The Land and Us and Time

It is the same as it ever was. At least in the frame of time that matters to us. The flat plains laid down by the waters of ancient seas, glacier carved and dumped and meltwater washed and wind swept. Flat flat plains and channels of streams and rivers, escarpments and tumbling hills. Its cycles are bigger than us. I talk to men and women who have seen its wet and then its dry and now its wet again. We don't know the true time of the cycles or the scale of any of it. We can only respond in our own lifetime, can only react in our own time line.

Hawks that we killed with our chemicals are back on the land. Coyotes that we trapped to near decimation again howl at the dawn. Little bluestem colonizes short stretches of ditchbank. Litter erodes into ever smaller pieces at the side of the highway. If we disappeared tomorrow, traces of us would be erased before the record of the sea, the glacier, the wind.

Paddling In The Rain

I hadn't paddled much since the Boundary Waters trip where too much wind and too high waves brought back a measure of my old fear of the water. But I resolved this week to get back to it, paddling some of the smaller lakes in the parks around Mineral Point.

It was raining this morning. I went for a paddle anyway. The light sprinkle of rain was just a little cooler than the air, making it refreshing. I put my boat into glass smooth water and paddled across the finger of lake to the far shore under the linden trees, along white barked aspen. Lime green pods of hops trees floated on the surface, hinting at stormier weather prior.

A pair of birds skirted the shore, darting from back and forth from tree to tree, so I paused a ways out, with a view of a ferny bank, and ate my lunch in a light mist. My bird watching reverie was interrupted with the sound of something crashing overhead, and I turned my boat to see a squirrel tumbling from branch to branch high in an oak tree. The return to silence after the violent interruption brought back the sounds of chirping and twittering birds. I finished my sandwich and soda and paddled on and the pair of birds flitted along just ahead of me for a while.

Huge yellow and black swallowtail butterflies drifted along between the shore and my route once the rain stopped. A patch of swamp milkweed at water's edge hosted three of them on the many dense clusters of tiny mauve flowers. Stout black dragonlies skimmed along about eye level to me.

At the end of the lake where the stream feeds it and the water is shallow, I carefully paddled though patches of floating water weed to where I could see Canada geese and mallard ducks and a great blue heron feeding. Soon, the geese took flight, right overhead, so that I could hear the whoosh of their wings with each flap.

The lack of any wind that allowed the glass smooth water also allowed for silence, except for the sound of my paddle dipping into the water and between strokes, the sound of my bow cutting across the surface. When I slowed to a near stop, I heard birds on the shore. An occasional test chirp of a cicada. A catbird mewing over and over. Crows! A low raspy caw and a higher more melodic one.

As I drifted farther into the dense mat of floating green, I heard tiny barely audible plip plops. Was the rain starting back up? No, it was bubbles rising from under water, popping when they reached the surface, the product of some mysterious underwater process. Splay legged insects hopped about the water surface and clusters of small black flies vibrated on the surface of the muck. Tiny amber damselflies landed on the gunwale of my boat and on my life jacket and once on my hand.

I watched the blue heron, standing tail feathers deep in water, as it moved its head this way and that, with long periods of waiting between movements. Finally, it struck with a darting dive of the head and a great rustling of wing feathers, then froze with a fish in its bill. After a shake of its head, it began lifting each long leg in turn, walking toward the shallows, where it finally swallowed the fish after a series of motions where it let go of the fish and darted its head forward to move the fish backwards in its long bill. Then it began looking about the water for more prey, slowly moving back toward the deeper water. But something caught its attention and it thrust its bill into the water, apparently catching smaller fish or frogs again and again. Once it let out a loud squawking and did a sideways wing flapping dance before resuming fishing in the shallows.

Soon, a bit of a breeze came up and pushed my boat sideways, plowing a wide clear swath through the floating weeds, finally pushing me aground in the muck. The heron was undisturbed by my slightly closer approach, but soon, as if on some signal, hundreds, maybe thousands, of cicadas, first on the near bank, then on the far one, began their buzzing. The heron kept its head higher after that, clearly less relaxed than it had been, and eventually with a great slow graceful flapping, took flight, winging just a few feet above the lake's surface until at the last minute, it banked sharply up to land in a skeleton of a tall tree. If I took my eye off the tree, I would lose it in the branches, until it moved again, revealing itself.

Soon it began to rain in earnest and a riffle of waves patterned the surface, so I felt compelled to head back, past the massive rock bluff and towering pines and a half dozen different kinds of ferns. Sumac were beginning to show their flower stalks, bright lime green where they will be burgundy later in the fall. Grapevines dipped into the water from overhanging tree branches.

A lull in the rain coaxed me down the other arm of the lake, where another inlet stream forms more shallows, and a brilliant display of pink Joe Pye weed was topped with dozens of dancing swallowtails, brilliant yellow in the low light of the overcast day.

I headed back in a light drizzle which seemed not to phase the ever present swallowtails, fluttering from one swamp milkweed patch to the next. The light rain held until I managed to get all my gear carted to the van and my boat tied to the top, and just as I made the left turn out of the parking lot, it began to pour.

It was a good day on the water.

My Father-In-Law

I shot a hole in the floor of his pickup truck.
He made fun of my 70's wedge shoes.
He handed me greasy Mustang parts to clean in a coffee can of gasoline.
He picked garden vegetables and passed them in a bowl across the fence to me.
He took me duck hunting with his son. I wore his chest waders.
He complained about my illegible handwriting.
He showed me his guns.
He asked me about my jobs.
He teased me for taking so many photographs.
He made me framed copies of his photographs that I admired.
He shimmied closer to his end of the sofa to make room for us in front of the basement TV.
He made things for my garden.
He held my babies and gleamed.
He told stories.
His chair faced the window, back to the door, and there was that flash of pure joy that crossed his face when you walked into the room far enough that he recognized you and smiled and said something like "Look what the cat dragged in!"
The advantage of marrying into the family is that I get to completely invent my own image of him. In my eye, he is possibly smarter and funnier and stronger and wiser and kinder and braver than anyone could ever really be, but I don't mind if my view is a little soft-focus and I don't think he would either.
Remember what inspires you and use it. Tell the stories that you think others can use. Tell them again and again. That's all we can do, let them make us be a little better than we might have been, and in turn, pass that on to anyone else that can take something from it. That's all we can do.

Road Tripping

Sometimes I enjoy driving long distances because it is like a field trip with no theme. Instead of touring the cheese factory to observe cool new things and learn about cheese and the dairy industry or touring the tractor plant to get an inside look at an assembly line and electromagnets and welding and things related, you get a long rambling peek at thousands of interesting but unrelated things, leading to a trippy discombobulated mindset after a few hours.
There are the other vehicles and their wacky duct taped mirrors and garbage bag replacement windows. And the odd things other cars are hauling like three different kinds of barbecue grills on a trailer. And the weird things you can see through their windows like a office chair upside down in the backseat.
There are the things being hauled on trucks like giant machines with 'wide load' signs whose purpose you cannot discern and huge rolls of plastic tubing and many many nested truck bodies and layers of crushed cars and different sizes and shapes of lumber neatly shrink wrapped on pallets and wind tower blades that look elegant compared to the other riff raff on wheels.
There is the terrain. And the ecosystems. Flatter than flat land with no natural nature whatsoeveratall of Illinois give way rather abruptly to evergreens on steep hills in Wisconsin, followed by deciduous trees on rolling hills then fewer and fewer trees and flatter and flatter hills in Minnesota to hardly any trees at all that are not in straight lines in South Dakota.
And the fields. Corn. Corn. Oh, look more corn. Oh, soy beans. More corn. More corn. More corn. Ah, some baled straw, was that wheat? Between corn and corn? More corn. Again corn. Still corn. Corn as far as the eye can see. A pasture with cattle. Corn. Corn being chopped between corn waiting to ripen and dry to be picked much later.
And old landmarks like the rock formation and the army base at the same exit in Wisconsin and the truck-on-a-stick and the first Wall Drug sign a couple dozen miles before Sioux Falls.
And new landmarks like the cool nifty Minnesota visitor center that looks like a hybrid of an old grain elevator and a red barn and the increasing numbers of wind farms with their graceful sweeping motion and their classy white with silvery grey shadows.
And road construction zones and the variety in road construction marking devices and road construction equipment. Some of that makes you wish you could pull over and watch, but I bet that would piss off other drivers since there is often one lane each way and not much in the way of shoulder in either direction.
And the weird stuff that happens at gas station pit stops like conversations overheard about domestic fights and peoples' operations and the woman who was having a cell phone conversation from inside a bathroom stall while she went about her noisy business and I mean all versions of bathroom noisy business. Didn't ANY of those sounds carry through the phone to the other participant in the conversation? And with no hint of irony, at one point, she said "That was a really shitty thing for her to say to you. She is such an asshole."
Then there is the Groton speed trap. Really, does it do anything for the actual speeding rate to have a speed limit sign indicating a drop of 10 miles per hour at a curve? If people miss the sign because of the curve, isn't is just plain MEAN to make it a speed trap? Sure, the locals learn, but those of us 'not from around here' seem at a disadvantage. Would it not make more sense to move the sign a bit more out of town so that people see it before they begin to deal with navigating the curve and actually slow down on their own? Okay, the nice officer gave me just a 'warning' which I get to keep and use as a nifty book mark souvenir, but still. It took probably 4 minutes longer to get here because of that inconvenient stop.
All in all, I saw many interesting things and learned a few things too on my field trip with no theme today. I think I'll do it again in a week or so.

I'm Glad to Press 1 for English

Yes, it adds about 2 seconds to your phone call and requires you to move the phone from the side of your head and lift a finger to press the button, but hey, exercise is good for you.

I, for one, am glad to press 1 for English if it means that new immigrants and recent immigrants and long ago immigrants get better service with banks and stores and utilities and better access to health care and to get tax questions answered as they fill out the forms to pay their share of taxes to city, county, state, and national governments.

There is a myth out there perpetuated by bigots that their ancestors assimilated faster than the current Mexican immigrants. That is simply false. A higher percentage of first generation Mexican immigrants uses English than previous waves of, say, German immigrants and Polish immigrants and Irish immigrants and Chinese immigrants, and an even higher percentage of second generation immigrants uses English, usually nearly exclusively. And contrary to bigot belief, there were multilingual services and multilingual schools in nearly every language all along the way.

Another ugly myth out there in bigotland is that bilingual schools delay assimilation, while the opposite is true. Kids who are taught with both languages in school learn English faster and more thoroughly, because it is used side by side with their first language, so that the differences in structure and grammar are obvious with daily exposure to the languages in use in real situations, and the kids taught in bilingual classrooms are more likely to be performing at grade level than those forced into English-only classrooms.

In all waves of immigration from all lands, it has been the young that learn the language of the land and served as interpreters for older family members, a burden that is not fair to them and not effective, asking children to interpret adult issues that they might not understand. And believe it or not, English only at the driver's licence department or the bank or on the phone to the electric company would result in longer lines and longer wait for YOU as other customers had to talk through their own family-member interpreters. Having Spanish available for those that can better understand in it keeps the country running efficiently and effectively for everyone.

And you know and I know how very difficult it is for an adult, especially an older adult, to learn a new language, once our brains are all firmed up and all. And think of how hard it is to find time for exercising or reading and you know how hard, especially when there is so much to do keep up with daily life, it would be to take a language class. And you probably know that if you had to move to France tomorrow, that you might pick up some words just from daily living there, but instead of massively re-educating yourself to speak French at the ripe old age of whatever you are, you'd probably just find some English-speaking folks to hang out with in some English-speaking neighborhood. But even then, it'd be easier for you because so many of the French over there have had the polite good taste to learn English. Maybe that is the answer: Make all English-speaking Americans go to school in the evenings to learn Spanish. Yeah, I like that. Free Spanish classes for those that can't afford them and at a fair cost to those who can. Then when we go to the Mexican restaurant or the Mexican bakery or the Mexican grocer, they won't have to put up with us trying to share their culture in English.

Words I Hate

We had a conversation once where we revealed to each other the word we most hated. His was "quonset" and mine was cuticle. I thought it would be cute a few months later to send him an envelope filled with all shapes and sizes of the word. He didn't think it was cute. It made him angry, in fact.
I don't have an issue with 'quonset' but I still dislike cuticle. It is the 'ik-llll' part that I despise. The abrupt change from 'ik' to the guttural 'lll'. The same unpleasant sounds appear in words like 'particle' and a similar shift occurs in 'municipal' and 'principle'.
Other words shift not into a guttural 'lll' but into a similarly nasty 'rrrr' such as in 'rectangular' where the pleasantly spelled 'lar' is pronounced with an ugly 'lrrrr'. Appearing also in 'spectacular' where the contrat between the meaning and that icky sound are profound, it is not nearly so annoying as when heard in 'nucular' which isn't even a word, but a bad bastardization of 'nuclear'.
Then there are the 'awwwww' words like 'mauve' and 'gaudy' and 'Maude' and 'tawdry' which at least ends in the upbeat 'ree' that perks it up and takes away the nausea caused by the 'awww'.
Is it odd to dislike the aesthetics of the sounds of a word? Is it a symptom of some deep psychological maladjustment or merely a sign of someone who wants all the world to be of pleasant sounds and shapes and colors and textures?
I wonder if he still hates the word 'quonset'? And if he has forgiven me for the little prank packet of words I sent so long ago?

We Can Be Tribal Again

When we were tribal, many thousands of years ago, we lived with people night and day. We got up in the morning and greeted each other and adjusted the tasks at hand to the people present in order to get things rolling. We did those tasks in proximity to each other, doing some tasks together or maybe starting together and then one finishing, lending a hand to one another as we progressed. As we noticed some interesting thing, we could call it out and share it with others. If we encountered frustration, we could call that out and get a little moral support or even a helping hand if need be. If we felt something, we could announce it to check for normalcy and adjust our attitude if it was off or feel validated if others felt the same way. If someone annoyed us, we could gently tell them and get some feedback according to whether we or they were supported by those nearby, or we could just move our task over there by someone more closely aligned with our mood or style.

Then somewhere along the way, we got the idea we should shut ourselves away in separate homes, separate business locations, even separate offices within a larger business. We spent our evenings being entertained by a box with moving pictures and distracting sounds rather than with each other. Something was lost. That connection to the larger whole of society was weakened and that knowing how we as individuals were aligned with the larger group via that constant feedback was lost.

We got privacy but we lost connections and membership in an association of others.

Now we have FaceBook and Twitter and MySpace and email where we can send to a group and use reply all to answer to the group and we have some of that back. We can live tribal again.

We might be having a hard day and we can post that and friends will jump in with support. We might notice a beautiful sky and announce that and others will share their own observation or a memory or ask more about it. We might need ideas to solve a kid problem or be looking for a place to repair the car or need a product to remove a stain on a certain fabric, and someone out there is likely to have an answer or at least amuse us while we find it ourselves or console us if we can't. We can express an opinion and see who agrees or disagrees. We can learn from their responses.

It's the best of both worlds: We can leave the computer off and enjoy our privacy while we eat ice cream sandwiches in our underwear, or we can log on and chat and post and socialize with the tribe.

How To Weather A Storm

First, you have to live on a farm. Then you have to notice that it has gotten really dark in the middle of the day or that the sky is kinda a funny color and that the tops of the trees in the shelter belt are bent over about ninety degrees. Someone should say loudly "We should probably go to the basement." Someone should root around the junk drawer for candles and matches while someone else roots around the tool drawer for flashlights and spare batteries. Someone should go to the shop to get the men and someone should go to Grandma's to get her and hold her elbow while they rush across the lawn to the house. They should stop with her to comment on the trees. Everyone should convene in the basement. Discussion should ensue as to which corner they are supposed to be in. Someone should attempt to figure it out scientifically based on which direction weather patterns generally travel and someone should counter that with how it comes from every direction at some point when the tornado spiral is passing over. There should be discussion of the strongest part of the basement structure and dangerous things like the fuel oil tank and the gas water heater. One of the men should get curious and go upstairs to take a look-see. The other men should join after he doesn't come down after a bit. One of the women should dash upstairs for the camera and go out and stand behind the men and ask if they can see anything yet. The other women should get curious and go up. This leaves the kids and Grandma, who is just as curious and powerless to stop the kids from joining the rest in the front yard. She should make one kid stay back to help her get up the steps so she can see. When everyone is in the front yard watching, if there is or has been hail, someone should find a couple of the biggest pieces to put in the freezer. After it dies down, everyone should get in the car and drive around to look for crop damage and watch the water rushing through the ditches along the highways. The final stop should be that one place where the slope of the highway is misleading and it looks like the water is flowing uphill in the ditch. Then everyone should go home and have snacks. Remember to offer that Grandma should come in for snacks too and remember to help her back home afterwards. Go check on the hail stones in the freezer in the morning.

Missing Martha

"I couldn't save you."

http://music.aol.com/video/behind-the-house/neko-case/1808667

First we didn't know each other. We were miles apart in every way. When we met, we didn't think we liked each other much. We thought we knew each others' "type" and thought we didn't like people like that. We got to know each other and found common ground in kids and a certain irreverent joy in life. We grew closer when we joined forces against a shared adversity. We learned to depend on each other for certain kinds of support, the kind you turn to when things seem out of control and all crisis-ey, when you need someone to feel sorry for you while at the same time spinning the thing into proper perspective so that you know what you knew all along and that is that you will survive this too. She needed so much after the accident and I had only so much to give without damaging myself. But I wanted to save her. I wanted to make her whole again. Once, I asked about her at the nurses station and I thought from the look she gave me from behind her computer screen, the nurse knew what I didn't what to admit yet: She would never be whole after this. I did what I could. But in the end, I lost her to the damage. I miss her. Sometimes not for days or weeks and then, sometimes, really hard. You do what you can but sometimes, even your best isn't enough.

Are Humans Warlike?

It has been suggested that humans are inherently warlike and that our future as a species will always include war. Some agree with me by saying "Yes, there will always be evil in the world that we will need to fight." But is war ever an answer to any evil? Or is it just a counter-evil? Are there other options? Are there always other options? Do we seek hard enough for options?

I listen to popular music and look around at society and what we do with our time and what we value and how we motivate ourselves and what we care about, and I am left agreeing that yes, humans have an insatiable desire for conflict that will always lead to war somewhere and at some time. I don't like that answer, but I can find nothing to justify any other opinion.

We love to rally ourselves together into a larger force and that rallying usually, in order to be FOR something, needs to be AGAINST something else. We are not just FOR a cleaner environment, we are AGAINST big oil and cancer causing chemicals and litter and suburban sprawl. We are not just FOR better health, we are AGAINST cancer and influenza and mental illness. We cheer on sports teams even more energetically if they are battling a long time rival that we can be clearly against. The more succinctly we can put a label and a cause on the thing we are against, the happier we are and the more 'good' we think we have done against it ant its 'evil'.

We love to have heroes and heroes have to have a foe and that foe has to come from within an enemy camp. Sure we can have a teacher as a hero, but often even that hero is most known for fighting AGAINST something like gangs in the school or a certain learning disability as opposed to just teaching more and better.

We tried team building in corporations but if the team was FOR a better product, the concept did little to motivate. If the team was placed in opposition to come competitor outside company, or if internal teams could be challenged to excel in come metric against internal teams, the concept lead to harder work and better quality. The 'enemy' had to be in place for the team to rally!

We love to insist that there is a 'force' of 'evil', but often the things we describe as evil are just the same things we do or reward in others. The Muslim terror bomber is giving their life for their God that wants them to act out against what they perceive is an evil of a world gone too materialistic, i.e. US, and yet, we see THEM as evil. At the same time, we revere the 'good' saints who give their lives literally as martyrs for their god or give their lives over to the service to their god. Maybe there is not evil at all, but just an exaggeration and perversion of normal human desires to accumulate goods, to accumulate territory, to protect turf, to protect family. The desire for power in the business world or in a service organization is called ambition and drive and is regarded as a good thing, but the desire for power in some sort of anti-government group is given other labels. But when the same mechanism is at work for something we do not agree with, how can it be called evil when it is admired in another context?

It is easy to think of a world divided by good and evil, but it is more difficult to accept that maybe the person we label evil is doing the same things we are but due to different motivations. It is easy to bomb and shoot, but it is more difficult to find ways that we can peacefully coexist over mutually desired outcomes. Can we find ways to convince the 'enemy' to disengage in behaviors we don't like by finding motivations for other behaviors?

When you get right down to it, most forces we call 'evil' are doing what they are doing for reasons that look and sound a lot like ours, to improve a situation for their people, their families, to glorify or defend their god. In fact, sometimes, they see us as the force of 'evil'. It hardly seems like violence is the answer in that case and it hardly seems like there will or even should be a clear 'winner'. Perhaps tolerance and conversation and more tolerance and more conversation would lead to a discovery of more in common with each other and less judging and labelling?


We somehow think our bombing and shooting is 'good' but can it ever really be?


Peace is hard work and I am frankly not sure we as humans really want it. We love a cause, we love our heroes, we love to have an enemy, we love to have things we can label 'evil' in contrast to the 'good' that we believe we possess and which possesses us.

Maybe if we ADMIT we love our war, then we can work harder to not use it? If we keep insisting we hate war, will we just keep allowing ourselves to justify using it in yet another 'exceptional' case, this one last time.

Do we indeed love war, and at what cost? Young lives lost, young bodies mutilated, young minds scarred. What will it take to make our love of the cause, the hero, the glory of victory, be outweighed by the love of our own individual people? What will make us give up our warring human ways?

You Never Forget Your First Love

A blue VW convertible passed me the other day and I was reminded once again of my very first love. I am not in general a fan of blue, except in my babies' eyes or maybe a blue Hawaiian shirt on a salt and pepper haired man of a certain age, but your first love never stops triggering a certain feeling. My license to drive was just fresh in my wallet and we were on a family boondoggle to Watertown, South Dakota, when we stopped in to kill time at the Dodge dealership. It was my first inkling that my parents had been entertaining privately the idea of getting me a car, and I was too naive in the ways of car dealing to know that we were unlikely to actually walk, er, drive, out of the showroom with anything new that day, so I allowed myself to fall in love. It was a little sporty thing, and those more wise in the popular models of the time would know exactly what it was, but it was baby blue with navy blue accent trim and an ivory interior. They had me get in and try out the fit. Yeah! I could SEE myself cruising main street in that baby, I could SEE myself pulling into the school parking lot in that baby. I could SEE me in MY new car! And so, even though baby blue is far down on my list of favorite colors, always forevermore, a certain size car of a certain sweet pale blue will always make my heart flutter, just a little.

Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May the earth hold you safely in the hollow of her hand.

Quiting Somthing Is The Hardest Thing

There are resolutions to change of all sorts, but the ones to DO something are far the easiest. If you are going to read more books or eat better, you get a thousand chances a day to put that into motion. Stop for a few minutes before heading off to work to read a chapter, read a little more before dinner and a little more before bedtime. Add some carrots to your lunchtime meal of a sandwich. Park father away and walk more. Clean a closet or a corner of a room and you are on the way to success. Take the steps. Do, do, do, take action, and so it is easy to score on the "do something" resolutions.
But giving something up is an entirely different matter. If you are going to stop eating salty things or stop drinking caffeinated beverages or quit smoking or give up a drug or cease a gambling habit or stop watching television or end your nail biting, you have a thousand thousand times a day to get it wrong. Even if you forego the morning coffee for a nice orange juice, the pot is still brewing when you get to work and even if you refuse to give in then, there are the multiple offers by the waiter at lunch and the drive past a half dozen Starbucks and Caribou's on the way to everywhere and the coffeemaker on the counter top when you get home. If you manage to get into the shower without that first cigarette, there is the drive to work and those poor souls smoking by the back door that would be glad to share one with you for the sake of your company and each time one of your friends takes a break and invites you along and the after lunch smoke you have to resist and at some point, you are sitting at your desk and every minute is one more minute you have to say no to getting up and going out for a smoke.
If you do that one in a thousand chances at the good thing, you have succeeded in your positive "do something" resolution, but you have to say no a thousand times each day to succeed in your "stop something" resolution and one of one thousand where you give in counts as failure for that day.
Making a "do something" change is a walk in the park compared to making a "quit something" change. And after a few days, the new "doing" starts to kick in as habit, but if you crave the thing you are quitting 10 fewer times each day, it is a hundred days before you have a single crave free day and even then, there are countless triggers in the world to pull you back.
The force of habit is an easy thing to make and a terrible hard long long road to break.

This Isn't About You Unless You Think It Is

It was in high school. We were on a bus, probably a "pep bus" waiting to leave for a basketball or football "away" game somewhere. Some of us were horsing around and joking back and forth and she turned back in her seat to face me and said "Oh, Karma, you are soooo dramatic." And with that statement, she shut me down. I flushed red with embarrassment and shrunk down in my seat, the joke forgotten and all joy taken out of the moment. Others were uncomfortable, some annoyed at the both of us for wrecking their fun and some just at her for being so mean, but that was no consolation to me.

Ever after, I was careful to "keep it in line", moderate the drama, when she was around, or even when any of her friends who might talk were around. I was stifled, inhibited, leashed, under her steely nasty sarcastic patronising control. I hated it. I hated her. I see her photo now and then or come across an article about her, at least I used to, she seems to have faded into obscurity lately, and every time, I felt the shame, the embarrassment, the sharp sting of the put down.
What was it? Was I getting more attention than she was or was I just too over the top and it irritated her calmer demeanor? Was I really offensive in some way? It does not matter. It is not right, and certainly not kind to shut someone down like that.
So don't you do that to me. Don't ask me to be less than I am. Don't tell me to keep it down, don't tell me to relax or calm down. If I want to be over the top happy and joyful, you can either join in my delight or shut up and let me be. If I am sad and carrying on, don't dismiss me and tell me I am over reacting. You don't know how much it hurts me because you can't feel what I feel, so don't tell me it is not as bad as I am making it. Maybe it is a terrible big deal to me. Support me and care about me but don't put me down. If you can't be there with me and share the drama, the ups and down, then get away. Don't tell me to be less, feel less, express less, love less, care less, feel less joy and less sorrow. Don't make me be less of the whole me just to suit your comfortable blandness and social decorum of calm and polite. Let me be all of me or get out of my way.

Why The Tea Party Concept is Stupid

I've been watching the Tea Party movement with interest and that interest has turned into disappointment. You see, I was not completely happy with the outcome of the 2008 elections. Delighted as I was with the win by the Obama-Clinton ticket (okay, I am pretending she is Vice President instead of all too forgettable what's-his-name and instead of whatever all too forgettable position she really holds) I was not totally thrilled with the majority win in the legislature. There is danger in one group having too much power and there is benefit in a forum where multiple positions are forwarded and discussed and there is good when compromises that make everyone a little better off are made. But with the more or less implosion of the Republican party with their bland presidential candidate and their laughable vice presidential candidate, I was really hoping for a take-back of the party by the people. I was hoping for a resurgence of the traditional Republicans that were for less government and simpler government and accessible government and visible government and for the environment to they could hunt and fish and play in it and were for independence from other countries in the name of self-sufficiency instead of adversorialness and all those old fashioned traditional Republican values. I was hoping the traditional Republicans were going to kick the weird extreme "Religious Right" right out of their party and return to solid constitutional values of keeping government out of our religious life and our religious life out of our government. I was hoping and wishing that the Tea Party movement would be about that and about rallying support for those ideas and for recruiting new candidates aligned with those values and moving our country back to having a two party system that engaged in debate and cooperative or even competitive problem solving and real solutions.

Instead what we seem to have gotten is a motley crew of disgruntled rabblerousers hell bent on bashing Obama and blaming him for everything, including often contradictory things, that they see wrong with our nation.

But let's just go with one of their basic premises from whence they get their name: The concept of taxation, which they seem to be claiming is without representation or without adequate representation or just plain too much or something like that. And their solution seems to be that government is wrong and the process of government is wrong and they refuse to participate. So they get together now and then and insist they are not a political party for the purposes of putting forth candidates and they wave signs and yell and then they go home and brag on blogs about how many of them there were in attendance and write inflammatory pieces on the various concepts that were summarized in their misspelled signs.

But okay, I am sorry, you are NOT taxed without representation. Just because you LOST the elections does not mean you are not represented. No one guarantees everyone gets THEIR candidate in. If you are too lame and discombobulated and fractured to find GOOD candidates, well, it isn't OUR fault you lost. And WE didn't bitch about taxation w/o representation in the 8 years your guy was in the Oval office and your guys had majority rule of congress and senate. We got to work and found some good people to run.

So, we have a SYSTEM and the system works and the system represents all of us all the time even though the balance of whose side is in power may shift, so you ARE represented within this system and unless you are proposing some fixes, well, please shut the hell up.

I mean, unless you are really hoping to over throw the current government and displace the elected officials and replace the current system with your own, the only way to CHANGE anything about the system is to USE the system to change it from within. So no amount of rallying and bitching is going to fix anything. The way to end your alleged taxation without representation is to get down to work and define some platform issues that are real and honest and have broad appeal to traditional Republicans and to edit OUT the junk trash that has corrupted and tarnished and ruined your party, and by that I mean the constant references to religion and the constant attempts to intrude religion into government and the silly Obama bashing starting with the birth certificate nonsense and ending with harsh critiques of every single thing he does. And then find candidates that are willing to run on those core less-government less-expensive-therefore-less-need-for-taxes more-visible-government values and get to work getting them in office, and once they are there, don't let them waste time protecting your oil interests and your war interests, but get them to work on paring out silly laws and simplifying and restructuring and making the government truly representative of the people.

To review, the only way in this country to implement change is to work within the system to change the system. And your silly Tea Parties do nothing to that end. While I support your freedom of expression and to gather, until you get it together and start to work the system instead of rejecting it with silly anti-everything signs, I also support the right of the entire rest of the world to laugh at you.

Loved

It was one of those family holidays where we were gathered with the cousins and aunts and uncles at Grandma's house, which was the rural equivalent of about a block away from our house on the same farmstead. In the usual way of childhood fickleness and temporary allegiances, for some reason unremembered, my sister and my cousins were refusing to play with me and I was nearly hysterical with sorrow and frustration and shame. My mother saw me crying off in some corner and rather than lecture and force the issue with the errant cousins, merely took my hand and walked me out the door. We walked to our house, where she took me into the living room and picked out not just one but a whole STACK of books, and settled me in next to her on the sofa and began to read to me. No pointless questions about why they were shunning me or who did what, but merely showing me maternal attention that was a pure and true form of affection, and showing it to me exclusively. Nestled there next to her, hearing her calm and smooth voice reading stories to me, I have never felt more loved. That moment would never leave me. No matter what happened ever, that day or for the rest of my live MY MOTHER LOVED ME. At that moment in time in fact, my mother loved me most of anyone or anything in the whole WORLD.
That is all you need to know, that one person loves you and will be on your side when you need it.
Soon, we grew a bit bored with the books and a little curious what was going on back at Grandma's house, maybe a little hungry for the lavish banquet of holiday foods, so we set back off down the path. And having established such lovely rapport with the reading, we chatted all the way and were still chatting when we walked in the kitchen door to find the family engaged in the usual chatter and laughter and banter. The cousins who had wanted nothing at all to do with me previously now realized me for the valued celebrity that I was and wanted to know where we had been and what we had been doing and suddenly wanted, needed desperately to include ME in their games and activities.
All was right with the world and I hope I gave my mother one last smile of thanks before I ran off to play with them.

Lost Camera, Revisited

Some have kindly suggested that the loss of the camera frees me to enjoy the experience of paddling, to enjoy my hike in the woods, to enjoy the views and the flowers for their pure beauty instead of their potential as a photographic image, to experience the experience without the obligation to photograph.
While I appreciate the friendly efforts to console and cheer me, I cannot really relate to that advice.
To me, part of the joy of nature IS the joy of capturing it in a photograph. To me, there is joy in seeing a beautiful scene and in the process of deciding to frame just a certain part of it to convey a specific message. When you see, you see whole panoramas, you see objects in their situation and in their relationship to all the things around them, but in making an art image, you must edit out much of that and make a conscious choice of what to include and what to exclude. Those decisions determine what message the viewer will take away from the art. Sometimes, there is more than one message, such as the beauty of an individual tree in fall foliage, the beauty of that tree surrounded by others of different shape and color, the separate beauty of the relationship of the reddening leaves to the red rock that gives our Lake Redstone its name, the shape of the individual leaf, or even the vein pattern on part of that leaf. Sometimes, the plant covered in flower is one message and the individual flower with pollen drifted onto its leaves is another and the visiting bee, with its leg pollen sacks stuffed to overflowing is yet another. Ferns say one thing from this angle with the leaf litter under the fronds and another thing from another angle where they rise up to the sky. Lit from behind, the leaf is a glowing bright green that stuns while photographed from the same side as the light source presents a more solid earthy sheen to the surface. Photographing the nature is a way to look at it more deeply, in more detail, to explore the relationships among the parts of the natural world, and to enjoy far more about it than would be seen at first glance. Photographing, or rather the looking and the deciding what message to convey, make nature a richer experience for me and allow me to see more deeply into the relationships and more precisely into the details. Quick, how many lobes on a maple leaf? What is the back side of a white oak leaf like? Where are the legs attached to a bee's body? In taking the photographs and viewing them later, these sorts of things can be studied and learned.
Photography to me is NOT an obligation but a joy, and a way in which I experience more fully the joy that is out there in the world. It is also a reason to linger. Someone might think me a kook if I just stopped and lingered too long in front of their house to look at their magnolia tree buds or their rose shrub thorns quite closely, but if I have a camera in hand, I can inspect and peek and stare and study and no one calls the police or yells at me or send their dog after me. They just smile at the crazy camera lady and leave me be to my joyful soaking in of the details of the world.
And then there is the sharing it with you. I NEED those images to show to my kids and to my spouse and to my mom and to my sister, to email around to friends. to post on this blog, to post on Facebook, to share my story. "I went for a paddle today" is some news, yes, but accompanied with a dozen of the finest shots, it makes other people smile a little bit and hopefully inspires them to get outdoors for a paddle or a walk on a trail or even just around their neighborhood, and maybe the pictures of the things closeup makes them walk a little slower and look a little harder and notice things of beauty that might have been missed. Maybe it makes them love nature a little bit more and support the conservation efforts of some local organization or vote for the candidate who has a 'green' record.
A walk or a paddle with no camera is just me alone, but with a camera, I bring you all along and share it with you in that little way and it is not just me alone anymore but all of us loving nature and our surroundings together. Yeah, it really it that big. I need my camera!

The Lake's Steely Grip

I've heard the tales of others' mishaps, dropped keys, eyeglasses, sunglasses, fishing tackle, favored barware dropped from the pontoon boat serving as party barge, tools dropped while assembling and dissassembling the dock or working on a boat motor, and the very modern versions with dropped cell phones and GPS devices. So when I am out paddling in my little canoe with my treasured camera, I have a system. The camera goes into the chest pocket of my life vest in a zip lock bag. When I am taking landscape photos of the scenery and fellow paddlers, the wrist strap of the camera is snapped into the strap that holds that pocket closed. I can take most pictures with the camera safely snapped into its combined pocket strap/wrist strap tether. When I need to reach out to take a shot of a shoreline flower or the leaves of an overhanging branch, the wrist strap goes around my wrist where it belongs. Alas, the weak point in that fine chain of safety procedures is the transfer point between pocket and wrist, and it was just such a weak point that allowed my beloved camera to be stolen from me last week. I was drifting under some overhanging shoreline branches trying to shoot a little bright green plant growing in a leaf litter filled gap in a tree root that had been eroded bare along the bank, when I decided I had to put the camera away and do some serious remaneuvering to get around an offending shrub that was blocking the perfect angle. I had slipped the camera off my wrist and was moving it to the vest pocket when my boat drifted me into a tree branch that snagged the camera and some other part of me or my boat then released itself to fling the camera out into the water. At least that is what I think happened. One moment I was sliding the camera into its plastic bag lined pocket and the next, I was watching bubbles rise about a foot and an half from my boat.
I stared at the bubbles, stunned. I cussed. I tried to look down into the water to see if it was visible. I stuck my paddle straight down in to see how deep it was: about 4 feet. When you can't swim, four feet under water might as well be fifty. There was no way I could go into the water along that shore of rocky boulders to ever try to get it back, especially not when out there alone. The lake had my camera as though in a steel trap, as though buried a dozen yards underground, as though on the surface of the moon. I would not be taking any more pictures with that one or even retrieving from it all the wonderful shots I had taken so far that day. I cussed some more. I cried. I called my husband on my cell phone, daring the risk of the loss of another electronic devise. He said it was just stuff and to enjoy the rest of my paddle. I cried some more. And paddled away, after one last look at the unphotographed pretty little plant growing in the tree root. And I paddled resolutely down the middle of the channel to the lake. With no camera to photograph it, I chose to avoid the shoreline with its taunting spring wildflowers and fresh green mosses and ferns and rock shapes and sculptural tree roots. I stayed out farther in the deeper water and paddled continuously, testing my stamina and my fears of the deeper waters. I paddled one landmark past the farthest I have paddled alone and then turned around to head for home. It was about then, in that last half hour before sunset, that the light wind diminished totally, and the clear bright light of the low angled sun made the shoreline trees glow warm and brilliant. The reflections in the water were perfect, rippled slightly in a uniform pattern, much like looking at a mirror made of antique rolled glass. I could read the words of the shoreline signs in their reflections, I could see individual catkins on the reflections of the birch trees, I could count the five individual needles that identify the shoreline trees as white pines in their beautiful perfect reflections. Ah, the photographs I could have taken. But I just paddled slowly, cognizant of the limited daylight left in which to make my way back to the home dock. I stopped now and then to drift and soak in the beautiful perfect views. It occurred to me at one point that the views were so perfect that it was as if there was no surface to the water and I was suspended above a perfect upside down world. I decided not to dwell on that thought too long, lest it rouse my latent fear of heights to combine with my suppressed fear of water which might come to bad result in my heightened emotional state of loss about the camera and joy about the beauty around me. So I paddled and drifted and enjoyed the amazing reflections of the beautiful nature of the lake.
And in case you are fond of details, I ordered a replacement camera last night. It was a $215 mistake.

They Grow Up So Fast

I am going to try to write this without crying. People tell you this when you are pregnant and when your kids are little: Enjoy them while they are young because they grow up too fast. I am kind of a bitch about being told what to do, especially by strangers, but this one, I always welcomed. I had known friends and relatives who had kids years before me and now some of those babies were in their early teens. I knew it was so so true, and I welcomed those occasional reminders.
And I did treasure my kids. I held my babies more than the books said you should and I took too much time off from work to hang out with them and sometimes I left work early to get them out of daycare just because I missed them. I tried to remember to take them special places on days off and weekends and in the summer. I tried to remember to take them with me on errands as often as they would agree to come with me and I tried to talk to them in the car and at dinner and whenever I got a chance. Sometimes I am sure they were rolling their eyes, thinking, Jeeze, Mom, get your own life.
And now, now the oldest one has been at college for three years and I still miss him every day and the youngest one is deciding which college to go to in the fall, an especially mean trick of life since having him be my only child has made me get to know and adore and enjoy him more than ever.
And so, there is this thing I do. When I am out in public places, I smile at kids and I smile at their parents and sometimes I even tell them something good about their kids. "Aw, even when he is tired and a little cranky, he still cracks a beautiful smile" or "Your kids play together really well!"
Today, at a cafe in a big department store, a tiny boy was crying and having a fit as his grandmother was trying to watch him while the mother got their meals. But the grandmother gave up and took him to his mother, so when the mother got to the table with all their meals stacked on one tray in one hand and the boy in the other arm, she set down the tray and roughly plunked him into his seat. He was at the edge of crying all over again. I looked him straight in the eyes and smiled my biggest goofiest smile. He smiled back. His mother noticed and I smiled at her. She said "Oh, aren't you a pretty boy!" and went from angry and frustrated to delighted in her beautiful son again.

It's a small gift I can give to remind tired and cranky parents what a joy their kids are and it takes some of the sting out of how grown up and independent my own boys are.
Yes, I miss them as they move on to their own lives, but it's what we have them for: To enjoy and shape and send out into the world to make their own ways. My success at raising them to be competent and confident was due to involvement that makes it all the more bittersweet for the connections we share.

If you are a parent of young kids now, take a deep breath and reach for the joy: Appreciate them as much as you can every moment of every day because the DO grow up so so fast.

If you are a parent whose kids have grown up and moved on, take the time to share a smile with somebody else's kids and to remind them to enjoy their beautiful children who will grow up oh so much too fast too!

Resolutions

Yes, I know: Resolutions are usually made at the beginning of the New Year, around the first of January. But as a person subject to Seasonal Affective Depression Disorder (S.A.D.D.) who is prone to deep dark moods in winter and also subject to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.) who tends to go overboard with enthusiasm for things and then abandon them with equal fervor, January just seems like a bad time for introspection and goal setting. The introspection is apt to be overly critical and dark, due to my moodiness from lack of sunshine. And I am apt to go gung-ho off into some therefore misguided self-improvement plan then abandon it in despair and misery when it does not yield immediate and abundant results. Instead, winter for me, post-holidays, is mainly a matter of 'getting through'. Getting up and getting showered and dressed each day can be hurdle enough and seeing some people and doing some things are added bonuses. Just get by.

The turning point for me is spring break. Having kids who, to my thinking, must be entertained in grand manner during their holiday from school forces me to focus on planning a trip and executing the steps to get us there. Once on our trip, there is time during each day of touristy touring and quiet nature appreciation to objectively think and assess and analyze and ponder what has been going on and where improvements could be made. And then, on return, when the days are longer and the weather more mild and the flowers blooming on the trees and the ground, I can make my list of what I want to do and accomplish and change and improve. The list will be made on the optimism of spring rather than the gloom of winter and I can immediately begin to put my plans in action and expect a measure of success. The list is make, the process begins. Happy New Year!