Deep Thoughts – Page 3 – My Truant Pen

The wrong trail

When I come up to New Hampshire, I almost always stand with my metaphorical eyes north to the White Mountains and my back to the Lakes Region. Sadly lacking the relatives with a summer home purchased for $2 in 1964, which seems to be how everyone else I know has access to a lake/beach house, my New Hampshire heart’s home is White Lake State Park, but I’m generally itinerant. From White Lake, you can look south to prosaic Mt. Whittier with the big ol’ antennae on it, or you could look north to the majestic, mysterious and storied Mt. Chocorua, the jewel in the crown of the Whites (in my opinion).

Hike More, Worry Less – my motto this trip

But this cabin I’m staying in is called the Ring Dike cabin. And inside an overfull white folder, scattered between brochures for train rides and menus from BBQ joints, were a handful of geological and (most intriguingly) astrological printed internet articles talking about the Ring Dike left behind by a 10,000 ft volcano that did a lot of exploding hereabouts 200m years ago. There is, in fact, this bizarrely circular ring of mountains about 10 miles wide where the caldera of this long-extinct volcano once stood. And I, having driven past it dozens of times or more, have never realized (never mind explored) it.

There is a relief map hanging in my bedroom showing the Ossipee Mountains. You can see how weirdly circular they are!

This seems like the world’s most perfect ghost story fodder. (Cabin in the woods. Alone. In a PSYCHIC RING.) And I promise to do more investigation and write a bit about the geologic and loony aspects of this Ring Dike. But first, I wanted to get in it and see it for myself. The morning was bright and clear. The day open and inviting. The hiking boots were already by the door.

But where to go? I have an extensive collection of maps and books to guide my hiking while I’m up here. And not a single one of them looks south of White Lake. So I turned to my trusty ol’ friend, the internet (I sweet-talked the wifi password from the landlord), and found a perfect hike. You’d drive into the heart of the great circle, then climb up to a ridge and look around and then climb back down. Looked great. (Anyone who has hiked with me before is already having heart palpitations.) Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a description of the trail head, but the road dead ended there. How hard could it be. (Really, I should come with a warning sign for hiking.) I emailed my itinerary to my husband and consoled myself that I may not have a map, but I do have a compass!

I never found the trail head. I did have a splendid time driving through increasingly remotish woods on dirt roads, being passed by cars that were cool when I was in high school with tattoo’d men hanging most of the way out of the moonroof. Oh New Hampshire. Never change. But the road was marked private where it should have continued. I drove back to the spot where there had been parking and a private land, public use trailhead. There was a river there, a mighty confluence of three streams, that looked like a slice of heaven in dappled light. As I was debating which random trail to follow, two guys got out of a car and headed up the path. I followed them. They made me uncomfortable. They kept skirting off the path for brief excursions, going from in front of me to behind me then passing me again. I was edgy, until I realized that they were geocaching. Phew! They were friendly and fine.

A little ways in, I met a kind man wearing a music tshirt and walking a dog. He advised me to watch for the cairn and the red blazes, and take the Bayle Mountain trail. I took his advice, and attained a spectacular view for not that much hiking. I watched a rain squall pass over Chocorua lake. I ate my lunch. The wind blew away the flies. The mountain was entirely covered in ripe blueberries, like in Blueberries for Sal, only shorter. A man explained to his tiny, triumphant son that the hill had been scoured by a fire four years ago, and that it brought us the views and the blueberries.

Blueberries — The blueberries were perfectly ripe and delicious

Man. It was everything I wanted it to be. Except my ultraviolet light water purifier ran out of batteries and I couldn’t fill up my thermos when I got back to the glorious river.

I have now purchased a subscription to AllTrails and sent tomorrow’s itinerary to my phone. I think I would be content if I hiked every day, and forgot about the writing book. You can write books in winter.

I was about to wrap this all up philosophically when I remembered the most exciting part! I found a kind of scat I’d never seen before (clearly herbivore) and was wondering what it could be when I also found a tuft of white fur in a nearby pond. I think there must be a mountain goat up there! Very exciting!

Um, philosophical ending. It was really nice to go hiking, and it’s really nice to rest and make my own choices. But I’m still kind of bad at it. Guess I need more practice!

Sabbatical

Sabbatical is a word which, at the root, is a Sabbath. Sabbath is word which has fallen greatly out of favor. Chances are excellent that you, dear reader, append the “Black” to the word Sabbath in your mental reading of it, and it brings to mind such musical offerings as “War Pigs”. (Which, I confess, I secretly loving singing in Rock Band.)

But Sabbath, forgotten word it is, means something critically important. So important, in fact, that it lies at the heart of one of God’s ten commandments: Remember the Sabbath, and keep it Holy. The Sabbath is the word we use to describe the seventh day. In the story of Genesis, when God created the world, he worked for six days and on the seventh, he rested. Jesus, in the New Testament, turns the rigid traditions of this unworking day to human kindness. As he and his friends healed and ate on the holy day he explained, “Man is not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath is made for man.”

We do not treat resting as though it is one of the most important things God has called us to do – a critical and crucial element of the foundational Western religions. We do not rest on the seventh day, or the seventh week, or the seventh month. In a traditional sense, that Sabbatical I reference is to be taken in the seventh year. I have deeply and gravely violated this commandment, over and over. Of all my failings as reckoned by the ten commandments, this one is the worst. I’ve rarely even tried to keep it. But this winter, I was straining under the weight of my tasks and obligations, and I got to counting how little time I had taken for rest. It was nearly 10 months this year between times when I took a week off. And it’s been about 18 years since I took two or more weeks off from work. So often when I’m not working, I’m still not resting. I’m off having fun with all my measure: camping, being with friends, taking the kids somewhere, canning, cooking, gardening, gaming, hiking, etc. These are all things I love and enjoy and gravitate to. But they are not rest.

But there’s a reason we were given this commandment, the strongest abjuration, to rest. We desperately need it. I cannot speak for you, but without a real, bone-deep reset I get hollow, irritable, shallow and short-sighted. I struggle to bring my most loving self. I can barely pick my eyes off my feet and look at the glory of this world and life I’ve been called to live.

In that snapping point this winter, where I felt barely-held-together, I had this fantasy. In my fantasy, I rented a cabin near Jackson Hole – a log Aframe – with a full view of the Tetons in all their spectacular glory. I went out there, alone, in the second week of September and spent 6 weeks there watching the fall creep across the countryside. Maybe I’d even see the first glazing of white across the face of the peaks before I finished my novel and returned home. Yes yes, a great American novel fantasy is an old chestnut. But these things are popular for good reasons! Of course, you can’t write all day. So there would be the hikes I would take, attaining vast views. There would be rambles by the (conveniently close) river. I would watch the world around me carefully, touching it with wondering hands, and become friends again with nature. I would slow down. My breathing would slow. My world would slow. I would have space to remember who I am and why I choose to be that person.

But of course, there’s absolutely no way I can take six weeks off, go two thousand miles from my family and leave my husband with all the job, all the kids, all the chores that the two of us can barely keep up with. If you know me in person, you might also be rightfully skeptical about just how crazy I might go in six weeks of solitude. I am an unabashed extrovert, and I love people.

Then the project manager part of my brain raised an excellent thought: OK, if six weeks in the Tetons is not possible, what CAN you do?

I thought of what I wanted: the mountains, the nature, the writing, the slowness, the time alone, the rest. And I recalled that my beloved children were going to be at Camp Wilmot for two and four weeks. I realized that I could be gone for a week, inclusive of two weekends, and leave my husband with no more responsibility than himself. I looked for a cabin, and I found one where the dining room table has a view of my second favorite mountain: Chocorua. I booked it for a week, and ignored the draconian refund policy.

So here I am. At a table overlooking that increasingly-beloved mountain. Alone, in a cabin (although within easy call of the hosts). I have my laptop, but no wifi. I have a crate of books (quite literally). I have printed a draft of my novel, and the ‘fridge is full of enough food that I don’t have to leave for days.

This neglect of my writing here reveals a lot, I think, about how much time and space for thinking I have had. It may even show a glimpse of the state of my soul. I _think_ by writing. I understand myself by telling you stories. I used to talk with you all the time, but lately my words have dried up. I feel like I’ve said the things that I know. I’ve come to understand that many of my thoughts are cyclical, winding their way through the seasons like the constellations. I have made absolutely no commitments this week. I have not promised anything to myself or others. Perhaps this post will be the only thing I write before I’m entirely overtaken by a much-needed lethargy. But I’m hopeful that as I renew my spirit, refresh my mind, and restore my soul in this Sabbath week – I will also reconnect with my writing, and with you.

“Come to me, you who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

This post was made with no internet access. You are now discovering how differently I write when I can’t look up facts, cite my quotes, or double check my details.

Though much is taken, much abides

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I was running when my watch buzzed with a message from my brother, “Y’all seeing the fire at Notre Dame?”. At first I thought of the Fighting Irish. But the link, which I did not stop my pace to read, was from the BBC in Europe. So the other Notre Dame. I’ve been heart-sore lately.Good exercise on a day when the world was contemplating renouncing the despair of winter for the hopeful enthusiasm of spring was meant to be a brief panacea. I tried to put the fire out of mind (hoping it was minor) and focus on the daffodils.

Running through the well-kept houses and lawns of wealthy Winchester, I reminded myself how amazing our civilization is. It is so much easier to destroy than build. But there is so much more built than not. What a great weight of effort lay behind every vista. And to the pounding rhythm of my slow pace, the words came back to me: Though much is taken, much abides

I find myself greatly consoled by remembered poetry. You’d think that this would mean I spend more time reading and memorizing poetry, but humans are not so sensible. We do not always invest in the things that offer us the greatest returns. We do not avoid the things that bring us harm. But this poem is not one I’ve read. It is, instead, a poem that a friend has memorized. I remember one bright night, when we were all younger than we are now, when we went together to see a play – a musical. We all agreed that it was quite possibly the worst performance any of us had ever seen. But walking back together through the streets of Boston, through swirling mist and halogen light, he recited all of Ulysses to the city sky. I’ve likely heard him say this poem 20 times in our years of friendship. So it is unsurprising for me to hear it in his voice. My friend’s voice assures me, much abides.

When I returned from my run and saw the pictures of the flames, I thought nothing could survive. What was built over centuries and endured for longer centuries would be wiped out in the slow course of my 5k jog. I was comforted only by the memory of that poetry. “Much abides” I reminded myself. And indeed, from the implausible wall of flames much more was recovered – largely because of human planning, care and expertise – than I dared hope for. The windows remain. The bees remain. The gothic walls and buttresses were designed independent of the roof, so the one could fall while the others held. I read an amazing response (which I cannot now find) by a medievalist who long studied the cathedral at Reims. The scholar talked with great hope about how the Medieval architects had learned so much (from hard experience) about how cathedrals burned that they had built new ones to withstand conflagration. The churches were designed to burn, but yet abide. And looking at what remains in the rubble in Paris, that seems true. How clever we are, we humans, when we put our minds to resilience and preservation. How foresightful we can be, and have been. Much abides.

Today, as I write, it is Holy Saturday. Last night, I went to Good Friday services – my favorite of the year. There’s no sugar coating harsh truths on Friday night. We put ourselves in the place of the false accusers, the cowardly arresters, the sleepy and scared friends who fail at the first test. We speak of beatings and mockery and spears and nails in the flesh. We listen to a dying man make fun of another dying man. There’s no place on Good Friday for looking away or softening. I think it’s no coincidence that rarely are children present that night. (Although I was very, very glad that my youngest son joined me, for the first time. I’m not sure my children will be able to understand my faith if they never worship with me on Good Friday.) On this Friday night – and on the long Saturday that follows – we live in a reality where God himself has died and we cannot see how anything can ever be okay again. Hope is lost, and all that remains is cleaning up and moving on.

Of course, there’s always the rest of that story. I usually practice my Easter hymns on Good Friday (which feels like cheating, but practice you must!) Beyond hope, hope arrives. There is redemption for the failed and weak. There is forgiveness. Although there is also real loss – Judas is never forgiven. I sometimes wonder if he would have been, if he’d chosen repentance over despair.

As we look to rebuild Notre Dame, and the black southern churches destroyed by a hateful arsonist, I am reminded of another phrase caught in my mind lately, from Isaiah:

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Isaiah 58:12

As I looked for the right words to close my thoughts, my pastor posted a poem by her favorite poet, whose title caught my eye. I leave you friends, with a new poem. May it be a consolation. For much abides.

What Abides, What Returns

The season of rituals

Ritual has an interesting place in the culture I find myself living in. Rituals, especially shared rituals, are falling aside in this era of individualism. What are our remaining shared rituals? I find myself thinking “Well, there’s Sweet Caroline in the 8th inning…” Many of our oldest, time honored rituals seem to be evolving past recognition (weddings used to be a religious service) or falling away altogether. I myself didn’t watch fireworks this 4th of July, and have eaten Thanksgiving dinner at a Denny’s.

When starting a family, especially when far from your own family, one is confronted with the question of what rituals you’ll create. Will you open presents on Christmas Eve? When do you put up the tree? There are other rituals which simply arise through repetition – like when you realize you’ve thrown a last-minute New Year’s Eve party every year for the last three years. And then there are the rituals that are some sort of strange hybrid, like making up your own holidays and investing them with energy, love and meaning until they become as rich and real to you as any holiday that lives on a pre-printed calendar. (Also, it turns out you can now print your own calendars…)

One tradition that I loved from my family of birth, which I had trouble carrying over to my family in Massachusetts, was the Christmas Tree. Living in the land where Christmas trees grow, we’d always go to Jim Hale’s and tromp around the fields getting increasingly cranky and objecting to each other’s selections of tree. (The fight was actually an acknowledged part of the ritual.) Then we’d get a tree that was too tall and struggle to get it home and into the house. Mom would hide in the kitchen “making cookies” while we wrestled the lights onto the timber, cut about two feet off the bottom with a chainsaw, and argue about the best order of cutting the bindings. Then we’d all gather together and hang the ornaments while listening to Roger Whittaker’s iconic Christmas album. It was always a stressful day, but somehow what began in tumult – with broken icy ground underfoot – ended peacefully, eating warm cookies and debating whether Darcy the Dragon was an ironic anti-capitalist morality play in the warm light of our own Christmas tree. (Assuming no one was still on the roof putting the cut-off top of the tree on top of the ridgeline to at least make it look right from the outside.)

I tried to pull as much of this as possible into my home, but my husband does not love hanging lights (so I can’t disappear to make cookies). There are no cantankerous octagenarians selling Christmas trees around here. And our ceiling is now and always has been a mere 8 feet tall. So over time I’ve learned to change the tradition to match our reality. This year, I decided also to give up my hope of recreating what I thought it should be, and lean into what it was at that moment. So maybe I didn’t have all four of us hanging ornaments and talking about their history and what they meant to us. Maybe I wasn’t making cookies (but Grey was). Maybe I would just do the parts that were important to me, and my family would join me if it was also important to them.

The tree got up in record time, and it was much less stressful than usual. But my husband commented afterwards that although he’d never really loved the ritual of adorning the tree, somehow not being in the scrum of snowflake hanging had hollowed out a little bit of the festive feeling he got looking at the tree. As he and I tread through our fifth decade (and third decade together), we begin to understand more about ourselves. A ritual may not need to be fun or enjoyable to be meaningful.

On the flip side, the last year or two I’ve really wanted to pull the Advent Wreath into our own practice of the holiday. I find it hilarious that in a society so willing to create any Christmas crap you can think of (Santa toilet paper? Zombie gingerbread men ornaments?), it’s actually hard to find something that’s a huge part of the religious practice of Christmas. I looked for years for a home advent wreath that would accept thick pillar candles that could burn the season through. I finally found a five-stand candle holder, and discovered Ikea sells advent candles. Woooo!

But you can’t just go light an advent calendar, willy nilly. It needs, well, a ritual. So over the last year or two a small family ritual has quietly evolved. This year, I’ve been particularly enjoying it. We gather as a family in front of the tree, and we talk a little about the theme of this particular week in Advent. Last week was hope. This week was peace. We dwell a brief moment on those, and what they mean in our lives. Then there’s a small reading. Last weekend was the Magnificat. Today, I asked Grey to read The Peace of Wild Things. We light the candle. (Thane likes that part.) We sing a hymn. (I like that part best.) Last week was “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” (traditional for Advent communion Sunday). This week, I chose “O Come Emmanuel”. And then we are done and return to our evening, the growing line of light fighting against the waning of the sun. It is brief and beautiful.

What are some of your precious rituals? Have you successfully ported rituals from one generation to another? Which ones did you create with intent? Which ones evolved from repetition? Which have you lost forever, and how do you mourn them? What do you wish you had a ritual for – to make deeper and richer?

The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Barry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Like a memory it falls

I woke this morning at about 6 am and couldn’t fall back asleep. For those of you who know me, that’s a statement bordering on absurd. I do not awaken at 6, unless there’s a plane to catch, and when I do happen to stir I turn over and quickly fall back asleep. But this is not a normal morning. The time before last that I laid my head upon a pillow, it was in Singapore. I am profoundly jetlagged – enough to wake me for the day at 6 am.

This early November has introduced itself warm and wet to New England. Last night as I readied for bed the temperatures were clement and the rain tapped beguilingly on the roof and windows. I was alone in the bright, clean bedroom we’ve created – my husband being up in Vermont for a gaming convention. I cracked a window open and felt a familiar, forgotten sense of peace steal over me. You’ve heard so much about the attic project – the bathtub, the flooring, the way the house looks when it’s nothing but bones. But we all have secret agendas, and for me one of the great hopes was for the rain. You cannot hear the rain on the roof from the 2nd floor. But here in the eves of the attic, I hoped it would sound like when I was a girl. The very best sound of rain at night had come when we lived in a trailer in Mineral (you know, the trailer park type – but it was a double wide!). We spent only about a year there – a cold and snowy year. It was actually the manse for the church (housing provided to the pastor) – but the church was without a pastor and we were without a house, so it worked out for a bit. That was my 5th grade year, when I got chicken pox and had run-ins with my reading teacher. I walked across an abandoned baseball diamond to school through vast, spectacular forests of frost that rose 2 inches tall. The ice rose in columns of crystal, elevating clots of dirt skyward. I always felt bad stepping on them, even knowing they’d be entirely destroyed by mid morning and rise again the next day. I was young enough then to hear the rain and not the overwhelming thoughts of a busy mind.

There was a day, as spring edged into summer, when there was a knock at our trailer door. A lady we did not know stood there. She had heard we were looking for a house, and they were planning on selling theirs. Did we want it? That is, no joke, how my parents ended up in the house they live in to this day.

That house is a vast frankensteinian construction. It began life as a company house, alike in size to its neighbors. Those houses are very small. But over time new additions had mushroomed on various sides without any sort of plan or cohesion. A dining room popped out the front. Two bedrooms off the side. An inconvenient solarium off the back that was always too cold or too hot, depending on season. And most spectacularly a two story garage-and-cathedral-ceiling-living-room. The living room is made up entirely of window and is truly vast. My parent’s church easily all fits inside for worship service when the furnace fails to start at the church down the street (a more frequent occurrence than you might guess). But those vast windows overlook on the dark, ominous, steep sides of Stormking on the sunset side. To the North you overlook the town of Mineral up to the waters of Mineral lake, which would curl with fog in the mornings as the waters bequethed their warmth to the air. On the sunrise side of the house, if you can look past the wires and abandoned cars and abandoned houses, Mt. Rainier rises in all her glory above Round Top. I loved both of them with all the passion of my young heart.

Mt. Rainier is unbearably splendid in all seasons (when she can be seen through clouds). I loved the alpenglow of her pink shoulders when the sun had slipped behind Stormking. I loved her pale shadow against the rising sun – one cloud among many on the horizon. I loved her white and blue and green – like the wedding quilt my sister made me – in the bright days. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life, which struck my heart to its very core, was one quiet morning in high school when I arose while it was still dark and saw Mt. Rainier glowing with new snow in the predawn, a crescent moon rising above her and hanging brightly off the tail of that moon was the brightest gem of the night sky – Venus. Such loveliness can never be forgotten.

Mt Rainier in the middle and Roundtop to the right. Not the view from our house – and when I was a girl the shoulders of Roundtop were still covered.

But for all my passion for Mt. Rainier, I loved Roundtop too. When the rains came, as they so often did, Mt. Rainier would vanish, but Roundtop would remain. The Northwest is an interesting place for a history lover. Gazing at the cliffs – golden or hoary depending on the light – you could sense the vast and boundless weight of history. But Washington does not know her history. The town was founded at the turn of the 20th century as a logging town (still is) and a stop on the railroad. My mother has mentioned with shock that she is the longest serving pastor in the history of our small white church. My parents have lived in Mineral, which seemed old before we came, for nearly a third of all the time it has existed. Before that, the lands had been the home of native peoples – likely nomadic in that region. I once found a hand adze in a stream, and I know that there was history in those mountains. Stories. Names. Legends perhaps. But I did not know them. It is possible that no one does – that they were forever lost.

When I went from girl to teen, I loved those quiet rainy days. I discovered an LP, and on those days where Mt. Rainier was hidden and Roundtop shrouded mysteriously with scraps of fog, I would put that record on the record player (entirely anachronistic – I also had the CD of the same album) and listen to the scratch and warmth of the vinyl. I would gaze at the mountains and wonder what their unknowable history was. My gaze would linger over the cliffs that had bested my attempts to climb them (honestly I’m lucky I didn’t die…). And my heart was filled with such unquenchable yearning and joy and longing and perfectness. The album was “Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. And when “Kathy’s Song” came on, “I hear the drizzle of the rain, like a memory it falls…” I was in unrequited love with the whole world and there was nothing short of poetry, song and mountains vast enough to contain it. It’s still one of my favorite songs. Better yet, it’s Grey’s favorite too.

Such passion is harder to come by for an ancient person like me. Forty knows much more than fourteen ever did. I probably have the tools now, if I so chose, to find out what legends are actually known about those views. My days are full of Things To Be Done. My heart, in these days of fear, is so full of anxiety and guilt and horror that there is little room to be slain by beauty.

But this morning, in the dark before the sun rose, I heard the rain on my roof like I did when I was a girl. There was no Roundtop waiting for me at the top of the stairs, but when I cast my eyes out the window they land on the 150 year old slate-roofed Hawkins mansion. The golden-glowing fountain of leaves falling like snowflakes from a gray sky lands on soil whose history half a millennium back is known to me. On the headboard of the bed above me, wrapped in a brown cloth backing with gilt letters, is the “History of Stoneham Mass” by William Stevens – a gift that made me feel profoundly known. (If anyone lands their hands on Silas Dean’s history I will very gladly pay for whatever it takes to obtain a copy!)

And for just a moment I can reach back through the veil of time and burdens, through the sludge of fears and sorrows, and touch the same inarticulate, joyful yearning in the rain.

Kathy’s Song
I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls.

And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England where my heart lies.

My mind’s distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you’re asleep
And kiss you when you start your day.

And a song I was writing is left undone
I don’t know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can’t believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme.

And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for grace and you go I.

Turning 40

A remarkable thing happened at midnight on Saturday – I left my 30s behind and entered my 40s. At that point, I was sitting around a backyard fire with a bunch of my friends around me, having celebrated for most of the evening together. It was a fantastic day, ending a fantastic decade.

The weekend started heading north as fast as possible after work. Camp Wilmot was hosting a 5k, and Grey had begged to be able to go. My husband was mysteriously hiding in the kitchen and forbidding me to look in. So up north Grey and I went, arriving at Wilmot shortly after dark. We sang songs by the fire in the 100 year old barn, then moved to the equally ancient farmhouse for a ceilidh. That evokes a certain celtic air, but in fact there was rather more Macarena – although we did do one really fun reel! It was about 11 when we went to sleep in the gables of the old farm house. I was amazed at how quiet it was outside. There was no noise of traffic – no matter distance. All you could hear was the rustling leaves.

Camp Wilmot from the other side of White’s Pond

We slept well and woke up sliiiiightly late for breakfast (but not too late!) After breakfast, we were at our leisure for a few hours. As Grey caught up with old friends, I took myself on a tour of the grounds and walked around White’s Pond. It was a remarkably peaceful hour. I was responsible only for myself. There was nothing I needed to be doing, or even could be doing. I could walk at my own pace, take as many pictures as I felt like taking when I felt like taking them. It is a beautiful place – so quiet and peaceful but full of so much vibrancy and life. And it’s a place my children love deeply. Grey waxed rhapsodic about waking to the sound of the loons in pearly gray mornings there.

I was back in plenty of time to get ready for the race. The weather was perfect – cool without being cold with a bit of a breeze and a bit of a haze. I forgot my arm band, so I handed my phone over to my son to capture the memorable moments. I got off to a fast start – it’s hard to accept being passed up by thirteen year old girls who are singing Moana as they easily swoop by you. But the route was not an easy one. It was picked to be as unhilly as possible, but Camp Wilmot is in a hilly area. So there was a pretty brutal last hill up to the North Wilmot church. Still, thanks to a summer of running about 4.5 miles per run, I didn’t die (or, you know, stop running). I ended up with a pretty darn decent 33:24 finish – 19th of 43 total runners (I thought there were 61 – alas no). I even had some church friends who made the trip up and were cheering for me as I crossed the finish line! It was a pretty affirming way to say goodbye to this decade. But best of all was that through the generosity of my friends, family and especially my church, I raised enough to send a kid to a week of summer camp next summer. Overall, Camp Wilmot raise $5,233.50! I know how important Camp Wilmot is in the life of my kids, and I’m thrilled that more kids will be able to go!

Grey would like you to know that the tennis courts are a lie

We came home immediately after I finished running the race. I went upstairs and gave myself the gift of taking a shower in my brand new shower. The steam unit is CRAZY POWERFUL. It’s a really, really sweet experience and I don’t think I can go back to my old shower. Then I came downstairs, willfully ignoring what was going on around me, and got dressed in a nice dress just because. Finally , Adam told me what the circumstances really were. He’d spent days getting ready to make all my favorite foods, and invited as many of my friends as he could find contact information for. He was expecting 60 people and was wondering if: chili, cornbread, six loaves of bread, cassoulet, beef barley soup, macaroni and cheese, egg salad sandwiches, blue cheese scalloped potatoes, bagels with cream cheese and lox, Doritos, watermelon, massive amounts of Lucky Charms, butter toffee peanuts and a Grey-made chocolate birthday cake were going to be enough food. (Edited to add: also, four pork tenderloins, wilted leaf lettuce salad & a charcuterie plate of my favorite meats and cheeses) (Fun fact: it sure was!) Those are, of course, all my favorite foods. I stuffed myself past stuffing. He did a fantastic job and it was all really delicious.

The first guest to arrive was, to my great surprise, my sister! She and I don’t get a chance to see each other very often, and it was amazing to have her here! It was also rather fun to watch people do double-takes when they heard my voice from someone who wasn’t me. Heh. We sound a lot alike. I was incredibly touched by the fact that Adam had asked people to bring or send poems/writings about me. They were amazing. Adam’s was an ode to coffee (which I think we can all get behind). One friend wrote a column. There were a significant number of limericks. (Apparently Brenda rhymes with Splenda.) A friend’s daughter drew a picture of “Brenda the Bold”. I woke up this morning and reread them all – my heart is greatly touched.

An ode to the transforming effect of coffee on me

I think it’s natural at moments like this to take stock of your life and ask yourself whether you are living your one and only life in the way you intend. This weekend felt pretty amazing that way. I’m physically healthy and strong. I’m raising my children to be people I enjoy spending time with, to have strong moral and philosophical cores. I know how to nurture myself in nature. I have an amazing relationship with a remarkable man who shows his love for me in thought, word and deed. And caffeine. And I’m surrounded by an astonishing number of people who care about me. I really can’t imagine what more I could ask for in life.

Thank you to all of you who came, or sent notes, or sponsored my run, or wished me a happy birthday. It mattered a lot to me, and I’m very grateful. If we missed someone in this, forgive us! Finally, if you were there and you have pictures, please add them to my album!

The prophet John Muir

“I must drift about these love-monument mountains, glad to be a servant of servants in so holy a wilderness.” John Muir – “My First Summer in the Sierra”

My friends, I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love. This is the literary equivalent of texting your bestie from the bathroom at a date to tell her that you have found *the one*. I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without really getting to know this man who is so very perfect for me.

In a desultory fashion, I saw his book when I was up at Mt. Rainier buying All The Mt. Rainier Things. And I now own no fewer than two t-shirts that say “The mountains are calling and I must go” citing him and Rainier in the same breath. So before I headed off backpacking with my son I downloaded his “Nature Writings” – which start with his autobiography. His life starts out both hard and common. He speaks of the beatings, the fighting, the memorization that mark his childhood. To modern ears it sounds beyond brutal and brutalizing. In his teenage years, his father abandons him down a well for the better part of a day for days on end (where he nearly dies), and his growth is stunted by the heavy constant labors of plowing and toiling in fields. But somehow he wakes up hours early every day and invents (without the internet, or even many books) devices whose purpose I can’t even understand, never mind whose workings.

Somehow, from that drudgery and brutality, is born an open-hearted poet.

This man speaks to me in a way I thought only Tolkien could. He is a co-religionist in every sense. Like me, he was a Presbyterian, although raised in a much more stern and unforgiving religious environment. But he seems to find God in the same places I do – in the mountains and streams and forests. His love of nature is a worshipful reflection of a God whom he never seems to be able to see as nearly as cold and unkind and punishing as his father apparently did. While is story of his youth makes you want to pity him, you can’t. Because through the 16 hour days, the frozen feet, the stunted growth he’s always noticing the beauty and the loveliness of the world and people around him.

Me and the mountain that most often picks up the phone to call me

I’ve just started on his “My First Summer in the Sierra” and oh! How he speaks of the mountains! It’s like hearing someone praise your own beloved, but in words better than you could find. It’s like hearing a prophet speak of your faith, or finding a poet whose words express your heart’s great secrets. I thought that in reading Muir I’d have to put on my “reading 19th century white dude” filter (well-honed to note and then pass by mysogyny, colonialism, racism, and a belief that not only were the spoils of the Americas limitless they were the rightful property of white folks). I’ve been astonished to meet among the pages of these mountain praises the thoughts of a man who generally seems to see all other humans as of equal worth – a man who also understands the gift and limitation of nature’s bounty. Even as he leads sheep to fatten on alpine meadows, he laments the impact of mankind and our beasts on the world, “Only the sky will then be safe, though hid from view by dust and smoke, incense of a bad sacrifice.” (p. 208) One begins to understand by whose hand, and why and how, these marvels were set aside for us in the first place.

My reading has just begun. I start to wish that I had a lovely copy of his works – a Riverside Muir as you would. It seems almost sacrilegious to read his works on the most quintessentially modern Kindle. I feel like I should find a grove in which to encounter his texts as sacred witness to God’s most glorious creations.

There should be some great conclusion here – some wrapped up discovery. Instead there’s just a hopefulness – that his other writings refresh and inspire my heart so. The astonishing awakening of the morality and decency of those from whom we expected a more “of their era” myopia – and perhaps a similar inspiration to be better than our own era demands. The rising heart of someone who has discovered a whole body of work that seems designed to inspire them, and of which they’ve barely sipped. I can see my future self slowly meting out writings in moments of either great reflection or great need, to feed a famished soul.

“Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.”

Muir, John. John Muir: Nature Writings (LOA #92): The Story of My Boyhood and Youth / My First Summer in the Sierra / The Mountains of California / Stickeen / essays (Library of America) Library of America. Kindle Edition.

My mind was filled with wonder

I’ve been joking at work lately that I need an upgrade to my short term memory. I’m really good at writing things down, which has been even more critical lately since I struggle to remember the details of meetings I had just a week or two prior – there are so many incoming data pieces, decisions, challenges and threads of conversation. My home life is just as complicated and interwoven. I rarely drop balls and I usually try to be as reliable as sunrise, but before I left I failed to communicate to my husband that a) I had people ready to take our farm share b) he needed to feed the neighbor’s guinea pig. (You’ll all be happy to hear that Nova was just fine, since it turned out our neighbor’s plans had changed.) I find such lapses in myself deeply disturbing. There are many things and people that rely on my reliability.

When I landed in Washington for a week and a half of desperately needed vacation, I felt a great burden temporarily lifted. For a few days, I was beholden to no one but myself, responsible for nothing but myself. Of course, myself had planned a rather rigorous agenda of activities, but the price of failure was only my own disappointment.

That first day we landed, tired and thinly spread, I went by myself up the winding mountain roads to Longmire to stake my claim on a piece of the mountain for two nights. And I found myself considering how my wonder and awe had been eroded over the years. Here I was, three thousand miles from the point I had awoken in the morning. Here I was, in the home of my heart looking at the great giant trees who have stood sentinel for longer than the age of a civilization. Here I was, on the exposed bones of a giant volcano fire-God, now sleepily wreathed in ice. And where was my mind and heart? Everywhere but here. I watched my attention flitter and fly like the most frivolous child, returning not to amazement, awe and gratidutude, but rather to the mundane, mean and platitude.

I thought about how my mind used to be, as a kid. I know that I didn’t spend as much time in nature as my memory and stories would make it out to be. But yet. I also know how it feels to break a dandylion stem, and have the slick mucilagenous ichor of that hollow frame slide beneath my fingers. I know the best way to walk only moderately sliced into a blackberry bramble to attain the ripest fruits. I know not only how the underside of a sword fern looks, but how its octopus-sucker spores feel rough and unmoving to the touch. And I know that in comparison to the high-growing bracken fern, sometimes taller than my youthful head, hiding dens of small girls and deer under shadowing leaves. When I was young, I really saw. And I was awed and amazed that I was *here* and got to see *this*.

For years coming home, my passions for place and awe would fly home with me – like an ancient Icarus able to take wings and fly across the clouds with a pace nearly as fast as the setting sun t chased. I was back. I was home. Here was that one Starbucks I’d loved as a girl. Here the view of Mt. Rainier that had stricken my heart with its beauty. But in recent years, that sense of wonder has dimmed. I’ve chased sunset and sunrise across the continent too many times to be impressed with it anymore. I’ve risen on one continent to sleep on another a few too many times. There are too many Starbucks, and their sugary drinks are less interesting to me. The mountain is hard to see in this hazy, fire-strewn sky.

And this year, for the first time, I saw that distance and lack of awe and was greatly grieved by it. There is no gain to such a loss of marvel.

As a parent, I’m a huge proponent of the “growth mentality” – which echoes that ancient thought that we are less who we are born to be and more who we choose to be. Driving highway 12 past the firs and vine maples, I made and affirmed my decision to be a person who notices. A person who sees things. And a person who marvels at their beauty.

By the time I got to Longmire, I had stilled my attention enough and awoken my wonder sufficiently that the rangers asked if I was ok. Something of it was showing on my face, I think. With a back country permit in hand, I slowly slowly walked the Path of Shadows, to remind myself. I sat still and looked at the lovely framing of Mt. Rainier by Rampart Ridge – made of the volcanic floes stopped by glacial ice. I smelled the sulfur of the hotsprings. I touched the broad needles of the fir with familiar fingers. I contemplated the daytime darkness of the preserved cabin. I marveled at the craftsmanship still on display in the round river stones used to for the wells – themselves harkening back two thousand years to Greek baths. I listened to silence, and I made the silence play in my head.

Two mornings later I awoke late and gazed at the most glorious beauty on my way to the high latrine. I looked over this mountain valley in the few glorious weeks in which it is open and unsnowed and covered by flowers. In that entire valley were only two humans living, myself and my son. And my heart was filled with wonder. He walked with me around that lake, and we sat on the far side, perched on warm rocks above the clearest of mountain pools. He told me his favorite hymn, which is also mine. And we sang it together. And my heart was filled with love and awe.

I am down off that mountain now. Into the clarity and quiet of that mind, I have put in the highest art. I have filled my eyes, my ears and my mind with new materials (even as I have filled my lungs with smoke and my belly with good foods). Sitting under the ancient ponderosa pines near the babble of ash-filled Lithia Creek, I am readying myself to return to that world where my mind is too small to hold all it needs to hold, and my attention is bespoke by the employer who makes such cross-country jaunts possible in the first place.

As I go to close the book on my vacation, and lay down both the mountains and the Muir, I hold firm to the ground I have reclaimed. I will be and wish to be that person who notices, who marvels, who takes the time to see and know how astonishing and lovely this world is.

Teenage Angst at Parties: A How-To Guide run by the Son

We entertain and are entertained pretty often. Grey has had a lot of experience at parties where he is not the primary focus of attention. Following a few parties in which Grey behaved impeccably and carried on some very reputable conversations with adults, he asked to do a guest-blog on my post. The following is his advice to his peers about how to survive social situations “elderly guardians” such as myself inflict upon suffering teens.

Parents/Guardians, call your teens over to read this then vacate the area.

We know what happens. A baby-shower, a office party, a retirement, it’s time for a get together. You go, and you stand around sipping your soda while trying to seem interested in the conversation, after the pause in it you try and add a few words. You get some head nods from condescending adults trying to be nice, and you slowly walk away. You sit down, back-rigid, and pick at your health food while eavesdropping on what’s happening with so-and-so, and who-and-who is having a fight with this-and-this. Some elderly (aka anyone over 30) come over and squeal the typical, “Do you remember me? From that office party like a insert years equal to infinity in teen-time years”, “I remember when you were this tall! *levels hand about waist height*” and the ever so common, “Oh you’ve grown so tall!”.

You. Are. Bored. This is how to fix it, or just barely pacify it.

1. Grab your phone/Ipod/Mp3/etc and listen to music.
This is pretty obvious, but if you grab your music player and make it very obvious that you are listening to music, people will often come over to inquire what you are listening to (Very Important! Make sure it is not rap! Elderly and sometimes even younger couples will not understand or not care!). When you are asked, make sure you gush about it and ask them what music they like. The conversation will probably progress from there.

2. Stick near your guardian.
I know, I know. This sounds terrible, and not very fun, but it has it’s upsides. If you are cynical, sarcastic, or just plain witty, you can usually crack a few jokes and make yourself entertained with whomever your guardian is speaking to. Remember, keep the topic on whatever you are terrible at or amazing at if you are talking about yourself. This will usually open up a few dad jokes, and then progress on. Yes, you will get the elderly woman treatment, but at least you can keep talking about yourself.
Example topics about yourself: Your height, your grades, your skill in ______ sport/s, etc.

3. Bring gags.
Disclosure, not recommended if you are going to a formal party, or if your guardian thinks it’ll be inappropriate.
Bringing gags livens up a party, makes it more casual, and people will usually congratulate you and make it less conformist for you if you do it right. Do not bring any old age gags, inappropriate gags, or gen-z/millennial gags, because these gags will not appeal to a wide audience and could possibly get you in trouble. Remember, everything is key. The performance, the tone, and the audience. For example, I can do a decent Batman voice, so I can bring a Batman mask. This fits in the three categories: Performance: Decent; Tone: Funny and cool; and Audience: Batman has been around since 1939 and has been featured in America, which fits Baby Boomers, Millennial, and Gen-Z Kids. Example of what not to bring: A “Hi, Welcome to Chili’s” vine T-Shirt (They exist, trust me). Performance: Sly (Not great); Tone: Giggly but stupid; Audience: Gen-Z kids, and very late Millennials. This couldn’t appeal to Baby Boomers because they think a vine is something grapes grow on and in an office party, Baby Boomers are most of the people you’ll find. This fits into only one category, tone, and just barely. Not great to bring.

4. Be nice.
It’s annoying and tiring, I get it. I’m going to keep this short and sweet. People will like you better, you’ll leave a good (first, second, third) impression, and you will have more leeway if you do.

So finally, If I’ve missed anything, yell at me on Instagram (@cynicalgrey) or at school next school year. Goodbye, farewell, and amen that I don’t have to go to any parent parties anytime soon.

2018 – Looking forward

This is a fantastic time of year for thinking. We think about what we really believe. We think about the folks who are close to us – or maybe not as close as we want and intend. We think about what we did in the year past. And then, at the end of our thinking time, we think about what we want to do in the coming year so that when our thinking time comes again, we’re satisfied in retrospect. New Year’s resolutions get a bad rap, but if you view them as the annual tradition of thinking hard about where we are and where we want to be – and what we need to do to bridge that gap – it seems more like a virtuous tradition than an exercise in futility.

Here are some of the things I’m looking forward to in the new year.

New Attic
We are finally for reals I swear this time kicking off our attic project. When we brought our drawings to contractors the number they agreed on came back, uh, much higher than we were expecting. More saving was in order to afford it. So after a few false starts and stops (and having cleaned it out and refilled it a bunch of times) we’re now planning to really actually do this thing. Our original start date was in January, but I’m guessing it’ll be more like February given the lack of start date from our contractor. I’m a little nervous. Fun fact – I am not abundantly supplied with taste. I know home renovations can be really disruptive and tiring. And it’s another project to manage. But on the flip side, Grey is a tween. Not sharing a bathroom with him will be great! And our new bathroom will be amazing. And it will finally clear the logjam of projects so we can also do some of the smaller things I’d like to have accomplished. And insulation. And a clawfoot tub and steam-shower. So much awesome.

New Jobs
Adam and I are both getting started on the new roles we landed ourselves last year. It’s always the phase where you need to prove yourself by working extra hard. You have to learn fast, work hard, be patient and show up early. The rewards are great, but there will be no mailing it in during 2018!

The kids
They’ve had a great year so far. I’m looking to help them find good strategies to be 100% on the ol’ homework turning in (my mom has a plan to help with that!). I’m also continuing to try to expose them to things that might inspire passion in them, and when they find it to support them. They’re a huge and joyful part of my life!

Vacations
I usually plan out all our vacations for the year this week – and this year was no exception. It’s not as ambitious as last year. We have three camping trips (one without kids, possibly). We’re headed to Mexico in February and Washington State in August. I really want to go backpacking AND go to Ashland. I’m getting another week of vacation this year (Adam is not) so in my contemplations on how to do this, I’ve struck on the idea of doing a guided backpacking tour after he’s gone back to work. (Don’t feel too sorry for him – he usually does about a week of gaming conventions while I stay home with the kids.)

Stoneham History
I have two things I’ve been planning to do here for a while. One is run a fund-raiser to put up signs for the Nobility Hill Historic district. I’m not in it, but I can see the cool kids from my house. This is just a matter of getting a design finalized, canvassing the neighborhood to let folks know what we’re doing (and ask for $$$$) and then getting it installed. It’s already a Historic district. I’ve also been saying for a long time that I’d consider being on the Stoneham Historical Commission. I should probably actually get around to doing that. It’s just hard with the timing. But now that the kids are more independent, I have a little more time to do stuff like that. Finally, I’d really love to finish the story I was working on set in Stoneham. I’m like 10k words from done. But I have a hunch they’re the hard 10k. And I haven’t really been able to work up any momentum.

Health
I don’t think it’s lame that after the indulgence and excesses of the holiday season, we all take a moment to reset ourselves to a healthier baseline. I did ok in 2017. I ran 107 miles this year, usually in 5K increments. I did a very rigorous climb. I’ve kept pretty active. I eat a lot of healthy food, but I also eat a lot of unhealthy food. I’d like to make at least an incremental improvement on my health and fitness. We’ve talked about putting a treadmill in the abandoned basement laundry room (once it’s been moved to the 2nd floor). But I think I need to find a few more ways to sneak healthiness into my life.

Photography
A few people noted that I wasn’t in the Christmas Card picture we sent out. It’s true. And it’s kind of lame. I signed up for another round of digital photography classes, to refresh what I learned two years ago. I’d like to do a good job of documenting our life in photographs, since they mean a lot to me afterwards. And I want to make sure I’m *in* plenty of the pictures, however I think I look.

What are some of the things you’re looking to do in the coming year? What are you looking forward to?