9/26/2006

Influenced II

Drink deep droughts at this well. If you prefer jabber like phonecalls and juvenile stabs at prose, all elbows and knobby knees, read mine, read most found in blogdom.

But this place I’ll mention again, for your enrichment, for tears behind your eyes and laughter; surprised, pleased, uncomfortable in moments. Yet real and unflinching and not yet (I hope never) giving up on God.

It’s masterful stuff by award-winning author Angela Stewart.

Calico and Tomatoes

Sunshine-inebriated, we Northwesterians shun autumn jackets this week and gawk, friendly, passing in the street. Alas, it will soon end.

I tried to snap interesting pictures this summer. My efforts whispered loudly the benefits of cameras with zoom and quality lenses, plus the value of photography lessons. Maybe someday for me.

I did capture calico Lucky, our aging royal, reposing near Tim’s wood shelter. At sixteen, Lucky retains composure, still washes human fingers before allowing them passage over soft-as-rabbit fur and responds only to the highest-pitched tones when I’m practicing my flute. During such musical moments she winds past my ankles, mrrowwing either pleasure or pain, then butting my leg with her head until I pause or play lower notes so she can leave.



Lucky yowls siren-decibels at odd moments every night and day. Tim’s workshop/our guestroom over the garage has become Lucky’s afterhours prison, so we can sleep.

A tomato plant voluntarily grew in what’s become Lucky’s outhouse. Last summer my plants were nursery-bought from our friends Tom and Denise up the McKenzie. Around mid-summer I realized the place I’d set the thriving plants, out in dirt below a kitchen window, was also Lucky’s potty of choice for the season. Oh, well, good fertilizer, I reasoned, and it was, but still. I didn’t buy tomato plants this year--I’m the only one in the house who’ll eat the fruit, anyway--but a plant, well-fertilized, started showing itself below the window in July. Today I’m eating the one red globe I’ll receive from it before true Northwest autumn sets in. I picked it green, while the plant’s stemmings still stood tall above kitty poo.

My tomato-lust was sated Sunday, however, thanks to Carol, who reads my blog (thanks for that kindness, also), and who knows the tomato way of proliferation sans Lucky. She invited my free picking in the afternoon, even though she and Curt wouldn’t be home, saying, “Take all you want.”

I did, but it was the moment I relished, maybe more than its produce. Later, I’d savor tender-crisp tomato flesh bite-broken, gushing acrid-sweet juice and seeds over grateful tongue. Near Carol’s driveway, though, I paused in the quiet of a golden late afternoon. Warmth tethered anxious shards of me to solid ground, where nourishment surged from soil, abounding.

Influenced

My dad fished with Richard Brautigan along the McKenzie River when they were both eighteen and best friends.

I remember my parents at the breakfast nook when I was seven. You sat around the table on benches beneath brightly-curtained windows, and the bench-seats had hinged lids, perfect for lifting up and climbing beneath after breakfast. A personal cave to crawl through, dark on top of slippery magazines my mom stored there.

My dad handed me a book written by his best friend. “He’s really made it big, now,” Dad said to Mom. On the first page I glimpsed shocking words we never used at the breakfast nook. They were the words of my dad's friend Richard, who lived a different life far away in San Francisco.

9/23/2006

Feeling Better

It’s forty-six degrees outside, I’m forty-six years old and it’s okay.

Looking back at Summer, I see I stubbed my toes on a lot of pitiful stones. Man, I have to plan this anniversary party. Why, when I tell friends about my blog, do they look as if I’ve invited them to join Amway? My story rejected first time out; think I’ll quit writing forever.

I’m a dork. Nothing new. Last week I noticed Dorcas’s blog had a hit counter at the bottom. So I thought I’d check them out; maybe with such an apparatus I could discover if anyone besides kind, encouraging Erin and myself hung around here. Thing is, when you reach a certain point in signing up (to my mind, still noncommittally, and for the tiniest counter possible), a warning proclaims if you now do not put their link on your site, they will send you horrible spam or defame your site to the nations or something equally scary. I finished installing the counter. They asked with what number it should begin. I’d no clue--they’re supposed to tell me these things. So I entered “24”, it being my favorite number and a show on my husband’s network.

Today my counter says 213, and I know, from checking, it counts every time I land here, so that’s most of them. But sometimes I’ve peeked and been convinced there were entities here visiting who weren’t myself!

Yay. It’s embarrassing to have told myself and others, “This blog thing is just a beta version, an experiment, you know? I’m not worried who reads it,” and then to recognize neediness from inside my little spaces squirting out at the oddest moments. I should be beyond this, more mature. But my dear friend Laura (who wisely with hubby Geoff does not pay for Internet) says, “Aw, you’re just a person.”

Laura’s right. A self-conscious, sins spilling over and should be damned to hell person is moi. A crying to God, who sees it all and cares, anyway, old gal.

9/21/2006

Sniffle

My daughter, Victoria, goes back to school tomorrow.

She’s given permission for my naming her in this space, while my son remains he-who-must-not-be-named (no, his doesn’t start with a “V”).

Victoria’s presence this summer made our home both smaller and larger. Fewer spots availed themselves to toss things into when company came, while expansive ideas flowed freely over cluttered tables and countertops. Plus, now,

I know the plots of more movies (Victoria works at a Hollywood Video),

I’ve seen how red hair-coloring is done,

I know how the most creative peasants dress inexpensively for a Renaissance Faire,

I’m closer to distinguishing a quote by Aristotle from one by Plato,

I’ve observed the progress of a desk-refinishing that may be completed after school starts (still, she’s closer than I’ve ever come to redoing furniture!).

I’ll miss my daughter (yes, she’s just across town--wimp, wimpy, wimp, that’s me), but I’m further along in transitioning, I think. Victoria our grown daughter, our company, our holiday guest telling great tales.

Still, though, my honey-sunshine girl.

9/20/2006

Mercy

Greetings from the assisted-suicide capital of the U.S.

That episode of House Tim and I watched last night dealt with euthanasia, posing the oft-asked, “When someone is suffering and afraid, because their situation is terminal and it will only get a whole lot worse before they die, and they’re begging to be allowed to die, now, shouldn’t a medical person honor their request?”

When I’m in agony someday due to cancer or stroke or something, remind me I said this: don’t deny me the suffering I’m given.

Sure, dope me up, hospice-style, and try to provide my comfort. I hope I’ll appreciate it. If my mind is clear, I may not feel I can endure what’s happening. But if experience is any teacher, I’ll have better and worse moments. And in the better ones, God willing, I will take in the final details about this life, this classroom, that I’m meant to learn. I want them.

I’m not saying the TV characters didn’t struggle with a true moral dilemma for our age. They represent a culture generally rejecting God, or at least not much interested in him, but still wanting to do good, to treat people well. Death is only an enemy in society until life cannot give us what we want. To lose a certain (albeit vague) quality of life ought not be tolerated, all things being equal and God basically only a spiritual idea.

It’s also not my intent to say people who get stretched beyond individual limits, physically or emotionally, and end their own lives (assisted or not), can’t be believers in the one true God. I’ve never lived in another‘s skin; I can’t know the horrors a person stronger than I (most are--I’m a wimp) has faced before giving in to despair. A writer I met this year, Dorcas Smucker, grieves a nephew who laughed with the family last Christmas and killed himself this summer. Cold judgment makes no sense of her loss.

All I want is to live until I die, near as possible. I am so looking forward to what will come afterward, having a place in Life, in eternity, with God. Hearing him say, “It’s all right now. Sit here. You ready to begin?” God’s somehow preparing me in this prelude. The worst moments (illness, body succumbing to age, depression, etc.), have delivered greater gifts (perseverance, hope, increments of wisdom) than I could have imagined, that I would have missed, had I opted out sooner. They may bind my wounds, yet, when the road one day morphs to a minefield, and I scarcely can bear one more faltering step.

9/19/2006

The Place of Real

Opening a door just now for an orange cat who wanted out, I breathed the night. Loamy air from first-wet leaves and dry veins of grass. It’s in my hair; I walked through sunshine today, after and before the rain. Laura called and wooed me out of house, away from winsome screen. She and I met, or rather didn’t meet, at Owosso Bridge. We missed each other, both of us solar-fueled, endorphin-giddy, unable to wait and so following pathways to the other, only we didn’t comprehend right the worlds on opposite sides of the river from our own. We’re learning.

After she and I met up to walk some more in each world, clouds darkened and covered our energy. So a hug, a last glance into Laura’s brown eyes, a westward walk home, humming “Kiss De Girl” from Little Mermaid.

Tim came in while chicken stroganoff finished on the stove, his jaw tense. Our children’s banter drew razory comments. I saw, not gracefully, but truly, his whole crapped-out day behind the barbing. Remembered how I reacted earlier, hungry and walk-worn, to imagining no frozen chicken remained before I found it on the freezer’s bottom shelf. I freaked; Tim jabs.

During the TV show House, I landed beside Timothy on the sofa, able to cuddle because he’d abandoned for an hour his anime video, one of those I can’t stand watching in its English-dubbed artifice. (Speed Racer memories die hard.) Tim’s shirt, like mine, exudes essence of weather-change--he was out in more of it than I, all day, straining. His warm arm held me firmly in its crook, except it relaxed when he dozed during commercials.

I’d dream we meet at the door tomorrow evening maritally matched for perfection. Each syllable rounding from our lips would embrace, not slice. Dinner would find our stomachs before growls of want. We’d giggle about our frictionless day, where people waited properly avoiding wasted effort.

But what a stupid dubbed anime movie that would make.

The orange cat returns via pet-door and says, “Helllo?” (Rrr-Uhh?)

I type before winsome screen; Tim on the sofa sleeps.

9/17/2006

Merriment and Balloons

You may ask why I’ve failed to post about the day this past summer most planned ahead for, the one crucial to my parents’ happiness during their 50th married year that left me with self-insight amongst images of my history.

: : shuffles papers near desk; adjusts music volume : :

Can’t say I have a clue.

Last summer my mom and dad (mainly my mom) began using sentences including the phrase, “Less than a year, now…” I noticed also they spoke of “large enough places” in questioning tones, as in “I don’t think our little church would hold everyone, do you?”

It began to dawn on me. Even though my two younger brothers and I missed making an event of our parents’ silver anniversary (we each being engaged in various stages of finding ourselves), we had thrown a party, at our folks’ house, honoring their 35th. Now, however, something more golden and exciting might be called for.

Mom and I settled on Skinner Butte Park, on the Willamette River near the neighborhood where my dad grew up. Last November we reserved a cottage there for Saturday, July 29, 2006. My anxieties began.

Both of my brothers live in Washington State. They, along with my sister-in-law, eagerly pledged their support and help, saying things like, “We’re sorry we’re not closer, but let us know what we can do.” And they meant it; yet I had only vague ideas about what I should do, let alone how they could help.

At last, in May or so, Mom and I sat down to sort out a mailing list. I worked on an invitation, and my practical sis-in-law called to say, “You compose; we’ll mail.” She also mentioned ideas for details like plates and napkins “on sale at Costco, so I’ll just pick them up here.” Yay.

As we prayed for sunshine but mild temperatures on the approaching day, inspiration bloomed in my little brain. I’d see about hiring a photographer to capture the moments for us hundred or so who’d be munching goodies the ladies from Mom and Dad’s church had promised to bring (double Yay). It turned out we could receive Erin Julian’s affordable camera services. Then my daughter offered to put together photo collages from the past. This left Mom and me with the task, not of finding family pictures, but of choosing from the hundreds Mom keeps in her scrapbooking-goal boxes.

I think our day spent in the emotional realm of old picture excavation was the most energy-zapping.

Invites mailed, photo numbers narrowed, food planned, we approached the Big Day, not exactly knowing how anything would turn out. Thursday, July 27, my parents’ actual anniversary, I great fun scooting around town in my brother Dan’s van. Our “baby” bro, Richard, and Dan’s wife, Lynn, came, too, as Dan took us to Costco and other places to shop for balloons, a helium tank, guest book, double check the ordered cake and plunk a couple of food-tray orders into the mix for good measure. We goofed off, hitting food sample counters and kidding around. After the “boys” made a hardware purchase for a project they’d start and complete the next day in Mom’s pantry, nine of us headed to CafĂ© Yumm, a local tasteful eatery, for dinner. Then it was ice cream cones for dessert in a shop my Mom used to frequent (under different ownership) as a teenager.

Saturday morning brought a lightly clouded sky and the promise of afternoon mid-seventies. Since many people attending would be in their mid-seventies, this was perfect weather. Lynn headed up decorations at the cottage: balloon crew; table cloths; streamers; confetti. She missed no specialty. People began to arrive.



And so did the food.



We mingled.



We managed toasts…



and stories shared.



Memories…



and folks



abounded.



How could I forget to post about this day?



I guess I’ve just recently recovered, is all.

9/16/2006

Good thing I didn't read this before Tuesday

Earlier this month a friend and classmate of my daughter did the hiking trip of my nightmares. Aaron and his brother Josh, from California, both attend Gutenberg. They started Sunday, September 3rd with a group of hiking buddies for a wilderness camping and hiking adventure near Mt. Ritter, west of the Sierra Crest. All went as planned until Thursday, when most of the guys, including Aaron, summitted Ritter, then tried to descend the “quick way.”

Aaron’s dramatic account of the group’s 24-hour-plus ordeal, caught on the mountainside by a freak snowstorm, chills a mother’s insides. But it’s wonderful reading.

As his brother Josh (who’d stayed with another brother at base camp that day) worked frantically to radio rescue for the hikers, Aaron faced a growing likelihood he and his companions would die.

It was a struggle to stand on the truth that God is in control, that He rules over the mountains, and that He is with us - basically, to trust in Him. But this truth was reinforced in my heart in an awesome way. In the middle of the storm I remembered that I had a small bible in my pocket, which my mom had given me. I hadn't intended to pack it up the mountain, but had "accidentally" left it in my pocket. I hadn't wanted any extra weight, and didn't think I'd get the chance to read it anyway. But now, here we were, and I thanked God that I had forgotten to take it from my pocket. I pulled it out, held it up, and exclaimed, "Hey guys, guess what I 'accidentally' brought!" They looked, and smiled.


Go read the rest in Aaron's September 15th blog entry. Then look at photos the boys snapped, remembering to record life in the face of disaster. This one’s direct from my own anxieties of the day my son hiked beyond Tam McArthur Rim.



What a relief, though, those rescue people can serve as the hand of God sometimes. As Aaron writes so well, it’s God’s hand we rightly depend on when the day brings summit-views of frailty and grace.

9/14/2006

Rim and Lake Adventure

An earlyish start Tuesday morning got us over Santiam Pass before noon. I drove my '98 Plymouth Grand Voyager SE, my son sat in back and my friend Kathy rode binoculars (well, she didn’t bring a shotgun).

At Sisters we hung a right and tooled up the long, familiar road to Three Creeks Lake. I slowly navigated the final mile or two after pavement ends. My van can do this, I silently repeated, remembering how Tim coached me a few summers ago to drive across weathered rocks that stick up between craters and lava shards along the way. As on previous trips, my increased heart-rate proved worthwhile after we arrived safely to begin our forays beneath decreased atmosphere (at 6,000 feet or so elevation) and a striking, deep blueness above.

My boy of 16 set off on a solo trek up Tam McArthur Rim Trail, determined to walk as far away from me and as close to a small peak called Broken Hand as he could. I called reminders: “Got your walkie-talkie? Don’t forget to call sometime. Be back as close to 4:30 as you can!”

I wasn’t too nervous. Bears don’t venture out in the open very often during a warm afternoon to pick hikers off the trail, right? And I guess at some point you’ve got to let a young man follow his dreams.

As Kathy and I started off in the opposite direction, following a level trail that circles the lake, we made for stands of shady Douglas Fir. To our left the lakeshore sand gleamed. Lush grassy patches surrounded points where each of the three creeks splashed toward their goal. A lone rowboat carried a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, who appeared to enjoy drifting and gazing up at the Rim, some 2000 feet above.

Kathy finds birds. She notices so much more than I, planting feet and whipping binoculars to face quickly enough to spot tiny sparrows or Somebody-or-other’s Nuthatch before it becomes a blur of wing and wind and is gone.

I felt some pride, when, as Kathy focused on nearby firs and their occupants, I saw the dark wingspan overhead and pointed. “Is that the eagle?” (Kathy’d caught a glimpse of what looked like one flying off the moment we entered the trees.) “That’s it!” she confirmed. “See the white head and tail?”

I hadn’t realized our national emblem is “bald” at both ends. There he (or she) circled, riding an updraft, becoming smaller, looking ultra-competent from wingtip to wingtip.

A crackling noise from my backpack made me wish I’d kept my walkie-talkie in hand. Several staticky seconds and a snatch of my son’s voice (I thought) were followed by silence. It made sense he had dutifully checked in and then switched his receiver off again--I knew he didn’t want me calling him at odd moments. So although we didn’t exactly speak, I pressed onward with Kathy, trying not to fear how much farther out of range he was hiking.

“People ride horses up there,” I remarked, making positive conversation. “If he gets hurt, someone could pack him down.”

“Sure,” Kathy said. “Though I’ll bet axe-murders use horses to carry their weapons.” She grinned back at me.

Aren’t friends wonderful?

Around 3:30 we finished our hike and parked the van closer to the Rim trailhead. Then we had no trouble filling up time with conversation. Kathy not long ago earned a degree in psychology, and she’s got a husband and grown-up kids just a bit older than mine. So an afternoon with her brings therapeutic reenergizing every time. I just hope I didn’t wear her out with life-stories and all-ways connections to theological issues.

By 4:45 I’d watched many a hiker enter my rearview mirror as he or she descended the trail. I got out and asked the next man who appeared, a grandfatherly-looking gentleman with a friend close behind, whether he’d seen a teenage boy up on the Rim trail.

“Why, yes,” he said. “We asked him if he was alone, and he said he was. He hiked out to Broken Hand, and was starting around it last I saw.” The man looked relieved to see a mom waiting for the adolescent hiker. I hoped I hadn’t seen worry in his friend’s eyes when he described the “narrow trail” at the side of Broken Hand.

Oh, well. My son is generally cautious. We all figured he’d be back in an hour, maybe 90 minutes. The gentlemen left. Kathy and I walked down an embankment to get closer to a stream.

I kept as calm as possible, watching green frogs leaping along the creek bank. Would I need to leap up the trail in a couple of hours if my son hadn’t arrived? How would I help him if he’d slid down the mountain? I tried not to imagine cell-phoned helicopters and emergency medical personnel.

Then my pocketed walkie-talkie blared, “Mom, where are you? I’m at the van.”

Dust-covered and ready for hamburgers back in Sisters, my son stood tall and whole up on the road. I bounded up, eager to skirt lava boulders while steering into sunset sprouting a relieved-mother smile. (Photos will follow, one of these days.)

9/13/2006

The Band

To be “in Christ” -- what is that?

Here's my analogy:

An invitation goes out to join the band. It’s supposed to be the greatest thing ever, at least someday. Those who respond must believe the director really knows what he’s doing, despite the fact no one has yet heard a performance. And the potential players must also believe there will be a reward for those who seek him out: the best music, ever, is promised to be played by this band.

So you decide, along with several others, to join. There’s something about the director and his plans for the band that, well, strikes a chord within you. You’re somewhat weary, also, of trying to make music on your own and failing. This director’s radical message says there really is no true “sound” apart from his expertise. Sure, you've heard musicians who make a sincere attempt that comes very close to the art you seek. You’ve even followed the careers of a few of them and tried to imitate their styles. But it’s become apparent each time that their music, no matter how well it goes on for a while, ends up lacking authenticity. And you see in your own tuneful meanderings that, while you seem to have been made for musical greatness, there remains a barrier you’re just not able to overcome in order to reach it. You admit you’ve been beaten by something un-musical within yourself.

You and many musicians who’ve joined the new group begin jamming. The written music challenges you; in fact, you must take it bit by bit, being unfamiliar with the somewhat obscure style. You are tentatively encouraged and excited the more you practice, however. This director/composer’s stuff fits with the music bound to your deepest inner being.

Time passes. What becomes more apparent, that you hadn’t noticed at first, is you and the others aren’t performing yet. Practicing, yes; you can’t really keep from it. But, while the hard work at playing for yourself is taking you to places you hadn’t imagined before, you’ve not yet experienced a reward in terms of satisfaction with the group. Others feel this frustration acutely; a few have walked out. This is surely not the way to run a band, they’ve said, upon shutting the door.

You agree, to a point. It seems if you were in charge the situation would be handled differently. But when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter how this director does things. You trust him.

You believe in this music you’re playing, because all your experience tells you it’s the real deal. Being a part of it (even just dwelling in the “shadow” of individual practice) is enough for now. You long for the fulfilled promise, for the complete orchestra to come together and perform. At the same time, you are content with what you’re doing. You recognize you’re “in” what is happening to you as your commitment to the music grows. You’re fully engaged, just as this music belongs, somehow, in you.

Tough questions continue to barrage you and your fellows, from other band members and those who’ve never joined. Over time you see the reason for staying with your practice boils down to a deep, abiding interest shared by those of you who remain. You consider the challenges to your belief in the director and his promises. You remain serious, in thought and in dialogue with others. Profoundly, though, you remain in the band.

Orange

I wanted to rhyme or at least connect today with my last title, “Glitz,” while offering views of opposite sorts from those of Vegas-land. Nothing sparked (bitz, ritz, restz, bestz, etc.), so I opted for the word that rhymes with none.

It would be fun, it seems, to begin a blog-a-thon, flinging forth ideas frequently hatched here in my brain yet seldom written and submitted for your perusal. I don’t wish to commit, knowing I’ll likely not follow far through.

But I learned something this summer, and it’s a place to begin. I find the reason a writer ought blog is to connect with readers. A reader often also fits the description of a fan: someone who follows (in this case, reads) with enthusiasm, expecting more of what pleases him or her and wondering what’s the hold-up when the producer of the (in this case) blog they’re following slows or stops production.

One must first have readers, I’ve noticed, in order to connect with them. On the positive side, if one has no readers, no one complains when said one stops producing posts for a while.

Until the acceptance-for-publication fairy visits me or by chance I fling a blurb that incites delight or indignation or both from magical masses lurking in the 'osphere, I’m posting for myself, sometimes feeling Charlie Brownish. Yet I’m also quite free. Anything (nearly) goes, 'cause no one’s watching.

Least of all Logan, whom I mentioned once before, and who hates blogs, but whose recent antics at our church campout fit my desire to tack up an image far removed from Las Vegasian selections. Here are a few of my unglitzy friends and Logan.




I just know if he posted something about what he was doing that day in the tree, he’d have readers.

9/11/2006

Glitz


Lighted, orchestrated and artificially reproduced. What a hoot Vegas. Tim and I shared gelatto on the Venetian's second floor, next to this canal.

The Eiffel Tower elevator operator told us we topped a half-scale model of the real Parisian icon.

What glittered was gold. Substance lacking.




Two lovebirds flitting savored together-fire still in the works. Thanks, Timothy, for our weekend.

Thanks flickr, for the photos.

9/04/2006

Real . . . And Gone


Tonight I miss the constant sound of breakers and their ghostly beauty in the dark. We camped all weekend at Cape Lookout on Oregon's northern coast. Friends from our extended church community made the trip that's been a tradition since years before my family became a part of things.

Our group tent sites nestle amongst pine trees now precariously near the encroaching Pacific. Waves and wind may erode this parcel of sand in the not-distant future; a ranger warned we shouldn't assume next year's Labor Day campout will happen in the usual spot.

All the more reason for my melancholy this evening. I've returned to solid walls and gadget-land, where friends, though not far away, cannot simply show up, sit around the campfire my husband built and laugh, unhurried, sensing the ocean's calming rhythm and thankful for God-sent gifts under a misted canopy.

We learned on the way home today about Steve Irwin's death. The Crocodile Hunter, whose wife, Terri, comes from our town, spoke my kids' language when they were little and discovering snakes and other cool, crawly creatures. I ache for his children, a girl and a boy as in our case, who will grow up without their amazing daddy hanging around in person. May God give them strength and a lot of encouragement from memories as they find their own real lives in precarious creation.

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I've been consumed for a few years by care for my parents, so writing has fallen by the wayside. In and for my heart, this has become a ...