Stayin' Alive?

I love my city. But its drivers are trying to kill me. And its cyclists are trying to get me to kill them. No, I'm not talking about the sidewalk that broke my jaw. I mean, it'd be good if Portlanders would fix their tree-ravaged sidewalks, but that is costly and difficult for old folks, and I've adopted a "let the runner/walker/jogger beware" acceptance of the hazards of old Portland sidewalks. And I'm not talking about the driver I had to crash my bike and break my arm in two places to avoid hitting, who to this day probably doesn't know it happened. I'm willing to believe it may have been me who shouldn't have been in that intersection and he or she who should have; I've been known to be at fault in accidents, and I'll never really know for sure about that one. I'm talking about the cars that zoomed right past the pedestrian (uh, me) who was standing--very visibly--in the crosswalk as if to say, "I'd like to exercise my legal right to cross the street, please, sir?" It is as if that rule had been taken out of the Drivers' Manual, for the City of Portland only, and I am the only one who didn't get the email. Car, after car, after car, after car coming the other direction, after ALL cars coming the other direction, zipped on by me on North Lombard, despite plenty of light and bright colors on me. It's not hard to forgive the occasional infraction, having committed quite a few myself, but this is not so occasional around here. Probably spending the last 25 years in Dallas, Oregon, where drivers go around looking for pedestrians, far down the sidewalk, whom they might be permitted the privilege of stopping for, spoiled me. But they knew something Portland drivers don't seem to: That is The Law. Pedestrians in crosswalks must be stopped for. Our city likes to be thought of as a walk-friendly city. We need to drive like one. And the bicyclists. God bless 'em. My eyes are constantly sweeping for them. I don't--I don't think ever--turn right without checking the side-view mirror so as not to cut one off (another thing lots of drivers don't seem to bother with, based on my own experience on two wheels). But, fellow cyclists, help me out. If you are riding at night dressed in black and hoping that a little strobe light on your tail or your handlebars will take care of you, you are simply a cockeyed optimist. Sure, it's still my job not to hit you, and I'm trying to do my job, but would it break the bank for you to buy a white jacket or a reflective vest? If I hit you, God forbid, I may be the one at fault, for what satisfaction that may give, but you'll be injured or worse, and neither of our lives will never be the same. Being virtuous doesn't make you visible. Please, invest in those head lamps, reflective wheels, white clothing, and--did I say this already?--reflective vests. Work with me. Please. Oh, and by the way, Blogger has apparently disabled my ability to separate the five paragraphs above. If any of you know how to get around this, let me know. I'd switch to Tumblr, but I forgot my password again.

So, Hawai'i...

Things I'd heard that were really true: Gas is expensive (over $4.60 a gallon), milk is expensive ($5 or $6 a gallon), everything else is expensive (everything), and the weather is reliably good (if you don't mind your warmth occasionally very windy).

Things I'd been given to believe that were not so true: Snorkeling is always great on Maui. Of course, my first and only experience of snorkeling was in the John Pennenkamp Coral Reef (underwater) State Park near Key West Florida, so that'd be hard to match with wade-in-off-the beach reefs, I suppose. And maybe we just picked the wrong time to go, but we got only one good morning in before the aggressive waves murked up the water so much we could barely see or stay off the rocks ourselves. Oh, well. It was water we could swim in; don't get that at home.

Also, I never knew I liked Hawaiian music until I went on the dinner cruise that I admit I thought was a cheesy idea. A young man started singing and didn't stop for most of the two or three hours that we mostly just rocked on the water and scanned for the occasional accommodating whale. It was the best part of an excursion that was in every way quite lovely. That language that can all be written in 12 letters (13 if you count the ', the glottal stop consonant that really should be in the word Hawai'i) is so musical. When I heard that the movie "The Descendants" was entirely scored with Hawaiian music, it was a new reason to see the movie, more even than GC himself.

Can you correct this breach of etiquette without being, well, impolite?

I tend to leave the office latish on Fridays. After catching up calls, reviewing lengthy old records from patients' previous doctors, etc. I walk down to the MAX station, avoiding the rush that I imagine exists at 5:30 or 6. I was having an impromptu visit with a nice (previously unknown to me) lady who works at the Salvation Army youth center when a large pleasant man in a red T-shirt, longish hair, and a baseball cap asked us if we knew which train to take for North Interstate and Lombard. We told him that would be the yellow line and I told him that was my stop. He said, "Thanks, ladies," and walked off. Ten minutes later he came back and asked if he could go on with us and make sure he got off at the right place. The other lady said that wasn't her train, but I told him, sure, I could show him where to get off. He said, "Thanks, darlin'", and I said, almost reflexively, "Please call me 'Ma'am'". Don't misunderstand, I can't tell you how gentle and unthreatening this guy seemed, but I really, really don't like people who are not my friends calling me "Hon", "Sweetie", "Dear", "Darlin'", or any other term of endearment when I am not endeared. It feels disrespectful, and I used to not let it go by uncorrected when it came from a man, but I don't think I'm saying it well, because there is always a chill that descends. I follow it with "You can call me Kim, if you like", to try to communicate that I'm not trying to be snobbish, but I think I need a better line than, "Please don't call me __________", or "Please call me Ma'am".

It may be that "Please don't call me (Sweetie)" is better. One gas station attendant I remember saying that to said, seemingly sincerely, "What should I call you? Honey?" The episode that left me feeling saddest was when the really sweet resident oral surgeon who was taking the screws out of my mouth, seeing this was painful, said, "Oh, I'm sorry, hon!" and I said (yes, at such a moment I decide to be Ms. Manners), "Please don't call me hon. It doesn't feel respectful." After another screw or two came painfully out, I managed to commit my own faux pas--which maybe wouldn't have been one if I hadn't just corrected him--and patted him on the arm, so much as to say, "It's okay, I know you can't help how much it hurts", and felt the need to apologize for that. It just didn't feel we ended the visit as warmly and it had started and I wished I'd just taken the "hon" on the chin and kept quiet.

Anyway, suggestions welcome. I'm clearly in need of my own etiquette advisor.

The Meeting of the Waters

Sunday Merlin and I rode out to Kelley Point Park, about six miles from our house, to see the place where the Willamette River flows into the Columbia. It is not as dramatic as the meeting of the waters of the Amazon and the Rio Negro in Brazil, where it looks like cream being slowly poured into black coffee. In fact, the marker says Lewis and Clark failed to notice the Willamette as they went down the Columbia and again as they came back up it, even though they'd been told there was another great river right in the neighborhood.

That point is also the spot where the city of Portland ends. Even though we now live in the big City, we live at the extreme end of it, and it is a place where extreme beauty and extreme ugliness can be seen with just a quick turn of the head. Or without turning even. To get to Kelley Point, you ride a bike path with Smith and Bybee lakes on your left, a beautiful wildlife area, and the rather sci-fi-ish Marine Drive industrial landscape on your right. Over your left handlebar, woods, waterfowl and fish, over your right, large square buildings, all deserted for the weekend (or WERE they?), and railroad tracks. It's eerie.

Our own home is barely south of Columbia Boulevard. So we are surrounded by an old Portland neighborhood (not a fancy one, but kind of a cozy one), yet one block away to the north is an area that will never be residential and is covered with railroad tracks, a water treatment plant, heavy manufacturing. That area is also home to the Columbia slough, a great place to walk and see wildlife, provided you don't mind your wildlife against a backdrop of aging warehouses or the Portland International Raceway. (It's also home to the lost city of Vanport, which washed away 63 years ago last weekend, about which we've been reading and Googling obsessively lately, more about which another time.)

Oddly, I don't mind too much. It's surprisingly quiet here despite all that so close. And train whistles sing me back to sleep when I wake in the night. I live where humans live, and we are unfortunately a messy species. And really, you can't spit in this place and not hit some sort of a park (I have no idea how we pay for that!), so I take the blessing with the curse and try not to add too much to the latter.

The Old Homestead Goes on the Market

Today we signed all that paperwork you sign when you are about to put up a Realtor's sign in front of your house. Yes, funny to think it, but that big green house in Dallas is still ours, even though we no longer sleep there or cook there. It is now all various shades of beige, neutralized for the next couple who walks in, so they can picture making it their own, and maybe give us lots of money for it. I did leave the crayon-red room crayon-red, because it was too beautiful that way to paint over so soon, and because red is really hard to cover with beige.

Our real estate agent Yolanda was impressed. She saw it at its worst last fall and helped us set a tentative price; before she came over Friday, she tried to prepare us for a possible down-pricing as the market keeps slipping, I guess, but when she saw it she decided to keep the starting price where we first decided it would be. It definitely confirmed our conviction, formed long ago, that it would be a much more attractive house with us out of it.

It still makes me sad. I loved that house, and especially the things I thought I would do with it 10 years ago, but never did. Now I am in a much smaller house with all kinds of Ikea ideas about what I want to do with it; we'll see. But I hope that now that I live here full-time, I'll dive right into what I want to do most, even before I paint over the depressing Spanish Moss green walls: Fill it with people once every week or two (it won't take many to fill it) and feed them with the non-foodie food I know how to make, and thus, and in many other ways, fulfill the law of Christ.

The Bus

I ride the #4 bus now. I haven't ridden a city bus in the US for over 25 years, and now I have a bus. It's the 4. It picks me up two blocks from home, and after 45 minutes it lets me off 10 blocks from work. Or vice versa. That doesn't sound like a good ad for public transportation, and I still get driven to work by the love of my life most days, but I like the 4. It makes me feel like I live in a more diverse city than I do live in.

Today, about a mile into the ride, a whole class of 7-year-olds from Boise-Eliot school got on at one stop, with what looked like 2 adults. This made me smile. They were noisy and well behaved. Except for one of their supervisors who kept yelling at them to stop talking: "ZERO TALKING." "How much talking did I say? ZERO." She did eventually almost succeed in silencing them. I liked the chatter better.

My husband goes to Dallas every Friday to cut the grass, work on the house we are about to put on the market, and play volleyball late into the evening with his friends. He drops me off at work and I go home on the 4. I do what everyone else does, find a seat, pull out my faux-pod (a cheap Sansa MP3 player my kids found me on one of those websites where you have 24 hours to decide) or my book, and leave the driving to a very nice man or woman who is, I hope, paid well to put up with us all. I watch people of every color, age, and capability get on and off. I watch Portland go by. I pull the string. I walk the two blocks home. I feel kind of like I live here.

In case you know someone else who...

Can't open her mouth, I have a few observations and suggestions that I wish someone had given me a couple of weeks ago:

Safeway Signature soups (the kind that come in a refrigerator case and cost about $4 for 24 ounces) blend better than anything else that tastes good. Coconut Thai Chicken Bisque is incredible. My mother justly termed it a "beautiful soup".

If you've ever thought you only like food and drink really cold, or really hot, this situation will change your mind. When you can't sip and everything has to go past your teeth, tepid has its virtues. Oddly, Ensure is better fairly hot.

Ask for that wax they give people with braces. Buy Anbesol and Biotene. And those little plastic toothpicks with green rubber tips. And Benefiber. (It really does dissolve completely in liquid, and you may be sorry if you don't use it, because juices, it turns out, don't contain much fiber. Especially that stupid "Green Machine" which has the look of virtue and the fiber content of pudding.)

It's surprisingly easy to turn away from real food and just not think about it when you have no real choice. And I love, love, love real food. I will run back to its arms as soon as they let me. But now, I just turn a cold eye and keep moving.

I have not found anything that helps me talk better. I know someone has tips, I just don't.

You will be tempted to think and talk about this condition all the time because you are inevitably obsessed because it affects almost all you do. It would be wise for everyone's sake to resist the temptation as much as possible. I have failed. As you can see.

I Fracture My Jaw

What has finally driven me back to the blog is this: My jaw is wired shut and two things I most enjoy doing most (yes, deliberate use of two "mosts")--talking and eating--have suddenly lost about 3/4 of their attraction for me.

I earn my living by thinking and talking, and I think in part by talking. Since I tripped on a piece of Portland sidewalk 10 days ago, landing squarely on my chin and breaking my mandible, talking is tiring, a little painful, and seriously embarrassing. I have been grateful for all the people who have said to me, "I've tried talking through my teeth to see what that's like for you, and it's awful!" The effort to empathize warms my heart, but I know they know trying it out is nothing like having it imposed on you. I sound slushy and sticky. Apologizing to the few patients I've seen or talked to on the phone is how I start my visits. And the muscles of my face constantly tighten and try to force my teeth, already as close as they can get, closer.

This happened at a time I wouldn't have chosen, at the juncture of two jobs. While I'm thankful for COBRA (health care portability law), and a new employer who is willing to give me a light schedule and several more days off than I'm sure she wishes I had to take, some of my anxiety is that I am now dealing with people who don't know me, who don't know that I never take sick time, and who don't know how much I really want to dive in and learn the new job. (Also, at my old clinic, my patients would have patted my hand and said, "There, there, we don't mind that you sound like you're talking through mashed potatoes, we're just glad you're okay". Probably in Spanish. My new ones probably won't. And actually if they did, it'd be weird.)

But you don't get offered choice in this kind of thing, only in how you respond. So I am off on a hopefully brief adventure of character building and ego adjusting and perspective acquiring, trying with very mixed success to use my shamefully frequent self-pity as a trigger to pray for, oh, say, quake victims in Japan, women with rectovaginal fistulas in rural Africa, girls being sold on the street in Portland, and people with real, intractable pain who will come into my office and for whom 2-6 weeks of eating slurry will not make things all right again.

Put up with me if you can, call me if you want to, and remember to give thanks that you can, any time you want to, lick your lips.

Observations while packing to move. And downsize.

Books that have been on your shelf unread for years (many never read), will suddenly look exceedingly interesting when you are faced with giving them away.

A job that at the outset looks like no big deal will after a few days reveal itself to be a very big deal.

Most of what we have is junk. We are fortunate enough to recognize that; it will save us from thinking that we would have made a mint off of it if only we'd had the time and foresight to have a garage sale. Our gift to ourselves is not to have a garage sale.

Our gift to our children is to move to half the space now and only keep what can fit there. This is written from the perspective of a child-in-law who had to help clear off a 60-year-old farm a few years back. (Their gift to us will be to come take their stuff away now).

It is surprising how nostalgic I can get about an oversize one-car garage on my husband's account.

Suddenly I'm obsessed with flat screens and other things that take up less space. Unfortunately until we sell our big roomy old house for less than we paid for our slightly less old compact model, budget is tighter. (But this computer monitor is about 3 feet deep. It's gotta go soon.)

Word of advice. Before you buy, you might want to check and see if your new house has cell phone reception. Farewell to the T-Mobile plan that has served our family well for 5+ years.

This is an adventure. People are shockingly impressed that we are doing it at all. It's good to go on an adventure.

Not Better Than Average

Have you read/heard of the research that says most people think they are better than average drivers? I'm not one of them. I think that I am a worse than average driver by nature, and try to compensate by being a very vigilant driver, taking caffeine for the morning commute, driving a very small car to minimize the damage I might do in a moment of inattention, trying not to pay attention to anything around me that might be more interesting than what is ahead of me, never talking (never mind texting, which is inconceivable) on the cell while driving, or drinking before driving.



I also don't find myself to be a woman of better than average character. My motives for much of what I do are base self-preservatory motives. When I pray not to do harm in my work, I'm praying not just for my patients' safety, but also for my ability to go on doing my job and being able to live with myself. Doing one's duty is the duty of all, and many if not most do theirs; I try to do mine. That makes me, at best, a person of average character. But my obstacles are not as high as those of most people in this world, so maybe average is an overestimate.


Of the things I love to do--read, write poems, sing, care for (and entertain) those I love, and those entrusted to my care--most people who love to do those things do them better than I do. And among those who love God, God knows I am not his most passionate and dedicated soul, loving with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. But, because of his grace, I haven't given up. I still hope for those occasions when I forget myself and where I fall in the continuum of the rest of sin-touched humanity, and do the right thing for the right reason, and love for the sake of the beloved, and rise above not all the others, but myself, by pure grace. It stands to reason that if that ever happens, I won't notice.


And just so you don't find this morbidly depressing or think I'm obnoxiously self-effacing--like that could ever happen--there are a few things I do well: Whereas I'm not normally a good judge of character, tending to trust those who are up to no good, I was, when it mattered 37 years ago, a profoundly good judge of husband material. And I'm a great speller and punctuater. Or is it punctuator?)

Undeep Thoughts

Doesn't anyone but me find the Tree in "The Giving Tree" more than just a bit of an enabler? I never found this story as heartwarming as my friends did. And I really wonder if Shel Silverstein meant it that way.

One good thing about electronic medical records (and there aren't a lot of good things yet) is that I get to spend a little less time on hold to medical organizations (labs, pharmacies, hospitals, nursing homes, radiology clinics) and listening to their music, ads, etc. Salem Hospital is currently the worst. Yesterday I was victimized by a sad, dreamy, slowed-down piano version of, yeah, this is weird, "The Candy Man". To judge from their hold music, SH wants to be your hospital if you are into Lawrence Welk reruns and '50's movie theme music. Oregon Health and Science University favors Top 40 classical, absolutely nothing you can't hum along to even if you own fewer than 5 classical albums. Walgreen's at least has decent pop sometimes--I've occasionally been disappointed to be interrupted in my sing-along by the actual pharmacist answering the phone. Nursing homes/retirement centers are the other worst: They seem to assume that almost everyone who calls is actually looking for a nursing home so that the innocent nurse practitioner answering an urgent call from a nurse is assaulted with ads telling her what a great place this would be for her or her loved one to live. With some spritely music to punctuate. These are the times when electronic access to records and order forms can't come fast enough!

Things I will miss when we, Lord willing, in a month or two, move to Portland:

• My clothesline (new place has no place private to put one and I don't like to hang even my clean laundry in public).
• The Santa Rosa plum tree. Grabbing a plum off it and eating it bent over to let the juice hit the grass instead of my clothes.
• The wood stove, as even the smallest would probably blast us out of the new place, which is, well, little.
• The Evilberries, as my daughter named the unreproducible thorny blackberryboysenberryloganberrywhoknowswhatotherberry hybrids that were an attempt to keep the neighbor kids from coming through the fence (ineffective) but make the best jams and cobblers we'll never see again.
• Having the kids spend the night and eat several meals in a row with us. But we should see them more often, if for less time at a pop.
• Sunday walks with Susan. I'll always talk to Susan, thank God for the technology that makes that easy, but we won't get to walk as often. Maybe I'll have to get a dog, name it Lucy, and be Susan to someone else on Sundays.

Speaking of whom, this is the poem which really kicked off my poem-writing jag of the 20-oughts:

Poem for Susan, Epiphany 2007

Sitting on the sofa at ten.
The phone still warm from my ear.
Pondering why I am glad I didn’t accidentally say
before hanging up
“Love you” (as I say to my family) instead of
“Take care” (as I say to my friends).
Wondering why that would have embarrassed both of us
because we really are good enough friends that it is certainly true,
and we certainly both know it.
But still glad I didn’t accidentally say it.

And because of our conversation
About the common disaster that has overtaken our family,
the sudden decline of a loved old one
and the hardship that creates for us all,
I am happy to sit,
hearing in the near silence
the hum and blow of the furnace,
feeling in my motionlessness
the pulse of my blood,
noticing in the not-noticing
the absence any real pain in my body.

This won’t last.
I’m not entitled for it to.
But I’m grateful
for hearing, pulse, and painlessness.
And, of course, for you.

Not a Bad September Day

This morning, one of those pitch-perfect September mornings, the first Saturday after school started, I ran past the soccer fields, and it was all as it's been since my kids were kids. Tiny creatures in crayon yellow and crayon green T-shirts were buzzing around a black and white ball, with adults hovering above and around them with whistles and snacks and sweatshirts. Of course it took me back to my days sitting sideline, often with a nursing textbook, always with other grownups with whom I may or may not have had a lot in common, but if nothing else, at least those kids. It was a ritual, a rite, in our case one that our son always seemed to regret having gotten involved with shortly after the start of the season. I kind of miss those days, and I kind of don't. I felt much more a part of this community then, which was cool.

This afternoon, a pitch-perfect September afternoon, I did a Dallas afternoon romp, first to the library to return overdue books, get seduced by some others I don't have time for, and to check out my those books without human help. Okay, I needed a human to help me learn to do it, but now I can do it alone. When the lady cheerfully told me I could check out books without her, the first thing out of my mouth was, "But what about your job?" She assured me she'd still have a job. (I hope she wasn't insulted, thinking I thought her job was only about passing things under a scanner and collecting the only kind of fines most people don't mind paying. She didn't seem to be.) Then I went to a vacant lot and bought apples, corn, and shiny red pears from the blind man and his family who always sell them. I had to read the scale and report honestly so they could charge me correctly. He did the math in his head. Then I went to a coffee kiosk in the Safeway parking lot and ordered a cherry Italian soda without cream, which is one of the prettiest and most refreshing things in the world. THEN, a glutton for a good afternoon, and mainly just a glutton, I went to the deserted noodle and sushi place on Main and got the evilest yummy sushi roll, now known as a Dallas Roll, which is deep fried. I was the only one in the perfectly un-air-conditioned restaurant and enjoyed a peaceful feast over a book I like but expect to end badly, and it all only was broken by my pager bleating at me, because, yes, I'm on call.

A little later my daughter called, and I told her of the roadbumps in the way of our efforts to move to her general neck of the woods, North Portland, but that I hadn't lost hope. She told me that she has some adoptive grandchildren in that neighborhood she thinks we might take advantage of (and their parents of us!) and I was glad to hear it.

Now, this evening, I'm going to do a bad job of cooking steak, and eat the corn I bought, and try to polish off a children's feature (is there a better word than "feature" for this kind of thing? It isn't really a story, so...?) about lost and found sheep and people. Sometimes I think my life is a little bland. I imagine by now you do, too. But a normal day like this is such a pipe dream for so many, and I will not despise that, and I will be, am, grateful.

Generations

Last week was the annual Doyle (my side of the family) gathering at the beach. I realized we've been going to the beach together every summer for about 35 years now. There are 14 of us all told now, down from a high of 15: Mom, her three children and our spouses, our collective 7 children. None of the seven currently have spouses, and Mom has no great grandchildren.

At times I feel a little wistful about this, but my sister reminded me that we in our generation are all still very tethered to the working world, all work more than full time, and would probably not be the grandparents our mom and dad were, as they retired with energy to spare. It actually made me feel better, oddly, and it also helps to recall that we have marvelous children, who are making their way in the world and making life better for others, and who don't break our hearts on a daily basis, as many children unfortunately do.

If there were no God, having children would have to be considered a crap shoot, with the likelihood of pain and pleasure about equal. Recently on NPR I heard about a study (or several?) indicating that most people are less happy after they have children than before. This is hard to believe from where I sit, but may be true, I suppose. But there is a God, who I believe arranges for our spiritual progress through the fruit of our loins, and theirs through us, if we're expectant and alert. Which is a bigger deal than mere Happiness. I'm grateful for the progress and the happiness mine have provoked.

I'm also grateful for the Doyles who are great cooks, great laughers, great listeners to music (and some of us great sing-alongers, even if others of us disagree), great junk-shop trawlers, and who, though we only do it three times, a year, love to hang out with each other.

Bad memory

I read a riveting neuroscience blog called The Frontal Cortex at http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/. (Yeah, you heard me. Riveting.) A recent post called "Memory is Fiction" discusses the mutability and unreliability of memory in a way that is quite depressing.

Evidence exists that the more often you remember something the more inaccurate the memory becomes. Apparently it gets trimmed down, embellished up, worked over, and plowed under the soil of other memories, and you really can't trust it as well as you wish you could. Was I really going to a church quilting day when I heard of the Challenger disaster? Was I really standing is line to eat lunch in 7th grade when the PA system began broadcasting radio coverage of the Kennedy assassination? (Did I really eat a whole bag of potato chips every time I babysat for the Kirchbergers?) Studies that have asked for these vivid kinds of memories to be recalled immediately and a long time after the events they recall show that it all really breaks down something awful. And yet, much as I love studies, and Science, there is a level on which I really can't believe this is true. Memory is sacred.

But I wonder if the science isn't a case for reunions and hanging out occasionally with old friends you never see and don't think you have a lot in common with anymore. Just going over the old stuff you did that made you who you are, and getting their take on it all seems worthwhile.

My little sister often "reminds" me that I went to bat for her when she was arguing with mom over the right to wear nylons to school in junior high. Believe me, this was once not only fashionable, but essential to avoid being a fashion pariah. Really, it was. She says I told mom to please not make her go through what I had gone through in my 7th and 8th grade years (when mom's position was firm--nylons were expensive and stupid). I used the quotes around "reminds" above because I don't actually remember doing this. But I'm glad to know it. It makes me look like a good big sister, and that makes me happy. And if she didn't "remind" me, I wouldn't know it.

I think the unreliability of memory is also, obviously, a case for writing things down fresh, in an indelible format. Like blogging (snicker) or a real paper journal.

Visit, write. Beat those unfaithful neurons!

Visit to the cemetery

Today, we did something we've never actually done before. We (Merlin, kids, and I) went up to the Dallas cemetery and put flowers at the grave of Merlin's parents and our aunt. I know Memorial Day is established to honor war dead, but we are Mennonites, as were the Brandt elders before us, and so have no war dead of our own. But I remembered that Mom and Dad used to go up to their parents' graves on Memorial Day, and it seemed for once like we ought to honor them the same way. I suddenly wanted anyone who passed by the section where they and their parents lie to know we hadn't forgotten them.

I was surprised how widely decorated the (huge, beautiful) cemetery was, including the section near the road that contains the bones of Dallasites buried over a century ago. Many other headstones of folks we knew already had been visited and remembrances left. One headstone had little glass beads and stars arranged around the flowers. Molly had suggested we leave a few chocolate covered cherries (which, I guess, sounds a little "Dia de los Muertes" to me, although kind of appropriate to her grandparents), but I forgot to get them.

Not sure when we'll do it again. Not sure I know why we do it. But I think however we go about it, it's good to recall with gratitude the great cloud of witnesses who are no longer running the race, but who enabled us to run it, and who I believe still care how we run it.

Because it is time to blog again....

I've been on vacation, and back, and the coming back was with a vengeance, as the saying goes, to an office under stress. Well, under more stress than usual. I've stared at the screen for some indeterminate amount of time, trying to think what to tell you. It would be a boring little kvetch, if I talk about work.

So I'll share the few poems that came out of the travels this time. The first two have an obvious connection to the trip, and the last just popped out after I came home. If history is any indicator, it could be a while before any more poems happen.


The Right Coast

I am home from Florida.
Only two margaritas in ten days,
but I got drunk on the ocean,
so different from my Pacific,
recalling which,
I felt the guilt of unfaithfulness.

So drunk on the ocean, I couldn’t drive.
I could only
stare and stare at the green and greens
of the bay, the ocean, the bight.
On the last day, that ocean turned nearly
blue for me.
So I could stand to come home.

May 2010


Old Folks

Wed seventy-three years, they were
Parted by death for only seven months,
and then reunited by it.
They were in love the whole time
(truly, though not always smoothly,
I learned near the end).

Coming past Mt. Hood on a Continental flight,
I wrap their third son’s arm in both of mine,
perfectly content, and aware of it,
to be watching Mt. Hood with this man after a paltry
36 years, knowing at some point, unfathomably,
death will us part.

That son, a man, married a child
who knew what she wanted,
has always known what she has,
and never questioned her choice.
Grateful, as other children-in-law,
to those old folks who lasted

longer than any of us will.

May 2010 (Pete and Sally Brandt’s 77th anniversary)


Aromata: Three Haiku from Runs

Fallen fir needles
smell like wild blackberry pie
baking in the sun.

*

Someone must have brought
Ariel laundry powder
home from Mexico.

*

Mimosa’s out there,
but where? Follow the nose out
over a high fence.


May 2010

A Few Thoughts on Aging

The drive to correct grammar and spelling does not diminish with age. You just learn to only do it on your own stuff.

A good pair of glasses that will not embarrass you in front of your 20- and 30-something friends, with progressive (read, "line-free") correction for reading and computer work, costs you $400. After the AARP discount.

We look younger than our parents at our age because they helped us keep our own teeth.

We should be enviable company to our youngers--we know a lot of interesting stuff (and yet know that we know nothing), can see the humor in anything, can add humor where we can't find it, and we are so humble.

They will be us before they know it.

When I was in my thirties, I thought those 40-something women who wore shorts over their swimsuits were just being silly. Around 15 years ago, when I was 40-something, I got it. I'm now buying "swimskirts". Never say never.

I repeat myself, but... Never say never.

A poem from two years ago:

Sleeveless dress

My arms, somewhat dimpled,
a little slack,
must offend some who see them.

But I already retired my thighs and my belly
from public life.
Everything from chin to cleavage is at risk.
And the toenails. Please.

I can’t retire my arms.
They will go beneath summer sleeves
When I take a veil over my face.
Not a day sooner.

Hey, Poppa Bird!

Today is my dad's 86th birthday, and although he left the mortal phase of his 11 years ago, I think of him and his mark on us often. "Poppa Bird" was one of his favorite nicknames for himself. Here are some of the things he did:

Balanced me standing on one hand at age 5 months. Must have driven Mom nuts. I have a picture of this blown up to blurry proportions in my stairwell, so I see him and me in 1952 every time I go downstairs.

Scared (or tried to scare) my few boyfriends. Mainly by use of his strange sense of humor. Couldn't scare Merlin.

Taught me to drive, and especially how to skid to a stop on gravel. He always said to keep my eyes far down the road, not at what was right in front of me. Good advice on all levels, especially for a girl who tends to fixate on all the obstacles within three feet of her instead of just mowing them down.

Taught me (albeit through the agency of mom after he died) to make the best homemade dill pickles anyone has ever eaten. Really. The Best.

Went frequently to Monty's Bar, and the Old Heidelburg Inn, and brought back the foods that are still my downfall, namely anything pungent and salty, especially pickled polish sausage and greasy fries.

Told me I didn't need to go to college since I was a girl and then sent me and bragged about me to his friends.

Got lung cancer at 45, survived, I assume miraculously, and kept on smoking. Yeah, I can't recommend that, but he was (all due respect) kind of a cuss that way. This retired him, so he spent lots of time gardening and ferrying his elderly friends around to appointments.

Loved to send flowers to all of us. (Maybe not to my brother. Casey?)

Went to the mall the day I delivered his first grandchild and had a T-shirt made that said "Call me Grampaw: Molly". Then every time another grandchild appeared, went down to the mall and added a name to it. Actually wore it a lot.

Could find a bargain on anything, and no matter what you bought, if you told him what you paid, assured you that he could have gotten it cheaper. I know, lots of you have that kind of dad. I think it's Y-chromosome-related.

Loved going to the doctor. Didn't live to see his "First-borned" (nickname for me) become something close to one.

Had very strange taste in clothes.

Had excellent taste in women. Happy Dad's Birthday, Mom!

Running Mercies, Traveling Plans, Poems

I awoke at 0645 and freaked out briefly thinking it was Tuesday (0600 is my rising time Tuesday, because that is my first day of the work week, and I face about two and a half to three feet of charts that want something from me before the pressure-cooker really starts rattling).

But it wasn't. I rejoiced that for the first time in a week I had fallen asleep and stayed all night in the same bed without the help of anything but God and Advil. Then I was spared having to face the dreaded treadmill by the unexpected appearance of the sun after an all-night rain. Well, it was probably an all-night rain; as I said, I slept uncharacteristically soundly. Here's what I observed on my run:

1. The longer the rain, the more earthworms on the sidewalk. I hate stepping on earthworms, simply because I don't know if they suffer or not. I sometimes rescue them if the rain is over and I think it is safe for them to climb back into the earth. But today I didn't, because it is supposed to keep raining and they might just have to find the sidewalk again, and there were far too many anyway. I wish them well; they are an honored part of the great chain of life.

2. Sun and rain can coexist for considerable stretches in this part of the world. I don't know that it ever stopped raining the whole time I ran. Lots of blue, lots of gray, and at the end, I was able to stop and find the rainbow that pretty much always has to be there in that kind of weather. I love sun and blue-black clouds in the same sky. I always have to stop and stare.

3. The creek is fast, deep and brown now. The creek is to Dallas what the Willamette is to Portland: Runs through the heart and gives it some of the best of its personality. I dreamed about the creek and the ways to get down to it that don't actually exist last night. I think I will miss it if we do move to the Portland area. I'm unlikely to live so close to natural water at play ever again.

4. I have a favorite song I like to listen to as I sit on the porch and cool down after a run: James Taylor and Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of "Here Comes The Sun". It was especially appropriate today. It's from YYM and friends' album "Songs of Joy and Peace" which I recommend with all my heart to all. It is a song I hope someone can find and play at my funeral. I wish I could be at my funeral with James and Yo-Yo and sing along; I love it that much.

So, speaking of sun and rain, we spent much of the rest of the morning working on vacation plans online. We need to warm up, and so decided on a trip to south Florida. Everglades, Keys, beach. It helped that the fare is $218 round-trip, and will add a LOT of air miles. I have called my brother to borrow a couple of his Jimmy Buffet novels and we are taking suggestions from friends who have been there. It will be the off-season there (we try to pick off-seasons, but not too off). We are taking suggestions from those who've been there, so feel free.

Here are two poems from the past couple of years, one sparked by a run near the creek, the other by loopy weather.


Crick

Rickreall, I married on your bank
A boy who grew up wading in your water,
Catching your crawdads,
Moving pipe on a farm that drank you.

I became a nurse so that boy
would not one day work both that farm
And a full-time job.
But we never made that move.

I don’t regret nursing or not farming.
Nowadays I sign little pieces of paper
So people can swallow little pills
That they hope will make them feel

The way they might naturally feel
If they had grown up beside you,
Raised by the people who raised him,
Or if they’d married that boy.

(2007)


Moment in Yellowstone

The fountain at our feet was nothing special
by Yellowstone standards—
a butterscotch hole bubbling
with hot, noxious water.
Not surprising if people once thought
this was where the vapors of hell
condensed and boiled to the surface.
But the pools just beyond it were liquid
opal and peridot, iridescing in the
sun pouring over our shoulders.
And the pines beyond them radiated back
that same sun’s green-gold rays.
But between us and all of that heat and light—
snow.
Not on the ground, no, but
falling, driving,
straight across the whole sunny scene.
Ridiculous, stunning.

(2009)

El Salvador Anniversary

The ides of March means different things to different people. Maybe it makes some of you think of junior-year English class, back when they used to make us read Julius Caesar because it was just about the only Shakespeare play with no sex in it. Maybe it is just another day in your countdown to St. Patrick's Day (I know I am always thinking ahead to be sure I have something clean and green ready to wear on my mom's birthday) or to the first day of a longed-for spring. For me, it's always going to be the anniversary of the day I spent patrolling the courtyards of a large school in Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador, as an election observer.

That'd be one year ago today. I had been sitting in church a few months earlier when our pastor mentioned that a local organization was recruiting people to be official election observers to help keep honest the first Salvadoran national election that had a good chance of changing the nation's ruling party. With persistent trepidation I just kept saying I'd think about it until I had drifted into saying "Yes". So glad I did. The whole thing was like a crash course in grass-roots democracy in action.

I didn't catch anyone stealing a vote, stuffing a ballot box, stopping a legitimate voter from voting (although there a lot more things that can keep you from voting in El Salvador than in the U.S.--for one thing, you have to register six months in advance), or exchanging money or weapons for votes. I didn't see anyone that seemed to have been brought in from across the Nicaraguan border to impersonate a Salvadoran voter. I just saw an enthusiastic body politic doing its job, and then getting its thumbs dyed purple to prove it had done it.

And then, just before we left, we were thanked, over and over, for doing nothing but being there to bear witness. Here is the poem I wrote a few days later:

March 15, 2009, Izalco, El Salvador

We rose in the dark and raced through the streets
to see the set-up: rivals settling into their chairs
side by side, hip to hip, cheek by jowl
to do the country’s business,
showing their loyalties gently if at all
(unlike their neighbors who would come from church
to vote with their children beautiful in party colors).
At those tables, I couldn’t tell
who was ARENA, who was FMLN
until I saw who brought them food and drink.

The word “VIGILANTE” rode the backs of
watchers who stood all day, two at each table,
dressed in red, or
dressed in blue, white, and red.
Smiling at me all day,
the middle-aged foreigner
in the white vest with the black letters,
they answered my questions,
and asked me theirs.
That word will never again sound like
The evil that it sounds like here.
They were vigilant, steadfast
on their feet all the long day, until

The doors were closed,
the boxes opened,
the ballots unfolded,
the votes read aloud,
counted by the rivals
before the vigilantes
so no one could question
that this was a real election,
a real election.
At last, a real election.