My Name is Mommy

Everything's coming up roses...

October.  How can it be almost over?  I feel like it just began.

One thing I've always said about California is that I never get used to the roses blooming in wild abandon in the months that they would have been frozen and dormant in the ground waiting for spring in Washington.

This year is no exception.

For many years after we moved here, I tended my heirloom roses with great care and detail.  I even fired the yard crew that dared touch my precious roses.  You would've thought they took hedge trimmers(HEDGE TRIMMERS!!) to my children as opposed to a few rose bushes for all the yelling and fist shaking.  Yeah, I get a little psycho like that sometimes.

And then something happened and all the joy drained out of the roses.  They had gone from being a source of peace, pride and awe to a painful reminder of a passion I no longer possessed.  I stopped tending my roses.  They grew wild and out of control in twisted brambles.  Their blooms became unpredictable. They'd gone from tamed beauty to something out of a dark fairytale- still beautiful but no longer lovely, harsh somehow.

I let them go.  I forgot their names.  I no longer filled the house with their brightness and sweetness.

Years went by.  They do that... and quickly.

Dean planted new roses for me.  Still, I couldn't bring myself to touch them.  They faltered.  Roses, like most living things, need to be loved, even if just a little.  

Eventually, Dean began to water them and prune them a bit.  He sat down with the gardening book and learned how to prune them properly.  He asked me questions.  He began to care for them.  They began to perk up a bit and eventually thrive under his minstrations.  Now they are bushy and bursting with blooms, no longer being choked by weeds and neglect.

I've started taking pleasure in them again.  I find myself stopping to pinch off dead flowers, pruning them a bit here and there, even stopping to smell the different blooms.

In many ways, it is yet another metaphor.  The roses are not the only passion in me I have neglected these past few years.  I have let go of friends, of places and feelings, let go of things that once defined me.  I have retreated into a coldness where much of the time, I merely exist.

Maybe the metaphor is from a different angle and I am like the roses themselves.  I have been laid bare by winter, gone dark, silent, frozen in the ground.  And maybe I have been waiting for spring, dormant.  One of the lessons one learns from tending roses and fruit trees is that sometimes you must prune them back hard.  Sometimes, it seems as if they might have died, but if you look closely enough, you will see the possibility.  When winter is cold and hard, the roses bide their time, gathering energy beneath the exterior, waiting for the thaw to come and warmth to coax them into blooming again, with abundance and happiness.

Mary Oliver asks, "Listen-- are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?".  Sometimes, though, breathing just a little is all we can manage while we coil into ourselves and regroup to live again.  

War.

For some reason my Grandma popped into my head tonight.  She does that alot.  If you've ever read anything I've written about her, you know that she was the prime example of unconditional familial love in my childhood and the single greatest influence on my life and what I have become.  I miss her terribly and wish so much she could have been her to watch my girls grow up.  Of course, I feel her presence in about a billion things: places I go, every time I pick up my camera, cook in the kitchen, or even setting the table.

My Grandmother lost both of her brothers to the military.  My great-uncle, Asa, was in the 503 Parachute Infantry Regiment during WWII.  He was stationed toward the end of the war, after jumping succesfully in New Guniea, in the Pacific Theater.  The 503rd is also known as the "Rock Regiment".  The were considered some of the most well trained and experienced Airborne the United States fielded during WWII.  They earned the name "Rock Regiment" because they succesfully took back Corregidor in February 1945, which was considered a huge win in the Pacific Theater.

Ace was a member of Company F who jumped onto Corregidor and was with a group of 50 soldiers who fought for 3 hours before winning the Battle of Banzai against over 500 Japanese Marines from their most well trained Japanese Special Landing Force.  There were over 6500 Japanese troops on Corregidor when the 503rd landed.  When Corregidor was declared secure, only 50 Japanese soldiers remained. The 503rd was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions.

After participating in retaking Corregidor, the 503rd reportedly returned to Minidoro but was then called out in April 1945 to Negros to bolster troops that were fighting the Japanese there.  On April 26th, Ace had a chance to write home while the troops maintained position.  On April 28th, during a patrol, Ace was killed by enemy sniper fire and another soldier injured.  My great-grandmother received a telegram some days later that he was KIA.  F Company continued to win Negros by inches and the fighting was winding down.  In August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, 7500 Japanese troops on Negros yielded to the 503rd.

Ace Dibble was buried in the Manila American Cemetary and Memorial.  

My Grandma lost her younger brother, as well, who was serving in the Navy.  He has an interesting story for another time.  My Grandpa, who married my Grandma, just days before shipping out for the war, a Master Chief in the US Navy, was wounded in WWII.

Why does this all come to mind?  Well, the Mormon Gishionnaries(Dean calls them Gishonarries because they are female i.e. girl-missionaries) tonight.  And no, I am not Mormon but I enjoy discussing faith, spirituality and philosophy with people of many different religions and have been to numerous churches in my life despite my somewhat rigorous Catholic upbringing.  Tonight, we were talking about joy. (Cheesy, eh?) But, truly, what I consider to be joy may not be the traditional I-just-ate-birthday-cake-and-got-14-presents kind of joy.  No, I believe our capacity for joy is a direct correlary of our capacity for suffering.  It is difficult to truly appreciate the good things when you have not experienced grief or sorrow.  I don't mean that we need to seek the bad stuff out, just accept it when it comes.  We work so hard to hide, cover up, numb out anything that feels bad.  And sadly, I believe that robs us of the brightest spectrum of joy.  To me, true joy was holding my girls when they were born, riding my horse on the beach in the surf, giving someone something fabulous anonymously, laying next to White River on the still-cooling rocks in the twilight and watching the universe light up the sky... I could go on and on.  

I guess my point is that my Grandmother was so special to me- she was really, really good at finding the joy in daily life and making small things into great adventures.  She wasn't a worldly woman, not wealthy or powerful, but she had some kind of magic.  She could grow things in her crappy, rocky soil that no one could.  She let me keep a pet duck when I lived with her.  Fletcher followed us everywhere while we worked in the yard and weeded the garden and he sat between us on the seat of her old blue pick-up when we went to the hardware store or the nursery.  She taught me the names of wild things and took me to the library every time I visited her.  She told me stories about her ancestors who travelled from Sweden and made their way, eventually, out west.  She read me to sleep at night and made fresh cornbread for breakfast.  She played a mean game of canasta and loved to go hiking and camping at Mt. Rainier, which we did every chance we got.  She helped me find moments every time I was with her where I felt my soul slip into a groove where the universe seemed perfect, understandable, massive but also I could see my place in things and I felt contentment in those moments.  Peace, quiet, love, gratitude... those are such gifts that I have only found while living in an individual moment and understanding that everything is right, as it should be.  I'm grateful that my Grandmother shared her love and her grief with me, so that I, too, could know more joy.

Sometimes I think religion does get things right.  I'm sure there is something in the Bible that could be paraphrased to 'examine your sorrow because therein lies your joy'.  Too often we lose the battle and slip into malcontentment over the things that don't matter.  I guess sometimes we have to lose what matters to understand what we have.  I think, ultimately though, the war goes to joy. Like Dr. Suess says, "Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened."

 

Lux et Veritas

Okay, I just gotta throw this out there for a little as a little sociocultural chronological marker:  This fall has been a season of the 'new', 'sexy' Miley Cyrus splashing her twerking twatty self all over the Top 10 Pop Chart.  Despite the fact that I don't find her to be a breath of tongue-sticking-out(girrrrl, keep your tongue in your mouth, your clothes on and quit waggling your butt around at everyone), sexy, fresh air... I do have to give thanks for her.  Without her, there would not be the YouTube parody of her 'Wrecking Ball' video.  For some reason, the girls and I can watch that video over and over again and it just does not get less funny.  I suppose that speaks volumes for our sanity level here at Chez Y:

Okay, I know it's stupid but you gotta take your laughs wherever you can take them.  We take ourselves FAR TOO SERIOUSLY, these days.

Lemee see.  In the ongoing saga of a long list of health crap that's kept us under the black cloud this past year, Vi and I both got sick about 3 1/2 weeks ago with a sore throat/cold that lasted for 12 days and then turned into a sinus infection for Vi and bronchitis for me.  Awesome!!  Thanks for that, Universe.

In other shitty news, we had to put Shadow down last weekend.  His arthritis stopped responding to the cox-II inhibitor we had him on.  Unfortunately, he went off his feed and wouldn't run around or even walk around.  The vet thought it was from the pain of his arthritis which will only get worse.  His teeth are shot, he'd lost a ton of weight and wasn't drinking.  I think he just knew it was time to go.  We had him for years after we rescued him and he was not being ridden but everyone at the ranch loved out guy because he was so sweet and patient and let the little kids crawl all over him, groom him and love on him.  Saying goodbye was hard.  I took the kids out of school on Friday and we went out to the ranch and had a picnic with him, complete with pureed carrots and apples.  He had a good death.  It was a warm, sunny, beautiful morning and we did it on the hill out back of the barn looking over the beautiful view from the ranch.

“My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my friends under the apple trees.”  -Anna Sewell, Black Beauty

People who aren't 'horse people' don't always get it... but for me, and now for my girls, riding a horse is almost a spiritual thing.  You must be completely in the present while riding a horse- it is a living being and you must give it all your attention to stay on and ride properly and appreciate the connection you have with all of life and wild things in that moment.  Horses may be domesticated but they are about as domestic as the wind, they simply, graciously, allow us to be with them as they carry us.  There is nothing to ground me or center me, to bring me back to my joy in life, to remind me of where I stand in the great cascade of time and nature and life, to make me whole and happy again, like riding a horse.

And so, when we said goodbye to Shadow- we did not mourn him as the loss of a pet or regard it as a loss of utility or entertainment.  We grieve for him as one of our family.  And if anyone has a soul, before man or any other animal, I believe horses do.  How else could they teach us such great lessons about kindness, trust, loyalty, love, passion, being in the moment and living life?  And so, last weekend, the world became a slightly dimmer place for us.

Horses have such unique personalities.  Shadow was a laid-back love bug.  You know how you might know many people iin your life but there are a couple that are like the true north to your heart's compass?  You just feel like you were 'meant to be', to know each other?  Well, that is how I feel about Shadow.  

He was an old soul, kindred spirit and an absolute gift and I will miss him a little bit every day that I live on this earth and he does not.  Honest, loyal friends who will run with you in the hills to set you free, who will never pretend to be anything more or less than they are, who will comfort you as you whisper or sob into their neck, who will hold you up when you cannot hold yourself up, who's heart beats an echo of yours, are hard to come by.  Shadow was one of those friends.

[Turning the page.]  It has been a busy fall.  Vi is in level IV of the San Francisco Girls Chorus and she sings, well, pretty much all the time.  Avery is in level III but I think she is far more enamoured of Gymnastics and spends alot of her free time at the gym.  She has a couple meets coming up.  Both girls have a bunch of chorus performances coming up as we move into the holiday season.

We're going to Disney World to meet up with some very dear friends of the family.  I am so excited to see my friend as it has been far too long.  I can't wait to sit and talk with her.   Way back, oh, 20 years ago or so, she and I used to have a standing date every week or so to go get tea at one of the tea houses in Wallingford near the UW.  We would talk for hours about books and philosophy, politics and culture.  My soul feels a little like it has been crawling without water in the desert for a while.  Seeing her will be like making it to an oasis and I will be new again.

On my side of the family it has been one drama after another.  The drama of my parents 5150-ing my littlest sister when she went up to Seattle to visit my parents and other sister is still going on.  I was vehemently opposed but they thought she was doing drugs or something.  She had a bad misdiagnosis from a psychiatrist(she's had some PTSD issues and depression since her car accident and some life changes that happened in the wake of that) who gave her meds she didn't need to be on and it sent her spiraling.  

I talk to her almost every day and we are the same- my parents and other sister just do not get us.  She is now back in Texas, trying to put her life back together but in the meantime, my middle sister has disowned me(not that she ever even called me before) and my parents are treating me like the enemy because I won't go gung ho backing their plan to FIX my baby sis.  Instead of alienating her, I've tried to be there for her.  So she still likes to talk to me and now I am being shunned for that.  Which is fine.  I've had my share of losses in my life.  I know how to let people go and move on.  I won't preclude opening my arms to them again but they can't hurt me like they used to anymore.  So it's okay.  That picture of the three of us is my favorite because that is how I always think of us: laughing and goofing around.  Why can't everyone just get along and love each other?

I'm currently looking for property somewhere rural.  I think when the girls go off to college, maybe we will rent or sell our house here and get as close to being off the grid as possible.  Then I want to travel to the world.  I want to visit friends I made in my Eastern European travels, visit Aileen on the game reserve she and her husband own in Namibia.  I want to live on a sailboat for a while.  I want go to places where women are oppressed by religion and men and lack of education and I want to learn from them and also give them whatever knowledge I can to make their lives better.  Then, I want to come home to a farm house in the middle of nowhere and work hard, riding and training horses and gardening.  I want to just be alive in the world and see wonder and beauty in everything.  If my girls are my magnum opus, then I want my life to be the lux et veritas.

I was thinking why Shadow might have been named Shadow... maybe it is because he could chase the shadows away.  Gotta love the light.

 

Richard Dawkins says the following:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”  -Richard Dawkins

I just want to be able to say I LIVED.  I DIDN'T WASTE THIS CHANCE!  But sometimes it feels like time is a Mack truck trying to run me down on the freeway.  And sometimes it feels like I was the last to cross the starting line and I'm trying to catch up.  Before we said goodbye to our Shadow, the girls begged me to put it off.  I couldn't risk him going down in his stall and being in agony until the vet could come out.  But the point is that all they wanted was a little more time.  The thing is, usually by the time you're asking for a little more time, it is too late.  So, please, for me, for Shadow, for everyone and everything I've lost or gained through the years, don't wait.  Don't waste it.

And here lies an excellent place to wave around my favorite Mary Oliver quotation:

"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?” 

Thank you, Shadow, for all the wonderful years you shared your wild and precious life with us.  

Peace out.