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