This essay is a re-run. It originally ran in the Ticket in March 2003. I’m going to see if Rick’s cartoon will show up in the blog if I copy and paste it. (It didn't)
It’s Monday, January 28, 2008, and life is good. Not much snow at our house, but plenty in the Northwest vicinity, and I am about to go up to Thriftway to load up on provender. Half and half and Pepsi for Rick in this case.
Stay warm, friends.
Island Legends: The Secret Ferry
A friend said to me today that I had promised my last column would be funny, and it wasn’t (it was about tornados), and it was about time I wrote something funny.
Noted. Before the tornado hit Vancouver I had planned to take that issue off and re-run the following column from about five years ago. So now I’m going to take this issue off and re-run this column, and I hope that it is funny to at least some of you. Here goes:
A few years ago, one Sunday morning, a Big Important Businessman was having brunch at Sound Food. His cell phone rang. He answered it, and received a Very Important Business Call.
He needed to get to an Important Business Meeting on the mainland. He went up to the hostess and asked, “What’s the quickest way to get off the island?”
The hostess told him to head north on the road outside the restaurant until he came to the ferry dock, and wait for the next ferry to arrive, and he should be able to get off the island in an hour or so.
The Big Important Businessman was distressed. An hour? That was much too long. He had Important Business and had to get to the mainland right away, and wasn’t there a quicker way to get there than the ferry?
No, the hostess told him, the ferry was the only way off the island.
“OK,” he said. “I know how things work in places like this. Where is the secret ferry?”
“The what?” asked the hostess.
“The secret ferry,” he said. “The one only you islanders know about, so you can get off the island any time you want to.”
The hostess was non-plussed. She explained that there is no secret ferry, only the public state ferries that come to the north and south end ferry docks.
The man refused to believe her. He insisted that there must be a secret ferry. She was concealing the information because we islanders were selfishly keeping it to ourselves and didn’t want anyone else to know. He was too smart to be tricked, he said. He wasn’t born yesterday, he said.
Finally, in exasperation, the hostess said, “OK, OK, you’re right. I can’t fool you. There is a secret ferry.”
He smiled in victory. “Where is it?” he asked.
So she told him how to drive down to Manzanita Beach.
He left, and did not return.
End of story.
A friend told me that story in the supermarket. She said she had heard it from the granddaughter of another friend of mine. I called the grandmother and asked her where she got the story, and she said it came from her son, Fred, who was working at Sound Food when the incident happened. Soon thereafter I ran into Fred and asked him about the story. He had been the cook at Sound Food that day, and yes, that is basically what happened, although he wasn’t sure if the hostess, whose name was Nanette, sent the man to Manzanita or to Point Robinson. He said that for a while after that the Sound Food staff joked about Bippies, or “Big Important People.”
This was a fairly easy story to track because I knew all the people in the chain of telling. I wanted to track it down because it sounded like an urban legend, but it wasn’t. It really happened.
You can check out urban legends at http://www.snopes.com/. Island legends are easier to trace. For example, I believe that the late Joe Chambers once set a middle of the night ferry-dock-to-ferry-dock speed record of 9 minutes. Friends were posted at intersections to prevent collisions en route. He wasn’t late that night.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
January 22, 2008
I Do Not Abhor a Vacuum
Sound the trumpets! Stop the presses! I have vacuumed!
Amazing, isn’t it? A chore I took for granted for so many years, and now that I’m old(er) and ill, it’s a triumph of will and physical recovery. Yay! I was able to vacuum up all those pesky little pieces of paper that fall from the shredder onto the floor when I empty the basket into the recycling bag! I can see the rug again.
Then, while I was at it, I whisked over the major walkways: front door, living room, kitchen, big bedroom; and finally, my ultimate goal: the pieces of hair on the master bathroom carpet from that impromptu trim I gave myself yesterday. No, I don’t know why the bathroom is carpeted. Seemed like an iffy idea to me, but there it is.
And now I’m exhausted, dizzy and weak, and am paying attention to those responses to the workout and I am stopping.
Some of my friends would howl at me for doing this chore – the ones who have been telling me not to blow my recovery by overdoing. Another friend, who doesn’t seem to grasp that I have really been seriously ill, would be pleased that I have done something productive for a change.
These diametrically opposing views give me the strong hint that I’d better pay attention to what I need and what’s right for me, because the opinions of others will vary.
Last night I got back to typing up my old essays for the first time since we moved last October. The plan has been to put together a collection in a book, and offer it for sale, the idea being that we have some retirement income to supplement the inadequate Social Security for which we will eventually qualify. I have been too sick – too exhausted, not to mention the chest pains – for the last four months to do a keystroke of this productive activity. Everything I used to do has gone by the wayside, except for writing my column. Other than that, I’ve been resting and knitting and occasionally making dinner. I’ve been looking at the unpacked boxes, and watching the birds feeding on the back porch.
Birds feeding on the back porch: Oregon juncos are the great majority by far. Spotted Towhees come in second, and Steller’s Jays. And gray squirrels. Occasionally a crow comes by and chases everyone else away, but crows are too smart and too wary and as soon as someone moves inside the house and it detects the movement, it flies away. Then the songbirds flock back.
I have seen house finches and perhaps purple finches, pine siskins, house sparrows, maybe a chickadee, and either a fox sparrow or a song sparrow. It didn’t stick around long enough for me to make a positive ID. I keep meaning to bring my binoculars in from the car so I can take a closer look at the feeder’s visitors.
I enjoy watching them. It’s a good pastime for a person recovering from mononucleosis, as I am, and I feel like I’m learning something, which is a good thing at any age.
It was 31 degrees F out on the back porch this morning, and the deck was an ice rink. Thank heavens for the 3-tab roofing panels that the previous occupants put down. Last night at midnight I tuned into the Northwest News Channel to check up on how cold it was, and noted that over in Ephrata, about six miles from where my cousin Nancy lives, it was 2 degrees F. Some other places were in the minuses. Yep. The Northwest is definitely in the deep freeze.
And as long as it is, I’ll stay inside and cook up some stews and soups to warm the inner person. And type up a couple more essays. And for a good time, check out this website my sister-in-law Barbara forwarded to me this morning:
HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands . HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany . In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital. Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.
This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer.
http://producten.hema.nl/
I Do Not Abhor a Vacuum
Sound the trumpets! Stop the presses! I have vacuumed!
Amazing, isn’t it? A chore I took for granted for so many years, and now that I’m old(er) and ill, it’s a triumph of will and physical recovery. Yay! I was able to vacuum up all those pesky little pieces of paper that fall from the shredder onto the floor when I empty the basket into the recycling bag! I can see the rug again.
Then, while I was at it, I whisked over the major walkways: front door, living room, kitchen, big bedroom; and finally, my ultimate goal: the pieces of hair on the master bathroom carpet from that impromptu trim I gave myself yesterday. No, I don’t know why the bathroom is carpeted. Seemed like an iffy idea to me, but there it is.
And now I’m exhausted, dizzy and weak, and am paying attention to those responses to the workout and I am stopping.
Some of my friends would howl at me for doing this chore – the ones who have been telling me not to blow my recovery by overdoing. Another friend, who doesn’t seem to grasp that I have really been seriously ill, would be pleased that I have done something productive for a change.
These diametrically opposing views give me the strong hint that I’d better pay attention to what I need and what’s right for me, because the opinions of others will vary.
Last night I got back to typing up my old essays for the first time since we moved last October. The plan has been to put together a collection in a book, and offer it for sale, the idea being that we have some retirement income to supplement the inadequate Social Security for which we will eventually qualify. I have been too sick – too exhausted, not to mention the chest pains – for the last four months to do a keystroke of this productive activity. Everything I used to do has gone by the wayside, except for writing my column. Other than that, I’ve been resting and knitting and occasionally making dinner. I’ve been looking at the unpacked boxes, and watching the birds feeding on the back porch.
Birds feeding on the back porch: Oregon juncos are the great majority by far. Spotted Towhees come in second, and Steller’s Jays. And gray squirrels. Occasionally a crow comes by and chases everyone else away, but crows are too smart and too wary and as soon as someone moves inside the house and it detects the movement, it flies away. Then the songbirds flock back.
I have seen house finches and perhaps purple finches, pine siskins, house sparrows, maybe a chickadee, and either a fox sparrow or a song sparrow. It didn’t stick around long enough for me to make a positive ID. I keep meaning to bring my binoculars in from the car so I can take a closer look at the feeder’s visitors.
I enjoy watching them. It’s a good pastime for a person recovering from mononucleosis, as I am, and I feel like I’m learning something, which is a good thing at any age.
It was 31 degrees F out on the back porch this morning, and the deck was an ice rink. Thank heavens for the 3-tab roofing panels that the previous occupants put down. Last night at midnight I tuned into the Northwest News Channel to check up on how cold it was, and noted that over in Ephrata, about six miles from where my cousin Nancy lives, it was 2 degrees F. Some other places were in the minuses. Yep. The Northwest is definitely in the deep freeze.
And as long as it is, I’ll stay inside and cook up some stews and soups to warm the inner person. And type up a couple more essays. And for a good time, check out this website my sister-in-law Barbara forwarded to me this morning:
HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands . HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany . In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital. Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.
This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer.
http://producten.hema.nl/
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Heart Test
Went and had my heart tested today and what I learned first was that I have got to do something about my hair. It doesn’t affect the functioning of my heart, but it makes me flinch when I look in a mirror. Fortunately I have a lot of hats now.
The heart test had a couple of parts, and ended up taking about three hours.
First I was injected with an isotope, and sent back out to the waiting room to wait for my heart to light up. Tech Kristen told me that I would be radioactive until sometime tomorrow, and she would give me a little card saying that I was radioactive because of a medical test in case I ran afoul of Homeland Security when I went on the ferry. She forgot to give me the card, but I did not run into Homeland Security, so it was all right.
I sat in the waiting room while waiting for the isotope to circulate and counted cranes – the construction cranes hovering over building sites in Seattle, at least the ones I could see through the west-facing window. I counted eleven. It’s amazing to me that more of them don’t fall over, like the one in Bellevue last year. They are so large, and so unwieldy.
In the fullness of time I was called in to be photographed. This involved lying in a chair that tilted back, putting my left arm up over my head, and my right arm at my side. I broke my right arm up by the shoulder a few years ago, and can’t lift it up over my head any more. Kristen wrapped me in a blanket tightly to hold my right arm secure.
Then the camera hovered over me. It had two screens at right angles to one another, so that when it was over me it was like being under a tiny pup tent. A tiny pup tent that probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, I’m guessing. It was a “LEHR (Low energy, high resolution) Collimator.” This means it was a nuclear camera that takes really, really good internal pictures. I memorized the name because I had lots of time to stare at it while lying still for the camera. I learned this evening when I looked it up that this is not a brand name. It’s the kind of camera it is. The really, really good kind.
I was supposed to keep perfectly still while the nuclear camera moved around me. The camera began in a position straight above me, and then moved every minute or so about an inch counterclockwise.
The first series was blurry. Kristen told me I had a bowel in the way. Did you know that your bowel cozies up to your heart? I didn’t. Anyway, they sent me back out to the waiting room to drink water and walk around, and then I went back and they did another series.
Now it was time for the stress test. Whooptie! On to the treadmill! But because I have terrible knees I didn’t have to do the running treadmill test; I just had to walk while they injected adenosine, a drug designed to make my body stressed as if I was exercising.
Another tech named Leo fitted me up for this, putting those sticky snaps around my ribcage and collar bone, and then hooked me up to the EKG machine. Kristen started the injection and the treadmill, and we were off. Or I was.
An ARNP named Chris (a guy) ran the readout machine while Leo watched me and took my blood pressure every minute or two. It was a good blood pressure: 120/70 to start, falling to 110/60 as the stress drug took effect and dilated my veins. The EKG was pretty good, too.
They were watching me closely because it is, after all, a stress test, and one of the effects I was warned about was possible heart attack and/or death. I had neither of those, though the drug made me feel weird and unpleasant, as Chris told me it would.
When the test was over the drug quickly dissolved and I felt better fast, and Leo and I got to discussing last night’s American Idol show.
Yes, I sometimes watch American Idol.
Then I went and had some post-stress test pictures taken. Back to the chair, the blanket, the immobility, the pup tent. I spent my time wishing I’d pushed my glasses up on my nose before the test began because everything was blurry, and eavesdropping on a discussion the techs were having about how to make pie crust.
Pie crusts are a challenge. I’ve made crusts that were flaky and light and melted in your mouth, and then again I’ve made crusts with the consistency of a hockey puck. When I found out about ten years ago that my mother, the queen of the pie-makers, bought the ready-made kind at the store, I switched to those and haven’t looked back.
Again the pictures weren’t good enough, and I was told to go down to Starbuck’s and get something to eat, and come back in 20 minutes. I heard and obeyed, and went down and had a blind date with an egg salad sandwich and a cup of black decaf (not good – tossed it after a few sips).
One more time under the camera! By this time I had used up all my ability to hold still and was grateful when the tech told me, “We’re finished!” and I could leave.
So I did, and headed down to Costco to get dryer sheets and olive oil, and ended up getting that and a lot more, then headed for the ferry, where no one came near me with a Geiger counter, and came home to watch the second night of American Idol.
I’m supposed to hear about the test results in three days, which puts it into next week. I’m feeling better than I was over Christmas, and I’m glad this process is underway. I’m also glad I’m not in my 20s and dreaming of going on American Idol. I wouldn’t make it past the audition, if I dared to make it that far.
The heart test had a couple of parts, and ended up taking about three hours.
First I was injected with an isotope, and sent back out to the waiting room to wait for my heart to light up. Tech Kristen told me that I would be radioactive until sometime tomorrow, and she would give me a little card saying that I was radioactive because of a medical test in case I ran afoul of Homeland Security when I went on the ferry. She forgot to give me the card, but I did not run into Homeland Security, so it was all right.
I sat in the waiting room while waiting for the isotope to circulate and counted cranes – the construction cranes hovering over building sites in Seattle, at least the ones I could see through the west-facing window. I counted eleven. It’s amazing to me that more of them don’t fall over, like the one in Bellevue last year. They are so large, and so unwieldy.
In the fullness of time I was called in to be photographed. This involved lying in a chair that tilted back, putting my left arm up over my head, and my right arm at my side. I broke my right arm up by the shoulder a few years ago, and can’t lift it up over my head any more. Kristen wrapped me in a blanket tightly to hold my right arm secure.
Then the camera hovered over me. It had two screens at right angles to one another, so that when it was over me it was like being under a tiny pup tent. A tiny pup tent that probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, I’m guessing. It was a “LEHR (Low energy, high resolution) Collimator.” This means it was a nuclear camera that takes really, really good internal pictures. I memorized the name because I had lots of time to stare at it while lying still for the camera. I learned this evening when I looked it up that this is not a brand name. It’s the kind of camera it is. The really, really good kind.
I was supposed to keep perfectly still while the nuclear camera moved around me. The camera began in a position straight above me, and then moved every minute or so about an inch counterclockwise.
The first series was blurry. Kristen told me I had a bowel in the way. Did you know that your bowel cozies up to your heart? I didn’t. Anyway, they sent me back out to the waiting room to drink water and walk around, and then I went back and they did another series.
Now it was time for the stress test. Whooptie! On to the treadmill! But because I have terrible knees I didn’t have to do the running treadmill test; I just had to walk while they injected adenosine, a drug designed to make my body stressed as if I was exercising.
Another tech named Leo fitted me up for this, putting those sticky snaps around my ribcage and collar bone, and then hooked me up to the EKG machine. Kristen started the injection and the treadmill, and we were off. Or I was.
An ARNP named Chris (a guy) ran the readout machine while Leo watched me and took my blood pressure every minute or two. It was a good blood pressure: 120/70 to start, falling to 110/60 as the stress drug took effect and dilated my veins. The EKG was pretty good, too.
They were watching me closely because it is, after all, a stress test, and one of the effects I was warned about was possible heart attack and/or death. I had neither of those, though the drug made me feel weird and unpleasant, as Chris told me it would.
When the test was over the drug quickly dissolved and I felt better fast, and Leo and I got to discussing last night’s American Idol show.
Yes, I sometimes watch American Idol.
Then I went and had some post-stress test pictures taken. Back to the chair, the blanket, the immobility, the pup tent. I spent my time wishing I’d pushed my glasses up on my nose before the test began because everything was blurry, and eavesdropping on a discussion the techs were having about how to make pie crust.
Pie crusts are a challenge. I’ve made crusts that were flaky and light and melted in your mouth, and then again I’ve made crusts with the consistency of a hockey puck. When I found out about ten years ago that my mother, the queen of the pie-makers, bought the ready-made kind at the store, I switched to those and haven’t looked back.
Again the pictures weren’t good enough, and I was told to go down to Starbuck’s and get something to eat, and come back in 20 minutes. I heard and obeyed, and went down and had a blind date with an egg salad sandwich and a cup of black decaf (not good – tossed it after a few sips).
One more time under the camera! By this time I had used up all my ability to hold still and was grateful when the tech told me, “We’re finished!” and I could leave.
So I did, and headed down to Costco to get dryer sheets and olive oil, and ended up getting that and a lot more, then headed for the ferry, where no one came near me with a Geiger counter, and came home to watch the second night of American Idol.
I’m supposed to hear about the test results in three days, which puts it into next week. I’m feeling better than I was over Christmas, and I’m glad this process is underway. I’m also glad I’m not in my 20s and dreaming of going on American Idol. I wouldn’t make it past the audition, if I dared to make it that far.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Tornado Hits Vancouver, WA
Here follows a story about a tornado. It was a big deal the day it happened, and there was something on page 2 of the Local section of the Seattle Times the day after it happened, but after that it disappeared from the news.
Last June when my cousin and I were driving down I-5, as we approached Eugene, Oregon, I saw in the distance what looked like a classic funnel cloud. Darned if the thing didn’t keep dipping down and become a tornado. It ran along the hillside to the east of the freeway, lasting a few minutes. I pulled off the road and rummaged through the trunk of my car looking for a camera but came up empty, so I had nothing later to prove to myself or anyone else that I saw it.
But I’ve been talking about it ever since. I saw a tornado! In Oregon! I was absolutely thrilled and flummoxed. I didn’t think tornados happened anywhere on the west coast, but what I saw that day and what happened in Vancouver last week has taught me otherwise.
My little hillside tornado didn’t seem to do any harm to the trees it snaked through, and the one in Vancouver did property damage, but apparently no one was hurt. So we don’t usually have the makings of big tornados out here, but still – wow. A tornado is a powerful force, even a little one.
I received an email from my friend Sonya a couple of days after the tornado took the shingles off her roof, and all she could talk about was old timey and bluegrass festivals and musicians. Sonya has her priorities, I thought, and I wrote to her to say so, but today she emails:
“wrote you before the big wind, so your amazement at my sangfroid is unfounded. but i would have written on the festivals anyway. they are the sunlight in my winter.
“i've been working on a dry shade garden with native plants, and am going to have to rethink. the tornado took the shade from my front yard and put it in the back yard - in pieces. lost both big, beautiful trees. this was an ugly but very educational experience. jean, the elderly lady at the foot of my street, lost her magnificent oak. 31" in diameter, 23' to the first branches. the oak rose in the air at least 3 feet, gave a quarter turn, and fell over. when i inspected it, i discovered it had no taproot, which i had understood to be one of the reasons oaks are so "mighty". it was at the bottom of a slope, 3 feet from the pavement. obviously it was in a water trap and did need a taproot. i noticed many other uprooted trees, planted on down slopes too close to the curb to develop a good root system on that side.
“we saw it coming and we saw it at work. i saw what looked like a human body hurtle past my basement window at what randy said was 100 miles an hour, which, on later inspection, turned out to be a branch from the deodar. but it wasn't Katrina. it wasn't sustained. none of the windows broke. we are all fine. insurance will pay at least half of reroofing, and I knew the roof had at best five years left. it looks like we have 3-4 cords of wood for heating. (we'll have to use those anti-creosote logs too, unfortunately). and I was hemming and hawing (and not willingly sawing) about taking down the scotch pine at the house corner - bigger every year and too close to the foundation. so the weather-gods decided for me!
“i talked to the folks doing jean's yard, and looks like my tenant will have to cut the branches into firewood for her. my tenant's's brother knows somebody who knows somebody (etc.) who buys hardwood trees. the treecutters were pretty huffed, thinking to take away a heck of a lot of hardwood…the skyline is gone. our woodpecker tree is gone. the bat tree is gone (i don't know if bats lived in it, but we watched them rise up behind it every warm evening.) and we've had to chase off wood thieves who were "just helping" (themselves) twice. jorgenson woods, our newly developed greenspace/park along chicken creek, is a tearful site. we were on one edge of the tornado's swath, and the park on the other. sad. but Nature renews.
“i just hate waiting.
love
s”
Tornado Parking Space
I returned from a shopping trip to Granny’s yesterday and turned on the Northwest News Channel while I made my lunch. They were chattering about a tornado hitting Vancouver, Washington. That got my attention. I have a friend, Sonya, who lives in Vancouver, Washington.
As I watched a realization came to me: this tornado had hit near Sonya’s neighborhood. The announcer said something about the path of the tornado running “south of 78th Street.” I looked in my address book and saw that Sonya’s address started with, “74…” and knew that the tornado had gone right through Sonya’s neighborhood.
I tried calling her, knowing it was a vain exercise, knowing that all the wires were down and there would be no answer. I watched the news, which said no one was injured, and I waited.
Sonya called this morning. The caller ID said, “Vancouver, WA,” so I picked it up and said, “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” She laughed and said yes, then she told me what happened.
“The thunder sounded like a pile driver,” she said. “The wind sounded like water running, like a flash flood.”
Naturally she and her tenant, who lives in her basement, were curious, and went out on the front porch to see what kind of show the weather was putting on. Her tenant, Randy, called to his son, “Hey, it’s a tornado! Come and see this.” So they stood and watched for a while, and then Randy, who has seen tornados before, understood that it was coming their way.
“Sonya, leave the front door open and get in the basement and don’t argue,” he said. They all adjourned to the basement and watched as the tree in the yard snapped off and carried away all the utility lines in front of the house.
It was all over in a few seconds. When they believed it was safe they came out to find that a lot of shingles were gone from the roof, and of course the tree and the utility lines were no more. They were fortunate that it wasn’t worse – their vehicles were not crushed or trapped by debris, as many of their neighbors’ vehicles were. Sonya spent the night at the home of a friend whose house was not in the path of the tornado.
As far as we know no one got hurt, although a lot of property was damaged, and the Vancouver Lake Crew Club was wiped out.
I went online last night looking for news about the tornado, and was surprised to find that what came up when I googled “Vancouver, WA + tornado” was a tornado that hit Vancouver on April 5, 1972.
That was a bigger, nastier tornado. It killed 6 people, and destroyed many buildings, including Peter S. Ogden elementary school, where 70 children were injured. Students at the nearby high school who saw the elementary school collapse ran to the scene to dig kids out.
What was interesting to me was that yesterday’s tornado hit at virtually the same place as the 1972 tornado. Hm. If the Midwest has Tornado Alley, perhaps Vancouver, Washington, has the Northwest’s Tornado Parking Space.
You know, when I moved here from California all those years ago I thought I had moved away from earthquakes, and I thought that we didn’t get tornados on the west coast. Live and learn.
Sidebar (if you’ve got space, Ed):
Vancouver Lake Crew Club destroyed by tornado
This item was posted on the Tacoma News Tribune website on January 10: "Today’s tornado ripped 2 boathouses off the foundations and destroyed most of the club’s 50 rowing shells as well as rowing machines, trailers and oars. The club’s founder, Bill Kalenius, was the head coach at the University of Puget Sound for several years in the 1970s while the team was rowing down on Commencement Bay. Bill has been battling cancer for years and recently finished chemo and radiation treatment."
An account has been started for donations at the Bank of Clark County. Donations should be attention:
Vancouver Lake Crew
8915 NW 21st Ave
Vancouver 98665
Last June when my cousin and I were driving down I-5, as we approached Eugene, Oregon, I saw in the distance what looked like a classic funnel cloud. Darned if the thing didn’t keep dipping down and become a tornado. It ran along the hillside to the east of the freeway, lasting a few minutes. I pulled off the road and rummaged through the trunk of my car looking for a camera but came up empty, so I had nothing later to prove to myself or anyone else that I saw it.
But I’ve been talking about it ever since. I saw a tornado! In Oregon! I was absolutely thrilled and flummoxed. I didn’t think tornados happened anywhere on the west coast, but what I saw that day and what happened in Vancouver last week has taught me otherwise.
My little hillside tornado didn’t seem to do any harm to the trees it snaked through, and the one in Vancouver did property damage, but apparently no one was hurt. So we don’t usually have the makings of big tornados out here, but still – wow. A tornado is a powerful force, even a little one.
I received an email from my friend Sonya a couple of days after the tornado took the shingles off her roof, and all she could talk about was old timey and bluegrass festivals and musicians. Sonya has her priorities, I thought, and I wrote to her to say so, but today she emails:
“wrote you before the big wind, so your amazement at my sangfroid is unfounded. but i would have written on the festivals anyway. they are the sunlight in my winter.
“i've been working on a dry shade garden with native plants, and am going to have to rethink. the tornado took the shade from my front yard and put it in the back yard - in pieces. lost both big, beautiful trees. this was an ugly but very educational experience. jean, the elderly lady at the foot of my street, lost her magnificent oak. 31" in diameter, 23' to the first branches. the oak rose in the air at least 3 feet, gave a quarter turn, and fell over. when i inspected it, i discovered it had no taproot, which i had understood to be one of the reasons oaks are so "mighty". it was at the bottom of a slope, 3 feet from the pavement. obviously it was in a water trap and did need a taproot. i noticed many other uprooted trees, planted on down slopes too close to the curb to develop a good root system on that side.
“we saw it coming and we saw it at work. i saw what looked like a human body hurtle past my basement window at what randy said was 100 miles an hour, which, on later inspection, turned out to be a branch from the deodar. but it wasn't Katrina. it wasn't sustained. none of the windows broke. we are all fine. insurance will pay at least half of reroofing, and I knew the roof had at best five years left. it looks like we have 3-4 cords of wood for heating. (we'll have to use those anti-creosote logs too, unfortunately). and I was hemming and hawing (and not willingly sawing) about taking down the scotch pine at the house corner - bigger every year and too close to the foundation. so the weather-gods decided for me!
“i talked to the folks doing jean's yard, and looks like my tenant will have to cut the branches into firewood for her. my tenant's's brother knows somebody who knows somebody (etc.) who buys hardwood trees. the treecutters were pretty huffed, thinking to take away a heck of a lot of hardwood…the skyline is gone. our woodpecker tree is gone. the bat tree is gone (i don't know if bats lived in it, but we watched them rise up behind it every warm evening.) and we've had to chase off wood thieves who were "just helping" (themselves) twice. jorgenson woods, our newly developed greenspace/park along chicken creek, is a tearful site. we were on one edge of the tornado's swath, and the park on the other. sad. but Nature renews.
“i just hate waiting.
love
s”
Tornado Parking Space
I returned from a shopping trip to Granny’s yesterday and turned on the Northwest News Channel while I made my lunch. They were chattering about a tornado hitting Vancouver, Washington. That got my attention. I have a friend, Sonya, who lives in Vancouver, Washington.
As I watched a realization came to me: this tornado had hit near Sonya’s neighborhood. The announcer said something about the path of the tornado running “south of 78th Street.” I looked in my address book and saw that Sonya’s address started with, “74…” and knew that the tornado had gone right through Sonya’s neighborhood.
I tried calling her, knowing it was a vain exercise, knowing that all the wires were down and there would be no answer. I watched the news, which said no one was injured, and I waited.
Sonya called this morning. The caller ID said, “Vancouver, WA,” so I picked it up and said, “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” She laughed and said yes, then she told me what happened.
“The thunder sounded like a pile driver,” she said. “The wind sounded like water running, like a flash flood.”
Naturally she and her tenant, who lives in her basement, were curious, and went out on the front porch to see what kind of show the weather was putting on. Her tenant, Randy, called to his son, “Hey, it’s a tornado! Come and see this.” So they stood and watched for a while, and then Randy, who has seen tornados before, understood that it was coming their way.
“Sonya, leave the front door open and get in the basement and don’t argue,” he said. They all adjourned to the basement and watched as the tree in the yard snapped off and carried away all the utility lines in front of the house.
It was all over in a few seconds. When they believed it was safe they came out to find that a lot of shingles were gone from the roof, and of course the tree and the utility lines were no more. They were fortunate that it wasn’t worse – their vehicles were not crushed or trapped by debris, as many of their neighbors’ vehicles were. Sonya spent the night at the home of a friend whose house was not in the path of the tornado.
As far as we know no one got hurt, although a lot of property was damaged, and the Vancouver Lake Crew Club was wiped out.
I went online last night looking for news about the tornado, and was surprised to find that what came up when I googled “Vancouver, WA + tornado” was a tornado that hit Vancouver on April 5, 1972.
That was a bigger, nastier tornado. It killed 6 people, and destroyed many buildings, including Peter S. Ogden elementary school, where 70 children were injured. Students at the nearby high school who saw the elementary school collapse ran to the scene to dig kids out.
What was interesting to me was that yesterday’s tornado hit at virtually the same place as the 1972 tornado. Hm. If the Midwest has Tornado Alley, perhaps Vancouver, Washington, has the Northwest’s Tornado Parking Space.
You know, when I moved here from California all those years ago I thought I had moved away from earthquakes, and I thought that we didn’t get tornados on the west coast. Live and learn.
Sidebar (if you’ve got space, Ed):
Vancouver Lake Crew Club destroyed by tornado
This item was posted on the Tacoma News Tribune website on January 10: "Today’s tornado ripped 2 boathouses off the foundations and destroyed most of the club’s 50 rowing shells as well as rowing machines, trailers and oars. The club’s founder, Bill Kalenius, was the head coach at the University of Puget Sound for several years in the 1970s while the team was rowing down on Commencement Bay. Bill has been battling cancer for years and recently finished chemo and radiation treatment."
An account has been started for donations at the Bank of Clark County. Donations should be attention:
Vancouver Lake Crew
8915 NW 21st Ave
Vancouver 98665
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Eat Nuts, Don't Elect Them
January 9, 2008
Dear Hearts and Gentle People,
I am told that my last essay (see previous entry) has caused Discussion among people who have read it. I guess that’s what I’m here for – to get people thinking and talking, as well as laughing.
I guess. I don’t know. I just write this stuff.
It has been a snowy, stormy time here in the Northwest, and on the west coast of the USA in general – rain, wind, snow, thunder and lightning. A real winter. The effect of La Niña, I’ve heard. I’m not sure what you in the Midwest and east are told to blame for your weather, which has not been a picnic, either.
2008 is an election year and the madness is on, as I’m sure you all know. I saw Mike Huckabee on the David Letterman show the other night. He was charming, and funny, and said all the right things we want to hear.
Back when I was dating men, I learned that charming, funny men who said what you wanted to hear were the ones to run away from as soon as possible, because on closer acquaintance they turned out to be anything but charming and funny, and anyone who tells you what you want to hear has a plan for you that you don’t want to experience. This was a hard lesson for me, but I think I eventually learned it.
I saw Richard Nixon on the Johnny Carson show back in 1968. He was also funny and charming and said what we wanted to hear. He came across as a great guy. I liked him. I was too young to have the perspective of his track record for the previous two decades, and that one appearance made me think, oh, he’s a good guy. I like him.
And he was elected President and brought the country peace, prosperity, contentment, and integrity.
I’m joking. He was elected President and he was a brilliant, tragically flawed person who thought he was above behaving legally, or with integrity. His hubris eventually brought him down. A tragedy for him, and for all of us, and we live with the fallout still.
So I don’t think I’ll buy Mike Huckabee’s folksy bite on David Letterman. He has the smile of a demented Kevin Spacey, and appears to wear contacts that make his eyes look big and dewy, and he says what you want to hear. Hmm. Does anyone want to know any more about him before handing over the country to him?
And I don’t mean to pick on Huckabee. I don’t trust any of ‘em at this point, of any party. I wonder who the vegetarians are running this year. I think, “Eat more nuts, don’t elect them” might be a good campaign slogan.
Yeah, I’m pretty cynical about politics at this point.
In spite of that, I wish you all the best year possible –
Blessings & love & hugs & grace & peace
Mary
Dear Hearts and Gentle People,
I am told that my last essay (see previous entry) has caused Discussion among people who have read it. I guess that’s what I’m here for – to get people thinking and talking, as well as laughing.
I guess. I don’t know. I just write this stuff.
It has been a snowy, stormy time here in the Northwest, and on the west coast of the USA in general – rain, wind, snow, thunder and lightning. A real winter. The effect of La Niña, I’ve heard. I’m not sure what you in the Midwest and east are told to blame for your weather, which has not been a picnic, either.
2008 is an election year and the madness is on, as I’m sure you all know. I saw Mike Huckabee on the David Letterman show the other night. He was charming, and funny, and said all the right things we want to hear.
Back when I was dating men, I learned that charming, funny men who said what you wanted to hear were the ones to run away from as soon as possible, because on closer acquaintance they turned out to be anything but charming and funny, and anyone who tells you what you want to hear has a plan for you that you don’t want to experience. This was a hard lesson for me, but I think I eventually learned it.
I saw Richard Nixon on the Johnny Carson show back in 1968. He was also funny and charming and said what we wanted to hear. He came across as a great guy. I liked him. I was too young to have the perspective of his track record for the previous two decades, and that one appearance made me think, oh, he’s a good guy. I like him.
And he was elected President and brought the country peace, prosperity, contentment, and integrity.
I’m joking. He was elected President and he was a brilliant, tragically flawed person who thought he was above behaving legally, or with integrity. His hubris eventually brought him down. A tragedy for him, and for all of us, and we live with the fallout still.
So I don’t think I’ll buy Mike Huckabee’s folksy bite on David Letterman. He has the smile of a demented Kevin Spacey, and appears to wear contacts that make his eyes look big and dewy, and he says what you want to hear. Hmm. Does anyone want to know any more about him before handing over the country to him?
And I don’t mean to pick on Huckabee. I don’t trust any of ‘em at this point, of any party. I wonder who the vegetarians are running this year. I think, “Eat more nuts, don’t elect them” might be a good campaign slogan.
Yeah, I’m pretty cynical about politics at this point.
In spite of that, I wish you all the best year possible –
Blessings & love & hugs & grace & peace
Mary
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Spirituality Revisited + the Last of the Turkey
Well, dear hearts, I wish you a happy new year. I have a feeling I’m going to spend a lot of mine at the cardiologist’s office. I am now taking a calcium channel blocker for chest pains. It helps. It’s not a cure-all, but it helps.
The last essay spurred some responses, so this essay talks about those responses, embellished by my own rambling thoughts. Ramble, ramble.
We are on nearly the last version of the Christmas turkey: turkey chunks in gravy, with mashed potatoes. Rick and the boys liked it. I skipped the mashed potatoes, but did indulge in a bit of leftover dressing. I’m not sure what my grand daughter ate. She tends to ask for snacks, like a p, b, & j sandwich, or a little salad with ranch dressing.
It’s nice having the whole family here. I enjoy having the house full. Tomorrow Allysan will go back to her mom's house, JD will go home to Renton, and Drew will go to work, before heading in to the Central Tavern to see his guitar teacher's band. Rick will go to work, also, and I might go over to Lake Union to see the new year in with friend Becky on her boat, if I feel well enough to leave the house.
That’s about it for tonight. Blessings, peace & grace to all – Mary
Spirituality Revisited
Last issue our esteemed Editor Ed asked us to write about spirituality. I did so, to the best of my ability, and have received a lot of good feedback of the “amen, sister” variety from people. Thank you. Glad it resonated for you.
I have also received two complaints, both of them from people who say they do not believe in God, and both taking deep exception to my statement that, “Saying you don’t believe in God is one way of saying you think you are God.” Neither of them think they are God, they said, and they resented my saying so.
Well, I didn’t intend to get all medieval on anyone’s agnostic or atheist heinie, and I apologize to my atheist and agnostic readers who felt offended. At the same time I am pondering what nerves I have trod upon, and how much of the reaction is about what I said, and how much is about the people who reacted.
Most of the steam I was venting in that statement was my own frustration with people who (1) think they have all the answers; and (2) are militant about shoving their answers down other peoples’ throats. A Christian, or atheist, or agnostic, or liberal, or conservative, or what have you, can be a know-it-all who doesn’t listen. You meet angels and asses in every strata and condition of humanity. I’m getting old and I’m getting tired of know-it-alls taking up my time.
One plaintiff was the friend I quoted in the first paragraph of that essay, who said that God did not invent man, man invented God. He wrote with some feeling about the evils of religion as well as his rational, godless, meaningless universe, which is a comfortable place for him.
I’m pretty slow on the uptake sometimes, so it was a couple of days before I went back and re-read his email and realized he wasn’t talking about the evils of God, he was talking about the evils of religion.
Which brings me to my next lesson: religion is not the same thing as spirituality. Let me repeat that: religion is not the same thing as spirituality.
In fact, religion can be a real spirit-killer. I thought about this a lot about twenty years ago when I first began going to church as an adult. That was when I realized that it isn’t God that people hate or don’t believe in, so much as religion, or church, or the terrible things people do in the name of God. It is human beings who behave so badly. It’s no wonder that a lot of people want to spit in the corner when anyone starts talking about God. They have their reasons for feeling that way. You don’t have to be religious to be abusive or violent, but adding religion to an abusive or violent personality seems to be like pouring gasoline on a brush fire.
A more common effect of religion is that people buy into religious beliefs and opinions, and then feel threatened or afraid when they encounter a difference of opinion. The unfolding of truth is suppressed – after all, why look for the truth when you’ve already got it? Why doubt when you have all the answers? So the people who are most open to the continuing revelation of the truth in the world, the ones brave enough to face their doubts and question their God, are the ones most likely to be misunderstood, feared, reviled, and in the extreme, killed by other believers. It is extraordinary that people continue to seek their truth, considering what the consequences can be.
Religion isn’t all abuse and violence. I’ll repeat that, too: Religion is not all abuse and violence. Religions at best are communities of people coming together to learn, to grow, to support, and to serve one another, as well as people outside their community.
I still believe that where people go wrong, and by people I mean me, is when they think they are God. Whatever you believe, if you think you’ve got all the answers, and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is beneath you, well, dang, you have missed the mark.
Next time I’ll try to write something funny.
The last essay spurred some responses, so this essay talks about those responses, embellished by my own rambling thoughts. Ramble, ramble.
We are on nearly the last version of the Christmas turkey: turkey chunks in gravy, with mashed potatoes. Rick and the boys liked it. I skipped the mashed potatoes, but did indulge in a bit of leftover dressing. I’m not sure what my grand daughter ate. She tends to ask for snacks, like a p, b, & j sandwich, or a little salad with ranch dressing.
It’s nice having the whole family here. I enjoy having the house full. Tomorrow Allysan will go back to her mom's house, JD will go home to Renton, and Drew will go to work, before heading in to the Central Tavern to see his guitar teacher's band. Rick will go to work, also, and I might go over to Lake Union to see the new year in with friend Becky on her boat, if I feel well enough to leave the house.
That’s about it for tonight. Blessings, peace & grace to all – Mary
Spirituality Revisited
Last issue our esteemed Editor Ed asked us to write about spirituality. I did so, to the best of my ability, and have received a lot of good feedback of the “amen, sister” variety from people. Thank you. Glad it resonated for you.
I have also received two complaints, both of them from people who say they do not believe in God, and both taking deep exception to my statement that, “Saying you don’t believe in God is one way of saying you think you are God.” Neither of them think they are God, they said, and they resented my saying so.
Well, I didn’t intend to get all medieval on anyone’s agnostic or atheist heinie, and I apologize to my atheist and agnostic readers who felt offended. At the same time I am pondering what nerves I have trod upon, and how much of the reaction is about what I said, and how much is about the people who reacted.
Most of the steam I was venting in that statement was my own frustration with people who (1) think they have all the answers; and (2) are militant about shoving their answers down other peoples’ throats. A Christian, or atheist, or agnostic, or liberal, or conservative, or what have you, can be a know-it-all who doesn’t listen. You meet angels and asses in every strata and condition of humanity. I’m getting old and I’m getting tired of know-it-alls taking up my time.
One plaintiff was the friend I quoted in the first paragraph of that essay, who said that God did not invent man, man invented God. He wrote with some feeling about the evils of religion as well as his rational, godless, meaningless universe, which is a comfortable place for him.
I’m pretty slow on the uptake sometimes, so it was a couple of days before I went back and re-read his email and realized he wasn’t talking about the evils of God, he was talking about the evils of religion.
Which brings me to my next lesson: religion is not the same thing as spirituality. Let me repeat that: religion is not the same thing as spirituality.
In fact, religion can be a real spirit-killer. I thought about this a lot about twenty years ago when I first began going to church as an adult. That was when I realized that it isn’t God that people hate or don’t believe in, so much as religion, or church, or the terrible things people do in the name of God. It is human beings who behave so badly. It’s no wonder that a lot of people want to spit in the corner when anyone starts talking about God. They have their reasons for feeling that way. You don’t have to be religious to be abusive or violent, but adding religion to an abusive or violent personality seems to be like pouring gasoline on a brush fire.
A more common effect of religion is that people buy into religious beliefs and opinions, and then feel threatened or afraid when they encounter a difference of opinion. The unfolding of truth is suppressed – after all, why look for the truth when you’ve already got it? Why doubt when you have all the answers? So the people who are most open to the continuing revelation of the truth in the world, the ones brave enough to face their doubts and question their God, are the ones most likely to be misunderstood, feared, reviled, and in the extreme, killed by other believers. It is extraordinary that people continue to seek their truth, considering what the consequences can be.
Religion isn’t all abuse and violence. I’ll repeat that, too: Religion is not all abuse and violence. Religions at best are communities of people coming together to learn, to grow, to support, and to serve one another, as well as people outside their community.
I still believe that where people go wrong, and by people I mean me, is when they think they are God. Whatever you believe, if you think you’ve got all the answers, and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is beneath you, well, dang, you have missed the mark.
Next time I’ll try to write something funny.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Wag That Spirit + Boxing Day Thoughts
Go Not Gentle into that Good Night
'Tis the day after Christmas, and there is much rejoicing in my heart, mostly because it is still beating steadily, having made it through another holiday rush. A friend, Betsy Michaud, used the term "holiday martyr" in her Christmas greeting verse, and that certainly resonated with me. I hate December. I hate the rush. I hate the pressure of having to come up with those "just right" presents when I don't have a dollar in my wallet.
Oh, I love my family and my friends. I love the dinners and the company. I love my tree, dripping with pearl earrings and necklaces that I pick up at the thrift store, and also decked with the plastic angels I found in a junk shop over in Soap Lake. They are just like the ones my mom had when I was a kid, that I loved then and played with, and having them on the tree feels so sweet to me.
It's just the idea of the season, the pressure to buy, to spend, to be thoughtful and creative and so forth, when I already feel like my resources are tapped out.
Rick and I are always living right on the line, especially now as we support two houses instead of just one. The move that was supposed to get us out of debt has us hemmoraghing money that we don't really have. That's stress, my friends. We're hoping to get the old house rented after the new year and slow down the bleeding, but oh well.
It's a family tradition. My dad sold the ranch in 1967, put the proceeds into the stock market, and then, in 1968, the market crashed. I don't think he ever recovered from that, and he died about seven years later, of a heart attack. I remember him going into himself, staring at the floor. He and my mom got real estate licenses, and they both worked at it, but I don't think either of them ever made a sale. After a while he just came home and appeared to give up. I am the age he was when he was giving up -- and when I think of that, I think, dammit, I'm not giving up, I'm going to fight like a tiger to live, and be alive. To have "life in abundance," as we Christians like to say.
It is difficult to think of fighting like a tiger and being lively in these long months of convalescence from mononucleosis. I am facing another round with the cardiologist and his tribe because of my frequent pesky chest pains. Angina = bad, you know. Sucks to be mortal, I've been thinking lately.
But then I think of good old Dylan Thomas, who drank himself to death before his time, and what he wrote to his father, which went something like this:
"Go not gentle into that good night,
But rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light!"
Those lines, however I'm misquoting them, give me courage and fire up my spirit.
Sherman Alexie
I've been on a Sherman Alexie toot lately. Sherman Alexie is a writer and poet who grew up on the Spokane Indian reservation, and who writes beautiful, funny, moving, tragic stories about Indian boys and their complex love/hate relationships with their alcoholic fathers. There have been movies made of two of his screenplays: Smoke Signals, which is based on stories from his first book of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and The Business of Fancy Dancing, a movie about a young poet, who has left the rez and found success as a writer and speaker, and returns to the rez for the funeral of a childhood friend. Fancydancing was filmed mostly here on Vashon. Smoke Signals was filmed partially in Soap Lake, Washington, a town I have spent some time in, and I can see how parts of Soap Lake could stand in for the rez.
Alexie has had a recent success with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a youth market novel. I read it the other day, and it's good. Now I've started reading The Lone Ranger... and begin to recognize the characters and stories from Smoke Signals.
I'm not sure why all this tragedy and humor are resonating with me right now. I'm a white person reading about the reality of being Indian and it is like watching a car wreck: it's horrible and I can't look away. But the kid's a pretty good writer and I'm enjoying his stuff.
Ya Gotta Have Heart
The scheduler at the cardiologist's office just called. They want me in there tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to talk to a nurse practitioner. Yay. I generally like nurse practitioners. So the ball is rolling on getting serious treatment for my cardiovascular disease, and that makes me feel better somehow.
OK, now the latest essay, the one that ran in last week's Loop, and then I need to get to work writing something for next week's Loop. It's not as bad as it sounds. At least I have an idea to start. This one was written because Ed Swan, the Loop's editor, wanted to have a theme of spirituality in the last issue, and this is what I came up with. Could be better, could be worse. Hope you enjoy it.
Wag That Spirit
A dear friend once told me that God did not invent man; man invented God. That’s a popular concept among people of great intelligence, and my friend is a person of great intelligence. His great intelligence has gypped him out of the comfort, depth and yes, the reason, of faith.
The reason for faith is simple – when you have faith, you have a richer, fuller, and more joyful life. I know that not everyone wants that, but still, all you hopelessly rational people out there could get down off your tired old defensiveness and eat your share of the faith feast off the good china, if you would, without worrying about appearing to be weak, or whacko. No one is strong or sane all the time, especially people who go around trying to convince everyone that they are strong and sane.
Saying you don’t believe in God is one way of saying you believe you are God.
Saying you believe in God, but going on to say that you know who is going to heaven (you) or hell (not you), is another way of saying you believe you are God.
The basic mistake we all make is that we think we know more, or better than, God, even if we don’t believe in God. We’re so smart and we’re so full of good ideas and we know what’s right and what’s wrong. O what a marvelous creation is man! Or woman! We invented ourselves! Clever homo sapiens.
How do you explain God, or the divine, to people who don’t want to get it? I used to try to explain God to my kids by saying that the word “God” is like a little box that holds a teeny few atoms of what God is, and that box serves as a symbol to our human minds for all the things we do not know and cannot grasp. That unknowable, fathomless, ultimate reality or truth is God, or what we talk about as God so we don’t have to go around saying “the unknowable, fathomless, ultimate reality or truth that we are incapable of imagining, much less grasping.” It’s a short cut.
God speaks to our spirits. What’s a spirit, Mom? I tried to explain spirit to the kids by telling them that your spirit is a part of who you are. It’s a part of every human being, just like the blood in your veins, or the heart beating in your chest, or the need to breathe. It doesn’t matter what you think or how smart or stupid you are, you have a spirit, just like a dog has a tail. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or you don’t wag it.
Me, I’m a Christian. I believe in God and the resurrected Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and that is my religion. This is what and where I was called to be, but I had a spirit before I ever knew a thing about religion.
We human beings are animal creatures, with animal natures. We are naturally subject to animal passions, and we act out of fear, weariness, hunger, loneliness, horniness, anger, jealousy, etc. In our hearts we’re always in junior high – bitter, thrilled, perishing of loneliness, spiteful, manic, worried, desperate for love, desperate to be popular, plotting, planning, strutting, limping, aching, triumphing.
So when someone tells us to calm down and let go of all that, it sounds nuts. It is totally antithetical to our animal natures to be calm and let go of our attempts to control everything, fix everything, judge everything, and mete out punishment and reward. We strive to be God. We’re pretty lousy at the job.
However, human beings also have a wisdom tradition: let go of your animal cravings, stop reacting to everything, love yourself as you are with compassion and kindness, and love others as they are with compassion and kindness. Be kind. Be generous. Be patient. Study. Meditate. Own up to your own sins, but don’t get obsessed with beating yourself up over them – that’s an inverted self indulgence. Shut up and listen. Try to do better. Try to do good. Try to serve instead of trying to control. Do the best you can, and that is enough.
If we go against every screaming bit of our animal nature and let go of trying to be God in our own lives, a miraculous thing happens. Life starts to make sense. If you live as if the truth is true, life starts making sense.
So, how does your spirit wag, your one and only, deepest, most tender, part of you, where truth and light and reality meet, and you stand tall in the dignity of who you are? Don’t ignore your spirit, or lie to yourself that it doesn’t exist. That would be silly.
Now get out there and wag.
'Tis the day after Christmas, and there is much rejoicing in my heart, mostly because it is still beating steadily, having made it through another holiday rush. A friend, Betsy Michaud, used the term "holiday martyr" in her Christmas greeting verse, and that certainly resonated with me. I hate December. I hate the rush. I hate the pressure of having to come up with those "just right" presents when I don't have a dollar in my wallet.
Oh, I love my family and my friends. I love the dinners and the company. I love my tree, dripping with pearl earrings and necklaces that I pick up at the thrift store, and also decked with the plastic angels I found in a junk shop over in Soap Lake. They are just like the ones my mom had when I was a kid, that I loved then and played with, and having them on the tree feels so sweet to me.
It's just the idea of the season, the pressure to buy, to spend, to be thoughtful and creative and so forth, when I already feel like my resources are tapped out.
Rick and I are always living right on the line, especially now as we support two houses instead of just one. The move that was supposed to get us out of debt has us hemmoraghing money that we don't really have. That's stress, my friends. We're hoping to get the old house rented after the new year and slow down the bleeding, but oh well.
It's a family tradition. My dad sold the ranch in 1967, put the proceeds into the stock market, and then, in 1968, the market crashed. I don't think he ever recovered from that, and he died about seven years later, of a heart attack. I remember him going into himself, staring at the floor. He and my mom got real estate licenses, and they both worked at it, but I don't think either of them ever made a sale. After a while he just came home and appeared to give up. I am the age he was when he was giving up -- and when I think of that, I think, dammit, I'm not giving up, I'm going to fight like a tiger to live, and be alive. To have "life in abundance," as we Christians like to say.
It is difficult to think of fighting like a tiger and being lively in these long months of convalescence from mononucleosis. I am facing another round with the cardiologist and his tribe because of my frequent pesky chest pains. Angina = bad, you know. Sucks to be mortal, I've been thinking lately.
But then I think of good old Dylan Thomas, who drank himself to death before his time, and what he wrote to his father, which went something like this:
"Go not gentle into that good night,
But rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light!"
Those lines, however I'm misquoting them, give me courage and fire up my spirit.
Sherman Alexie
I've been on a Sherman Alexie toot lately. Sherman Alexie is a writer and poet who grew up on the Spokane Indian reservation, and who writes beautiful, funny, moving, tragic stories about Indian boys and their complex love/hate relationships with their alcoholic fathers. There have been movies made of two of his screenplays: Smoke Signals, which is based on stories from his first book of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and The Business of Fancy Dancing, a movie about a young poet, who has left the rez and found success as a writer and speaker, and returns to the rez for the funeral of a childhood friend. Fancydancing was filmed mostly here on Vashon. Smoke Signals was filmed partially in Soap Lake, Washington, a town I have spent some time in, and I can see how parts of Soap Lake could stand in for the rez.
Alexie has had a recent success with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a youth market novel. I read it the other day, and it's good. Now I've started reading The Lone Ranger... and begin to recognize the characters and stories from Smoke Signals.
I'm not sure why all this tragedy and humor are resonating with me right now. I'm a white person reading about the reality of being Indian and it is like watching a car wreck: it's horrible and I can't look away. But the kid's a pretty good writer and I'm enjoying his stuff.
Ya Gotta Have Heart
The scheduler at the cardiologist's office just called. They want me in there tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to talk to a nurse practitioner. Yay. I generally like nurse practitioners. So the ball is rolling on getting serious treatment for my cardiovascular disease, and that makes me feel better somehow.
OK, now the latest essay, the one that ran in last week's Loop, and then I need to get to work writing something for next week's Loop. It's not as bad as it sounds. At least I have an idea to start. This one was written because Ed Swan, the Loop's editor, wanted to have a theme of spirituality in the last issue, and this is what I came up with. Could be better, could be worse. Hope you enjoy it.
Wag That Spirit
A dear friend once told me that God did not invent man; man invented God. That’s a popular concept among people of great intelligence, and my friend is a person of great intelligence. His great intelligence has gypped him out of the comfort, depth and yes, the reason, of faith.
The reason for faith is simple – when you have faith, you have a richer, fuller, and more joyful life. I know that not everyone wants that, but still, all you hopelessly rational people out there could get down off your tired old defensiveness and eat your share of the faith feast off the good china, if you would, without worrying about appearing to be weak, or whacko. No one is strong or sane all the time, especially people who go around trying to convince everyone that they are strong and sane.
Saying you don’t believe in God is one way of saying you believe you are God.
Saying you believe in God, but going on to say that you know who is going to heaven (you) or hell (not you), is another way of saying you believe you are God.
The basic mistake we all make is that we think we know more, or better than, God, even if we don’t believe in God. We’re so smart and we’re so full of good ideas and we know what’s right and what’s wrong. O what a marvelous creation is man! Or woman! We invented ourselves! Clever homo sapiens.
How do you explain God, or the divine, to people who don’t want to get it? I used to try to explain God to my kids by saying that the word “God” is like a little box that holds a teeny few atoms of what God is, and that box serves as a symbol to our human minds for all the things we do not know and cannot grasp. That unknowable, fathomless, ultimate reality or truth is God, or what we talk about as God so we don’t have to go around saying “the unknowable, fathomless, ultimate reality or truth that we are incapable of imagining, much less grasping.” It’s a short cut.
God speaks to our spirits. What’s a spirit, Mom? I tried to explain spirit to the kids by telling them that your spirit is a part of who you are. It’s a part of every human being, just like the blood in your veins, or the heart beating in your chest, or the need to breathe. It doesn’t matter what you think or how smart or stupid you are, you have a spirit, just like a dog has a tail. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or you don’t wag it.
Me, I’m a Christian. I believe in God and the resurrected Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and that is my religion. This is what and where I was called to be, but I had a spirit before I ever knew a thing about religion.
We human beings are animal creatures, with animal natures. We are naturally subject to animal passions, and we act out of fear, weariness, hunger, loneliness, horniness, anger, jealousy, etc. In our hearts we’re always in junior high – bitter, thrilled, perishing of loneliness, spiteful, manic, worried, desperate for love, desperate to be popular, plotting, planning, strutting, limping, aching, triumphing.
So when someone tells us to calm down and let go of all that, it sounds nuts. It is totally antithetical to our animal natures to be calm and let go of our attempts to control everything, fix everything, judge everything, and mete out punishment and reward. We strive to be God. We’re pretty lousy at the job.
However, human beings also have a wisdom tradition: let go of your animal cravings, stop reacting to everything, love yourself as you are with compassion and kindness, and love others as they are with compassion and kindness. Be kind. Be generous. Be patient. Study. Meditate. Own up to your own sins, but don’t get obsessed with beating yourself up over them – that’s an inverted self indulgence. Shut up and listen. Try to do better. Try to do good. Try to serve instead of trying to control. Do the best you can, and that is enough.
If we go against every screaming bit of our animal nature and let go of trying to be God in our own lives, a miraculous thing happens. Life starts to make sense. If you live as if the truth is true, life starts making sense.
So, how does your spirit wag, your one and only, deepest, most tender, part of you, where truth and light and reality meet, and you stand tall in the dignity of who you are? Don’t ignore your spirit, or lie to yourself that it doesn’t exist. That would be silly.
Now get out there and wag.
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