Beginnings

There are beginnings. And then there are renewed beginnings. With the simmering summer weather bumping up against the colors of autumn, one October Saturday Dan and I decide to hike the Three Sisters Wilderness Obsidian Trail. Driving up the old Mc Kenzie Pass Highway, I become like a child in a candy store, oohing and aahing at the lush green and deliciously rich pastel forests flying by our car window. To elevate my mood, just take me up amongst our elegant, reaching for the sky trees and ever abundant fauna. Though the drive is a long one for a day hike, the time speeds by with our chatter and our remembrances. We brought the daughter on her first camping trip at Paradise Camp Ground when she was only two. Later we all hiked to Mathews' Lake and boated on Scott Lake. But we never took our daughter on this Three Sisters hike. For this was and is a hike for the two of us.

We reach the trail head parking spaces and are surprised to see them nearly full. Have we secretly wished to have the trail and its memories all to ourselves? At the start of the pine needle path we stand and pause. Our sixty plus year old feet have brought us through a million miles together. With our next steps we bring the past and present together. When were we here last? I calculate nearly thirty-five years ago. Dan's face is full of disbelief as I share my news: “I was twenty-nine” I state, “and you were twenty-six. We were at the very beginning of our relationship. And to think,” I continue, “our daughter's girl friend is twenty-six and she is twenty three.”

With each foot print embedded upon the leaf mulched path, I wish I could pause the passing of time. We had back packs then and were with a group of friends aiming to camp at the base of the Middle Sister and to climb her the next morning. New residents of the Pacific Northwest, we became enthusiastic adventurers into her pristine back country. We hear rustling up ahead and soft human sounds. Rounding the slightly elevated bend, we meet up with images of our former selves, a large group of young people. We stop to chat. High schoolers from Sisters, they are returning from a three day science camp with lit up smiles and abundant, left-over energy. The blessings of youth! We share how we once back packed this trail when we were in our twenties. One of the girl's gives us a precious exclamation of “ahh.”

“How far to the trail head,” asks one boy. “Not far,” we reply, “we've only been walking a short while.”

Yes, it does seem as though Dan and I have been together only a short while. Yet thirty-five years have sped by. We have lived together, been a part, reunited and gotten married, bought a house, raised a daughter, hiked, camped, traveled. We have agreed and disagreed, laughed and cried and always no matter what we have loved each other. The trail is heading straight up and I am sweating, inwardly cursing and putting one foot in front of the other. Where are those damn Obsidian Cliffs and the view of the Sisters? It was Dan's idea to come here and at the moment I am wondering if I'll make it. The higher altitude mountain air is dragging me down. But I want to please Dan. I want to be together doing this repeat and showing our younger selves we're continuing to be vibrant. I want to be here joking, reminiscing, loving this man I am with despite life's occasional struggles.

Each time I think I see the boulder path up ahead, it disappears amongst the thicket of trees. Dan's famous hiking lines, “It flattens out up here or it's just around the corner,” are proving fickle. I smell the pine perfume, look up through the canopy of branches and recharge my energy. Then finally, the granite rock-walled ascending path comes into view. We climb along an edge that takes us slowly up above the firs we've left behind. After several switchbacks we round a corner and there spread out before us is a panoramic glimpse of the North and Middle Sister on our left and the sheer obsidian cliffs on our right.

This is it, we tell ourselves. This is the very spot where we had our picture taken with our packs thirty-five years ago. Dan holds out his cell phone, we break into happy smiles and he snaps our picture. Though our hair is gray, our bodies a bit sturdier and worn, our faces are the same. Our eyes meet and we kiss. We find a place to sit and lunch while being serenely cradled inside nature's bounty. The trail in front of us descends down into meadows and we think about walking farther, but remind ourselves that going down means coming up again. We are content to be where we are.

During these past few years I have struggled with our empty nest. How I dearly loved raising our daughter and being a mother. But as we sit and eat, I am reminded about all those pre-parenting years. Our love of nature, our appreciation of the beauty found in the Pacific Northwest, our love of being together has never faltered.

Dan takes a few more pictures as we continue to linger at this breathtaking sight. There is a no-rush, patient silence between us. Without words we know we don't want to leave this spot. We want to sit here forever side by side. And haven't we done just that? Three decades isn't forever but it is a long, long time.

Eventually, we stuff our garbage into the day pack, put the water bottles in the mesh side pockets and help our creaking bodies stand up. We give one last panoramic glance, say good-bye to the Sisters and the cliffs and put our feet upon the return path. Going down is easier. Maybe the first thirty years are only the first beginning, I think. Maybe these second three decades will be even richer. Because I love being with this man, I know this is true. I am content.

© 2012

Voting Our Values

The presidential election of 2012 presents us with a clear choice. What values do we want America to represent? Yes, we need jobs. But do we want our nation to be run solely as a business with corporations seen as people and with the race for more possessions as our focus?

Or do we want to create a compassionate community with actual human beings caring for one another? Do we want our care to include or exclude our Gay brothers and sisters and our immigrants? Or do we want to forget our own off shore origins and our own struggles for acceptance?

Women fought long and hard for the right to vote and the right to be treated fairly and equally with men. Do women want to give up control over their own bodies? Do women want a say in how they are treated in the workplace and in their homes?

We have been and are a prosperous nation. Do we pile our abundance ever higher with greed or do we give every citizen the chance at a healthy life by providing all with health care? Will we give a hand up to our poor, our homeless and our elderly? Will we put educating our children and honoring Mother Earth at the top of our list?

Will we reach out and be part of a community of world leaders, respecting others' cultural differences? Or will the United States become an autocratic country, telling other nations they must play by our rules or else? Will diplomacy and cooperation win out over conflict/military escalation?

What values do we want to teach our children? What kind of world do we want to live in? Voting gives each of us a voice.

© 2012

From My Journal: Out of the Closet

I am afraid to write. For sometimes I am afraid to put into words the banality of my days. How I look in the mirror each morning and wonder if this is the day I will finally be beautiful. How so like my mother I am: scanning my closet, putting together an outfit that is color coordinated, brushing and brushing my hair, outlining my eyes, erasing dark, under-eye circles. The pruning and preening, the putting together is an act I go through to tell myself I am here and the day has begun. But who will see me? Who cares how I appear?

We camouflage ourselves from “outside life.” We try to live in order to forget about death. Dan's Aunt Dot died last week at 97. She was fairly healthy up to her early nineties. Then she moved near her daughter but not with her daughter. And I wonder why. Her last weeks were anxious and at times delirious. It is these downhill weeks that are discussed rather than the whole of the years before. Aging is scary. No one wants to get old. Dan's mother tells us, “Please shoot me if I get like Dot.” But Dot led an amazingly active life until her aging caught up with her. I don't want to lose my mind. I say I want to be aware and yet I can understand the need to escape the inevitable end.

I love when poets, artists, philosophers tell us to tune into and appreciate what we have now. Do I have all I need where I am at this ticking away moment? In the present I have no need for worry and anxiety because the unknown future is a ways out in front of me. In the present I have my mind, my dear husband, my friends, my garden, my home. In the present I can write and read, sing and walk whenever I want. So yes, I do have everything I need. With each passing day I am getting older, but with each passing day I am learning to accept my aging.

The mirror lies. Why I trust this mirror to reflect my true story is puzzling. I notice my face appears younger, the happier I feel. Cats constantly groom themselves. Birds pluck and preen their feathers. Gorillas groom each other. I have wanted for so long to go beyond the vanity and ego of appearance. We want to be seen and yet, most people see only themselves. I think my desire goes beyond the superficial. But in America we revere the surface. I want to be acknowledged and understood; I want to be appreciated. But isn't this true for most of us?

I watch young teen boys attending our alternative neighborhood high school skateboarding and smoking near my house. They want to be cool. One kid smokes, pauses, straightens his backpack, smokes. He waits. He wants to be later to school than the rest. We time our daily activities to coincide with what's in fashion. Being hip, however, is taking away our authenticity.

My dear husband tells me I am thoroughly authentic. He says I can't help but be myself. This need to be honest and open has gotten me in plenty of trouble. My outsider status is a badge worn proudly but can be a scarlet O. For I have trouble being honest with myself. The mirror's truth is I do want to be an insider. Do I want recognized fame and fortune? Perhaps, just a little.

I am running around the circle of present time. My aging face and body is here to stay. I don't want to be sculpted anew. I don't want my face to be lifted. I don't want my beautiful silver hair to return to black. I have been afraid to die and I know I am afraid to get old. I truly don't want more wrinkles, but I don't want to deny who I am either. Am I stupid or brave to go against make-up and fashion? I remember trying make-up in junior high. I didn't have the skill or patience then. I discovered in my sixties that outlining my eyes gives me a brighter appearance and so I have given in. But my lips are too narrow for lipstick and though continually searching for the right haircut for thinning hair, my silver white hair has grown on me.

Ingrained in our American culture is that we women are never satisfied with how we look. Not even the most beautiful feels comfortable in her skin. I have asked many gorgeous women if they know they are beautiful and most do not. If only they knew how lucky they are. Or is it lucky? We can never understand someone else from the outside and getting to the inside can be a challenge. I talk freely about beauty and aging. I talk freely about my death and aging fears. And this is what I believe is needed: a voice given, honest words written about each stage of this living progression. I want aging women to not always be staring into their closets. I want them to come out.

© 2012

Road Trip

I'm seeing one huge pelican and then another swooping and making a half circle arc in front of me. A feeling of effervescent ecstasy slowly rises to the top of my head. Pelicans...have I ever seen pelicans before? Dan and I have found a bench along the Santa Barbara strand overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We are resting after taking a nostalgic walking tour of the city where I once lived. We had lunch at this scrumptious Italian Cafe, the former Copper Coffee Pot, one of my old writing/study haunts. Nothing and everything stays the same. My first studio apartment, located in a quaint Victorian complex, The Magnolia, near the downtown park, appears, however, to have been frozen in time. It is eerily quiet. Where is 90 year old Willie doing yoga handstands on the lawn? Where are Meghan and Shauna sitting outside on their miniature deck sipping tea? Where is my neighbor Jenny, who pierced my ears? Presumably, these people in my former life moved on decades ago.

I don't want to return to my college and soul searching, twenty-something years, though I keep flashing to the fact my own daughter is the age I was then. Weird! Our California road trip is about people, youthful memories and grown-up insights. Dan and I might as well have been kids when we met; and then poof: here we are full blown adults in our sixties. We met in Ojai, up in the hills about 45 minutes from Santa Barbara, a major stopping point on our journey. We are staying several days with friends, first, the former remarried husband, and then the former remarried wife. But back to those pelicans. I thought our trip was mainly going to be about people and not places. But I am wrong. Each place has brought me a visual gift of wild and natural beauty...like those hold-your-breath pelicans.

As we make our way through the narrow high mountain roads towards Ojai, it is as if I am seeing this landscape for the first time. Having worked part-time at one of its private schools, having met Dan at that school, I drove this path a hundred times. But this September summer beauty whizzing past the car window is indescribable. We have climbed inside an enclosed hilly canyon of paradise which keeps opening up to these scenes of three dimensional splendor: jagged cliffs, bowls of greenery, and serene, eternal skies. Ojai has been equated with a spiritual Shangra La, and it is still thick with theosophists. As a college student, I came here frequently to hear Krishnamurti speak in its parks.

At Dennis's house, I meet and immediately like his new wife Meredy. Before dinner we are taken on a dog-walk up along one of those hills I saw through my car window. As we walk and talk, I feel my feet touching this amazing land. It is hot and I am sweating. The town of Ojai is small; one long, yuppified street. There are remnants of the orange groves along which Dan and I used to run. Kathy and Allyn's rental is in a posh neighborhood and makes Dennis and Meredy's sprawling tract home look rather earthy. Kathy beams through the front door window as she sees our faces. Decades-old friends whom we haven't seen in over a decade. E-mail and the telephone can't replace pure physical contact. Kathy has a manicured, cascading waterfall in her back garden, but this doesn't seem to ease the feeling that I have lost contact with nature. It isn't until the next morning when Kathy takes us for a walk through a neighborhood access only, corral-like open meadow that the natural contact resumes. I find that talking outside, talking in wilder and more primitive places loosens people's inhibitions.

That Dan and I are in rugged Ojai after spending two feet-burning days walking and visiting with friends in bustling, downtown San Francisco and Oakland, shocks us. We are like birds making our way south for the winter, flying through one habitat after another.

Leaving Ojai, we skim along the coastal highway to Dan's mom's house which is a half block away from the Hermosa Beach Strand. Dan's mother and younger sixty year old brother live together and always have since their father's death, at age 45. They resemble a grouchy, long-married couple who know they need each other to survive. Dan's mom has a tremendous heart, beating inside a neglected eight-five year old body. The television is on every waking moment, and so to find solace we take walks along the strand or walks through this now more upscale beach town to our usual coffee place for breakfast.

Our daughter wants to see grandma, so we fly her down for the weekend. After she arrives I feel complete. It is hot, even at the beach...record highs in Los Angeles. Mid-morning, the daughter and I go for a bike ride, riding fast along the sandy, increasingly peopled shores. There are huge tankers far out on the glassy waters looking more like toy boats. There are rows and rows of volleyball nets with groups of players arriving at every one. There are boy scouts doing their duty on beach clean-up day. My daughter rides faster, and I try to keep up. The sky is unlimited if I look north, but a stack of smoke is rising to the east. We stop and walk our bikes onto a pier and see surfers paddling for waves. It's a normal day at the beach, but it's totally different from our Eugene, Oregon home environment.

At one place where bikes must be carried up the steps, with difficulty I begin lifting my bike. But then this incredibly nice gentleman says, “Let me help you.” I thank him profusely and he jokes that he'll be happy to carry my bike all the way to Starbucks! As I hop back on my bike, I wonder if this is what it means to be a senior citizen? I like the respect and care but hope I can be an agile aging specimen. The daughter keeps turning around and asking me if I'm OK. “Yes, yes,” I tell her as I'm catching my breath and wiping away the heat induced-sweat. When I say “I love this,” what I am really saying is “I love being with you.”

In the afternoon Dan's sister and her partner, Mary, arrive and we all head down to the beach with our beach chairs and umbrellas. All the water people, myself and Mary excluded, go body surfing. I sit and watch the expansive horizon and see what appears to be seal heads bobbing up and down in the waters. Later we are given this habitat's gift: a pod of playfully frolicking dolphins swim merrily by my beloved human swimmers and can be seen from the shore. I am once again elated...dolphins are rarely seen so close to this Pacific Coast civilization. I scan the waters for more surprises but all I can focus upon is my beautiful, lanky daughter and dripping wet husband, both of whom I love beyond measure. They are so alike in temperament, I think, and can feel myself edging towards an outsider frame of mind.

Is it a burden to be full of sensitivities and mental meanderings? Is it a burden to have to put all experiences, all musings into spoken and written words? I so admire the quiet nature of my family. My husband and daughter have no need to speak. Their inward contemplations are enough. My enthusiastic energy can't be contained.

Like a taunt yet subtle rubber band, our eleven days of travel have stretched us far and away from our home and back again. From wall-to-wall peopled big city to quiet as a pin-drop mountain oasis, from one upscale California beach town to another, we have opened our hearts to and rejuvenated our minds with old friends and family. On our last afternoon in Hermosa, we set up the gigantic umbrella, wipe off the lounge chairs and help Grandma and her walker make their way around the side of the house to this front yard respite. In the thirty or so years I have known Dan's mother, she has never sat outside with us. But here we all are: brother, sister, partner, Dan, wife and daughter, Dan's mother, my daughter's grandmother, sitting facing a view of the ocean rising above the sand. It is a miracle, this short span of living we do. It is a miracle to be able to encounter the surprises nature presents. It is a miracle, simply to be together, sitting side by side with those we love.

(c) 2012