and love.  Someone who understands us, our idiosyncrasies and sensibilities.

The way I feel about my home in Edmonds and the way I feel about traveling to Lincoln City are the same.  I am channeling Mrs. Jorgenson.  Spiritually speaking, I have bones in both places.

There have been years since Ted's death when my family and I did orchestrate a rendezvous on the Oregon Coast for Thanksgiving.  Why do I ever try to do differently?  I do like to try new things.  I even like to resurrect old failings and try again.  Einstein called that insanity.

Perhaps there is a yearning that occasionally stirs wild in me to be more like the Norman Rockwell vision of family and home.  Where does such a notion spring from?

I blame the Election-Thanksgiving season. This season in particular held out the long, long table with abundant and beautifully turned food spread out before us.  Or perhaps it is just for some of us. 

Perhaps this is the Thanksgiving I discover I am not a pilgrim for Norman.
 

THE EXECUTIONER'S LOVE SONG TO RUBBER TREES

What is belonging?  If I lose it, can I ever get it back?

Belonging to a human is big.  It is crack.

In a memory, there is Rigdon Road Elementary in Columbus, Georgia.  In 1963, we are studying rubber.  There is the Goodyear Company and a picture of a rubber tree plant in South America.   Somebody foreign is tapping it.   

My father was the agronomist at Fort Benning, adjacent to Columbus. He purchased a great many plants and landscaping services as part of his job on base.  He purchased from Mr. Cargill, the owner of Cargill Nursery.  There I am, there my parents are -- we're looking up rubber in the  World Book Encyclopedia.  My father said he could get Mr. Cargill to give my class a rubber tree plant.  I instantly knew such an event would put me at the head of the belonging food chain in my class.  I wanted it to happen something fierce.

I belonged in a family.  I belonged in a class.  I was hoping to belong to the teacher, like a pet. 

“A sense of belonging,” writes Dr. Kenneth Pelletier of the Stanford Center for Research and Disease Prevention, “appears to be a basic human need – as basic as food and shelter.  In fact, social support may be one of the critical elements distinguishing those who remain healthy from those who become ill.”

This pronouncement rings true to me.  It has red plastic hearts floating above. 

The Goodyear Company and rubber = one and the same.  In second grade, all I knew about manufacturing was the local cotton factory that transformed tufts of billowy white cotton into towels and sheets for the world.  I imagined manufactured rubber as flat white sheets that flowed out of trees in South America like paper from the school's mimeograph machine.  I imagined rubber manufacturing smelled like the sulfated castor oil that wafted through my school on the day the lunch menus were printed.

My second grade self didn't know there was a rubber boom in early twentieth century that had a significant negative effect on the indigenous population across Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Columbia.  Labor shortages led to rubber barons rounding up indigenous people to tap rubber out of the trees -- just like in the picture.  Ninety percent of indigenous poplulations were wiped out.  The World Book Encyclopedia of the 1960's made no mention of this.

Un-belonging someone is serious business.  It's an ancient form of the death penalty.  It's called banishment. 

In modern times, when two teenagers robbed and beat a pizza delivery man with a baseball bat in the state of Washington, the Tlingit nation banished them to separate islands. In 1994, the Council of Chiefs of the Onondaga Nation in New York formally banished three members for gross violations of tribal laws. The men were formally stripped of their citizenship in the Onondaga Nation; were severed from their community and families; and had their rights, property, and protection under the ancient Iroquois Law of Onondaga territory extinguished. A tribal government near Fairbanks, Alaska, punishes offenders who are caught drinking alcohol with a $50 fine. Repeat offenders are subject to banishment from the village. 

Not all who are banished survive. 

I remember looking through the panes of glass that gave view to the school parking lot.  There strode my tall, strong and handsome father with his yellow Banlon shirt and khaki pants, toting a rubber tree plant in a five gallon tub.  I nearly vomited with excitement.  Mrs. McWhirter didn't know he was coming to my class with a bone fide rubber tree plant he got from Mr. Cargill's nursery.  But I did.  Sometimes knowing a secret tightens the hold of belonging.

Today I am voting, and it occurs to me that there are two views of belonging on the ballot.  On one side, we have the locking off of the borders around our belonging, and the banishment of many already here.  On the other side, we have the vague notion that all who are here and some who want to be here belong, and somehow we are going to figure out how to feed everyone and stay safe.  So where do you belong, the ballot asks.  Make your mark. 

I read in Psychology Today that some seek belonging through excluding others. That reflects the idea that there must be those who don't belong in order for there to be those who do.   Groucho Marx said that he wouldn't want to be in a club that would have him as a member.

My humanity craves belonging.  On the other hand, I couldn't wait to move out of second and into third grade.  As soon as I could, I voluntarily left Georgia.  I had little to do with my family of origin after I began raising my own family. When Ted died, I gave away most of my belongings and left my community.  I didn't feel I belonged anymore in the place where he and I had belonged together.  A few months ago, I bought a teardrop camper to escape from where I belong.  I am discovering that my present day belonging is either so small or so big that I tow it around with me, wherever I go. 

I banish myself.  I have executed belonging to find belonging.  I am in a club that is asking me to choose where I belong.  My childhood view of rubber trees is wider, sadder, sweeter, residing in Georgia, ensconced in my heart.  Rubber tires have carried me everywhere I have been thus far.  Rubber trees, belonging, banishment, voting.  A rubber tree can be a thing in a pot that exalts a child and casts her father in a temporary glow.    

I sing of love to rubber trees with both red plastic hearts and question marks, floating.

DON'T PEE ON AN ARMY OF FROGS WHILE CAMPING

A big gathering of frogs is called an army.  I had never seen an army of frogs before, let alone become involved on a personal level with such a gathering.  That happened to me three days ago, while I was camping.  It was memorable.

My mind strolls a lot while I'm camping.  I have little experiences that happen in big detail.  I feel alive.  I think I'm doing the best I can with my life, even though my heart is broken. Maybe I'll get some credit for that on the mystical day of reckoning.  When camping, I make decisions and have a project to tend to.  I like it.  Those reasons are enough to take me down new roads. 

This week, I camped in salty Grayland/Westport Washington, with no boundary between my state park spot and the Pacific Ocean.  Yesterday was just my second day, and I was faced with the question as to whether to bail on a four-day trip.  The alternative was to ride out a dangerous storm coming my way. 

The low pressure front approaching caused a mixed lot of fishing and sightseeing boats back to Westport marina earlier than usual.  I happened to be there, and I saw the resulting boat traffic.  It was an unexpected and stirring sight that made me think of things like peril and bravery.  I took photos of rusty boats for an artist friend, and thought about leaving V staying.  I watched the water rising, trembling. 

While towing to the coast, I had put off making a potty stop when I was about a half-hour from my destination.  By the time I parked my trailer in site 99, my bladder was in dictator mode.  I chose to go in the woods behind my spot, rather than try to unlock my trailer, or run to the camp bathroom.  For everyone over sixty, I know you're with me on not fumbling for keys or running when you have to really, really go.

How was I supposed to know the woods would be carpeted with an army of traveling frogs?  I noticed this a little too late to shoo them.  Maybe I peed on some, I thought.  I had no idea if I had murdered frog(s) in the woods.  I never was a natural at grasping chemistry.  I located a bowl inside my camper, filled it with water, and offered it to the frog world as a complimentary decontamination site.   Still, I wish I could erase the thought of innocent and unsuspecting frogs, a surprise attack.  Casualties of me. 

What causes an army of frogs to sojourn through one particular area versus another?  It must be a food source.  Or a water source.  I wonder if they were traveling because of the approaching storm, which I knew nothing about at the time of my inadvertent frog defilement.

Any going-in-the-woods experience is iffy at a state park no matter how forested it might be.  Hiding behind a tree only helps the goer on one or two fronts.  There is always the element of a surprise camper out for a hike.  And why do campers congregate in places called campgrounds?  Safety, mostly.  That thought made me feel even more guilty about the frogs.  What if my frogs were trying to get away from something dangerous only to.....

I ran over a large toad with a push mower fifty years ago.  This is still a vivid memory.  It wasn't dead, but it was bleeding.  I ran into the house and got my father's styptic pencil from his shaving kit and raced outside to try and stop the bleeding.  After doctoring the wounded, I returned to the house again.  I had to replace the pencil and straighten the kit, and I wanted to fetch a bandage.  When I came back to the toad, bandage in my hand, my large and bloody patient was gone.  Hopped off, I hoped then.  I still hope.  The guilt I felt at the time was like a new layer of hot skin.  As I mentioned earlier, it's a vivid memory.  

Because I was a child, I worried for a long time if my father would be able to detect essence of toad on his blood pencil, as I called the anti-hemorrhagic pencil back then.  So I had guilt and I had fear. 

I also regret something I did at Lindsey Creek when I was eleven or twelve.  From the creek, I would launch clay rockets into outer space.  I poked pockets in clay balls and inserted a little creek water and a tadpole into each of the pockets.  I wanted to see if tadpoles could live in space capsules, the way Russian monkeys were doing at the time.  I vaguely remember giving up my space program with enough data to demonstrate that, no, they cannot. 

I didn't want anyone to know I was conducting these experiments.  I knew what I was doing wasn't right, but I did it anyway.  I realized later in life that I was objectifying the tadpoles and robbing them of their future.  I can't remember how old I was when I awakened to feelings like regret, the responsibility of humans for innocent creatures, empathy, and shame.  A curious child unsupervised can be a danger to others. 

I saw a movie once called "Magnolia".  It was a critical success and the characters were memorable, especially the grief-wracked wife of a dying man and a fumbling police officer who misplaced his weapon.  At the end of the movie, not a lot was reconciled in the story line.  It ended with huge frogs falling from the heavens above onto car windshields, grass and pavement .  It was a gruesome raining of frogs.  I think the same thing happens in the King James Version of the Holy Bible.  This, and other parts of that popular book, are not comforting at all if you ask me. 

With the storm approaching Westport, seeing the boats and thinking of bravery made me want to ride out whatever was on its way.  A friend was also camping at this park, and she was leaving early.  I told her I was going to stay one more night.  Once I made that decision, I envisioned my dogs, Oliver and Miss Kitty, floundering in the 30 to 40 foot waves predicted for the next few nights.  I saw myself driving home in strong winds, my little teardrop camper swaying uncontrollably into a Volvo station wagon filled with pre-schoolers.   Frogs raining from heaven.  I decamped and towed myself, the dogs and my gear back to Edmonds that day, which was yesterday afternoon.  As it happens, wind gusts reached forty-miles an hour not too long after I left.

Today:  Thoughts of a raging storm that I reluctantly decided to miss.  Thoughts of biblical events that defied the laws of physics.  Thoughts of the chemistry of human urine and its effect on frogs of the northwest.  Of the efficacy of styptic pencil on bleeding amphibians.  Of tadpoles in space.  Of guilt and empathy.  Of risk avoidance related to the well-being of others. 

How many details of one's life will be raked over on that mystical day of reckoning? 

Will I get any credit at all for trying to make the best of things, and do no harm?

   

LIST CRAVINGS

NOTE:  There will be no mental heavy lifting of conceptualizing, categorizing, and analysis required to read my blog today.  

I attended a writing class with a prestigious and talented instructor.  (Mind:  This guy is going to straighten you out!)  I was eager. 
He was talking about the elastic boundaries between non-fiction prose, essay, poetry.  He used a term I had never heard before: 
A Collage Essay.
This named what I do.  All my senses and I were instantly exalted.  I needed to sit still, however, because the chairs were very close together and it was a full house. 
(Mind:  You are going to be this guy's favorite and most insightful student today!)

He referenced numerous well-regarded works that involved lists.  He gave the class five minutes to make a list of lists.  I came up with the best list of lists ever created:

Apology narratives
Explanations of why
What's wrong with tonight's moon
How clouds ought to behave for maximum enjoyment by children
Possible outcomes of my 60's
Possible DNA paternity events and how they might affect me personally
Ways in which the sun could be redesigned for world-wide benefit
Ways in which my life is already perfect

"Does anyone want to read what lists you came up with?"  said Prestigious Instructor.

As students read and the instructor commented, it became apparent to me that I was supposed to come up with universal lists already out there for me to just find and record, or draw conclusions about.  I was incorrect in making a list of personal lists.

The lists I was supposed to come up with were lists such as:  Liner notes from old record albums, Tools you will need to put together this shelf, Wedding Registry lists, Lists of war dead, Lists of medical names of sexually transmitted diseases. (FYI: Instructor made the comment that medical names are among the most beautiful words available to our ears.)

Instructor Approved List Example

Thank you right arm, for not thrusting yourself to the ceiling, thus volunteering me to read aloud my personal list, leading to gentle correction from Prestigious Instructor. 

Fine.  I can make my personal list work for me in some other context.  But first, I need to understand list, lists, making lists, reading lists. 

1.  Read New Yorker article, A List of Reasons Why Our Brains Love Lists.
New Yorker: a-list-of-reasons-why-our-brains-love-lists
From this I learned the brain craves effortless data.  I gleaned names, Claude Messner and Michaela Wanke, as well as Walter Kintsch.

2.  From the internet word search "Claude Messner and Michaela Wanke: 
Paradox of Choice: The more information and choices, the worse we feel.
Unconscious information processing reduces information overload and increases product satisfaction.
Genealogy affiliates.com  We would love to show you a description here but the site won't allow us.
Good Weather for Schwarz and Clore: This article is a tribute to the "mood as information" paradigm in general.   (This article thickly makes the obvious point that our mood determines how we process information.) 

3.  From the internet word search "Walter Kintsch" I determined he is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at University of Colorado.  http://psych.colorado.edu/~wkintsch/
He writes about things such as "Construction of Meaning" and "Metaphor Comprehension". 
Whoa.
 
4.  Internet:  "Lists": 
Witnesses to historical events
Wives who set their husbands on fire
Celebrities who went on to commit homicide
Things that would happen if prostitution were legalized
Known gangs
Kidnapped and missing persons

5.  From the crossword dictionary "A list of things to do":
agenda
donts
items
catalog
errata
saint
todo
affair
MDSE

I have no idea why the word "saint" appears on such a list.  I looked up "saint" and got no clue.  I think it was put there to make the reader do some mental heavy lifting.

I stumbled upon one page during my research that reported studies have shown shopping without a list but after having made a list increases retention of what to buy while shopping. 

Back to my original, personal list that was a one-off from what Prestigious Instructor was aiming for.

I put my list under my pillow last night and slept on it.  This morning, I could plainly see that my list was merely a list of how I feel most of the time:

Ways I feel guilt.
Times I want to know why.
Ways I want to reorder nature.
Ways I am a little anxious about my future.
Entreaties about Who am I really?
What is there to be grateful for?

Ah. 

The Widow Lessons.

Shindler's List

HOUSE

Shipping Container Apartments

The meaning of house was something I understood.  After that, I struggled with its meaning.  Today I feel an abundant understanding of the meaning of house that is intensely personal and gratifying.  It is true for me that my house is the center of my universe, and I can have it and put it and be in it anywhere on the planet.  Becoming a widow gave that to me.

This, from John Berger, poet, essayist, novelist and screenwriter:  In traditional societies, everything that made sense of the world was real; the surrounding chaos existed and was threatening because it was unreal.  The house one lived in was built in the very center of where a vertical line crossed with a horizontal line.  The horizontal line represented the traffic of the world.  The vertical represented both gods in the sky and the underworld, the dead.  One's house was the exact location of the real and the spiritual. 

Repurposed Silo

I believe in this picture, although intellectually I know that the chaos of the world is real.  I can live in my house, though, and decide what to let in.  I can safely stow my stuff in my house, I can guard against disease, I can set it up against injury.  I'm a tangle foot, so that last item is a vigil.

I grew up in mid century, and learned from my culture to believe in the materialization of the house. I decorated my house and carried on inside in a way that made it a home for me, Ted and the kids.  We all had a lot of fun, such as the time I found out beautiful cotton flat sheets can be used for wall coverings, costumes and all manner of art.  Ted and I also endeavored to pick our house right, pay the mortgage, to some day have a nest egg for us and our descendants. 

That typical, American, hearth and home vision and investment house and home went up in flames for me and Ted a couple of times.  Recessions, real estate busts, job loss, career choices chipped away at the materialization and monetary value of the home for us and millions of Americans, starting in the late eighties and nineties, continuing to present moment.  In our case, we lost gobs of money selling two of our houses, net zeroed on some and gained a little once.  From those experiences, I ceased to view my home as an investment.  As a result, I became purely emotionally attached to my house, my home, my center of the universe.  That worked better for me, and for Ted.  We were happy homebodies sans investment jitters.  We started using the entire color wheel on our walls, for our own delight.

Inspiring backstory: read Interstellar Orchard Blog

Becoming a widow unmoored me in various ways, including a re-evaluation of this emotional attachment to my house, my home.  After five years of living alone in a house that was both too big and too distant from my family, I finally let it all go.  Stuff, money, property, rural privacy and quiet, significant emotional attachment -- I let it all go.  Becoming a widow opened my mind to the possibility that I can decide what I need today, find it and acquire it, become attached to the fun of it -- and still keep my eye on other possibilities.  I live in a small house of 920 square feet in an urban neighborhood.  I rattle around there, too.  I own a tiny teardrop camper and travel with it.  Both are my houses, at the moment.

People today live in silos, churches, apartments, old grocery stores, tree houses, RVs, cottages, tiny houses, McMansions, shipping crates.  I am drawn to alternative housing.  I am drawn to neighborhoods, both gleaming and seedy.  My material investment cozy family home paradigm has shifted and now has more fluidity and changeability and I find more beauty there than ever before. 

Tiny house, Big social movement

It is solo I who is at the very center of where a vertical line crosses with a horizontal line.  The horizontal line represents the traffic of the world.  The vertical represents both gods in the sky and the underworld, the dead.  Whatever and wherever my house, it is the location of the real and the spiritual because I am there, not just the house.  Knowing myself comes first -- what I love, need, want, don't want.  Everything else -- including the chaos of the world -- may be real, but it's real out there, not here in my house.  I don't need to obsess about the future if I am satisfied with where my center is today.  If I need to move from my house, I know how to do that.  And it is alluring and liberating to know that I can live just as fully in a storage container or a tree house or a mansion (if I trip into the Lotto), or 920 square feet in Edmonds, Washington.  I still have an eye for beautiful flat all cotton sheets wherever I make my house.

I know first hand that the loss of home, of belongings, of real property is a devastating blow to a widow.  It can also be part of a new beginning and a freedom that can change and grow with us.  It doesn't happen overnight, but it can happen.

Understanding what house means to me is a gift that widowhood gave me.  And because I live at the center of the universe, I am connected to the spirit realm where my loved ones tell me to enjoy it, and pass it on.

Never more at home than in a teardrop

A BELIEVABLE WOMAN, TRAVELING THROUGH

On the big screen, a believable woman is running through woods with a panic, looking behind, terrified, stumbling and skidding, injured, into the mossy ground.  Each viewer has a different nightmare idea of what is chasing her.  As she watches her fate approach, the audience is right there with her.  Blood pressures rise.  Perhaps our escaping woman is too tired to resist any longer, and she will accept whatever is to be.  You may be shouting for her to get her rear in gear, get up and fight.  Everyone watching has an idea of how they would battle something menacing that has them on a run for dear life. 

For movies that begin with the chase, the rest of the story will probably be delivered in flashback, showing the audience the lead up to the chase.  What was her morning like?  Was there a warning, something skulking from her past that was bound to catch up with her?  Was she blithely moving through a well-constructed life, unawares?

Recently, scenes from my own movie kept me company as I drove down the back roads of Skagit County in northwestern Washington.  It was like this -- I'm not going anywhere, or looking for anything in particular.  Perhaps something to photograph that reflects my mood will roll into my field of vision. It's been more than eight years since I was scared into walking briskly and finally running through the woods in my own life and mind.  Right before that, I was marinating in something I knew, something I completely understood.  Then, I was running. 

In Skagit, I can't take my eyes off the hills to the north where steam is lifting from the hillsides and the earth looks young and emerging.  It's a bit like seeing myself in a third grade choir rehearsal, belting out This Land is Your Land.   Closer in, there are fields just after a harvest, telling their story.  Hoards of anglers in wading boots have parked trucks up and down both sides of the road near a well-known secret fishing creek as it tap dances toward Padilla Bay. I can barely get my car down the middle of the road.  That's okay.  There is no on-coming traffic and no one is waiting for me anywhere.  I can smell the fish, the corn, the salt air coming off the bay.  If I earned a nickel for every rough-legged hawk I see, peering into the disrupted earth from draping wires, I could pay for the gas I am consuming, and then some.  

The only thing  is, I am not quite sure I can label what I am doing as running. 

I'm not sure if I can legitimately label anything I am doing these days as running, come to think of it.   I'm not settled down.  I don't have a long-range plan.  I'm no zombie, but I'm not in AARP Magazine either, featuring older people who start over and make a killing in the gourmet cookie market.  What am I doing with my life if I'm not any of those things?

I think I am that woman who is stumbled, injured and starting to think:  Everything I have known up until this chase is officially over.  If I surrender to loneliness, worthlessness, nothingness -- or whatever is chasing me -- then that will be my last, free-will choice.  From that point forward, I'll be waiting for it all to end according to powers outside of my control.  That wouldn't be so bad, would it?  To just drift off to a kind of sleepwalking life and never wake up? 

I pull my car over to take a photo.  I take stock of my self, think about my situation and  begin to recover my wits.  I do feel like the escaping woman in my imaginary horror flick.  The scary thing that is chasing me is a die-hard idea that there is a way back.  The thing that is chasing me is the cruel notion that there is something I can do that is going to reverse every loss and restore my cozy little brightly lit happy place, forever.  Once I realize that my stalker is actually my own thought process, I have more choices.  All I have to do to survive this chase is rise, get up, stand up. 

And then I'll have to do it all over again, tomorrow.

Such is widowhood.  Such is surviving great loss.  It's a stalker movie, running daily.

To everyone who has lost a life partner, a way of life, an abiding love:  There is beauty in the world that only your eyes can find.  There are people in the world who need to know they are not alone.  Whoever you are now, as injured and bereft as you may be, the way through the woods is going to show itself.  It really will be there for you every day, and all you have to do is get up and look around. 

Ahh, but I call it through the woods, not out of the woods for a reason.  

Wanting completely out of the woods of grief and loss is the same as being chased, to be always looking back.  It's a form of panic and terror, to think you can get something back that is well and truly lost.  Better to travel through these woods, without regard for how long or the possibility of the sunny somewhere that may or may not await you.  Keep your eyes peeled.  And as you see beauty -- and you will -- share it.  It might help someone to remember there is still beauty in the world, no matter what has been lost forever.  Traveling instead of surrendering is not a substitute for something lost, and it is not the lost thing, itself.  It's an alternative to giving up and leading a sleepwalking life.  It is nothing more complicated than that. And, lucky you and lucky me --  it's a daily choice.

The way this movie ends:  Today is the whole thing, it's all you or I get.  Record it.  Share it.  But first, you have to rise. 

Visit Padilla Bay

 

TIGERS, ELEPHANTS, AND ALL WHO ARE CAGED

The last couple of weeks of my life have been marked by a mixture of personal good fortune and the mystery of life on planet earth.  These mysteries involve other humans I know, and certain animals.  I'll begin with the certain animals. 

There is the Bengal tiger, Laziz, who was finally sprung from the so-called "worst zoo in the world" on Wednesday, August 24.  He is bound for a wildlife preserve from his tiny, almost uninhabitable box cage in Gaza.  I choose not to go on and on about the zoo, and focus instead on what life will be like for Laziz when he is re-homed.  There is no telling what will happen to him, or if it will be wonderful or horrible.  His story isn't over.  It's not being re-written.  It's still being written.  But, of course, the people of the world who are following Laziz's story -- including me -- rejoice.  We rejoice at his widening prospects. 

Out of the Worst Zoo in the World

There is the Seattle elephant, Bamboo, who was re-homed to the Oklahoma zoo where she was met with violence exacted upon her by other elephants.  She, too, is doing some damage on other elephants.  According to the Oklahoma zoo, "Bamboo is doing great, integrating well," and she is experiencing so-called "normal" establishment of dominance hierarchy in a new herd.   Bamboo's story is also still being written.  Her advocates in Seattle say "We are not going to stop until Bamboo can rest in peace and live out her golden years in a humane way."  It's hard not to want that for the 49-year-old elephant.  But I don't know or have any way of knowing what Bamboo wants.  All I have is hope.

Bamboo From Seattle to Oklahoma

And then there is me.  Son Andy drove with granddaughter Bella and me to see my newly-discovered but life-long brother, Red, in Moses Lake, about three-and-a-half-hours from my home in Edmonds.  I didn't notice the landscape on the way over because I was anxious and expectant and excited.  After about a half-an-hour into my time with Red and his wife, Kate, I began to forget that we just met.  In fact, the "paternity event" (my new favorite phrase) was only discovered eight months or so ago in a confluence of incredibly unlikely coincidences involving Andy and Red and DNA tests from Ancestry.com.  Everything about Red and me being siblings is new, but when we met, my reaction was one I can only describe as rather instantaneous alchemy.  We don't have any time to make up, or catching up to do.  We just are, as certain as there are peas and there are carrots.

On the way home, I became dizzy.  The landscape began to swallow me, envelop me.  The basalt cliffs and rock outcroppings that stood before us and will forever stand were closing in on me.  I raised my very young family in this landscape, as we lived in eastern Washington State for ten years, including the time that our youngest, Caroline, was born.  Now, coming home from my visit with Red and Kate, everything about my earth-bound story began to shift.  It made my head spin for a second.

In private moments during this trip, I felt deep sorrow because I was in an emotionally open state, and grief and loss dwell there.  I described my grief to Andy and I told him that I felt overwhelmed at times with feelings of wanting to be re-launched.  I don't know how else to phrase it.  I was launched when I met Ted and I had an orbit, my own oxygen system, my own weather system all rolled up in family life.  When Ted died, I felt all those personal atmospherics explode and dissipate.  Now, I am floating.  I told him I wanted to be re-launched into something new that is as consuming and compelling as raising a family.  A son doesn't want his mamma to be re-launched, re-booted or re-anythinged.   But, he listened.

Now I am home.  Today there is in me a growing sense of certainty that I am not going to be re-launched.  My life was in fact already launched, when I was born.  Maybe even before that.  On it goes, and it's not over yet. 

My life atmosphere is strange and different without Ted.  My orbit is looser.  My life now doesn't take much planning ahead.  The discovery and companionship of a brother, sister-in-law, nieces and a nephew are effortless to adore. 

Today, I am willing to consider life as a widow as something other than a tiny, almost uninhabitable cage that I was put in after my life ended.  Widowhood is not the same as being shipped to a herd that doesn't want me.  My life is still saturated in meaning and love, including finding out about, and finally meeting, Red and his wife Kate, and family.  My life has taken on the look of a muted, powerful, subtle, eternal landscape that will even sometimes move to swaddle and nourish me -- as long as I stay open. 

Red and Kate's daughter, Ciara, and Andy and I played around with photography using seriously expired polaroid film.  The pictures were transmuted by the process of film decay.  I have to say they are some of my favorite pictures from our visit.  The metaphor of time and restructuring are not lost on me.  I've experienced at this stage of life what time and the reordering of reality can yield.  It's not always a net loss.  Sometimes, it's like being launched. 

Please, o gods in charge of captured animals who transit to broader possibilities:  shine upon Laziz and upon Bamboo the way you have me.  I can tell you with a great deal of certitude they deserve it more than I ever did, and they will be faster than me to make the most of things.  I don't think they mistake one part of life as dead and a new life less dead.  I think they are correct in believing in the totality of this one life, this one field of endless possibility.  This continuous alchemy of pain and joy. 

And thank you for not giving up on us. 

THE SHOW OF LIFE, AND THE UNDERTOW

Private Collection Destin Florida @1965

I was caught in an undertow once, and had to be rescued by a hulky blond lifeguard.  I was ten, in Destin Florida on the Gulf of Mexico, a body of water that still surges in my veins.  At the start of a two-week family vacation in a rented bungalow, I was drifting on my raft, splashing back to shore as usual when a blond haired muscle man came swimming up, grabbed me and to hell with the raft, swam me in his arms back to shore.  This took a while.  No words were spoken. My raft and I had become a speck on the horizon.  I wasn't upset when my parents decided I couldn't go into the Gulf alone the remainder of the visit, because often every day my parents would tell someone about my close call.  Apparently, I liked the way this Bridget-centered retelling felt.  I liked it even more than wild, salty, tricky water. 

Now, more than a half-century later, I am looking at my parents' reaction to my near miss differently.  I do believe they were traumatized -- hence, the ceaseless retelling of the event.  That's probably why they weren't angry with me, at least not as far as I can recall. They loved me, and they almost lost me.

Love and care can be frozen in time, like eggs, sperm, cryogenically frozen bodies.  It took a long time for me to see my parents from a different angle.  They never directly expressed love, cherish, adore the way that my generation tends to do.  And yet, there it is in my rear view mirror. 

I heard a speaker talking about the parable of the prodigal son.  In this ancient story, a jerk of a teenager ran away and squandered his father's fortune while his older brother stayed on the land and worked like a dog.  When the teenager returned in ruins, his father treated him like a celebrity and the older brother's jealousy and indignation were set aflame.  The parable is about how love is not in any way connected to how deserving we are of that love.  This reminded me of the undertow.  I had carelessly drifted into the Gulf of Mexico, and what I got in return was barrels of attention.  I was the star of the entire vacation!  How my brother and sister must have resented me for that.

I no longer have my family of origin.  I no longer have my own family -- at least not one that is completely intact.  Alone, I sometimes feel I am in a slo-mo undertow.  I drift further and further from something solid and recognizable.  Simultaneously, on my raft, out of nowhere, new things happen. 

I was walking my dogs a few days ago.  A man in my neighborhood had just purchased my book for his wife.  This man has had stage four prostate cancer for fifteen years.  He no longer can have chemotherapy.  "I'm worried about her,"  he said.  "I saw an article in the newspaper about your book, and I knew it was you.  I wanted to thank you."  She hasn't read it yet, but he has.

My son's recently adopted dog ate the electrical system in his Mazda and totaled it.  Lots of his friends teased him about dog sandwiches, dogs that mysteriously become lost, shelter return policies.  I looked from my window yesterday and saw this son and his dog, as they had walked the thirty minutes or so from his house to mine.  He and his dog were trying out new ways to burn off young dog energy i.e. water-packed dog vest, long, long walks, endless repetition of commands.  We talked for a while about his new car, which will take him a long, long time to pay off.  They walked away, and I saw the back of a man who understands forgiveness, commitment, hard work, love.  He had paid me an unexpected visit.

It's been dry and warm here, unusual for coastal range of the Pacific Northwest.  I've done a lot of dead heading of dahlias, roses, cosmos, anemone.  A flourish of new growth is on every bloomer.  I might be able to put together a descent bouquet from my garden to take to my brother in Moses Lake next week.  I only recently discovered his existence, and now my garden is in overdrive on his account. 

The show of life is playing.  I've still got my ticket.  I may be caught in the undertow for the rest of my life, and I may be taken to shore. 

NOAH No Kill Shelter

The Widow Lessons Website

ABOUT MOUNTAIN GOATS, MIDWIVES AND MENTORS

I wonder if humans are launched from somewhere into the earthly experience.  If so, I feel certain that my launch pad had granite rock outcroppings, alpine soil and vegetation, and probably mountain goats.  I feel more at home in such an environment than anywhere else. 

Between 2,400 and 3,200 mountain goats are estimated to live in Washington, where I have lived most of my adult life.  I remember encountering them from a distance when we camped in the Blue Mountains, although I have since discovered that those particular goats are from an Oregon reintroduction of the 1950's.  Goats without borders.  I like it. 

I saw mountain goats again along the Yukon Trail, when Ted and I took the original train that follows the hopes of so much humanity, in a long, deadly line, chasing gold up Chilkoot Pass to Canada. 

In Washington, or along the Yukon Trail, I am attracted to mountain goats because they are singularly adapted to the sharp, angular precariousness of the alpine setting.  The silhouette of a mountain goat speaks about solitude, but not loneliness, to me.  I probably love them because they make me think of my Ted, who was with me camping in the Blues, with me in Alaska, and is with me still in spirit -- never a stronger spirit connection than when I am in mountains like the Cascades.

After a misadventure camping recently in Whatcom County, two complete strangers who saw my bad camp experience post on a teardrop camper website, invited me to accompany them across the Cascades.  When I told them of my fear of towing my teardrop camper across Snoqualmie Pass, they made arrangements for me to travel in a caravan with them -- me in the middle.  I felt tense, frightened, out of control, light headed, self-doubting most of the way up and down, up and down to reach the summit.  I saw myself hanging from a granite cliff, like Cary Grant in the film "North by Northwest".  There's a dramatist in my head that is making Hitchcock films when I'm irrationally afraid of something.  But, I made it.  And, I made it back over the pass and home, a few days later, without fear.

These two women were midwives to the birth of something freeing and strong in me:  The power to take off any time I want, go where I want, come back when I am ready.  They didn't know me, but extended this monumental and transformative help to me.  From midwives they were again transformed into mentors, about camping and living.  We cruised more secluded and so-called "primitive" campsites on Federal lands, along the Cle Elum River.  My mind is fresh with glimpses of myself, my future.  I also like these two women, and they are no longer strangers to me.  Friends.

In the little town of Easton, I snapped photos of a decrepit old building, which also became a momentary midwife and mentor.  Underneath the word "SCOUTS", one can barely make out the earlier words: PACIFIC BEER.  Underneath those words were: Best East or West. 

On the north face of the building, there is a pocking to the brick that didn't exist anywhere else on the building. North winds bite.   Kind of like mountain goats, I thought, as I was photographing.  In the dead of winter, some mountain goats hang out on the very harshest part of the winter mountain -- the top.  There, they eat the tiny bits of alpine vegetation scoured and exposed by the coldest of winds. The north face of the Scouts/Pacific Beer building was telling me a similar story. 

Here I am, still standing.  Facing the harshest elements, I yield.  Just so, I continue to stand.  To live. 

ON GEORGE ELIOT, LOLA, AND MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Mary Anne Evans, Pen Name George Eliot

I spent more than a little time yesterday thinking about George Eliot.  George Eliot was the pen name of English novelist Mary Anne Evans (Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss).  She died about my age, made difficult life choices, wrote beautifully about psychological truths.  She once said "It is never too late to be what you might have been."  That is my life inspiration, at the moment.  Because I married young, had a long marriage with my best friend, Ted, became a widow, feel lost most of the time.  I often feel I am searching for the who I might have been.  I'm searching for myself, alone.

I recently acquired a new companion, Lola.  Lola is a good follower, never a complaint, and she's all mine.  She waits for me to figure out what I want to do in our relationship and she doesn't say a word.  I usually don't go in for the passive type, but down deep, Lola is complicated and worth understanding.  Lola is my teardrop camper.  She (or maybe he?) and I  met only recently, and, up until yesterday, we had only one adventure together.  Yesterday we embarked on a two-day solace and photography adventure that awaited us, three hours away, in Northwestern Whatcom County, Silver Lake Park.  The same day, we came home.   The long drive home made me think of George Eliot.

Was it a failure?

Prepping for a trip with a trailer is thought-intense work.  There is physical work of packing a lot of Lola gear, Bridget gear, dog gear.  My dogs, Oliver and Miss Kitty -- who are in a co-dependency relationship with me -- stare and tense up a lot.  I stare and tense up a lot.  It gets done, and I'm ready to tow.

Towing Lola was easier than our first trip, although the low-level terror thoughts of a jack-knife or sway were homesteading my brain this trip, too.  We arrived.  I backed Lola into the camping spot successfully, and then a major snag caught us.  Water and utilities were far, far from the only level spot on the site.  I tried for an hour, along with a generous camper next door, to level Lola near the utilities.  Not happening. 

Silver Lake Park is a passive park, so non-reservation campers can pick a spot and pay for it in a self-pay box.  I reserved my spot in advance.  But when I couldn't make my reserved spot work for me, there was no one in charge to help me sort it out.  Whatcom County had not staffed this park on the day I was there, so efforts to find a ranger or host camper were futile.  I decided to move myself to a level spot, and pay using my reservation paperwork, with an explanation.  I found another, level spot.  By now, I was away from home six hours. 

Neighbors at my new spot came home from an excursion of some sort.  Within minutes, a skinny, tall man with grey hair, moved his two camp chairs to my property line, sat in one of them, and took up a gawk show of me, my dogs, my camper, my trips to my car and back, and so forth.  Periodically, he would  spit into an imaginary spittoon, located on my site.  When I said, "Hello," he didn't say a word.  I didn't want to agitate a weird stranger, and I already knew there was no one with authority who could help me.  My cell phone was worthless. 

For about an hour, I sat with my dogs, in my trailer, figuring out the net economic loss of selling Lola.  I gave up trying to be where I want to be.  Basically, I was thinking about how frightened I was, although I do travel with copious amounts of pepper spray.   Looking back, I think my rational mind was only available to me for hitching, towing, backing up Lola, unhitching, utility connection.  The rest of me was about seven, maybe eight years old -- not knowing what to do, other than permitting my life, my heart, my mind to have a blow-out garage sale.  Surrender.  Pull out.  Abandon.  Give up.

The door to my grief opened.  When that happens, I feel abandoned.  I'm too young to shut myself in.  I married young, and raised a family young, and was widowed at fifty-four.  Not too late for a rebuild, I sometimes think.  I retired young enough to go in a new direction, dammit.  Camping in a teardrop, writing, photography, family -- this is the life I'm trying to build.  And somebody was staring at me, spitting at me.  Maybe he is from a culture, not my own, and this is how he greets.  Even compassion wasn't helping me.  My mind was tangled.

It would take a half-hour to get hitched back up, uncamp myself.  I had half an hour to decide, as it was going to be dark in four hours.  I don't take Lola on the road in the dark.  I decided to leave and go home. 

On the road, my anger targets included:  Fate. Whatcom County. Me. Ted. Man with chair and spit.  Me. Whatcom County.  Me.  Of course, my thoughts of George soothed me.  Calling daughter, Caroline and son, Andy soothed me.  Anger drove along beside me and wouldn't shut up.

For a few minutes, towing Lola home, I again contemplated selling her and giving up.  But I'm still curious enough, hungry enough for a particular kind of life, stubborn enough perhaps -- I'm enough to keep trying.  My mind flopped around quite joltingly all the way home, and kept landing on "keep trying."  

I recently hired someone to gravel in part of my yard for parking Lola. I now realize that the gravel used was 5/8 minus that had been washed.  Unwashed 5/8 minus gravel sets up, but washed gravel doesn't.  Backing up into my own new gravel driveway is skiddy.  This morning, I called a materials guy I trust and he advised adding a top layer of unwashed 5/8 minus, to try and fix it.  My mind is focused on gravel for my Lola parking spot.  This is more evidence that I don't intend to give up.

Andy came by this morning to check on me.  He pointed out that Ted took care of all my protection needs, and now I have been harshly confronted with loss, and the annoyance and fear associated with being my own body guard, my own advocate, my own everything.  "Dad used to take care of the lower levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for you, Mom.  You always got to be an actualized you, without having to deal with the bottom rungs."  He was referring to the lower level needs we all have, such as safety and security.  None of us can be fully our true selves if we are just trying to survive.  I have to admit that I was protected and felt secure when Ted was alive.  I wasn't worried about survival. 

This experience is another lesson for me.   There is still an awful lot of grief and loss for me to deal with. Maybe there always will be, and it will manifest in fear, retreat, despair.  I sometimes think about giving up on my dreams in defeat.  My actions tell me that I'm still a dreamer.  I'm not ready to dump Lola.  I owe Whatcom County a piece of my mind about utility hookups and their relationship with the level of the campsite, and about charging $35 a night for a utility campsite with no phone service or discernable way to find help and protection.  A lot of solo women want to camp, and we're willing to pay for a safe, utility site.  I can hear George Eliot:  "You go girl!"

In September, I meet up with a group of people who all have teardrops, in Deception Pass State Park.  I am hopeful.

Inherently Friendly and Enabling, T@B Teardrop Camper

TO CLING AND TO GROW

Now, summer in the garden is really showing off.  Whatever is made to climb, is vaulting.  Whatever is natural at sprawling, is hogging up real estate.  The clingers are my favorites -- attaching themselves for dear life.  I totally relate to the clingers.  If I care about something, I tend to attach myself.  I go all out.  I'll probably be "all in" about some things for a lifetime.  I don't know yet.  But what I do know is, I know how to cling.

"Oh!  You should have seen it last week!"

This is what a gardening enthusiast will say to another gardening enthusiast when in each other's garden.  It's a tradition, and a soft form of competition to be the best.  I don't say it -- probably because I'm not a stop on any garden tour, not in magazines with pictures of my garden, not spending all winter planning my next year garden.  I gave up trying to garden years ago, and therein lies my modest success as a happy gardener. 

I can, however, relate to the sentiment of you should have seen it last week.  When I became a widow, compliments became difficult to bear.  Instead of "Thank you," I always felt like saying "You should have seen me before."   I want everyone to know I was really great, then.  Kind of like the fifty-year old football player or homecoming queen who still puts high school achievements on his/her resume.  I understand. 

Today, I realized that I no longer feel as strongly that my best self was only and could only be as Ted's soul mate, life partner, wife.  Could it be that perhaps I, alone, am worth an interesting and fulfilling life?  The darkest thought:  Did I really fail to keep Ted alive and now must atone with the remnant of a life from here on out?  I am starting to think not. 

I met a second-grade teacher who moved to a new school after fourteen years at another.  She gets paid less, because most of her new students don't speak much, if any, English.  "Tell me more," I said.  She told me that teacher pay in our state (Washington) is calculated in part on student test scores.  It takes almost no time for a child to learn conversational English, but about five years for a child to learn academic English.  Academic English is conceptual, such as the meaning of "character" and "setting" and so forth.  Most non-English speaking students will be proficient in both conversational and academic English by Junior High.  Obviously, this teacher's student test scores will not completely reflect her value to these students.   The students are at the beginning of a unique learning curve, but their test scores are compared with all students within the school district.

I didn't know that.  I also discovered that this particular teacher chose to work in the school she is in now, because it offered her "unique opportunities to make a difference in students' lives," -- in her own words.  "I had also never worked with non-English speaking children before, and I wanted to learn."  I believe there are some opportunities to grow that are worth more in value than dollars lost.  I admire her.  I am proud of myself for the times I chose to grow, even though it meant having less money. 

Can a clinger be a grower?  In the garden, yes.  Elsewhere?    I've written in this blog before about the healing nature of dichotomous thinking for someone who is in grief.  It eases pain to accept not knowing whether or not a particular outcome will come to pass.  For me, I can cling to my life story, my love story, my family story.  I can grow.  And I can write another chapter. Just because I am living the life I have now against my will, doesn't mean I am not allowed to make it a meaningful one, part of an entire life that was meaningful.  My day today would not have unfolded as it did had Ted lived.  And I love my day today. 

In his book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh talks about washing the dishes to wash the dishes.  He makes the point that when I wash dishes just to get them washed and move on, I am not going to be mentally present.  To wash dishes to wash dishes, I can feel alive and calm myself in the simple act of being present.  Naturally, he is opposed to automatic dish washing.  Nevertheless, I get it. 

So, I cling.  I grow.  I can talk about my life, past.  I can talk about my now.  Whoever encounters me today -- more than seven years a widow, more than thirty-nine years a mother, forty-one years Ted's wife -- that person will encounter all of who I am.  Spoken or Silent.

I offer Plum Village Peace Center as worth visiting, on line -- unless you can make it to Paris.  Thich Nhat Hanh's life story is an incredible journey away from violence, toward healing and peace.  Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.  He lives in exile in Paris, and started the Plum Village there.  It's healing to me, just reading about his work and his teachings.  I don't find them to be out of reach for a clinger who wants to keep growing. 

Click Here:  Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village Peace Center

Thich Nhat Hanh