Fear and wonder in Seattle

I took a much-needed trip recently to visit old friends. On my own. A chance to be a woman and friend and not so much a mom or wife for a few days.

I’m normally quite obsessive about making arrangements before heading in to any new venture. I’ve relaxed over the years and even made a point of doing so with this trip.

Still, when I left, I was relatively certain there wasn’t much that could happen I wouldn’t be able to take in stride. In fact, I thought, I might even enjoy the kind of challenge I used to encounter all the time as a young, single woman, figuring out the world. Maybe it would make me feel more connected to the woman I used to be and often find myself missing.

My first day I had planned to explore an unfamiliar city several hours on my own before meeting up with a friend I hadn’t seen in more than eight years.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say by the time I reached my friend I’d waited in a rental car office for three hours to prove I was who I said I was, lost a cell phone charger, missed a bunch of appointments, gotten lost and trapped in the center of an unfamiliar city, and then lost again when I got off the highway in the rural area where we were supposed to meet.

I called my friend to get help finding the location but my cell phone died (and, of course, the charger was missing). So, I was an hour late.

But despite all that I kept finding myself slowing down on the winding roads to look at a bird or barn or body of water in the rain.

Despite the challenges I faced up to that point, I was taking in the natural beauty as though I had never seen trees before.

The time with friends was so nourishing to me, and I definitely appreciated eating on actual plates at a table for every meal like I never did as a single gal — but the trip continued to hold irritating snafus every day.

There was even a point I faced the very real possibility of being unable to get back to Marion without hitchhiking or selling my organs.

In all my years as a single woman, making mistakes and learning, I had never encountered so horrific a series of events that challenged my abilities and resources and problem-solving skills.

At one point, driving from Portland to Seattle on the last fumes of fuel I had paid for with the last cent I had access to, floods of hot tears streaming, I realized something: I had done all I could to solve the problem. The only thing changing as I continued to wail was my soul, my spirit, my heart — the very things I went out there seeking to restore.

I had to accept I might run out of gas and be forced to thumb it to the nearest gas station where I was hoping my wit and charm might at least get me a free phone call.

I could keep freaking out about it. Or, I could accept that, just as I had survived everything in my life up to that point, I might survive that, too. And if I didn’t, well, what a shame it would have been to have spent the last hours of my life so focused on my troubles I was missing the trees outside the window or the beautiful dark clouds parting every now and then to let a determined ray of sunshine gild a spot on a lake.

The beauty of the natural world has always felt a bit like a love note from the universe to me and here I was missing some of the most spectacular natural beauty in the country, crying, in effect, over spilled milk — over things I could not change.

Days earlier, driving winding wet roads through the spectacularly lush beauty of the Pacific Northwest, I had been so totally distracted by the birds and sights I kept missing my turns. That’s part of why I was so late. Now, a few days later, I had run out of wonder in such a short time. The beauty around me hadn’t changed, I had. Or rather, I had let the changes in my circumstances change me.

A few days before I had been consumed by awe, and in such a state I saw a bald eagle, a blue heron inches from the car, fields of tulips, and on and on. I was, as Albert Camus describes it, “on the surface of myself.”

In one of my favorite Camus passages he writes, “What gives value to travel is fear. It breaks down a kind of inner structure we have.

“Far from our own people … stripped of all our props, deprived of our masks … we are completely on the surface of ourselves. But also, soul-sick, we restore to every being and every object its miraculous value … we are aware of every gift.”

I had been reading this passage as I sat in the rental car office the first day, and it came flooding back to me as I willed the car to make it the last 100 miles.

I did make it. And the rest of my trip held moments that continue to fill my heart. And I made it home thanks to the incredible support of loved ones.

And while the sight of rare birds and time with old friends was amazingly restorative, I think the biggest gift I took from that trip was knowledge of myself.

Being stripped of all comforts forced me to choose who I wanted to be in that situation independent of the circumstances. That lesson holds true even in the very familiar life I live every day. I know who I am and who I want to be and am now more determined than ever not to let circumstances change that.

As published in the Marion County Record, May 25, 2011

Creatures great and small

I like to think my 2-year-old has been instilled with a healthy respect for the awesome power of the natural world, animals in particular. We’re big respecters of all life in our house. As vegetarians, we have explained to Lyla that the food on our table comes from plants like the ones in our garden. We have also told her that some food comes from animals, including the milk, eggs, and cheese she and her father partake of. We were lucky enough to have a friend be the wonderful agent of an educational opportunity with eggs recently and Lyla can’t stop talking about it: “We took those eggs from the chickens!”

I explained to her the chickens let us have them and we should be sure to think of them when we say thanks for our food before we eat.We have explained that some families get their food from animals in ways that we don’t. We are careful to avoid making any kind of judgment and we certainly aren’t trying to indoctrinate her. All we do is explain this is how her dad and I have chosen to live. Anything more would be too much at this point.She has developed, completely on her own, a respect for bugs I promise she did not get from me. I, of course, encourage her to “leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone,” and she has seen me trap and release some creepy crawlies that somehow found their way inside our house, but she has also seen me squish more than a couple of spiders. I have my limits.But Lyla has gotten to the point where she steps over ants and says “excuse me bug” and lets them go on their merry way ... even in my kitchen!The other day she noticed one marching along a few feet away from where she was playing. She went over to it, greeted it, and ran off to get something. In her absence, I stealthily transplanted the critter back outdoors. When she returned and couldn’t find him, she wailed as if a longtime friend had been ripped from her arms. “I wanted to show him my puzzles!” she cried, hot tears streaming down her face.I explained to her that, as an ant, he really needed to keep doing his ant thing, gathering food for his family outside. I also ventured that he may not have been a very cooperative playmate for her because she looks very, very big to him and he might have been afraid.She seemed to ponder that, and I hugged her, deeply appreciating all that her mind was trying to grasp about the balance between love of nature, keeping a respectful distance, and her own desires.It’s a hard concept and an exceptionally difficult balance to strike. I struggle with it daily.There are principles I live by that come from a deep, thoughtful place within me that were formed many years ago when I first started trying to live a little lighter on this planet.But what happens when I can’t afford the sacrifices such principles require? I wish I could always read every word on every label of everything I buy and refuse to purchase if, say, I know some aspect of the production of that product perpetuates a system I feel depends on a lack of respect for some form of life, animal or human, that is so oppressed it cannot speak for itself. But I can’t.Sometimes, I don’t have the time. Sometimes, I don’t have the money. Sometimes, I don’t have any other option.Sometimes, my job is to do my mommy thing and be sure I’m not spending so much time researching greener options that I miss the chance to teach my kid why those principles are so important to me.Sometimes, there’s an intensely creepy spider the size of my fist making its way toward my child and I stomp that thing like a mama bear protecting her cub.Lyla sees the contradiction and asks about it.“Mommy, are you going to put the spider outside?”I answer honestly.“Honey, sometimes mommy can’t tell if it’s a good bug or a bug that hurts, and if I think it might hurt you, I squish it.” I share my own struggle for balance in an effort to be transparent and it gives her still-agile mind something to chew on. And maybe, in doing so, she’ll come up with some brilliant way to bridge that gap for her generation.Maybe she’ll reject vegetarianism but catch and release all spiders. Who knows? Either way I’ll know her choices are rooted in reflection about her place in the natural world that has already begun.
As published in the Marion County Record, May 11, 2011

The scent of a mother's love

My grandmother’s last Mother’s Day before she died of Alzheimer’s was my first Mother’s Day as a mom. This traditional day of celebration has a bitter-sweetness to it in our family. My grandpa lost his battle with cancer on Mother’s Day when I was still in pre-school. It is a cloud of loss that hangs behind the food and family and the heavy scent of lilacs every year around this time.

Growing up, I remember Grandma’s house in Iowa had huge lilac bushes that filled the entire block with their perfume this time of year. I’ve been told that, as a boy, my father used to cut bunches of lilacs from those bushes and give them to Grandma on Mother’s Day. She has always loved their smell, and the way she says the word “lilacs” sounds like she’s telling secrets of the universe — her voice like water tripping over small stones.

The day before her last Mother’s Day, Dad went in search of lilacs to give her. A cold snap got most of them that year. They were a little wilted, but the smell was good and fine and heavy. He knew the wilt wouldn’t matter to her, not at that point.

I was six months pregnant when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The doctors told us she was declining rapidly and would live only a few months. I confess that I prayed she would hang on long enough to hold my baby in her arms. All those years her body would not let her go, and when it finally started to look like her body would cooperate, it was my heart that remained stubborn.

For as long as I had been aware of her as her own woman I knew on some level that Grandma just wanted to be with her husband in heaven. In the 20-plus years since his death she had survived a long list of ailments with surprising strength. Her gentle nature and petite stature veiled her fierce ability to overcome and to thrive. I guess that’s why Grandma always seemed like a fact of life to me, like seasons that come and go but always return.

I’m ashamed to say it truly startled me when Dad had to remind her why the name my husband and I chose for our daughter seemed familiar to her. After all, we chose the name Lyla in honor of the two men she loved most in this life — Hershel Lyle and Donald Lyle, my grandpa and my dad.

Dad brought her the lilacs he had found that afternoon near the end, a small bunch, slightly brown around the edges. She breathed them in deeply and said, “Lilacs. It must be almost Mother’s Day.” Somehow that deeply sweet scent had reached into her clouding mind and touched something solid, something more than memory.

I can only guess what it was, but my guess is it was something like tradition that spoke to her heart so deeply no clouding could touch it — it was part of the shape of her mother’s heart, not a memory she struggled to hold. I picture my dad as a young boy bringing this sweet and simple offering to her, year after year, and I can see how it would have carved the almost ineffable love of a mother for her child into the grain of her soul. I watch my daughter in her dancing and play, practically a mirror image of my grandmother as a baby, and I feel that deep unparalleled love shaping me as well.

My grandmother did get to hold my baby girl and held on for several more months. We all traveled to Iowa for the funeral in July right before my husband and I moved to Marion. We said our sad good-byes and on the way out of town my sister and I took our young families to the playground where we had spent many afternoons as kids during our stays with Grandma. This time, it was our children squealing with delight as evening settled in the little park that smelled exactly as I remembered.

When we moved to Marion, there were a lot of mysterious (to me) plants to be dealt with and either trimmed or removed in our back yard. There’s one bush along the back hedgerow that is different from all the rest and I thought I recognized the leaves but couldn’t quite place it. I don’t know why it didn’t bloom last year, but a few weeks ago I was out pulling weeds when I smelled something deeply sweet and familiar. My nose took me to the back hedge, and there in glorious lavender bloom was a bush full of lilacs.

I cut a few and put them in the kitchen window, and my kitchen is now filled with the sweet scent of the love between a mother and child that transcends words and shapes a soul in ways time and tragedy cannot touch.

As published in the Marion County Record, May 4, 2011