Hello Again...and Welcome to Fall

Whoa. There's that time warp again. One day it's the beginning of Summer, and the next you're thinking about the menu for Christmas. Well, that's what I do in September. It's right around the corner, you know.

But before then, all kinds of good stuff: fires in the fireplace, finding my socks, finding my sweaters, finding my scarves, cleaning the house so I can find my things. You know. I'm sure you do it, too. Spring cleaning is just for fun. Fall cleaning is so you can find the things you need to live through Winter. 

I didn't write all summer, but I did learn a few things living in we-get-snow-in-the-Winter country:

1. Nothing beats sitting in the back yard with people you love, drinking your favorite festive beverage and eating cheese and crackers for dinner because the preparation doesn't interrupt the flow of good conversation.

2. Hikes anywhere beautiful, with anyone you care about, make memories you'll hold in your heart forever.

3. People who visit you after you have moved to the Middle Of Nowhere (that's what a utility company called it when I tried to arrange timely service) are people who are going to be there for you no matter what. And will probably drink all of your wine collection before they leave. (hehe. JK. You know who you are. You know we love you. And that we have more wine.)

4. If you are inclined to go to a reunion, but you haven't seen those folks since you were an adolescent, GO. You just might find some of the family you've been missing since then. It's a gift.

5. Go rafting the very first weekend the weather allows. Because if you wait until the last weekend of Summer, you're gonna kick yourself until next Summer.

6. Rodeos are a blast! But it's a good idea to wear a hat or sunscreen. For some reason rodeo sun is stronger...like the bulls....and the cowboys.

7. If you live in a place where there are only two seasons---"Winter" and "Houseguests"---it's a good idea to make sure you have a septic pump that is in good condition come June.

8. If you have recently "downsized" it's a good idea to store about 2 dozen aerobeds in the closet. Just sayin'.

9. If you thought buying a "new" house would spare you the frustration and expense of an old house "money pit"....HAHAHA the laugh's on you.

10. If you thought you'd be lonely your first Summer away from the state you spent your first 54 years of life in....you'd be wrong. Because there are wonderful friends just waiting to begin your journey with you. And your old friends are going to visit, too, just to make sure you know that loneliness is NOT an option at 54. Thank God.

11. If you thought your elderly mother was going to need a lot of help adjusting to a huge relocation, you would be underestimating the power of serendipity...and love at any age....

12. If you thought an empty nest meant the kids would be too busy with their own lives to want to come hang out with you, well you would have been underestimating the bond with them...and their friends. Let's hear it for mango mojitos (David, you are the master)...ridiculously risky fireworks displays ("hey--here's one that didn't work!")...interrogations by the local police as to what is in that water bottle ("Water!" "Good! Be careful out there!")...mosquito swarms (oops! Didn't know about bug season.)...and many more...(Come back please :-)

13. You are not supposed to befriend the coyote that breaks from the pack to act like your pet. Apparently the rest of the pack is surrounding you while you are distracted and preparing to make you their dinner.

14. When your huckleberry bushes peak, deer will actually come to your back door and act like they do it all the time and would like to come in for coffee. While your husband is in another state getting ready to go hunting THERE. So funny.

15. When evening comes there will be electrical storms that make you wonder if having a metal roof is a good idea. But they will be so awe-inspiring that you think ah what the heck, what are the chances...and then the lights go out and you start to pray. Which is a good thing, really.

16. If you have an appt. with---well, anyone---and it's a really good day for fishing...well, you'll probably get a call that they need to re-schedule. And it's okay with you because...well, it's a really good day to go fishing.

17. You fill yourself up with Summer until you are so full that you just need to sit and digest...and relax...and think...about, well...apples in the Fall! Leaves falling. Homemade soup. Going to bed early because it's been dark for hours. Fires in the fireplace. Planning the menu for Christmas dinner.

Hmmm. Didn't I start here?

More later. Wishing you all...new perspectives...whether your nest is full or empty.(And, the truth is...it's never empty. It's just resting between occupants. Thank God. Again.)

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

My apologies to Carole King, who was most certainly singing about a passionate lover, while I address a mountain-ringed desert (although, now that I think about it, the Cascade Mountain Range does somewhat mimic the pattern of James Taylor's receded hairline...but I digress.)

My new home has inspired a fondness for weeds, rocks, dirt, and a variety of critters that, in my previous life, would have me forking over big bucks to exterminate.

I just returned from a walk to the community mailbox, dodging chipmunks, lizards,the occasional mouse, and a mama bird making sure I don't venture anywhere near her ostentatious nest, conveniently erected next to our front door---where unsuspecting visitors get dive-bombed and screeched at. (By her, not me.)

Our own nest rises out of a natural high desert landscape, where even the dead trees and bushes are left intact because they are home to little critters and shelter to those journeying through. This is a zero maintenance setting---no lawn, no gardens, no rose-laden trellises, no swimming pool, no fences. This means no mowing, fertilizing, pruning, tilling, trimming, edging, weeding, insecticiding, watering, planting, re-planting, irrigating. No paying through the nose for our human idea of a perfectly maintained yard, which pretty much involves removing what nature had there to begin with in order to put something there that we would have chosen if God had left us in charge that day.

He did a pretty good job actually. The things that grow in my yard serve many purposes with the natural scheme of the locale. And they are beautiful. Where did we get the idea that some plants are good and others bad? Only the things that can take care of themselves exist here---and they thrive. Weeds change color and often have beautiful blossoms, did you know that?

I do nothing to my yard but look at it, watch it evolve, soak in its pretty little gifts as seasons change. There is no fighting with this garden, no trying to tweak it, guide it, shape it, make it something other than what it is meant to be. I just watch it and try not to interfere too much. And share it with the animals that wander through, excited as all get-out about its bounty of food, shelter, and play structures. Most of which, to the suburbanite I used to be, would seem to just be weeds, rocks, stumps, and dirt. Turns out they are a whole lot more. They comprise another universe showing God's gentle, brilliant touch on our earth.

Maybe we spend too much of our lives trying to change things that are, left alone, perfect for their purpose.

Maybe we need to seek better understanding of the things (or people?) we want to change before making that to-do list.

Maybe we just need to see things differently. "Desert eyes" can surprise you.

Maybe, just maybe, we make life so much more complicated than it needs to be...or was intended to be.

Like Paul said, "Let it be."

Croutons and V-8 Juice Make a Fine Dinner, Right?

After 29+ years of having dinner every night with my husband...and then children, too...here I am eating croutons out of the bag, downing a V-8 and calling it dinner.

It's not that I was ever Martha or Rachel or that Barefoot Contessa chick in the kitchen. But I could somehow scrounge around the fridge...or call for take-out...or run to the neighborhood market...and put DINNER on the table, and we'd sit, together, for a bit, and fill our tummies, and touch base with one another.

I'd make them "co-muuuuuu-ni-cate", as my son called it. Give me highs and lows of the day. Ask crazy questions. Be silly. Whatever. But we were all in one place. Daily...or close to it anyway.

We'd hold hands, say the prayer from kindergarten lunchtime, squeeze to say "I love you", and then dig in, quickly, until homework, swimming, the phone, or the computer called the young-ins upstairs, leaving my husband and me to pour another glass of wine and talk....and talk....and talk.

Someone asked my husband recently the secret to a long-term marriage. His answer was, "We talk a lot."

A young mom shared with me the trials of staying emotionally connnected to her spouse during the crazy chaos of parenting young children. My best advice was, "Talk to each other. A lot. Every single day."

So it is quite the new situation to have this empty nest...AND a husband traveling for work.

We still talk a lot...every day...maybe even more than before. It's a conscious effort. We "co-muuuuuu-ni-cate" still. A lot. And with our now-grown children, too, although never enough. Thank God for the Verizon Family Share Plan.

But what I'd give to do the "I love you" hand squeeze every night before my croutons and V-8.

Just When You Least Expect it

Just when you least expect it.....

the special moments happen.

I tucked my mother in. I kissed and hugged her, turned off the lights, and said a prayer.

She smiled and drifted off to her dream world...while I thought about how random the loving and important moments are, how unexpected, how little we can predict when our hearts will be struck by the lightning bolt of raw love.

There is no more raw love than that of mother and child. I have been blessed to experience both.

No relationship is more primal.

My mother can drive me nuts. I drive her nuts on a regular basis,too. Just ask her. She will tell you lots of detailed, long stories about how I drive her nuts. I've probably bored my loved ones with a few myself.

But let me tell you this: I love my mother. I am grateful for my mother.

She reminded me tonight that I wouldn't exist if she hadn't had a miscarriage....that sometimes the disappointments in life turn out to be conduits to the blessings.

To know you are completely, unconditionally loved by your mother is one of life's greatest gifts. To know you are perfect in someone else's eyes (even if you know it's not true)is a rare chord that is recorded in your head and resonates in your heart when you need it most, when no one else is playing that music in your life.

And to love others that way---spouse, children, the occasional pet---is a gift of equal value. It makes sense of why we are here. Or it makes nonsense of the world outside of unconditional love.

I used to think there was no such thing as unconditional love. I mean, come on, doesn't love need to be deserved? Isn't it the sum of the equation? The reward for actions? What's left over after the subtraction of mistakes and disappointment?

Nope.

Love is in the core of our hearts, bypassing our heads altogether perhaps, imprinted on our DNA like the color of our eyes, our hair, our skin.

I am loved--perhaps irrationally and undeserved---by my elderly mother. And I love--rationally, irrationally, and completely deserved---my children, husband...and my mother. Others, too. But that's for another blog.

For now, let me say I am grateful for the unexpected, blessed moments of the last two days. Watching my 87-yr-old mother do her "Happy Dance" at rest stops on our 9-hr. drive to a new home....sunbathing in 40 degree weather...dancing to the country western music video channel because it's good exercise...

I am unconditionally in love. And somehow I am unconditionally loved back.

OK, God. I'm getting it. A little bit anyway.

I'm Still Here. Kind of.

It's been a long time.

I could bore you to death with the details. (I will spare you.) So here's the short version.

My best friend and husband of 29+ years (same person, just in case you are wondering) and I have done something...unpredictable, outside-the-box, wild, totally-not-like-us-at-all.

We relocated. Moved. Changed the address. Packed up and left. Forwarded the mail.

Well, he does jump on a plane to work 24/5 in the big city. And then he comes home to the country, to the mountains, to the rivers, to the slow life...to me. (He might work 24/2 when he's here,too, but that's okay. We're here, together, in a place that has mysteriously moved us from the day we first-by accident-arrived. A place that teased us, whispered in our ears, pulled our heartstrings with the promise that something was waiting for us here. Here in the shadow of snow-capped mountains, by the river, near a forest of trees....where the sun shines, it snows, the sky changes by the minute, reminding me of how quickly life changes, how every view is a snapshot of a moment that will never be repeated.)

I am still a bit stunned myself.

We have surprised our friends. Our family. Ourselves.

We've always told our children to scratch their itches. They are there for a reason, not to be ignored. Now WE are scratching a longtime itch. Our now grown children have given us an incredible gift--they have encouraged us, the way we have encouraged them. Their support has been a kiss upon our dream, a blessing upon our faith that life happens the way it should when you trust that inner voice, when you truly listen for the answer to your prayer.

Sometimes you just have to pay attention to the small voice inside, the one that whispers at you when you finally quit listening to the chaos of routine and repetition.

So far I have befriended a bird who jackhammers our metal roof, I have mourned his unexpected death, I have welcomed his replacement. I have seen deer duck into my yard, wondering why I'm here. I have seen a chipmunk run toward the music of my piano and sit,listening. I have awakened to snow on the ground and wondered how things could change so much while I slept. I have watched the sun hide behind a mountain range that makes me gasp at its quiet magnificence. I have listened to...real silence...and realized how thick and rich it feels in my ears.

I said I wasn't going to bore you with details. So I'll stop now.

But let me say one more thing: I am glad I'm here. I am glad we took an unexpected leap. I am glad we don't know what happens next. I'm glad we're making it up as we go along. I'm glad. Maybe this is what faith is about. I'm not sure,but I'll let you know. I'll keep you posted. :-)

A Nontraditional Tradition

I have a love/hate relationship with "tradition".

Nothing feels better than traditions that bind our memories to people we love. Those traditions, large or small, are usually some of our best memories and the joyful fuel of anticipation.

Traditions give us common bonds with the participants. Formal ties to the people involved. They define our relationships in noticeable ways: "We have a tradition together. This means I will always have you in my life in this special way."

But here's the rub. Traditions tend to be based upon consistency-- things staying the same, needs staying the same, circumstances being the same. Doing the same thing in the same way with the same people.

I love that kind of stuff. I actually used to say frequently, as my children were growing up, "I wish I could stop the clock right now and keep everything the same." (I tried pretty hard to do this. Just ask my now grown children. I was pretty committed to letting them grow up as slowly as possible. Their friends probably saw me as the most protective and old-fashioned mother in the universe. They might possibly have been correct. I remember my husband suggesting our daughter just say she was raised Amish to explain some of her innocence when she went off to college...)

There are many moments in life like that. Those times of acute awareness that the moment is pure joy, could not be improved in any way, and you wouldn't change a thing.

But so far no one has figured out how to push the pause button on life. It just keeps on taking us farther down the road, and I must say that is a good thing. Who is ready to relinquish future possibilities? Not me.

Most of the good stuff in life results from change of some sort, if you think about it. Certainly there can be no new experience without change. Imagine a life like that. (I've had several close relatives with dementia. Perhaps memory loss in the aged is a blessing. Every experience is "new" all over again. And again! A little gift to keep life from being horribly boring....!)

So what happens to traditions? Well, one of two things, I think:

Either: commitment to the tradition overrides the need for change...and eventually it becomes stale. Someone moves or grows up or dies, and the fabric of the tradition has a hole in it. Life changes a bit and the tradition doesn't feel the same. Traditions can become burdens when devoid of meaning...and terribly sad when they mark our losses.

OR (and this is a lot cheerier, I promise): our traditions are fluid, evolving, embracing change rather than recoiling from it. Those kinds of traditions can go on forever. They will not become dated, irrelevant. Their elasticity allows room for my favorite friend, Serendipity, to come to the table and surprise us.

This holiday season, I propose "the nontraditional tradition." I will consciously seek to update our traditions where the need exists. Where it doesn't, where the tradition still serves a meaningful purpose, we will take note. And perhaps talk about that.....an interesting conversation, I'll bet.

I think I'll make a tradition out of this. :-)

Comfort in the Familiar

There is comfort in the familiar. And where there is comfort, there is rest. And where there is rest, there is rejuvenation. And where there is rejuvenation, there is growth. Which is what life is all about.

I've spent a lot of time with 20-somethings who have left the nest, left college, left the familiar. Stretched themselves in new directions, in new locales, new lifestyles, new company.

It's exciting! (And exhausting.)

After college, life comes at you like a freight train---and you don't know where it's going. You either jump on board or let it run you over. It can feel kind of terrifying.

It also feels exhilarating. (I remember.) The same lack-of-a-definite-game-plan that leaves you wondering how the heck you're going to weave a life also holds the promise for unlimited potential---for surprises, for opportunity, for greatness, however you define that. For making your mark. For finding your path under all the overgrowth of the past.

Things work out, one way or another, and the path reveals itself when you look back at it. But while you're out there choosing direction, putting one foot in front of the other just to keep moving, it can feel like you're not getting anywhere, or lost in unfamiliar territory.

That's when you need to find comfort in the familiar.

It is surprisingly easy to do.

Touch base with the people who are most familiar to you.
Go somewhere that feels familiar.
Whether it's a food, a place, music, activity---recreate it where you are. Give yourself the gift of the familiar when life feels strange.
Let yourself be a little kid again for an hour. The real world will still be there when you return.

And I'll bet you feel a bit more ready for it when you do.