Drama Dweeb

So after I created the drama around losing my wallet (last blog), I opened the passenger door of my little red car and there it was peeking out of the door side pocket. Little buggah! Little pink wallet with the Trader Joe's sticker on it. Oh yeah, I laughed so hard. Like finding an old friend playing hide and seek standing on her head in your closet hours after the game ended. The things it takes to get me to post.

Snow is coming down like its heading to a half off sale. Snow is one of those things I can't imagine having too much of, though I've never lived in the Yukon. Here along the lake, we sometimes get snow deprivation because of the banana belt effect. However, we did get a bumper crop in December. Wasn't that impressive!

So back to the wallet. By the time I cut up all the credit cards I had to cancel and replace, I had a pile of colorful plastic confetti that looked like the aftermath of a hamster chewing its way out of a lego set.

Sort of a warm fuzzy to see your former ID mangled. Sort of liberating. Now I start fresh. Howboutchu?

Little Gal with No Name

Losing a wallet is not something that I have done often in the last couple decades. Before that, however, it was a frequent event, at least a couple times a year.

So this time, I canceled my credit & debit cards, knowing the bright pink wallet will show up under a pile of clothes or in the pocket of a winter coat that fell behind the couch. I went to put my hands on the passport, which I recall being in a drawer with the birth certificate. Ah, wouldn't that have made it easy. But it was not to be found. My house eats identification!

The dilemma started to dawn on me. No credit card to order a new birth certificate, no birth certificate to get a social security card, and no ID of any kind to get a new driver's license. Whoops! I became the gal with no name.

The good news is that I found some tracking slips for three packages of my Mom's possessions, one of which never showed up. I couldn't find the slips so I couldn't track down the missing box with irreplaceable treasures. Instead of a passport, I found these after 6 months. A good trade.

Losing and finding is a major theme of my life. It all started when I was about seven, right after I came out of a several week hospital stint with spinal meningitis. Yowza. Don't get that one, folks. At that age, I wasn't sure if they were trying to cure me or kill me, but it all scared me into being a very good little girl.

The following year, I would go to school with all the stuff-books, sweater, lunchbox. I would arrive home with nothing.
It was disheartening for both my Mom and me. Mom even asked my doctor if it could be residual brain damage from the meningitis.

We laughed about it years later, but at the time it wasn't that funny. As I recall, arriving home from school with empty hands involved lots of yelling. It didn't seem to matter how hard I tried to remember. I would get past the key moment, i.e. boarding the school bus, and it was all over for another day. So really, just losing a wallet now and then is a huge upgrade for me.

Another major lost item was my senior college thesis. My procrastination writing it had cost me three years on my diploma. When I finally went to deliver it, I hitched 3,000 miles to my college and lost it en route, when the suitcase was set on the ground during some reorganizing of the trunk. So a wallet is really small potatoes compared to that.

Because I've been reading about the structures that contain our lives but have nothing to do with who we really are, I 'm wondering if this 'wallet losing caper' might be a lesson plan with my name on it. Every scrap of my ID vanishes in one week- the paperwork that proves I live in this body, have a right to operate a motor vehicle, have a credit history, collect paychecks, get library books, work toward a free latte. Being without it does free me up somehow. I found myself dancing today for no reason. Slipping on the icy parking lot became a little soft shuffle boogie. Walking up the stairs got a dance rythym going. Just because my purse was lighter? Or was it something more?

Yeah, I'm getting used to the idea that all that paperwork really is not me. At least not the me I seem to be becoming. I mean, the absurdity of stuffing an infinity sized spirit into this little human body...
and then pretending that the body is who I is, you is, we are.

I am little, too, only 60 inches even if you stretched me on the rack. So why do we do that? When the evidence points toward large spirits capable of remarkable powers, we try to convince ourselves otherwise. We treat babies and children as though they are inferior little people who intentionally interfere with our plans, instead of the spiritual giants they are.

So perhaps Marianne Williamson hit the nail on the head when she said (and Nelson Mandela so eloquently quoted),

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. "

So I have shed my outer identities (or maybe the elves stole them) and am reveling in the essence that I find outside of all that. There is something liberating about not having a wallet. I go into the gas station to write a check, and actually talk to the salesgal, instead of letting the machine just munch my card number. I stuff bills all over the place instead of having them tightly corralled in that little slot inside my wallet. It feels really disorganized, but it's just different. Maybe it's a good thing to get booted out of the comfort zone, no matter how trivial; just for a while to have to wing it without all the little cards that tell me who I am and how much credit I have.

T.S. sure had a handle on this...

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
is that which was the beginning;
As the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding" in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, ed. Richard Ellman & Robert O'Clair, 1973

Fellow Travelers through the Seasons

My friend Jan took this photo of her log home outside Polson, Montana a couple days ago. Over New Years, we had several inches of new snow falling like it was getting paid for it. This is more snow than I've seen any winter in 14 years. Yee Haw. My friends are enjoying the slopes and lifts but I haven't pulled out the skis just yet.

In an older body, I find myself weighing the pros and cons of exposure to speed and ice, enjoying my current euphoria of mobile joints and the absence of concussions, wrenched muscles, or torn ligaments. I'll give it one more week. You might recall last winter's post about the final run down the mountain at Blacktail, complete with a 30 foot cartwheel, whiplash, and a mild concussion. Skiing back to the lodge that day after my 'yardsale', I promised myself a helmet before next season.

Yes! Snow dresses up a little town like nobody's business. Gazing up at the mountains today, it looks like this could be Switzerland or Germany. The roadways are paved with vanilla frosting and the trees, buried under a limb bending load, look like splendid decorations. When the setting sun sparks the snow draped mountains with a peachy glow, it is all you can do to keep from shouting for joy. Here is another Jan Myers work of art taken from her house, I bet. Montana is the quick change artist of the world, going from summer to winter, and back again, in the blink of an eye. Or as my friend, Sailor Bill, puts it so wryly, "If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes and you still won't like it."

Attempting to tackle my 'big guy' yesterday on a snowy slope at the dog park (in a moment of pure winter driven madness) I ended up face down in the snow, while he was still standing. But it was worth it, because somersaulting, frolicking, and making snow angels was the inevitable next thing to do down there.

For Christmas, my friend Mary gave me a photo from five years ago of the two of us hugging a snowman. We had built it the day before when the world was white. By the next day, everything had melted except our giant snowman with the crazy hat. He was listing to about 45 degrees and we couldn't get him upright, no matter how hard we grunted, but it made for a great photo and yet another memory to share.

This past year, my maternal cousins-Martha, Matt, Cody, Mary & Lucia- have become beloved friends as we recently supported each other through the deaths of our two mothers, only months apart. Martha and I (the oldest) were already like sisters from decades of shared experiences. In the tub, she and I are the two on the right, with my brother Bill and her brother, Bo.

So strange how these little kids (Mary, Matt & Lucia) grew up to be the absolute coolest friends, not just to me and my brothers, but to their older sister Martha and to each other, as well. Wouldn't our recently deceased mom-sisters, Tony & Barb, be happy about that.

On the left is Barb & Jim (Mom's brother) on their wedding day.

Tony and Barb had ridden the school bus together when they were twelve and thirteen years old. They were there when each of them met their future husbands. They didn't know at that dewy age what agony their lives would hold and what it would take to survive it. Nevertheless, they each moved through over 80 years with a lot of grace and a devastating sense of humor-right up to the end. On the left, Marth & Matt are imitating our dog, Sam, instigated by Mom, (though she looks a lot like their mom in that photo).

Let's face it, the friends & family we treasure are what make any season memorable. Aging has taught me one thing. The things I thought mattered over the years are Nothing compared to the value to me, of each of my friends, siblings, cousins, and many of my acquaintances.

My youngest cousin, Lucia, had a dream the other day that Mom and Barb were bicycling together in that yonder place, like when they were kids. That thought put a giant grin on my face for the rest of the day!

So Remember...
Tell them how important they are
how beautiful they are
And keep them laughing!

Jumping Back In

I dedicate this post to Jo Ann, who just by the simple act of commenting on my blog, asking about growing Simpson Lettuce, got me jump started again. (She left her comment on the previous post. Jo Ann, check this link.)

Amazing how little it takes. Of course my friend Francis has been sending me his special brand of healing energy too, which is called The Reconnection. So thanks, once again to friends I know and ones I don't know yet.. I thought my alley grazing and blogging were history. Turned out I was wrong

There is no way to calculate the way my Mom's death gut punched me into paralysis. I kept going to work but I didn't really care what happened. When a key person ceases to be in the familiar house, by the familiar phone where you can see her, call her... trade stories, annoy and amuse each other, it is like somebody moved the furniture around in my brain. I keep bumping into things. So now that my Mom is not in her house doing her thing, she seems to zoom around, showing up here, not where I can see her, just bringing the joy and deeply familiar feeling of connection. My friend Barb thinks she is living vicariously through me, getting to do things she would never do.

I even started alley grazing again. Some yellow chrysanthemums for a bouquet, ground picked plums from the alley behind my house. Some great apples along the bike path behind Super 1. Yum. Do you realize this town is covered with walnut trees, two different kinds? I never notice until fall, when the fruit looks like a deviant avocado. Not quite ready yet.

Of course this time of year is also a feast for the eyes with show stopping colors. And rainbows. I hope you all caught the rainbows last week during the peek a boo rain and sun.

Speaking of the leaf colors, my friends and I went to Hot Springs to soak at Rose's outdoor pool on two consecutive weekends. There is a mid size ornamental cherry tree (possibly a purple leaf sand cherry) that guards the pool. I have the exact tree in my front yard though mine looks like a dwarf next to Rose's. The leaves were vibrant, several shades from crimson to mauve in a dense canopy. Enough were sailing into the pool that I could scoop them out in handfuls.

A week later, that dense foliage had thinned to half. The remaining leaves like a transparent shirt, were revealing the tree's winter silouette of branches and twigs. In six days, the Purple Leaf Sand Plum's juicy leaves were transformed into paper shreds the color of leather, hanging on for dear life.

Two mornings ago, in Riverside Park, the wind had whipped up the waves on the river so that they appeared to be dashing along the concrete wall like writhing snakes, or a whiplash that exploded into the shore wall.

My dog Sam went totally bananas (technical term) when he saw that. He raced the uncoiling wave as it barreled along the lip of the wall. When the wave unloaded, like crack the whip, froth roiled up over the wall, and he got a faceful, which just made him redouble his efforts. I wish you could have seen it; in the predawn stillness, a blasting north wind, standing waves, and my dog zinging along the river edge, barking his head off.

I doubt if he has ever had the opportunity to chase sheep or cattle as his breeding dictates, but he can put the fear of God in seagulls, cats, cabbage moths, yellow jackets, elk, deer, squirrels, and the occasional cargo van or tractor trailer. There is also a terrible story about his previous owner, before I got him, adopting him out to a ranch. The ranch wife was doing dishes, looking out the kitchen window when she saw their horse galloping along with Sam at the end of his tail like a flag. Needless to say, he was returned to his former owner that day. Lucky for me. He was kind of a maniac until Karen Duty's doggie manners class tuned him up, or I should say, tuned up the dog owner.

But this 'wave runner' frenzy might have been his most inspired, Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler moment, barreling along the shoreline at Riverside Park, herding waves.

Alley Grazer Farewell

To my friends and friends of friends who have encouraged me with your comments, and harangued me to keep on blogging, I thank you and salute you. Many of you are stellar writers in your own right and I am honored to be among you.

This summer I have not tasted a single lambs quarters stem or chickweed leaf. I did not wander the byways of my town in search of dinner or trundle through alleys to the lake. This year, my alley grazing was confined to my imagination. This year everything changed.

A visit to see my Mom in June turned quickly into a bedside vigil and then hospice at home, as the health problems that had plagued her for a couple years turned into the knock out punch.

I grazed in the land of the dying as I sat by my mother's bedside to watch that gradual withdrawal from this sphere to another. The day I told her she was dying, she seemed more surprised than anything. "Huh," she said like I was telling her that someone had moved or gotten a dog. But once she got the word, she moved into her pro-active mode and asked, "So what's next...how can we speed this up?" Even though she seemed too lively to be heading to the tunnel of light, she hadn't eaten for weeks, except a bite of yoghurt here and there. Because of the pain.

In a situation that most people would find terrifying-bedridden, drugged, in pain, in diapers that need changing, with legs that didn't move, and strangers heaving her around like a sack of taters-she summoned an uncanny sense of the absurd and made sure that we all got to laugh with her about it. Her comedic tendencies reached full flower on this unlikely stage. Because she could barely talk and her hand and facial gestures were in slow motion, and because she was fully aware that she was entertaining us, her comments were funnier than anything I'd ever seen or heard.

At one point, discouraged at her inability to communicate with us, she reached for the Kleenex box and started talking into that. She got so much mileage out of that box as a prop that all she had to do was start reaching and we were falling down, almost crying with laughter. When communication shifts from verbal to visual, to charade like gestures and the subtlest facial expressions, you enter an entirely different world of possibilities. Mom seemed to plumb this mother lode for every nuance of expression. To say we were blessed by this unexpected bounty doesn't even begin to cover it.

She was open, vulnerable and sublime as I had never seen her in her able bodied life. Her grace under fire was breathtaking and reassuring. She showed me that going out in style could be done with diapers on. It could be accomplished with words falling from the tongue like little chunks of wood. It could happen when she was wrapped in drug induced delusions and the fragrance of death and decay. What a gift my mother handed me on her way out the door.

The extra large gift for me was getting to know my two brothers all over again, to know them in the face of what none of us wanted, and to be able to receive their abundant caring for me and to realize how important they are to me every day of my life. Our cousins got in on the act too, showing up just when we needed them. Leaving the cocoon of that family connection was really hard...for all of us.

In closing, I ask that you check in to stay posted on my next project. My novel is getting some attention from me again and I will certainly be writing about this last adventure with Mom. Again, thank you for your comments and your beautiful presence in this world. All of you!

Rescue Unlimited

No one blogs without a reason, right? Three years ago, my reason was to have an outlet for my excessive enthusiasms other than my friends, who could grow weary of my love of alley forage, or the epiphanies from my nighttime wandering. It seemed downright miraculous what I was seeing a year or two ago on my rambling journeys around town.

So we're back to my favorite topic of, ‘It’s amazing what you see out there’ when you cruise the byways of your little town or countryside. Ten days ago today I was heading east on 7th Ave, driving the few blocks between Polson Animal Clinic and my house. Up ahead, I spied a procession of four or five vehicles barely moving westbound. What I couldn’t see until I got closer was the leader of the parade, a pint-sized "Benji' proudly dashing up the middle of the lane like he was getting a prize for it.

I pulled over and jumped out and did the excited puppy speak which got him close enough to grab. We drove around trying to find a vet who recognized him. After leaving my number with veterinarians, Polson’s Animal Control Officer, Lake County Dispatch, KERR Radio and both newspapers, I did a photo shoot and put up some wanted posters, I waited for the inevitable phone call: a harried mom or dad of heartbroken children crying with relief. Or an older dog owner telling me how the collar broke. Nine days of silence, folks.

Then yesterday a call that resulted in a visit today; a young man who slumped against the fence when he saw this one wasn't his. Benji junior was the fourth dog in a month I encountered in the middle of a busy road. One was too fast to catch, and the other two were galloping Main Street in Ronan on consecutive days. I carried the puppy into the Ronan Police Station and tippy toed out while everyone was petting him. The Rottweiler cross I had to unleash as Ronan has no dog catcher. As I was talking to the officers, I said, "I'm letting him go now. He might cause and accident..." As far as I know he just wandered home again after chasing a few cars down the road.

Last week, a barely weaned Shar-Pei puppy ran under the tires of a young woman’s car. She loaded him just like I did and took off marveling, “I guess I’m the owner of a Shar-Pei now.” Of course, she will do the same thing I’m doing, which is go to heroic lengths to find the original owner.

I even came across a velvet black, domestic rabbit in my neighborhood, so tame it started to approach my dog. That was so far from a good idea, I can’t tell you. But it told me that the bunny had been gently treated so far, and maybe had signed a truce with the legions of local cats.

Speaking of coots, which of course we weren’t, I see the north end of Sacajewea Park looks like the aftermath of a giant pillow fight. Bald eagles have returned to Polson for their favorite winter and spring delicacy. Most of that bird ended up being dinner. Only the fluff (and a head) remained.Like I said, you're really missing a show if you sit inside morning and evening and don’t allow yourself to be part of the silent pagaent being played out each moment. Eugene and I were dining in Ronan City Park a couple weeks ago and spied a seagull who had a stout 3-4 inches of string coming out of his mouth with a red clump of something attached to it. This made eating corn chips or anything virtually impossible as the string kept getting caught and winding around his beak. When he flew, it whipped around and nearly drove him to ground.

We explored the possibility of capturing him and at least cutting the tiny ‘ball and chain’ from his beak, but we couldn’t find any equipment nearby. Obviously humans have to be careful what we leave laying around outside. Birds are curious and attracted to odd things that can ultimately kill them. Depending on what was on the other end of the string, that one’s chances of becoming a lasting part of the gene pool had probably become almost nil.

Back to mini-Benji who has taken up residence here and shows no sign of missing his former digs...As each caller who has lost a dog calls, I try out the name they give me and get no response. It made me realize that there are a heck of a lot of dogs roaming far from home-from Post Creek to Clarice Paul to Polson Town. Lucky for this one, everyone who sees him wants to take him home. Right now it looks like a showdown for ownership between two families.

My life time best rescue however, was a loon trapped on Skiff Lake, New Brunswick by faulty oil glands. She got waterlogged and couldn't get airborne. That yarn will have to wait for my next post wherein you learn of the ill-advised trek onto a newly frozen lake in December that ended much better than anticipated. As I recall there was a good deal of hand wringing on the shore. My reputation among locals as a risk taking wacko dates from that time.

Alley grazers, don't forget to check out those dandelions. Great eating. The roots, boiled or roasted, taste like asparagus, sort of.

The Ides of March

Apparently, before Julius Caesar was slain, March 15th was just an ordinary day, sometimes mid month being the time that debts came due. Before our current calendar, the 'ides' just meant the middle.

I'm not normally a superstitious person, but there have been some rather harrowing Ides of March(es). The most memorable was a freak late snowstorm that churned itself into a blizzard as the mercury plunged below zero. That Saturday night, snuggled into our cozy cabin with city friends visiting, we had no idea two drunken snowmobilers were racing past our driveway. One of them plowed into our visiting friend's car in the blinding snowstorm. We took turns staying with the body until the Mounties arrived. Since that night, I've never felt a wind that brutal. I began to not take March for granted.

My morning epiphany let me in on a secret about mid-March. Each year, when the sap starts rising, I come unhinged for a couple weeks. I only noticed because it eased off today with this nice skiff of new snow. All my thoughts get let out of their cages or leave their comfy contrails and mix it up. For two weeks I have shit for brains. It is impossible to focus on the simplest most elementary motion. I have to walk myself through brushing my teeth.

I binge read, which is the only thing, other than anesthetic, or driving too fast, that helps. At work, it feels like bees buzzing inside my noggin. My 'hard drive' freezes up and there's no restart button. Simple tasks like answering email or making a list become impossible and I lose whole hours in a stoned haze. It feels like witnessing a bar fight but muted as though my head was stuffed with novocaine soaked cotton.

Lucky for me, I have perfected the look of normalcy even when I'm having a stellar meltdown. Now that I'm through it for another year, I can look back at the past two weeks with (almost) nostalgia. And, I've never been able to get any sympathy when I moan about my discomfort. Friends nod and murmer the right words, but really they think, how bad could it be? One friend even said, "I think you're exaggerating".

Even if I'm miffed at the time, they actually help me keep the 'crazies' compartmentalized. Now that I'm working on a novel, I see that I'm eventually going to make money off this drama that roils in my thought bubble 24/7 but only gets revved up during the sap rising, Ides of March. I decided those conversations and characters are all just scrambling around in there trying to get out. No problem dudes. You'll get your own page one day.

It's great in a way. My friends have always helped me to not compound the interest by wallowing. Because I look so good doing it, my angst doesn't register on the Richter scale for me or my friends. I mean, how bad could it be?

I only know that when the storm passes for another year, I feel so good it should be illegal!!