Spring

Still a bit nippy out there.  Those of us in upstate New York, are waiting somewhat impatiently for the warmth to come our way.  And today is Easter, the Christian celebration of Jesus rising from the dead.  Other traditions have their own beliefs and connections around spring.  Green buds and little flowers seem to challenge the most cynical among us to join the celebration. There is often a spring in one's step, a little tune on one's lips, and a sense of possibility, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Thanks to PD Photo for the terrific picture.

I am seeing some joy coming your way today.  And mine too.  

Go Fly a Kite...

from PDphoto.org

Woke up this morning singing that song from Mary Poppins:  Let's go fly a kite...  You probably know it.  That was my favorite movie when I was a kid, the music still cheers me up.  When I watch the movie again (oops...let out my secret!), I giggle myself silly in that scene where they're floating around the room because they are laughing. 

Somewhere, someone called March the month for flying kites.  But you know, I think March is way too blustery in this neck of the woods for kite flying.  April is a better time and May too. 

I grew up in Nebraska, and one would think that is the perfect place for flying kites.  There is plenty of flat space for running, and the wind never stops blowing.  I never got a kite off the ground when I was a kid there.  I always thought it was my fault...I couldn't run fast enough, or there was something lacking in my basic understanding of kite flying...it seemed mysterious to me, out of my reach.  I remember trying to make a kite on my own.  Of course those poor newspaper kites blew apart in moments.  As I look back on the reality however, the wind never stopped blowing on the prairies.  I don't ever remember seeing some park full of people flying kites.  Once in a great while, some brave soul would be there, wrestling to capture the wind.  But such flat places don't have trees to stop the wind, which is often a wild thing that turns into tornadoes in May and sometimes June.  In the summer, the winds are hot on your face. I think of August in Nebraska when I open the oven too quickly and the heat comes rushing out at me.   Well, you get the drift (as it were!).

Here in upstate New York there are a great many trees, however, there are plenty of meadows and places where flying a kite would be possible.  Is kite flying a lost art?  I still come across them in toy stores, especially at the beach where the wind also blows mightily when you're on the beach, without the protection of trees.  But again, I haven't seen much kite flying there either.   Computer games and such have taken over old pass times.  Ha!  Listen to me.  I just googled kite flying festivals, and upstate New York has it's own club.  NYKE  (New York Kite Enthusiasts), and the kites are quite a sight to behold. 

It's not exactly a kite flying day today, but maybe one of these days I will pick out one of the really fancy kites and try my hand at it again.  There's something magical about holding that string in your hands, feeling the pull of the wind and thinking that you have control of some dancing, colorful paper up in the sky.  I feel as though I'm flying myself.

   

Wilderness...

Photos contributed by the Pinedale Ranger District of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and is a public domain image

Last night I watched a show from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) called Frontline.  The piece was the story of how a Catholic priest and his friend who posed as a priest, came to St. Michaels Alaska and supposedly worked among the Native people there.  I say "supposedly worked", because in reality, the entire generation of young people were abused: 100% of the children in the village.  Girls and boys who are now women and men.  It happened in the 1970s.  Horrendous things happened and then the abuse spread it's reach into families.  One boy told his father, and as a result of telling the truth, the boy was beaten, and then later, his brother was shot by his father, and died in the boy's arms.

One woman finally brought a lawsuit, and although in the beginning, the Catholic church ignored the accusations, the case was won in court.  As part of the settlement the bishop was to go and apologize to the people in that particular diocese.  We see his visit to the people of that village, and hear him say:  I'm sorry, please forgive me for any pain which has come to you because of the church.  We saw these adults who were abused as children, heard some of their stories, and heard the ways this cruelty has so deeply and irreparably damaged their lives.

Winning the lawsuit didn't fix the pain.  The people want to move on and leave it behind them...but imagine, an entire village suffering from complex post traumatic stress disorder.  (I wonder why in the world the psychiatric community calls this a disorder?   The symptoms follow severe trauma.  All that pain leaks out when it gets triggered.  And when there is a large amount of pain, it goes on and on and on.)

I confess to a certain envy...there is no one who will ever apologize to me for the years of abuse.  No one who will acknowledge the pain they have caused.  But the reality is, that even in this case, it's just the institution that is apologizing, not the perpetrators.  At least it is something.  I do think the church as a whole...not just the Catholic church, should be asking forgiveness of victims and acknowledging the conspiracy of silence and denial which has gone on and on and on.  

Did you know that 99.9% of the men and women in our prison system were sexually abused as children?

There has to be a way to change the way children are treated.  There has to be a way to heal the people who carry so much grief.  It is their right to be offered healing.  There is never full justice in this world.  But surely we can ask forgiveness for everyday kinds of things, so the small doesn't become larger and eventually erupt into abuse.  God forbid that this simply be inevitable... 



 

Work

Writing a blog, writing music, writing a poem, talking to a friend, keeping up with Facebook and email could engage the entirety of my day.  Sometimes I suppose it does...aside from walking the dog or going for coffee with a friend.  It has been a while since I have had a regular, routine job.  Some 18 years!  I have worked...probably much more intensely than those working a 9-5 job.  "Running to keep up" is the mantra I sometimes have used in this self employment gig.  Though lately, it has been more difficult to even begin!  I guess part of the reality is what happens as a woman ages. 

Unfortunately, our society devalues folks who are older.  Younger people tend to have more energy.  That is true.  Older people however, carry a wisdom that the younger ones need.  We need each other.  It is the simple truth.  And I am not sure how to move beyond the age stigma. 

Society dictates so many things to us.  I wonder how we can change those dictates and choose what is really best for us?  Instead of just going along with the stuff that is fed to us:  beauty, youth, power, position, money are what gets us what we want in this world; perhaps we could try to open our hearts and our minds.  Perhaps we could stretch beyond the norm and discover that stretching is just the thing our hearts and minds need as much as our body does!

I applied for a writing job today.  It is a job I really would like to have for any number of reasons.  And I know there are probably hundreds if not thousands of applicants.  Will there be anything in my resume and work history or cover letter which will jump out?  Who knows!  I'm not sure how some of that uploading stuff works, I think I uploaded my cover letter four times and my resume twice.  My age is showing!  I am hoping that the fourth upload will cancel all the ones before.  But one can never be sure.  Nothing showed up in the little boxes, which is why I kept uploading.  I thought it wasn't working.  But it was. 

Well, it's time for me to get out there and look for some music gigs over the summer.  I noticed a little restaurant in the area has added a piano to their decor.  It would be awesome to have more of those kinds of venues.  Of course, I don't think the piano is tuned, AND they have it sitting against an outside wall, which is a no no.  Maybe it came from someone's barn!  The cold isn't the problem for a piano.  Just the humidity.  I think my body is a bit like that.  I don't mind the cold either.

I hope the human resource people read my blog :-) 

These Hands

They are aging, these hands of mine,
skin no longer supple,
beginning to wrinkle.

Just today, they have held a hand,
petted 5 different dogs, and 2 cats
touched the cold stone near the waterfall;

they have put cashews in my mouth,
portabella pizza, asparagus and apple crisp.
they have held the steering wheel steady

as I drove the two hours home;
and they gripped the pillow as an unpleasant memory
played beneath my skin. 

They have typed out my blog,
acting as agents of my mind
and then packed my belongings
and carried them to the car.

These hands have stroked my cheeks
wiped away tears and held the kleenex
while I blew my nose.

They were washed thoroughly with nice smelling soap,
and this evening, covered in shea butter.
They made my dinner, and they slipped around the shoulders of my friend
as we hugged.

They play a good guitar and a mean piano,
and love to be challenged just enough
to work hard and practice a bit more. 

Sometimes they still clasp together when I pray...
oh and they fit together below my chin as
the Tibetan Buddhist monk walked past in his red robes

and I sat waiting at a traffic light. 
"May you be peaceful, may you be happy"
my words and my breath
gently touching them as I offered
a blessing.

And now they type
out this piece about themselves.
All of this just today. 

And I'll never tell tales about the things
they have done after one of them
turns out the lights.

Breakfast at the Pond

Sitting here on the deck, the silence is a lovely thing.  Sunshine is warming the crisp morning air and Papa goose is here for his breakfast.  Mama Goose is sitting on her egg, which one can only hope hasn't frozen, as she laid it very early.  Some brave little bird is eating suet as I am typing here on my computer.  He doesn't seem to be bothered that I am a mere 4 feet away.  However, several others have flown in to fly away again before landing.  A brave chickadee has nabbed a bit of grain.  The birds are making quite the racket, though a few minutes ago the area fell absolutely silent when a hawk circled, searching for some breakfast.  I think she went off to the swamp looking for her morning repast.  At the moment, chickadees and another bird I don't recognize are scolding me for being so close to their food. 

A peaceful, loving existance these birds have.  Well, of course peaceful is relative.  They have the hawk to watch for, and predators that eat their young, and other birds moving in on their territory.  And of course the woman sitting so near their food.  This is most disconcerting.  Another bird call I don't recognize.  I'll have to ask T, who will surely know.  Still, finding food, nesting and singing are their main occupations.  Maybe I can find a way to do that some day.  There are still places in the world where less is more.  I'd like to find a place like that.  I bet you would too.

Caris

The Pond and the Chickadees

A dear friend, who is no longer here, wrote her masters thesis about chickadees.  Friendly little birds.  They can be fierce as well.  I never got to read that thesis, but wish I had asked.  She did tell me though, that if you are patient enough, and still enough, you can get them to eat out of your hands.  I imagine she did get them eating out of her hand.  She was such a quiet, patient person, with a wonderful sense of humor.  I used to tease her about her freezer.  She was a wildlife rehabilitor, and one never knew what one might find in the depths of that cold storage.  Favorite ice cream, a roast, dead mice, road kill.  Of course it wasn't just thrown in there all in a mish mash, but if you looked in the wrong place, well...it was good for weight loss.  The ice cream would lose it's appeal! (I know she's not far away.  I can hear her telling me that I shouldn't be telling her secrets.  I did get into trouble one Easter by telling a guest just the truth about her freezer!  I had no idea she was so sensitive about it.)

The chickadees are at the birdfeeder just now, and the sky is punctuated with a few clouds.  A passing shower even rained some hail a few minutes ago.  And old Becky, the cat is sitting on her kennel, grooming herself.

What will come next for me.  A friend and I had coffee this afternoon, chatting about things in general.  And then out of nowhere, she said:  "So are you facing an abyss?"  Perceptive cookie that one.  Indeed, my insides feel so flat, which every once in a while erupts in a fountain of tears..  I've been thinking about getting in the car and driving to Oregon in May, just taking off and seeing what comes to me.  Perhaps some music gigs, maybe a job someplace, maybe just a time to gather myself, reach down into the well and draw on my resources to face whatever does or doesn't come next.  Life is so short.  Should I go the southern route...which would be warmer, and fresh fruits and vegetables would be less expensive.  Or should I go the northern route, with Pitty Pat along for the ride?  Cool in places.

apple trees, wildflowers and foxes

Outside my window are two apple trees I have watched over many years.  I don't know much about taking care of apple trees, and it shows.  I tried to learn at one point, but the reality is that I don't climb trees or want to spray chemicals.  And now, after 9 years of neglect, the trees have pretty much died.  It's time to have them cut down, which hurts me.  I have loved watching them season after season:  even when there were few apples.  The lightning bugs love to come and dance beneath those trees in June. Birds make their nests there, and a cacophony of bird song is proof of the fact.  I am a lover of trees.  But I am not an ambitious apple tree grower.  I am a selfish lover of trees.  I just love to walk or sit beneath them, hug them, touch their trunks, gaze at their dignity and feel myself part of them.  But caring for them mystifies me, and always feels beyond my ability.

Years ago I used to have a friend who pretty much just let his place grow wild.  Tall grass in the front yard (he was out in the country), trees and flowers and plants grew however they wished.  Weeds were loved too.  The only thing he would actively do about his place, was to get on his riding lawnmower and make some paths through the wild and tall grasses.  I loved to wander there, especially that little spot overlooking a small valley where he put a bench for sitting and thinking and watching.  A little fox lived below in the valley, and with enough patience, you could see it.


One of the things he said to me one day has always stayed in my head:  "People who plant flowers in rows confuse me." 


No offense to the gardener who plants things in rows.  But I agree with my friend.

You know it's interesting, how some folks need things in orderly rows to feel comfortable. Nice neat rows.   I've never felt quite comfortable in those places or with those people.  There is this wild creature in me that takes some patience to draw out, and when I do come out for a visit, well, I prefer tall grass and a mixture of flowers here and there.  I get really nervous when things are so civilized there isn't a place for things to simply "be."

Unfortunately, this wild streak doesn't a good gardener/apple tree grower make.

Being the Flames

Photopher:  Jon Sullivan (public domain photo)

This morning, amongst my emails, there was a poem that arrived and pinned me to the wall.  When we go up in flames, our work is not to be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes, but rather it is our work to open ourselves to being the flames.  Lovely sentiment Galway Kinnel.  There are ways to endure most kinds of pain in my body, but the thing that hurts most and feels like it's just crazymaking pain, is a burn.

The latest crash and burn episode in my life:  leaving massage therapy school, has arisen from a deep, and long ago pain.  And it is crazymaking pain as well.  Opening myself to be the flame feels an impossible thing to do.  What does that mean exactly?  Where does one find the strength to be the flame?  Is it there within?  Or does it come from the outside? Is it some divine grace bestowed when we ask to be open?  Or is there some required period of suffering before we reach that place of abandon?

Many years back there were a total of 7 Buddhist monks that set themselves on fire in Vietnam.  It was in protest of a law which prohibited Buddhists from carrying flags on Buddha's birthday..  At the time, I was stunned that someone could do that to themselves, and then endure it in silence.  Clearly, the image of that act has remained with me all these years.  I couldn't bear to watch the film of it for more than a moment. 

With that specific act, the monks did it in a very public place, and made the reasons for it clear.  And many people bore witness to that act.  The act itself did not bring about the end of the war.  In the bigger picture however, we don't know just how much it influenced things at the time.  Of course, it had no effect whatsoever on some.  There is a photo of a monk going up in flames, and someone in the background is still looking for a light for his cigarette.  That somehow goes beyond the point of ridiculous.

The trouble is, for most of us, going up in flames is a private thing.  We may not light the fire, or perhaps we do on some metaphorical level.  But how does becoming the flames mean anything at all, if no one bears witness to it?  There is such silent suffering in this world.  Suffering that no one ever sees or understands.  And there is courage that we don't witness.  It may be happening to the person next to us on the bus, or the guy who cuts our hair.  They may be enduring the unendurable with silent grace.

And then of course, some of us scream like banshees.

movin' me down the highway

Sitting in a small diner, I was looking uninterestedly at the menu, deciding what to order for breakfast.  After getting the special, which was a great deal and included my coffee, I settled in to do some writing.  I looked down hard, trying to hide the tears which kept slipping down my cheeks unbidden.  I was feeling so dead inside.  Another dream has died.  I had told the director at school I was withdrawing.  As much as I have loved the process, the PTSD from which I suffer had become unmanageable in class. 

Jim Croce came on about that time, singing an old song from my teen years.  Like a pine tree echoing down the sky, I've got a name...And then I've got a song, and finally, I've got a dream.  Movin me down the highway...

I hope I can remember my name, and find my song and give birth to a new dream.  It's getting so hard.  Say a little pray for me dear readers.  A little hope, a little grace, a big miracle would be a good thing right about now.

Peace,
Caris

Sleepless night

It is 4:26 am and my brain is jumping with information about the muscles and connective tissues of the knee and thigh.  I've been up since 2:00 am.  Pain in my back and legs refused me sleep.  It's still taunting me.  The pain meds I have are too strong.  I would go through the day in a fog, and probably shouldn't even drive if I took them.  Tylenol doesn't help.  So I guess I will practice some meditation and breathe through it.  That usually eases it to some degree.

The biceps femoris' proximal attachment is to the ischial tuberosity.  (The spell check doesn't approve of these Latin terms.)  But where is the distal attachment?  I know you probably don't care, unless you're another kinesiology student, or you have injured your biceps femoris.  I think it attaches to the head of the fibula.  And it is the muscle that helps you rotate your hip laterally.  It also flexes the knee and tilts the pelvis posteriorly.  Isn't ischial tuberosity a great name?  The three hamstring muscles attach there. 

If one listens, there is a peeper who has been singing most of the night.  It's on and off, and not a strong sound.  But then it is early spring yet.  Just now the haunting sound of coyotes howling nearby pierce the night and send a shiver up my spine.  I go out to the deck to listen for more, but the deep darkness of this time, just before dawn, is now silent. 

Guess I'll go check out the poetry site.  Have you ever been there?  It's called AllPoetry.com.  I recently discovered it, and have been enjoying myself immensely.  Other poets!!!  Some are seasoned, their words rich and expansive, filling me up to saturation.  Others are learning, and I enjoy offering feedback here and there, which encourages but deepens.  Anyway, my handle is cturtle there. 

Hope your day has a more reasonable start to it than mine has had!  Peace.

Back at the Pond

The dusk is gently painting it's muted colors on the waters of the pond here outside the cabin where I make myself at home on the weekends.  A kingfisher has moved to a spot on the pond as well.  His blue and black form can be seen diving for baby fish during the day.

T. tells me that the peepers were out last night.  Oh the peepers!  How wonderful to hear them start to sing in the spring.  I always feel sorry for the first batch however.  They sing their little hearts out prematurely, then it freezes and the first ones die out.  Soon enough the warmth will be here to stay and so will the peepers...until of course they get too old for peeping. 

Sherman, my name for one of the little dogs who lives here, has apparently missed me.  I dropped my suitcase by this afternoon and then headed off for an appointment.  The story is that he lay in the wet grass staring at the parking lot all afternoon.  The loyalty of little furry creatures is touching. And I was off being disloyal, walking with a friend and her dogs.  We visited the wonderful waterfall, and then went to the lake and walked.  We talked, solved a few of the world's problems (if the world would just listen to us!), and ate our lunches. 

Have a peaceful evening friends.

Chaos and Order

About a year ago a friendship which had existed for many years came to an end.  It was a rather emotionally violent tearing away, and though necessary, this has been a time of grieving.  I just realized that the anniversary of that ending recently passed.  And I think that it must be true that it takes about a year to come back from such a major loss.  I missed him in the beginning, but the healing has been clean.  I don't look back with regrets any longer.  And the thing that is most apparent about the healing is the bits of chaos that are creeping back into my life.

Does this cause a bit of puzzlement?  Well, my creativity has been put largely on hold this past year.  Oh there have been little pockets of it, but not the large amounts that are usually around.  Chaos means that I'm working at the things I love once again.  When I am managing grief, the thing that I do is to try and keep order in my environment.  It's interesting stuff.  I'm not obsessive about it, but cleaning out drawers and closets and keeping things manageable feels good when grief has come along and thrown such unutterable chaos into my emotional life.  I think the fact that things feel a little out of control again is a sign that I'm coming back to myself.  Because this is the way I usually exist, in a constant tension between chaos and order.

This spring certainly feels like spring.  But this very large loss has moved deeply into my bones I think.  The pain from the connective tissue disease has deepened of late.  I force myself to move, but there are times that the pain takes my breath away and leaves me feeling scared.  It's really scary some days.  So I try to set it aside and simply focus on what feels good.  I stretch, I walk...those things don't necessarily feel good at the time, but it helps me feel better in the long run.  Gingeroot has been a great friend in keeping the inflammation from the disease at a manageable level.  And then of course there is massage school!  The last weekend I was there, I was given a massage by another student, and slept like a baby that night.  Something that doesn't always happen because of the pain.  Gratitude!  The health benefits of massage are many!!!

Chaos Theory has always been fascinating to me because I see it played out so clearly in my own personal life and the lives of people around me.  It isn't just an idea that sits out in the universe someplace where stuff is thrown and tossed around and then patterns form out of the chaos.  It is lived out every single day in our lives.  We experience chaos at different levels, it comes to us in the form of loss and changes of every kind.  Sometimes it feels as though it will just keep spinning us and tossing us like so much sand on the ocean's shore.  But patterns emerge.  Again and again.  So, this year of grieving comes to an end, and my creativity is returning.  At the same time, the chaos of pain enters more deeply in my life, and the ways I will learn to cope with that will emerge in time. Chaos and Order.  One of the laws of the universe.

Go visit this beautiful site, full of fractals...the patterns that emerge from the chaos!  http://www.abstractdigitalartgallery.com/index.htm
 Also, thank you to Jozef Kosoru whose images are displayed above.  They are given to the public domain.

The Walk: Part III

That last walk across the bog before, stretched for eons.   Each step I sank a bit deeper.  I was up to my knees when I was a quarter of the way across.  I kept thinking that I was going to step off the rock shelf that was beneath me, and be forever lost in that stinking, slimy goo.  It stunk to high heaven!  If you think cow manure is smelly, bogs are double that.  All that rotting vegetation.  You see, the bog really looked like a meadow with lots of vegetation.  NOT.  This was the ultimate in April Fools jokes.  And yet I wasn't laughing.  Each step I took, my heart was in my throat.  I was absolutely terrified...and yet the only way to the other side was through that awful, stinking, icy cold muck.  I could no longer feel my toes or my legs.  They were absolutely numb.  And by now the bog was well above my knees.  I was halfway across.  I thought about lying down so my weight would be spread out over the top and perhaps if I did go down it would take more time.  But then the foolishness of that idea came to mind.  I pictured my whole self sinking all at once...being swallowed alive by this terrible woman eating muck.  And all this imagination was remembering all the terrible movies about swamp creatures and the such.

At long last I was just a few steps from a very large stone that sat next to the fence...that was all that was between me and the space next to the road.  Yes, the stone shelf beneath me remained.  The bog reached only to mid thigh.  Gratefully I scrambled up onto that stone and lay on my back looking up at the gray sky which was still spitting rain.  I slipped one sock on a very numb foot, and then the other.  My sneakers were next.  About then I looked up to see a man on a tractor coming down the road from someplace nearby.  I feebly waved at him.  He waved back, turned the tractor around and left me sitting there in the bog muck which was dripping slowly off my lower body.  The smell was spectacular.  Rotting vegetation and cow poop assailed my nostrils with their stench.

One last jump across a bit of bog and I was clinging to the barbed wire fence.  I slid along it for a ways until I could find an opening to crawl through.  AT LAST!  I was through!  I was on solid earth.  I was now on the road.  I was crying in relief and left over terror.

A black car came driving along and I waved it down.  Might have been the end of the story right there, but the driver took one look at me, the monster from the bog, and screeched away.  I only wanted to ask for help!  Barely lifting one frozen leg at a time, I shuffled up a driveway and knocked at a door.  Did I see a flicker at the curtains?  No answer.  I tried three different houses, with the same result.  They were probably there behind the curtains whispering about the sight on their front porch.

Finally I knocked on a door and a woman opened it to me.  "Hello, may I help you?"  Her eyes didn't meet mine.  She told me she had arthritis and was legally blind.  That explained it!  Her name was Dot.  She was very kind.  Brought me something washable that I could sit on while she called my friend Sue to come and get me.  She gave me hot tea and some biscuits as I sat on a wooden stool in the front entryway.  She was too polite to mention the smell!

Sue came shortly and I changed into dry clothing.  She drove me home after a profuse thank you to Ms. Dot.  Sue didn't say much on the drive back to the house.  She helped me inside.  They had been worried about me, my friends.  Had even stayed home from work to look for me. 

I went and ran a hot bath in the big clawfoot tub.  She took my dirty clothes, everything I had on, and put them directly into the washer.  She brought me a robe from my closet.

Lavender tea was brought to me, and I soaked for a long time in the bubbles.  April in New York.  Sounds like a lovely romance, my welcome to New York.

Sue, Peter and Steve enjoyed telling that story about me.

And of course, if you remember from the beginning of my story, those red sweat pants were never to come clean.  The bog had left its mark.

The Walk: Part II

Good Morning.  It is 5:29 at the moment, and I've been awake for about an hour.  I finally gave in and pulled myself out of bed, as those to do lists are still waiting.  Pitty Pat the cat who so often insists on sitting on my lap when I'm on the computer, is actually curled up next to me taking a morning nap after an extra early breakfast.  (Guess who woke me up because she was hungry at 4:30 am?)  A few minutes later Madeline was barking at the car which was coming down the road to deliver the paper.  She starts when they get to the neighbor's house, and continues this morning drama until the car drives away.

So...back to the story.  I believe I had been wandering about the forest for about two hours when we left off. 

There I was, panicky, my heart in my throat, my legs feeling a bit like lead, and the forest seemed to be full of taunting trees.  Usually I'm a tree hugger, but when one is lost amongst them, trees become quite sinister.  This increases the panic.  Even the most experenced hunters have lost their way at times, and have felt the panic of the forest.  I think that's why the god of the forest is named Pan.  Panic derives from the name. 

Finally I took some deep breaths and tried to calm myself down enough to think about what to do.  I suddenly remembered what Steve had said about the area:  If you ever get lost in the woods around here, just head downhill and soon enough you'll come to a road.  I could breath again.  And that's just what I did.  I climbed over a wooden fence and headed down hill.  Soon enough I was in a pasture on a very big hillside.  And off in the distance there was indeed a road.  Glory be.  I started to weep in relief, and headed down the muddy hill.  It wasn't long before I was falling on my patooty.  This happened several times.  One of those times I landed in a cow pie.  Lovely...now I smelled to high heaven.  I didn't care, I just kept getting up and sliding in slow motion righjt back down on my butt.  The smell from the cow pie was bringing back memories from my childhood in Nebraska.  I spent a lot of time out on the farm of my brother in law who always warned me to stay out of the pasture where he kept the bull.  That bull was dangerous as all get out.  Panic was returning as I looked around for the absent bovine.  The pasture was empty creatures, except the one sliding down the hillside, mostly on her backside. 

At long last I reached the bottom of the hill, and realized I was going to have to cross a stream.  But there, on the otherside of the stream, and what looked like a meadow and of course a fence, was that blessed road.  Surely there would be someone who would stop and help me.  I gazed at the cold water that was moving along as happy as can be, impervious to my plight.  I usually loved mountain streams, but the beauty of this one was lost on me.  I hope the reader can forgive the fact that I wasn't quite present to that part of the scene before me. 

Reaching down, I removed my shoes and and socks.  I figured I would want their warmth after the cold reality of that water.  The stream wasn't all that wide, and it was shallow enough.  It didn't take long to cross it.  Happily I set my foot on what I thought was solid ground.  Not so.  It was mud.  I took a step.  Surely this situation was going to change in a moment, and I would feel the strong earth beneath my feet.  Instead I sank up to my ankle.  It was a bog.  I didn't know much about bogs at the time.  I'd grown up in Nebraska where there was occasional quicksand.  But what in the world was this?  I took another step and sank up to my calf.  I twisted uncomfortably to look back at the hillside on the otherside of the stream.  The scene was fairly dramatic looking.  Adding to the sheer size of that mountainous, muddy hill, my imprints from slipping and sliding down it looked for all the world like the fingerprints of someone trying to find a last hold before falling over the edge.  It was not a hill I would normally attempt to climb, and that would be when I was feeling energetic.  At the moment I was so exhausted I didn't know how I was going to go on, much less go back.  There was no way in the world I was going to get back up that hill.  I gave it one last glance before turning around and facing what could very well be my last moments of life.  There was no one in sight...a farmhouse in the distance.  A road with no cars.  And me...at the edge of a bog that extended before me.  (I learned later that the little stream I had just crossed was the headwaters of the Delaware River.)

Hope you're enjoying the suspense.  Of course I'm still here, so you know the story ends well.  But there's still more to tell!

The Walk: Part I

A map of the area...wish I'd had this for my walk!

It is interesting how memory gets erased or at least impeded from year to year.  The rain is falling today, as it does every April.  It is a cold rain and if one spent much time in it, it would feel like an icy rain.  There are piles of "to do" lists scattered around the room, but if you'll indulge me, I would like to take a little trip back in time.  About 13 years to be exact.  Thirteen years ago I came to upstate New York to stay with friends while I got back on my feet.  A relationship had ended in Oregon.  It was a sad ending, and the grief sat heavy in my chest.

The day was shaping up to be much as this one is as I slid out of bed and slipped into my sweat pants.  I remember those comfy red sweats.  I don't particularly remember the shirt I wore that day, but then that was salvageable at the end of the day.  Unlike the sweats.  I headed downstairs and out the door after a brief "good morning" to Sue, one of my oldest and dearest friends.  She was drinking coffee and making breakfast for the guys.  Steve, her husband and Peter, her 10 year old son.  Since my arrival a few days before, there had been much story telling and gales of laughter around the kitchen table.  It was good to be with friends during this transition.

Pulling up my hood and zipping my coat, I was ready for a walk down the road.  It had been my habit to walk 2 or 3 miles every day for as long as I could remember.  Walking was something that moving wouldn't change.  The scenery however had.  I missed the Oregon landscape, but upstate New York has it's own beauty.  So after walking the mile down the road and starting back, I noticed a path across a little meadow and into the woods.  I decided to take a shortcut back to the house.  The Catskill mountains which surrounded me in a breathtaking vista are part of the oldest mountain range on earth.   Steve had filled me in on the local geography of the place, and I loved the fact that my feet were walking this ancient landscape.  As these things passed through my thoughts, I was passing a lovely pond and then entering the woods.

The path was clear at first and I thought it headed in the right direction, but it wasn't long before the path disappeared.  I felt somewhat confident.  After all, this was all within a half mile of the house.  Of course two hours later, that was no longer the case!  Passing the same old ramshackle building for the fourth or fifth time, I finally accepted the reality that I was lost and scared to death, not to mention exhausted and hungry for breakfast.

It is definite progress after 13 years that I can tell this story without hyperventilating.  More tomorrow!

Walk Safely!

From the sublime to...well, take a read and see.

Sundays are always a nice day to make brunch, and if I do say so myself, I make pretty good pancakes.  Of course they're from a box, but I've discovered the "right" box mix to use.  The other day I bought a bag of beautiful little apples.  So I cut up some apples to cook on the pancakes.  A trick my mother used to do.  You put the batter in the pan and then arrange apple slices on top of the batter.  When you flip them, the apples cook up just right.  Put a little cinnamon in the batter and it's even better!  They came out perfectly.  Of course I had forgotten to check to see if I had any maple syrup.  Unfortunately I didn't.  (Did you know that maple syrup can be made in only two places in the world?  The northeast US, and a certain province in Canada.  My Canadian friends will be offended that I don't know which one off the top of my head.  Is it Quebec perhaps? )  Well, no maple syrup, so I took out a bag of frozen raspberries and whipped up some raspberry syrup.  Finally I scrambled some eggs, and I made myself a cup of Oregon Chai, with just the right amount of milk in it.  I even made it frothy.  Ahhhh...good food, a sunny day, the laundry all finished last night!  What more could one ask for?  Maybe not having to do my income taxes.  Procrastination...procrastination...will she get them finished or won't she? 

One always knows when it's spring around here.  Baseballs begin showing up in the back yard.   Little League starts up.  All kinds of kids in their uniforms start playing ball.  Parents calling out their support.  And eventually on the weekends especially, one gets to hear the Star Spangled Banner sung about 4 or 5 times a day over a rather annoying loudspeaker. 

Now, this is really weird, but the other day I was walking with the dog in the field (not the little league field).  This field is full of land mines...of course here in the quiet foothills of the Catskills, they aren't real land mines.  Just piles of poop.  Is that allowed to be written?  I hope so, I don't know what else to call it...manure perhaps?  Feces is the more technical term.   There is a lot of deer droppings in the big field.  But there is dog leavings as well.  I usually pick up after mine, but not everyone is so conscientious.  The only ones who usually walk in that field are the deer, the dogs and the owners of the dog.  So I guess it's to be expected.  But the other day there was a particularly large pile of dog doo.  And right in the middle on top sat a golf ball.  Now I'm betting there is an interesting story behind that.  I'm not sure I want to know it in detail however.  Better to leave some things alone.  Needless to say, I did not take photos to share.  Aren't you glad?

Wow...started this blog with a lovely description of Sunday brunch here, and ended up in the outhouse.  Well, it is the cycle of life! 

Happy Sunday.

Caris