Here we go again!

Just two more weeks...


Almost two years ago, I started thinking about returning to graduate school. Wondering if I really wanted to go back--not that I ever really stopped (I've taken classes every quarter for the last two years, all while working 30 hours a week)--and finally deciding I wanted nothing more.


I'm going for it. I'm getting a Ph.D.

But when you think about something for that long--planning, prepping, writing letters and papers to prove your worth to someone you may never meet--you have a lot of time to question the wisdom of your decision. And even after receiving an acceptance letter--and feeling that rush of excitement and vindication (They like me! They really like me!)--it's all too easy to find the doubt creeping in.

Can I really do this? Am I crazy to even consider taking this step at my age?

But this week, I found all the reassurance I needed. I took a trip to Seattle, making a trial run on public transit (the Sounder and the Link to UW? Easy peasy. Someone should have thought of that years ago!), and met with the English graduate program director. Aside from discovering that I'd get all 30 credits possible for entering with an MA degree (a great relief, since my degree is not in English), and getting just the faculty adviser I was hoping for, I learned that I will not even be the oldest person in my brand-new cohort! My classmates and I will be joined by an 80-year-old retired physician who has decided he wants a Ph.D. in English--just like the rest of us!

So, no...I'm not too old!

Sitting on the train on the way home, watching the landscape rush past, I couldn't help but smile. It has all worked out so perfectly. Twenty years ago, college wasn't even on my radar. I had a thriving business, doing something that I loved--and something that I was really good at. But nine years ago, it all fell apart and I had figure out a way to regroup. I had to find something new to do (because I always need to have something to do), and returning to college became that thing. And even more, it became something that I loved, and I was really good at. It led me to a new profession--also something I really love--and now it's leading me on once again.

Four years ago, when I began my MA program, I started this blog as a way to examine my research interests and explore ideas for what became my capstone project--a novel inspired by a diary. Today, I have a few new ideas that I can't wait to "try out" here, ideas that might blossom into another such project. But for the moment, I'm just counting down these last few days before my life changes once again. Wednesday, September  27th can't come soon enough for me.

Let the adventure begin!

The Haze of Memory

This post is a bit different from the kind of things I usually write about, but it's been percolating for several days and insists it needs to be said....

For days now it has seemed so familiar, but I wasn’t sure why.

It’s prickled at my memory even as it’s prickled my throat and eyes—this haze that has filled the air in a perfect storm of summer heat, smoke from wildfires more than one hundred miles away, and a high-pressure weather system that hasn’t budged in a week.

But this morning, looking at the sky on my drive to work, I finally remembered.

I’ve seen this sky before.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 60s and 70s—before the EPA was formed and we began to see a positive difference in our air. Before there were laws that protected us from the industries that were there to make our lives “better.” To supply factory jobs, mining or refining jobs, or whatever else was promised us in the way of progress and wealth.

Before the EPA, the Bay Area sky—ashy noons, and orange-tinged suns rising and setting, just like the ones that have begun and ended our days for the last week—was all-too-often a sweeping showcase of smog.

Smoke + fog = smog—or whatever the definition that was first floated on weather forecasts in the late 60s/early 70s when the gunk in the sky gained a name.

Whatever you called it, it looked bad, it smelled bad, and it made people sick—just like the air this week in the Puget Sound!

I remember late summer days when I was in Jr. High, sitting under an ashen sun hung high in a smoky sky at lunch time, or looking out across the bay toward SF at the brownish haze that seemed settled over the city, or watching the searing orange glow of the sunset. I remember learning about this new “weather” phenomenon in science classes, but also hearing that President Nixon had formed a new agency to take care of the problem—to fix the air and the sky before it killed us all.

Now I know that this haze that’s been hanging over our heads for the last week, keeping me inside the house, off the deck in the evenings, and away from my daily noon walks at work because the smoke irritates my eyes and throat, gives me headaches and makes me cough—this haze that has turned the spectacular blue of our Washington summer skies to the pallid hues of my California childhood memory—has not come from industry or too many cars spewing toxic exhaust. But, in spite of its natural origins, it is a reminder of why we cannot allow our hard-won environmental protections to be gutted by an administration that doesn’t “believe” in climate change. That believes in promoting economic interests above the interest of the people who live in our country—the people whom government is supposed to exist to serve.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I typically avoid any conversation that smacks of politics as if it was a python at a child’s birthday party.  I have very decided opinions, but I’d really rather not get into them in a public forum (or anywhere, except debates—I mean, lively conversations—with my kids). I really hate arguments! But this time, I’m making an exception. This time, I’m willing to stand up and say that if we don’t do what we have to to protect our air and water, and defend our natural landscapes, no one will do it for us. This week has convinced me that we cannot allow a push for unfettered business decisions that do what’s best for someone’s bottom line, without concern for the bigger picture, to make this week’s “weather” a daily phenomenon. Don’t believe it could happen? Have you seen those pictures of people in Beijing wearing surgical masks to breathe? That is exactly what rolling back environmental protections will get us.

Progress, it ain’t!

The current administration has made it clear that they are determined to undermine those protections—through an executive order that requires two old regulations to be eliminated in order to pass a new one (see section 2). Isn’t that a bit like saying that we have to get rid of all our socks if we need a new pair of shoes? Just because a new problem needs to be addressed cannot be made to mean that an old solution to an old problem—actually, two solutions to two old problems—must be abandoned.

Why shouldn’t we have both?

While I was heartened to read that the US Court of Appeals in D.C. had, In a 2-to-1 ruling, “concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation” (Washington Post, July 3, 2017), is that enough? With an administration that has campaign promises to keep—one of which was to eliminate the EPA—can we just wait and see what happens?

Does it matter if the coal industry rises and jobs return again if the few employed coal miners and their families are poisoned by the coal waste infiltrating their drinking water? Not to mention those sickened by the emissions from coal-fired electricity plants.

Are any economic gains that might result from dismantling those environmental protections that work to clean our air and water worth the human cost?

Whether you “believe” in climate change or not, a lack of environmental protections will only lead to more pollution, and more “weather” conditions like the one we’ve experienced this week. And they won’t be temporary conditions like this one that will end whenever the wind finally kicks up, or the rains come.

They might just be forever.

Seven years ago, today...

My mom died.

I got a call from my dad late morning—I think. Over the previous six months, I’d received many such calls. He had called an ambulance to take her to the hospital after a bad night. He promised to get back to me in a bit, to update me on her condition and give me the doctor’s prognosis. I was planning to fly down for a visit in 6 days. It was my second quarter back in college, and it was also finals week. I settled in for an afternoon study session and tried not to worry about what was happening 800 miles away.

It would be ok. It always was

.

But, Mom had cancer, and months earlier the doctor had told us it was pretty much just a matter of time. The last two times I’d been down to visit had been spent more in the hospital than out. Yet, as I studied that afternoon, I was blindly planning to take over her doctor-prescribed diet and get her back on track toward recovery. I was in denial in its purest form.

And there, in the midst of that denial, came the call I never saw coming. The one that nothing could ever have prepared me for.

My father could hardly even speak, but the anguish in his voice was clear. Mom was gone.

Although the hours that followed still burn through my brain in a sort of chaotic, white-hot blur, I remember two things clearly: a primal scream I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried, torn from my throat in a mix of grief and rage. And my husband, who—of all things—despises tears, holding me tight as the storm raged.

This morning, I still carry the pain. It’s settled, of course. The gashes left on my soul that day have lost their ragged edges, and become another part of who I am. I am half an orphan. The woman who carried me within her own body, all those years ago, has been gone now for seven years. And just as I felt that day, I am still, in many ways, bereft.

But, much has happened over these last seven years. 

My mom has five, going on six, new great-grandchildren, in addition to the seven she already had. Her oldest daughter finally graduated from college, got a Master’s degree, and has done all she could to become the thing that Mom told her she should be so many years ago—an English teacher. I like to think she’s proud of me.

And I suppose that’s most of what’s behind my sadness this morning. 

Today marks seven years since she left without a goodbye. I was pretty mad at God about that for a while—couldn’t she just have been allowed one more week so I could see her again? Talk to her? Tell her I loved her?

But life is like that sometimes. We make plans, buy tickets, but the course of the journey is never really under our control.

In spite of this, I’ve spent the last year or so making plans and dreaming of possibilities once again. Buying tickets, so to speak, for a journey that was never really mine to make happen. I’ve done what I could in order to take that last step in my education, applying to the PhD. program of my dreams. And I wouldn’t have done it any other way. But making it a reality was never really in my hands. 

Although I’ve yet to receive the call telling me my dream has died, the writing is on the wall.

(Or, the rejection letters have been going out all week)

But, although I’m tempted to wallow a little, to focus for a while on that fading dream, I keep hearing a voice in my head. It sounds like Julie Andrews, but I think it’s really my mom.

“When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.”(The Sound of Music was always one of her favorites, so I’m not surprised she’d quote it to me!)

So, another door has closed. You can’t have lived for over half a century without experiencing a lot of closed doors—and I have certainly experienced a few of my own.

But it was a closed door that turned me toward the path I stand at the end of today. A path that started outside an unexpected window, overlooking a view I would never have considered unless another dream had died. 

A view I wouldn’t have missed for the world!

Today, I’ll cry a little (ok, a little more). Our loved ones deserve to be grieved. Closed doors to be mourned.  But I’ll also be looking for a window to crack open. For a new dream to be born, like a rising sun casting beams into my quiet room. Because I know, as sure as I’m sitting here, I will find it.

After all, my mom said so.

When Dreams become Realities

Almost eight years ago, I began to dream a dream. 

Sitting in a college classroom for the first time in over 3 decades, a tiny bud of an idea began to bloom in me. It was an English 101 course, and I was  peer-reviewing a classmate's paper. 

And it hit me...this is what I want to do when I grow up!

Oh, not writing papers--but I do love writing papers! Not even editing them, although I have to admit I not-so-secretly love that, too. 

No, in the midst of explaining some grammatical concept to my editing partner, I had an epiphany. I knew I wanted to not only write myself, but also to teach writing someday.

When I started back to college in 2009, I really didn't have a goal any bigger than just taking a few classes to fill my time and see if I liked it--art and art history since that was my background. But instead, I found my first quarter schedule taken up with Algebra and English (and a class on the ins-and-outs of Microsoft Word that literally saved my college career), and loved every minute. By two weeks into the quarter, I determined I'd finish the degree I abandoned years before. And just a few weeks after that, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that degree.

In the years since, I've not only finished two degrees (and am hoping for a chance at one more), but I have fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with the written word.

Now, I've always had a thing for language. I spent more than one summer while my  sons were taking swimming lessons, sitting in the bleachers by the Curtis HS pool pretending to watch them swim,  but actually inhaling books on literature, writing, and the history of the English language (The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson is still one of my all-time favorites). I've kept a diary/journal on and off since I was 11 years old, and have devoured virtually any book set in front of me since my mother taught me to read at 4 1/2.

The English language and I are old friends.

(But I digress ... I was talking about dreams--and more importantly, their fulfillment!)

Today I begin teaching my first college writing class! I am co-teaching with a dear friend and colleague, Nicole Blair, in a first-year seminar, working with the theme of the Individual in Community, and using digital storytelling to create personal and community narratives. We've assembled what I think is going to be a great class and I am beyond excited about this opportunity.

Nicole and I have been talking for nearly two years about the possibility of working together on just such a course--and it begins today.

So for today, all I have to say is, never stop dreaming! You never know when--or how--that dream might just come true!
 

That which I have greatly feared...

November 30th.
It's my birthday, and today I am completing my 60th circuit around the sun.

It's actually happened. I knew it would--someday. "The way of all flesh," and all that. Yet, somehow, in the midst of a million unnoticed blinks, I became...60.

I don't feel it. As a matter of fact, my brain bubbles with energy--filled with thousands of ideas that bounce like pinballs inside my head. Inside I feel--just like my Gramma used to say when I asked her how it felt to be old (yeah, I was one of those kids)--like I'm still seventeen. Ok, Gramma said 17, but I think I feel more like 35. Old enough to be past all the teenage angst, and the "who am I?" of my 20s. Old enough to be a bit settled, but not so old that I can't appreciate silly.

I like silly.

But 60? The big 6-0? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

But you know, in saner moments, I realize that age is little more than a number (that, and the crinkly-eyed stranger who sometimes appears in my mirror at 4:30 in the morning). I am who I've always been, and no matter the date on my driver's license and passport, that person has plans and goals, and can't sit still (at least mentally) and watch the world go by. That person has things to do!

So this year? What wishes will I make on the candles perched atop that sure-to-be-flaming cake?

I have a few.

I'll wish for acceptance to my chosen Ph.D. program, so someday my grandkids can call me Dr. Gramma. 
I'll wish for another trip to Rome. 
I'll wish for time to write my second novel. 
(I'll make a really big wish that getting a tattoo doesn't hurt too much)

But I'll also be wishing for a happy and healthy grandbaby #10 next May, and I'll wish the biggest possible blessings on the grandbabies who are already here (and their parents, too, just for good measure).

But mostly, I'll be thankful.

I'll be thankful for my health.
For my amazing, patient, supportive husband who puts up with a LOT, especially when those pinball-like ideas start bouncing around my brain.
For my family and friends who probably think I'm crazy, but love me anyway. (I love you, too!)
For the new life and career that rose from the ashes of the old, not too many years ago, re-energizing me in ways I never expected.

I'm thankful for new challenges. For great books--and lots (more) of them. 
For the legacy that both goes before me and follows after.

And yes, I'm even thankful to be 60. After all, what's the alternative?

So... who wants cake?

(1.5.2017 update - the tattoo is amazing, and was barely painful!) ;)

Mother's Day 2016

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and so far I’ve spent the day: 

1) fielding early morning phone calls from my youngest son who was headed out of town (to a spot where he’d have spotty cell coverage), but wanted to tell me he loved me and wish me a Happy Mother’s Day

2) confirming reservations for our 40^th anniversary trip to Italy next month (!)

3) taking down the Christmas tree.

Yeah, you read that right. It’s the first week in May and my tree is still up.

Now in my defense, it’s an artificial tree, and I’ve had the lights unplugged since the end of January. It’s been wrapped in sheets since March, just waiting for someone to carry it down to the basement—which was supposed to happen when my family was all here for Easter, but that plan was abandoned amidst the glitter once the egg-dying marathon began.

So my once-beautiful tree has been standing in my living room, shrouded by sheets, and making me feel like a neglectful homemaker for months now. But today, I decided it needed to be put away—at least for a few months before it reappears once again, probably over Thanksgiving weekend.

So why, after months of silence on this blog, did I decide that my greatly belated tree un-decorating needed to be memorialized in words? Frankly, I’m not sure. 

While I was removing the ornaments, I was noticing patterns among them—their progression; first, handmade (by me) and dated (I’m big on keeping track of dates), to handmade (by my children) and tragically undated, with their specific creators left to my slightly unreliable memory. Then there are the themed ornaments—musical instruments which paid homage to my childhood inspirations, Santas and snowmen, gingerbread men and Nutcrackers (I collected these for years, so there are MANY). Then there are the collections of wicker bells, gold stars, and tiny silver baskets (really! I thought they’d be adorable filled with candies on the tree, but it only took my first grandchild to convince me that anything that encouraged a small child to reach for and remove things from a Christmas tree was a ridiculous idea. The remaining baskets have been empty ever since—much to the consternation of my youngest grandchildren).

Those of you who know me know that I am slightly obsessed with trivial details. I celebrate obscure anniversaries and traditions, and remember the minutiae of long-forgotten events or dates. I’m a word nut who hoards books, letters, cards, and the mound of “great quotes” tacked on my bulletin board.  

But mostly, I am a romantic idealist who is a sucker for a story.  

And today, I was struck by the stories held within the various objects that up until an hour ago had been hanging—somewhat embarrassingly—on my definitely past-date Christmas tree.

Contained within those objects—now sorted-by-theme or material of construction, and laying in piles on my dining room table—I rediscovered the tales of a brand-new family trying to reinvent the magical Christmases of their childhoods, and the young mother who proudly hung silver macaroni-covered stars, created by her children. I read the story of a budding artist who wove visual leitmotifs throughout her annual creation, and pursued those visions through glass, wood, resin—and plastic.

As I removed nearly a lifetime’s collection of ornaments from that artificial tree in my living room, I listened to their melodies, and counter-melodies, and felt the wordless rhythms of the lives that have been lived out in this house for over 39 years now—and I couldn’t help but smile.

Monday, May 2, 2016 was the 39^th anniversary of the day that my husband and I moved into this house. That morning, I awoke to brilliant sunshine and a keen awareness that I have inhabited the same space on this planet for almost 2/3 of my life. 

May 2, 1977 was also a Monday—but it rained all day (so much for patterns).

Now, if you are still with me after 700+ words, you are probably asking yourself, “Is there a point here?”

That remains to be seen. For the most part this is just a collection of my meandering thoughts on Christmas ornaments, Mother’s Day phone calls, houses, and the continuity of life we somehow find in all of them.

For six years now, I’ve greatly missed being able to call my mother on Mother’s Day, but at least I get to talk to my own kids (sometimes they even visit). 

I’ve been collecting Christmas ornaments for 40 years, beginning with the set my aunt brought me from Germany as a wedding gift. They told the story of a marriage, she told me, and I treasured them for years until I passed them on to my daughter-in-law almost 15 years ago, the Christmas before she married my oldest son.

For 39 years, I’ve walked the rooms of this house. At first, without a history of my own, I wondered over the lives of the strangers who had walked them before me. But now that my own memories crowd every room, I think instead of dangling my hand over the side of the bed to comfort a new puppy sleeping in a box and spending her first night away from her mother, of hovering in doorways watching my babies sleep, or standing in the kitchen talking to my mother on the wall phone with the extra-long cord. I reminisce over backyard birthday parties, mud soccer and bike jumps, Chinese birthday feast shared sitting on the floor around the living room coffee table, Mother’s Day pancakes, and laughing till I cried as a friend played Christmas carols on our piano with the broken soundboard. Our first wedding anniversary was celebrated here—as well as the vow renewal ceremony we held for our 25^th. 

In this house, I’ve met good news and bad. Elation and tragedy. The inescapable stuff of life.

The things that make up my story. 

So, for those of you who are celebrating Mother’s Day tomorrow—whether for yourself or your mother—I wish you a blissful day and another memory with which to build your own story.

And thank you for indulging my long-windedness. If you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to my tree...