Threads in the Social Fabric

 August 20, 2016

“How do you think you made him…or her…feel?”

I heard this statement frequently when I was little. Often it was about bossing my little brother. Or refusing to share my toy with a friend. Or insisting things be done MY way. As I grew up somehow I did learn that my behavior could hurt someone. Selfishness hurt. Calling names that I heard on the playground could hurt: “wop,” nigger,” “heinie,”  “polack,” were to be never used. It hurt feelings and was impolite.

Nowadays word calling is rampant. Even when the words aren’t directed at me, they hurt. They are rude. They make me feel the world is changing for the worse. Columnist Nicolas Kristoff talked of hate rending the social fabric, an old phrase meaning society’s ability to work and play and govern together.

An old Greek myth tells of a hero on a journeys finding three women in a market square weaving a large tapestry. They told him they were weaving the threads of every person’s life, in and out, over and under. When the thread was cut, or ended, it left a hole.

Our early settlers made fabrics out of scraps. Even when I was a child we had a “rag bag” filled with worn out pieces of clothing. My mother didn’t sew and I don’t remember anyone quilting, but we had some “crazy quilts” handed down from previous generations. They were made of odd-shaped fabric scraps sewn together by large black stitches. Each scrap had a story, but I only remember the blue velvet piece from a dress my grandmother wore when she met my grandfather. I loved the way it felt when I rubbed it.

Last week one of my recent Portland friends mentioned a lovely little indie bookshop in Newburyport, Massachusetts he had visited recently. It turned out to be one near my son’s home that I also knew and loved. As we shared our memories about this far away bookshop, we created another common thread. My life now is full of these threads. I treasure each one.

The Olympics show people from different backgrounds who have a passion for the same sport. Who can forget the athletes smiling at their competitors after a tough race? Those participants are connecting with each other-- and with us who have these same passions but lesser abilities. Watching them, and sharing the events with others, weaves different threads into the social fabric. They make us feel good.

Last winter a Wisconsin friend wrote me that a neighbor freely plowed their entire street—one too small for the city plows to bother with in a huge storm. It seems to me it was about the same time that a Wisconsin dentist shot a prize lion in Africa.  Two Wisconsin men. Which one improved the  social fabric?

A friend’s daughter has been taking part in an international scavenger hunt, where the participants take a selfie doing an assigned task. She has read stories to people who can no longer read to themselves, given doughnuts away on the MAX train, and dressed up as a pirate bringing a “treasure” to a shut-in. One of her colleagues pretended to be a butler, and gave coffee away down town. How many people did they make happy during their scavenger week? How do you think they felt?

I don’t know if these little individual projects, one by one, can ever make up for the many leaders who call names and demean others in the name of free speech. I’d like to think they do. So, like Ben Franklin, when we get up in the morning let us think about “what good should I do this day?” At the end of each day, he asked himself about his actions.

Other threads are ideas, and a friend shared this with me. When promoting my Walking Portland Oregon books at book fairs, I sometimes put out a box of individual snapshots used in the book, asking passers-by if they can identify what and where it is. He suggested I post one on my blog pages, asking readers to identify it. At the moment I have no ideas of prizes—it will be just for fun. Let me know your opinion, as well as the answer to this picture # WP 1.

PORTLAND # 1

A Wonderful Day

 

WOW! What a wonderful week it was.

A few weeks ago I received a call telling me that I was being awarded the Evelyn Sibley Lampman award for my years as a school librarian. I was about to race out and do cartwheels in the hall (unfortunately I really can’t) or at least knock on my neighbors’ doors and scream loudly! Fortunately for them, the next call said I could tell my family but no one else, especially anyone who had any relationship with libraries. That one phrase wiped out about 80% of my friends.

So I kept quiet. Not easy for me. Especially when I have GOOD news to share. (Bad news is something else.) I did keep busy rereading some of Lampman’s books, and was pleasantly surprised to find how she was able to hook me into the story in the first chapter. Good writing. And they were surprisingly up to date for the most part, although The Shy Stegosaurus of Indian Springs seemed like a book set in the last century. Well, come to think of it, it was! However, children still love dinosaurs. The portrayal of a Rogue River Indian boy captured by another tribe, and of Yolanda, a migrant girl whose schooling was constantly hampered by the family travels during growing seasons, are both heroes that anyone—even grown-ups--can understand. I wish someone would reissue the books with modern covers and use the set when fourth graders study Oregon.

Then last Thursday some of my family and friends took me to the Oregon Library Association conference in Bend, Oregon where I received this lovely plaque. I am mentally walking on air-- and only wish I was literally doing so! I am also telling everyone I can to make up for my previous silence. Anyway, it is VERY nice to be thanked for working in some wonderful schools with terrific students, many of whom I now follow on Facebook.

I was told the main reason I received the award was for bringing Battle of the Books to my small school in tiny Glide. It was picked up in nearby Roseburg and has now become the statewide OBOB. Strictly volunteer, it has remained popular, even with all the cuts in school programs over the last score of years. One librarian referred to those who take part as “academic athletes,” who learn to work together in the schoolroom, as others do on the playing fields.

The library and teaching communities are team players above all, sharing ideas, tips, and inspirations. None of us can do it alone. I am really honored by the list of all the people who received the Lampman award before me, including both Walt Morey and Eric Kimmel who actually cared enough about kids and reading to make author appearances in Glide...a far piece from Portland. It’s a terrific list of people.

I am lucky. Thank you all.

Solstice!

Knowing the sun is returning and the days are getting longer really brightens my heart. It gives me hope that the world is still revolving—and evolving--toward a brighter future. 

They lengthen incrementally: minute-by-minute. Here, curled up in my cozy apartment, I don’t notice the changes at first. Back when Martha and I were running on the Umpqua Community College track after work, they were really noticeable. The track is high above the river, and we always ran at the same time. Each day we’d trudge up the hill in increasing light. I loved that.

Another surprise in city living is never seeing stars. Back when I was a camp counselor in Vermont, we had our cots just outside the tents that housed our charges. Sleeping under the stars that summer was a revelation. It made me feel so small in relationship to the entire universe above me. The stars were so bright I rarely needed a flashlight to go down the path to the bathrooms. That was where I saw my first Northern lights.

A long time later, when we lived in the country just outside the Chicago suburbs, my husband and I liked to take a nightly walk down the driveway to chat away from  our children’s ears. It was a quiet time to talk. There were no streetlights around, and our background was the sky with the various configurations of stars. It was easy to think of the long ago shepherds who whiled away their nights seeing and sharing pictures and patterns in the skies. Of course they were the first to become aware of a new star blazing in an unexpected spot in the sky!

One August night, we went for our nightly stroll and the sky was bright--but there were no stars to see. A large shopping center had opened about ten miles away, and had turned on all their lights at full force to celebrate. The mall illuminated the entire sky. We were not happy about the encroaching city, but I had never realized it would take away my stars! Now I read that one of the big draws in our national parks is night camping, with rangers showing and explaining the stars to those who have never seen them. Imagine growing up without that sense of immensity around you!

The city lights from my window are beautiful. The sidewalk trees are wrapped in twinkling white lights. There’s a Christmas tree on top of one building with a red blinking light on top. The Moda center glows in various colors, depending on what’s going on inside. The towers on the new Tillicum Bridge, somehow activated by water height and speed and temperature, are a beautiful shade of green now and look like giant Christmas trees. And the river reflects all the lights, adding to the ambiance.  I’m very lucky—but I miss walking under the stars, and having the moon shine in my bedroom window. Still, the long nights are still lit…and companionable when I wake up in the middle of the night.

But they don’t make up for dusky evenings sitting on my balcony and watching sailboats and kayaks, people and  dogs.  Or the delight of waking up early in the morning and having the sun—not electricity-lighting the city. The light makes the future seem full of possibilities. We cower and cringe in the darkness, keeping tightly to ourselves and fearing strangers and dark looming things. In the daylight we find the strangers can be friends and the dangers were mostly shadows. We can cope.

So bring on the solstice! Brighten up the days. And a happy New Year to all.

Cleary and Kimmel and me—Whoopee!

Janet Fisher, an author I knew when I lived in Roseburg, wrote A Place of Her Own, a neat historical story about an ancestor who bought her OWN farm (imagine that!) in Oregon back in the 1800s, even though a mere woman. Another excellent example of the overlooked stories of pioneer women who came out on the Oregon Trail—not always willingly! (Coincidentally, we have the same publisher: Globe Pequot of Connecticut. Who would have imagined that?)

She just wrote in her current blog about her book signing at Annie Bloom’s bookstore, which reminded me once again that I should bring my blog up to date. I did see Janet at Annie Blooms, but my big event was at McMenamin’s Mission Theater earlier this week. The program was an Oregon Encyclopedia History Event on Beverly Cleary’s Neighborhood, and the speaker was Eric Kimmel, one of my favorite children’s book authors. He taught children’s literature at Portland State University, before writing a hundred picture books of his own.

Many people don’t realize that Beverly Cleary, the author of Ramona the Pest among others, set her stories in the Hollywood district of Portland where she grew up. (As a school librarian in a Chicago suburb who loved sharing her books with students, I’d thought the setting was imaginary.) Years ago Eric, who also lives in the neighborhood, helped raise money for a Cleary splash pond in Grant Park, with three wonderful statues of Henry Huggins, Ramona, and Ribsy. Mrs. Cleary had shown Eric all the places where she had lived or that were in the book, so when I was writing Walking Portland and wanted to include her neighborhood, I asked him to show me around. So he did, for both editions, and then asked me to share his stage.

 He had a great slide show, and his commentary was fascinating. The Cleary books about everyday kids are now almost as historical as Janet’s story about pioneer days! It was fun. One of the audience questions was about the differences between children who grew up in the 1930s and those of today. Children today don’t have paper routes (would any parent ALLOW their child to get up at 4 in the morning to go out on their bicycle?) and could play freely with each other in the street and all over the neighborhood. They learned from their peers, and their parents trusted neighbors would tell them about any problems. He also pointed out that children were nicer to each then. Otis Spofford (the title character in one book) was a pest, but not a bully.

Children’s lives didn’t used to change so drastically between generations as they have in the last thirty years or so. I grew up a couple of decades or so after Cleary, and wasn’t quite as free. I always had to say where I was going, but I went there on my own. The one big rule, in the summer when we could go out after dinner, was to always come home when the streetlights went on. When I became a parent I could count on my neighbors watching the children as well—I remember once when a neighbor called me to tell me my son was walking to school—in the road—backwards.

Perhaps it’s a side effect of cars being so common now. It’s dangerous to walk backwards on the road! And no one knows who is behind the wheel—we live in neighborhoods of strangers. Adults now run most outdoor activities. As Eric pointed out, the children of today will sometime grow up to write about their own childhoods. Wonder what they will say?

FYI, my next “gig” will be at the Eugene (Oregon) Public Library on July 17th. This time I will be with Joy Rich, Karen Tolley, and John and Judy Waller; the authors of Berta and Elmer Hader, A Lifetime of Art, which just received the Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal Award. The Haders were Caldecott Medal winning artists and authors who wrote and/or illustrated a hundred books in the 20th century. It’s a full-color book showing and commenting on their art, ranging from Berta’s miniature portraits to Elmer’s impressionistic paintings, and of course all the charming illustrations in their children’s books. A hard act to follow! My new book on Berta and Elmer Hader, Drawn Together, is far more about their actual lives, and I am finding them fascinating. They were happily married, were surrounded by talented friends who helped them build their own house on a hill, fought to save their neighborhood from demolition, and adapted to the myriad changes in publishing and in life. Like Henry and Ribsy, they found solutions for most of the problems they faced.

So, add a children’s book or two along with the beach books. Ask your children’s librarians for good new ones, but don’t forget the old. They’re fun, easy, and most problems are solved by the end of the book. Perfect summer reading!

POST-THANKSGIVING

It’s only a few days after Thanksgiving, but you might not even know it existed. One of the most overlooked holidays around. Christmas is modern and speedy, with huge to-do lists, and lots of spending. It forgets that it was based on the bonding of a brand-new family a couple of thousand years ago. Thanksgiving celebrates family, not feasting, and is quietly old-fashioned, by loving hands. Most of us have good memories of our Thanksgiving meals, when family and friends gathered and shared each other’s bounty.

When I was little the holidays were at our house, where a great many relatives showed up for the occasion. Since in those days my parents’ friends were either Mr. or Mrs. or had a courtesy title of uncle or aunt, I never did figure out our relationship to many of these and still don’t know where many of them belonged on the family tree. It didn’t matter. Without the distraction of Christmas presents, we children paid attention to the family talk—at least after we were old enough to sit with the grown-ups. We didn’t learn much, but we gained a sense of our extended family, beyond the four of us usually at home.

Over the years the family waxed and waned. War intervened, but I don’t remember Thanksgiving being any less festive. Then I went off to college, spent Thanksgivings with friends who lived nearer to campus, met a local guy, and married into a new family with their own traditions.

As newlyweds, we always had the dinner with my husband’s family. His mother was a marvelous cook. Relatives came, the best linens were brought out, we used the prized Art Deco china bought early in their marriage, and the table was always beautifully set and stocked. Listening to the chatter, I learned the ins and outs of my new family.

Although I was used to the washing up after meals at home, I hadn’t realized how much information could be shared over the kitchen sink. That was when I really learned to know and value my mother-in-law as our hands kept busy. She washed, I rinsed and wiped, and we chatted with no interruptions from the menfolk who were occupied with the football games in the living room.

When we started making friends and doing things with other couples, washing up conversations were common among us young wives. After a potluck meal, we gals gathered in the kitchen, cleaning up and chatting about everything that interested us, and developing bonds to last a lifetime. As we entered into motherhood, with varied backgrounds but a common determination to do it right, we traded tips and stories and passed on the collective wisdom from the different communities and families we came from.

The dishwasher, marvelous invention that it is, effectively ended this type of casual bonding. But Thanksgiving has so much that a machine can’t handle: the Art Deco trims on the dinner plates, silver knives and crystal glasses, not to mention the large platters and pans that were brought out for the feasting. This past Thanksgiving my adult granddaughters and their mother and I bonded over some of the family china that now reside in my son’s house, while the girls chattered about one’s new job in Detroit, the other’s life as a new homeowner, and shared some of the memories they have taken with them from home. The conversation grew naturally while our hands were busy, and there was a closeness in that kitchen that is missing when we are all sitting together while engaged in games, or the television or the bulky holiday newspapers.

As a child I would have hooted if anyone suggested I would once be thankful for washing dishes. I remember how thrilled I was when we got our first dishwasher; I am still very thankful to have one. But, like so much else in life, there are trade-offs when the machines save energy but replace one of the little synapses that keep us human.

Let us all keep Thanksgiving as a family tradition. To use a new-fangled term, it’s bonding time.

A NEW WALKING DISCOVERY

A few days ago the publicist at Globe Pequot emailed me a five star review of Walking Portland Oregon that had appeared in the Portland Book Review. I was thrilled! This came out of the blue from people I did not know, and the book was judged solely on its merits, not because anyone knew me. I’d worked hard with friends and family to make it the best book possible, but I always feel I should have done more.

It takes a village to make a book, I discovered—at least a non-fiction one. I never could have maneuvered through the bewildering maze of modern publishing and map making without help from the more “with it”  friends and family. Daughter-in-law Carolyn realized I couldn’t talk modern “map lingo,” so she took over with her urban-planning-understanding of what the terms met, and then used her smart phone to drop “pins” at every intersection. Somehow—I still don’t know how—it worked! Maps were created. Other friends lent their skills and their companionship to every walk in the book.

At one of the book signings, a woman asked if Walking Portland had been influenced by my volkswalking. I was surprised at the question, but then realized that of course it did. Volkswalking is strictly a volunteer activity, started as a “people’s walk” in Germany, which came to the United States after World War II. There are volkswalk clubs in almost every town, small or large. Most walks are 3K or 6K—five to ten miles—in length, and usually there is no time pressure. The national American Volkssport Association has a national office, so it is easy to find walks wherever you want to go at www.ava.org/

Local groups usually plan walks to show off their area, choosing routes they have enjoyed over the years. Some use new trails developed on old railroad routes; others take you through farmlands, or areas of old houses, or past lovely gardens, as well as in various parks. They are always a surprise. It’s a fun way to fit in rest breaks while traveling—you see communities, rather than rest stops. The Cub Scouts in Spearfish, South Dakota, created one as a Cub Scout project, and told us about the town.

What I learned from these walks was that the ones I enjoyed most was when the map handouts included a bit about why this spot was important: a building’s history, a well-designed park with multiple uses, a piece of scenery developed by a far-sighted resident. So, when asked to write a guidebook to Portland, I tried to find out as much as possible about everything seen on each walk. Looking up to the top of buildings, or down at the sidewalks, yielded surprising bits of architecture and history. My walking companions got used to seeing me dart down an alley or side street to investigate something interesting.

Another question is, “are you going to write another one?” Probably not. Fifteen years from now people may use phones instead of guidebooks. But, as a compulsive librarian, I can’t keep from making a file of new tidbits and items that I run across. Just in case.

One recent discovery was the Weinhard brewery 100th birthday time capsule, which celebrated the founding of the brewery. Once, it was near the front door of the Weinhard brewery and mentioned in their handouts. I had referred to it in my first book. Since the building was torn down to create the Brewery Blocks a few years ago, it had disappeared, and no one at Henry’s Pub seemed to know. I couldn’t seem to get through to anyone else, and a search of the Oregonian files turned up nothing. Since the brewery itself was gone, I dropped the search.

Then—and this is what is so fun about walking—one day I stopped by the Vera Katz Sliver Park on NW Davis Street, and noticed a little brass circle in the sidewalk near the street. And there it was. It was installed in the original brewery in 1956, then buried here, and is scheduled for opening in 2056. Put the date on your calendars and plan a party! Want to bet there will be some well-aged bottles?

I’m still having fun meeting new people and finding out new tidbits about my adopted home. Feel free to let me know about all the things you know or find that should be shared with others...I can always add these to a later blog to keep you up to date. Walking Portland Oregon is, like the city itself,  “A Never-Ending Story.”

****************

If you want to see the book in person in the next few weeks, I’ll be at:
1) the Oregon Historical Society book sale, HOLIDAY CHEER: A CELEBRATION OF OREGON AUTHORS, on Sunday, December 1, Noon-4 PM. 1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland. (There will be about 80 authors—check the Oregon Historical Society website for a list.)

2) SOUTHWEST WATERFRONT HOLIDAY BAZAAR in the Mirabella Retirement Center two blocks from the base of the tram. I’ll have Walking Portland Oregon and a Cup of Comfort for a Better World anthology at an authors’ table with some friends. Irene Tinker’s Crossing Centuries, is about her adventures and observations driving across colonial Africa in 1953 with her new husband; Diana Bailey Harris’s Reflections of a Civil War Locomotive Engineer: A Ghost-Written Memoir  is based on her great-grandfather’s letters and diary. He delivered the troops and supplies needed to fight the Confederates. One or more of the authors of Joyful Productions will also be here with Berta and Elmer Hader: A Lifetime of Art --a  great browsing book about Berta and Elmer Hader, fine artists who became beloved children’s author/illustrators during most of the 1900s. The book has full-color illustrations displaying his Impressionist art, her ivory miniature portraits, and many of the paper toys and books for children they created together. The bazaar will be held at 3550 SW Bond Avenue, Portland:

Friday, December 6,  3:00 – 7:00 PM, 

Saturday December 7, 10 AM - 5 PM, and 

Sunday December 8,  10 AM - 2 PM

.

3) The ANNUAL AUTHORS’ FAIR in Douglas County is always an informal fun affair, with a surprising amount of authors and books. It is December 14, Saturday, 10 AM-4 PM. At the Douglas County Library, Roseburg. 1409 NE Diamond Lake Blvd., Roseburg, OR 97470  (I-5 Exit 124)

Fortunately, Unfortunately

OCTOBER—UPS AND DOWNS AND CRASHES

October began well. My friend Mary and I had a lovely week at the Elderhostel/Road Scholar event in Ashland--saw 4 plays: Midsummer Nights Dream, My Fair Lady, Taming of the Shrew, and Streetcar Named Desire. Loved two, didn’t much care for the others, but they were all done fantastically well.

Unfortunately, we both came back with colds.

Fortunately I was pretty much over it before I had good friends from the Hader Connection come to stay here while we spent 3 glorious days at Wordstock and the Northwest Publishers Association Convention--fun schmoozing.

Fortunately the Berta and Elmer Hader Lifetime in Art book was well-received at the convention, making a great lead-in for my biography--which Concordia University will publish next year provided the writing comes up to their standards!

Unfortunately as I was riding high and celebrating with my friends that evening, my computer turned black and beeped in a very irritated fashion until we managed to turn it off.

Fortunately the nice folk at Aloha Computer Tutor came right over the next day to check it out.

Unfortunately they discovered the motherboard was shorted out.

Fortunately my son Hal (my family’s computer guru) arrived from Providence and immediately got me a MiniMac that still uses my nice screen and keyboard.

Unfortunately the Apple Store said the broken MacAir had to go somewhere in the Midwest for repairs and they didn’t think they could find my data.

Fortunately I had discovered a year previously that the old backup wasn’t working and purchased a new one from Aloha. And it worked well. All the data on the Hader book is saved.

Unfortunately my calendar has lost all the data except the regular events programmed in it.

Good news is that means I have NO coming events to attend!

Bad news/ good news is that I am checking all my emails to see what I have promised to do and when. (They are, of course, a mess.)

So if I don’t show up or seem extremely confused, my good news is---

I FINALLY HAVE AN EXCUSE!

Hader Art Book Showing

Come to Multnomah County Library on Saturday, October 19th, from 2 PM to 3:30 PM for the first showing of the brand-new book on Hader art.

Berta and Elmer Hader, the Caldecott winning author/illustrators of THE BIG SNOW (1948), were originally San Francisco artists, trained in a variety of art techniques, long before they merged their talents into creating and illustrating nearly 100 children's books in the 1900s.

The non-profit foundation has just produced a fascinating book with many gorgeous reproductions of much of their work, including the illustrated personal letters sent to friends and editors, Berta’s ivory miniatures, Elmer’s “California Impressionist” paintings of New York country landscapes, the children’s pages that were part of McCall’s and the Saturday Evening Post magazines, etc/ etc. (All in one tidy book that fits easily on a library shelf).

The four compiler/authors will all be at the Library’s US Bank Room (just inside the front entrance) to talk, schmooze, sign books, and answer questions.

I’ll be there, since this is sort of a prelude to my Hader biography that will (hopefully) come out in late 2014.

Coming Events!

This is a quick notice that I will be holding down a booth at the NW Festival of Books this coming Saturday for my new book, Walking Portland! If you are downtown in PDX that day, I hope you can drop by and see me at the 5th Annual NW Book Festival!
        
         Saturday, July 27, 2013
         11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
         Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, OR
         (corner of SW Morrison and SW Sixth Avenue)


A fun day with LOTS of Oregon Authors!

AND: this Wednesday evening July 24, from 7 to 9 pm you can also find me at The Oregon-California Trails Association's Convention Author's Night. This takes place at the Monarch Hotel in Clackamas, Oregon.

AND: on the following Monday (July 29) I will be with some students and staff from Roosevelt High School at Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW  Capitol Highway, Multnomah Village, Portland. This 7 PM event will introduce their new literary anthology, Where Roses Smell the Best.
          

CLEANING UP THE CULCH AND REDDING UP YOUR ROOM

Every so often words from the past are triggered by strange words from the present. One that reappeared in my mind a few years ago was culch. The culch pile, when I was a child, was that pile of junk by the barn that we were never never to touch. It was full of nuts and wires and pieces of machinery no longer useful, but that might be needed in the future. Looking it up in a dictionary of regional words, I discovered it came from Maine, referred to ship ballast thrown overboard that later provided homes for oysters. Houses had culch tables and culch drawers, but culchy women were frowned upon. I love the word—so much more promising than the junk drawer or closet.

This month’s word find was in an article in the Oregonian, where it mentioned a home decorator often used knolling as a technique. Since I thought of knoll as a small hill, I had a mental vision of piling up the culch in an artistic heap. But no, it came from a tidy Mr. Knoll who laid out his tools just so. Knolling seems to refer to lining up your books and magazines and other home décor so all edges are square with the table they are lying on. People who knoll probably dislike anything crooked so they straighten pictures on the wall and shut open doors and drawers. We all have met--or lived with—these, but never knew them as knollers. Who knew?

Another old phrase I heard people use when I lived in the East is “redding up a room.” I suspect the root is getting a room ready for company, probably by knolling the pillows and books and dumping the culch where it won’t be seen.

If we have all these neat words for housekeeping, why don’t we have enough neat words for the company that we keep? When I was little everyone was either referred to as Mr. or Mrs., unless they were close friends of the parents in which case they were uncles or aunts or cousins. I still am not sure of my relationships with many of these people.

Families today have a very mixed assortment of relationships, few of which are named. We have the in-laws of course, but no word for the other grandmother of my grandchildren without saying she’s my son’s mother-in-law or my daughter-in-law's mother. Awkward. Recently I’ve noticed references to DILs and MILS and SILs and FILS, but SILs can mean both sons and sisters, and we still don’t know who is related to whom.

How about the people who live in the same abode without having a marriage license. Renters? Partners? POSSLQs? Ogden Nash once wrote a funny verse about “Will you be my POSSLQ?” The word was an acronym from a census form about Persons of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. But today we need another S, and college roommates may be both S and O.

The step relationships are also quite difficult to explain, if and when explanations are needed. Sometimes there are intricacies of how people are interrelated that defy easy explanations. I’ve asked people from other countries if they have some words we can adapt, but haven’t found any beyond their own words for the immediate families: Oma and Opa, Vava and Vavo, etc.

Of course one little boy nearly broke my heart when he simplified the whole thing. He introduced a new child in school to me as “This is my brother-for-now.” There’s a lot of relationship behind that simple statement!

I’d better quit worrying about the words and be grateful for the people in my life. Most of them are not just FN (for now)  but are  FF—Friends Forever. That covers everyone, regardless of relationships.

COVER STORY

A couple of weeks ago my friend Karen noticed an advance notice of my new book, Walking Portland, Oregon, was posted on Amazon; I had no idea it was there. I was thrilled with the attractive green and gold photograph the editors picked for the cover. I had nothing to do with the choice of photo: my contribution was the two years I spent walking and writing to create the contents. So why was I so excited over someone else’s vision?

I could hear my grandmother reminding me over and over that “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” She usually was referring to my making snap judgments, often unkind, about other people I really didn’t know. Now I seemed to be judging my own book by the same shallow standard.

We certainly couldn’t judge books by the covers in my junior high school library. Most of the books on the library shelves had been rebound at the state prison in red, black, green, or buff buckram. There was no way any book could be judged by the cover. We couldn’t judge by the insides, either. Miss Johnson had a rule: if you took the book off the shelf you had to check it out. Most of us didn’t bother unless it was an assignment--we  used the public library instead. The covers were mostly the same prison bindings, but we could delve into the book to see if we wanted to read it. What Grandma said made perfect sense.

Later on, when I became a librarian myself, we had plastic covers we could put over the publisher’s book jackets. Now the children could choose books by the cover instead of the insides. And they did. We also had older books sitting on the shelves because their jackets had long disappeared. It seemed a shame that a really good story was passed over because of its unattractiveness. Occasional contests for students to draw new covers helped, but the hand-drawn covers were no matches for the modern ones. “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” I quoted, whenever I did quick book chats to get the golden oldie into a child’s hands.

Now the problem became the mismatch between covers and the insides. They promised one thing but delivered another. A paperback cover for Doyle’s Lost World about dinosaurs in the Amazon featured a young woman—non-existent in the book. Recently a Facebook friend posted the new cover for Anne of Green Gables. Anne is a young girl in the original story, but the new cover portrays Anne as a busty young woman with that ideal teen-age body no one has in real life. Publishers are following the marketers with their view of what the public will buy. I suppose the cover may entice children to pick up the set, but the story won’t be what they expect.

However, I guess we always judge by first sight. It was our ancestors’ way of deciding quickly about possible threats. We know that inwardly, whether artistic or in business: most of us choose our outside “covers” to create a certain impression. A recently published Portland author, Roger Hobbs, says he started wearing three-piece suits in college so he’d be taken seriously.

So I was and am excited about the cover. The leaf-strewn path leads you out of the park and into the city, promising adventure ahead. It matches what I tried to do in the book. The walk descriptions inside are my contribution, and I hope they are useful and fun, but the cover is the most important selling point. It will decide whether or not people will take the book off the shelf. And I know more people will pick up the book because of the outside, before they pay any attention to what’s inside.

Grandmother was right. We need to look behind the facades before judging anything.

I also remember Grandma saying, “the proof is in the pudding.” We’ll see.

LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE EVER!

My husband always said I was naïve about people, believing the best and then being devastated when they let me down on occasion. Actually, I’ve been lucky in most of the real people who have come my way. But many of the stars and politicians held up as good examples leave me feeling disappointed and a bit diminished.

I admired Tiger Woods for practicing long hours and working hard to be the best golfer ever, while giving his father and others credit for his achievements. Lance Armstrong was another hero, whose motto, Live Strong, seemed a good fit for a man who worked and trained hard to overcome a tragic disease. Both of them seemed to show that success came through hard work, dedication, and single focus. Perhaps that focus on themselves led to later assumptions about being entitled to all the goodies in life. They never saw the others around them as people. They broke promises, cheated others out of their own achievements, and cast doubt on the American ideal that you can get ahead through hard work. Apparently claiming an award, even if unearned, was enough. Now the sponsors and TV reporters have dropped them from the spotlight. I wonder if they feel the loneliness which someone called the “poverty of self.”

My nephew, Nate, died in an accident last summer, while having a picnic with friends and family at his favorite lake. He was an excellent neurosurgeon who touched many lives in his profession, and who could have gone off to one of the big famous hospitals for national recognition. Instead, he chose to return to his hometown to be a good son to his ailing father, a generally delightful husband and parent, and a contributing citizen to his whole community. His achievements were not solely due to his own hard work, but were also due to the support of his friends, community, and family. He gave back to all of those, and has laid a foundation for others to achieve and maybe even surpass him.

I think (my naïveté again?) he was typical of his generation. Like many of his peers, he exemplified the American values that pundits insist have been lost. They aren’t lost—they are just unsung. His siblings and cousins and children and friends are also living up to their potential as good citizens, not as icons with a single talent. These children of the baby boomers play hard, work hard, enjoy their gadgets, and are exceptionally involved parents—I see them all around me here checking on their own parents’ well being. They should be the heroes of the world.

Nate’s family just sent me a bumper sticker in his memory. The motto reads, Live Your Best Life Ever. It’s posted on my refrigerator for now, tho I will eventually stick it in my car window--a nice change from many self-centered bumper stickers I’ve seen in the last few years. “We’re living on our children’s inheritance.” “He who dies with the most toys wins.” “Honk if you love------”

It’s a wonderful slogan to remember him by. It’s a motto he believed in, but not in a selfish way. If the way he lived his own life is any guide, it was never focused on getting the most toys for himself. His “Best Life Ever” included enjoying all facets of living, including helping others live their own best lives.

Happy New Year!

Hi all—and a happy New Year from my Portland home.

Time has flown by and, much to my surprise, I am now on my third year of living here. It’s been an interesting couple of years. One good thing about living in a new area is watching everything develop. The views from my window change daily. Once upon a time the people who farmed down here on the riverfront land lived up above the flood plain on the hills. In the era of “urban renewal” several major roads destroyed the connections. Now a pedestrian bridge has reconnected the new South Waterfront with the hills of old South Portland. It already is a well used route over eleven lanes of traffic including I-5, and makes it possible for me to walk to my granddaughter’s condo. (At least it will if I can overcome my fear of heights—and that’s my New Year’s resolution.)

I've watched three barges being built and sent out to sea with tugboats, the police boat, and the fireboat in attendance. The latter sprays plumes of water to celebrate each new launch. OHSU's new dental school and research labs are rising rapidly, along with a bicycle-only apartment building for the students and professors. Progress is being made on a new light rail/bicycle bridge across the Willamette. The spindly trees are filling out, more and more children seem to be finding delight in the well-designed small park, and even the ospreys have gained a permanent nesting site, in full view of a neighboring building’s webcam. Another nearby nesting pole is planned for the spring.

Most of last year was devoted to finishing up the revision of Walking Portland. It is now at the publishers, going through their processes to make a finished book. The cover announcement is on Amazon, but the book itself is planned for March. For some reason, working on it seemed to take up most of my computer time and energy this last year. I thought it would be easier now that I live here. It wasn't.

The original book was written when I was living in Roseburg. Many of the original walks were inspired by the many librarians I knew who lived in Portland. Then I would drive up to stay at my son’s home, and spend a day or two walking in various areas. I took notes and used a tape recorder: it was much easier to say “turn here” than to write down those constant but important bits of information. Then I went home, wrote up both written and verbal notes, checked everything on a map, and sent a rough draft to my editor. She checked her map for questions, relayed them back, and I added those questions to my notes of things that didn't seem to work. Then I took another trip up to check on the previous walks and do some others. It was a lot of fun as well as work because I was going through areas that were new to me, and I was seeing things for the first time on foot.

Living in Portland now has made it more convenient, but the writing and rewalking still wasn't easy. Portland has changed drastically. The outdoor art, which brightens up the landscape, has been removed, or added to, or relocated since I was here before. New parks have been developed or remodeled. The new streetcar has made it even easier to get around town. There have been quite a few changes in the stores, and many older neighborhoods have been repainted, re-landscaped, and “gentrified.” However, all of these changes also added to the interest and fun of reacquainting myself with the old familiar places, as well as the many new places that weren't even around fifteen years ago.

No one can accuse this city of stagnation! And, I must admit, it has been good for me to change my ruts.

Sunny Side of Life #11

September

“It’s not the journey that matters; it’s who you travel with.” That quote from a greeting card is the perfect description for my August trip to Alaska. There were three of us, all former school librarians from the northern Chicago suburbs, who’ve kept in touch over the years, even though we moved to schools in different, far away states. Roz now lives in Alaska, and she hosted Fran from Hawaii and me from Oregon for ten wonderful days.

Alaska is, of course, a wonderful sightseeing state, all the more so when the mostly wet weather forecasts turned out to be wrong. As we went north on the Parks Highway towards Mount Denali we were teased with occasional glimpses, and we finally saw her in all her glory once we reached Talkeetna. It was such a brilliantly sunny day, we hopped on a small tour plane, and flew above it and around it, while the pilot pointed out all the major points of reference for those who actually climb the mountain. The ridges are so narrow, it’s hard to believe that anyone can walk on them without falling.

The weather was equally beautiful for other sight-seeing trips: taking a paddle wheeler down the Chena River in Fairbanks, going on a catamaran to see and visit 26 glaciers in the Harding Ice fields, and walking into Exit Glacier. But it really wasn’t the photo ops that made the trip—it was the fun of being with other people who share some of the same background and most of the same interests. The three of us stopped at nearly every library, bookstore, and gift shop along the way, sharing our finds and admiring each other's purchases. When a head-on crash down the road stalled all the traffic to Seward, we not only talked books but took turns reading one of our picture book finds aloud: a funny update called “The House That Moose Built.” After news that the road wouldn’t open for another six hours drifted back down the long line of parked cars, we turned around and went back to Anchorage for the night--but we probably could have giggled our way through the remaining time with other souvenir books. Another excellent reason for buying books as gifts and keeping them in the car.

The other great part of the journey for me was meeting and making new friends and acquaintances. The Anchorage couple that put us up on our several passes through the city are now my friends as well as Roz’s. So is the bookstore owner in Talkeetna who enjoys some of my favorite authors, and a small town librarian who shared information and a book about Michael Healy, a minor character in my biography on Berta and Elmer Hader. Many of the waiters and shop people will stick in my memory even if I don’t ever see them again. They enhanced our whole trip with their caring spirits, specialized knowledge, and recommendations about the area.

It definitely was the people I traveled with who made this journey truly outstanding. And isn’t that true of our personal journeys through life? There are a few people who sour our experience, but so many more enrich it. Sometimes it’s fun to just be with our mirror images and spend time doing only the things we all enjoy. Sometimes it’s fun to be with people who lead us down other paths we never knew existed. The three of us often talked about our former library coordinator who made us far better in our professions that we ever would have been by ourselves. Unknown to the greater world, her life started ripples that went far from her home in Illinois. It’s the connections.

Researchers into the aging process are unanimous in pointing out that social contacts are important to a healthy life. It really doesn’t matter how much we have in common, as long as we can appreciate each other’s talents and backgrounds. Many of these friends can receive and offer the timely support we need. We don’t have to go it alone. Even in perfect Eden, Adam needed a human companion.

In this time of my life, when I lose so many good friends, it’s important that others enter my circle. I have discovered I have to get out of my comfortable rut occasionally to find these others. After all, I would hate for my circle to shrink down to hula-hoop size! So thanks to all of you who enrich my travels one way or another. As another saying goes, “many people enter and exit your life, but a few leave footprints on your heart.”

Cheers to all of you who do.

Sunnyside — Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The past few days have been definitely on the sunny side! Summer seems to be finally here—only 2 months late! The sunny weather brings out more dogs in the no-leash park, bikes and walkers and runners, children running in and out of the park fountain and people lying on the grass. Sailboats and kayaks, jet boats and canoes join the working barges, fishing boats and tugboats on the river. It is not a day to think about finances.

Once, money was equal to sex, religion, and politics as subjects one did not talk about in polite company. Now we hear far too much about the other three. Only a few of my friends have bravely asked how I managed to afford this CCRC.

I wasn’t sure myself. I am scared to death of being in debt, since my father often was. During World War II store charge accounts were frozen. Each had to be paid up at the end of the month before one could charge again. This was hard for my father to remember, and it was embarrassing to go down to charge something I needed for school, be told the account was frozen, and leave the store empty-handed. I was lucky that he would always pay up and I could charge again—many were not so fortunate. But that, plus being a stay-at-home mom on a small budget, who had to take things out of my cart at the grocery store checkout when I didn’t have enough budgeted cash, has made me very conscious and fearful about over-committing resources. And, unlike my younger days, I can’t increase my income by taking another job, or earning “butter and egg money” by gardening, sewing, or putting up preserves. I’ve got to live on what I’ve got.

I ran my finances past my smart sons, my trusty CPA, and tax advisors. My husband managed well, and we had never gone into debt. What I had was free and clear so there was enough to cover the buy-in. The sweetener was that this retirement center returned most of the buy-in to my heirs so I wouldn’t be spending their inheritance: very important to my husband and myself. The Continuing Care aspect meant they would not have to impoverish themselves to pay for future nursing care—I’m told this can easily run up to $8,000 a month! There was also enough, with pensions and social security, to cover my monthly payments for the next 15 years or so—my current life expectancy. (All this, of course, depends on Congress to keep it’s promises—not actually a given at this point when no one can compromise on anything.)

What’s left is for “frills”—clothing, notions, entertainment. I have been pleasantly surprised at what is left in my bank account now that I am not spending on the “dailies.” There are no payments for utilities, garbage pickup, sewer fees. I don’t need the Y or a health club: this place has those. No maintenance for yard or house. I only need groceries for breakfast and lunch: my payments cover one meal a day and I usually pick dinner.

With transportation provided to grocery stores and shopping malls, my gas bill is minimal. I do far less “impulse” shopping—and I never did much—because I am no longer in and out of stores where I constantly see “good buys.” There is much free entertainment here, and far less pressure on being in the know about the latest movie or wearing the latest clothes. (Of course, Oregon takes pride in being casual.) I rarely meet friends for dinner out because I am not in a town where I know many outside people: I have to travel to Roseburg to see old friends for that. It saves money, but I am sacrificing easy friendships with these wonderful people. (That’s a shadow, and a big one.) On the other hand, I have plenty of dinner partners and rarely eat alone in front of the TV. My new place is full of new friends and acquaintances with dozens of fascinating stories to tell.

I’ve asked a few people for advice for trying to figure out financing the rest of one’s life, knowing, as Robert Burns poetically advised a mouse, that “... foresight may be vain. The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men gang aft agley.” (I have to credit Google for the source and also for recognizing my phonetic attempt at Scottish spelling. A nice change. Usually it misses when it thinks it knows what I intended to type—maybe I should try dialect more often.) They all agree it totally depends on the person: in spite of the ads, one size does not fit all. But:

A) Work things out with the children you trust: as you age, they may become your caregivers and will need to know everything ... even though none of us like to have our children think they are now our parents! They may offer advice—but we’re still the adults.

B) Check every possible insurance policy to see what it covers and if you still need it. If you sell your house, you will no longer need that insurance. A different type of place will demand a different type of insurance. Mine requires rental insurance—far cheaper than what I was paying.

C) The general plan seems to include: 1) figure out how much you have in savings, investments, and other assets, 2) income from investments and pensions, etc., and 3) life expectancy.

D) What do you need to estimate for inflation? Rents and living expenses usually go up every year. Some investments and pensions do: others don’t. 5% seems to be the usual estimate of inflation.

Figure out how long the money must last: many actuarial tables give average life expectancies. It changes with your actual age, so if you once thought you would live to be 80, you may be surprised what these tables now indicate.

Work with a financial advisor so you know where you stand. “Transitioning” is scary. There aren’t that many role models as we get older, and no one can really predict the future. You have to plan the best you can, and just muddle through sunny and cloudy days.

RETIREMENT ON THE SUNNY SIDE

My husband, still the “be prepared” boy scout, knew the time would come to move to a smaller place. He did some research, and we checked out many. We knew we wanted to move to a place that would take care of each of us as we needed more care. He preferred a cottage, where he could get outdoors easily. Once widowed, that wasn’t important—I don’t garden successfully—but I didn’t want the upkeep of a two-story house and knew I might need family help again. I’ve been accused of living in a fantasy world of books, but that doesn’t rule out facing facts.

Realistically, I dreaded moving because it would mean cleaning out my closets and downsizing. If I moved I wanted to go to a place where I could stay forever. Too many friends had coped with finding place after place to take their aging parent, as they needed increasing care. I didn’t want to be moved over and over again. It’s a problem for the kids, and would be an absolute pain for me. I only wanted to face that once, so I had to choose my future home carefully. There were almost too many options.

I was independent, with mostly good health, and involved in many community activities. I really didn’t enjoy household chores. That ruled out another house, even if smaller. Apartments take care of the outside surroundings, but there are no guarantees it won’t be sold, torn down, or converted to something else. I didn’t want to be dependent on someone else. Condo individual owners become part of an association that has to agree on those decisions. They are also responsible for coming up with the money for special needs like replacing windows or repairing elevators. Your apartment is your own, and so is the upkeep.

Cohousing places are small self-contained facilities that try to have a variety of ages included. That’s fun. You share in the upkeep and own your own house, but not the land. Since everyone is integral to the community, you will be missed if you don’t show up. Other residents will probably give you a hand when you need it, and you can return the favor. It’s an instant community and the variety of residents keeps you young.

Independent living places offer a normal life style, with all chores taken care of. They have activities and dining rooms which give residents a chance to meet each other, and often have many entertainment opportunities. You pick and choose what you want to do and are totally independent within the confines of group living. If you become incapacitated you may have to move temporarily to a rehab or nursing home facility. Some facilities offer assisted living in your home with a variety of help available.

Assisted living facilities are for those who need special help for temporary or permanent disabilities or for memory care. Some add on costs for each separate type of help you need such as managing meds or showers, and in some you just move from one monthly care plan to another.

CCRCs (Continuing Care Retirement Community) offer “tiered approaches to the aging process,” with different facilities for different needs. They’re more expensive because the health care costs of the future are part of your monthly fees for today. On the other hand, you never have to leave. It is a permanent home.

There were some good retirement homes but none quite fit my needs. Also, it was 3 hours away from the closest family. If the day came when I couldn’t drive, I’d miss out on a lot of family time. And the drive was a burden on them when I needed help, though they never said so. I loved my friends in the community but I could keep seeing them. They could come here and I could go back there. There were the same groups in both places, so I could keep on doing the same things in a new setting. Good for the aging brain, maybe.

After stewing about all the possibilities, the best option seemed to be moving nearer to family. They found many retirement living places and took me around to one or two each time I came up for a visit. When I found this one, I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem like an institution but more like a good hotel. It fit all my perceived needs, including an indoor swimming pool and residents’ library, and access to the river walk along the Willamette. There was good public transportation to shopping, several universities, and the public library. In addition there were absolutely gorgeous views of the Willamette River, Mount Hood, and Mount Saint Helens. I never even considered views as important, but they have turned out to make a BIG difference. For me.

May 16, 2011

Since several people have wondered why I decided to leave my small town home where I'd lived for 35 years and move to a city skyscraper, I've been trying to come up with some answers. It's the little things that often lead to big changes. Mine was a throw rug. I'd noticed it needed some sticky reinforcement, but it didn't seem to be an immediate problem. So I'd put it off.

The major impetus was tripping on said rug, being thrown down on the slate floor, and finding I was unable to move my legs. After crawling for a painful hour to reach a phone to call 911, I had a lot of time to think over the accident, my preparations, and my situation. Some minuses, and some pluses. Shadows and sun.

When I was widowed, my friend Judy advised me to always carry my cell phone. I did, but it was unreachable, still in my purse on the kitchen island where I always set things down on coming home. Dropping things on a lower table would have been smarter: even better would be always keeping it in my pocket.

It was fortunate that my one reachable phone had the punch numbers in the earpiece—which was what tumbled down from my desk when I pulled the phone cord. The main phone part stayed in place. I was lucky I could reach the numbers. I suppose after a while an operator might have noticed the phone was off the hook, but I doubt it.

The emergency buttons you wear are one help source but I'd been told their range was limited. They are expensive, and I was already paying for a cell phone and a land line. It seemed a waste to get one if it would only work indoors—it never occurred to me that inside might be more dangerous than outside. The other reason was, of course, that getting one would acknowledge I was getting older. My vanity interfered with reality. It isn't only teens who think they're invincible!

As usual, I had locked the doors of the house after coming in for the evening. Knowing how easily I lose things, I had arranged two backup ways to get into the house using lock boxes and codes. I'd also chosen easy, not clever ones, so I remembered them and could tell the operator how the firemen and EMTs could get into the house without breaking down the door.

Once rescued, I had to face the fact I was more vulnerable than I'd thought. It was time to reassess living plans. Should I stay alone in my too-large house, which I loved, and find a companion to share it? Rent the downstairs half of the house? Move closer to one of my sons in either Portland or on the East coast? Move to a smaller house in a more populated neighborhood in town? An apartment? A condo? A retirement home or community? At least I had choices—some people don't—but none of the options seemed perfect. How did I want to live?

Next time I'll go over some of the reasons I made the choice I did. They're personal—others choose differently and it is right for them. One of the problems with life is that you often don't know about the perfect choice until you've chosen something else. As my friend Kathy said, life is a series of improvisations!

Spring is Here!

Spring is finally here. I drove down to Roseburg last weekend, and enjoyed seeing lots of flocks of baby lambs in the green fields, hawks in the air instead of huddled in the trees, and the myriad clumps of daffodils that spring up by themselves in the margins of the road. The passes were lovely with the new leaves in many shades of green against the dark greens of the firs. Not to mention all the flowering fruit trees—my old apple tree is full of blossoms once again.

This was a trip in and out of sun and shadows, just like life. The sunny spots were seeing many old friends—but realizing that seeing them now depends on schedules instead of serendipity was sad. Leaving a home of 32 years was very sad, but meeting the new young owners was a blaze of sun and hope, knowing that once again the house will become a home for a loving family. They will have a lovely time discovering the individual delights of living there: the deer who spend the hot days sleeping under the deck, the dogwood that never bloomed until a neighbor’s tree died and had to be cut down. I hope the spotted owl uses the house in the tree outside the window again—for some reason seeing it peer out at me was always a morning high spot.

And now that the hip is healed and I am mobile once again, I can begin to enjoy my new home with a view. An osprey is building a nest along the river path, and the dogs are romping in the dog park. Dragon boats and shells scoot up and down the Willamette, along with tugs and sailboats and fishing boats. Always something to see and watch.

So many people have asked me why and how I chose this retirement place to live, I think I’ll devote the next few blogs to why and what I learned and what I wish I’d thought about ahead of time. I was lucky to have made a good decision: one that is right for me. I probably will miss some things you might want to know so feel free to ask.

I know I’m lucky to have found a new place in the sun.

Many Ways of Seeing

All I could see when I opened the blinds this morning was a dawn lit fog bank—a huge cloud had wrapped around the building, but it was glowing with the morning sun. The nearby bridge and the barge building facility had totally disappeared except for two schoolbus-yellow crane tips against the sky. A few towers loomed above the fog: the KOIN tower’s blue crayon tip was shiny and new looking. It was a lovely scene, but fleeting: within minutes the fog cloud had disappeared. It looks like a lovely day is imminent. Perhaps I’ll take my walker for a walk along the river.

Yesterday I had a visit from the Wallers: two Roseburg artists who are doing a lot of work with the Hader project. Judy (whose painting was just selected for a major touring exhibit of watercolor) had been trying to explain to me the difference between Elmer Hader’s Impressionist oil paintings and some which seemed more realistic to me. (I have NO art training.) Then we went over some of Elmer’s paintings in a small exhibit brochure, and she was pointing out the way he used patches of blues and mauves and yellows to show the different hues of snow, or the movement of water. Looking out the window at the muddy Willamette I asked her to show me any color other than brown in that river. Sure enough, she did! And gradually I was able to spot some of the changing colors in that brown wash, as well as the differences caused by the river traffic: rowing crews, a tugboat, a paddle wheeler, a tiny sailboat.

Over lunch we had talked about how animals can sense and “see” what we humans cannot, and that some senses are due to training. Fly fishermen can “see” where the fish are, and my Audubon friend could spot birds far away that were impossible to make out. Then I remember coming to Roseburg and a friend patiently teaching me to see mistletoe in the oak trees. At first it was impossible to see, and then it became impossible to miss. Training and observation.

So today I’m just going to watch the river and see how many colors show up instead of just seeing all the good growing soil washing down. It’s a good lesson for living. Isn’t there a quote somewhere about “he who has eyes but does not see?”

Back on the Sunny Side

Back in my apartment and back on the sunny side. Actually, that entire rehab experience was a super positive—I was really fortunate. One of the amazing surprises was the fact that someone always answered my buzzer immediately—never had to lie in bed wondering if anyone heard me. That’s an awful feeling when you are dependent on others for everything you need. I actually hated to give up all the TLC (it’s nice to be pampered and spoiled!) but it is good to start picking up the pieces of my life again.

Besides working on getting both my legs working again, I also relearned how important people are. Not only the people who were sharing my experience, but all the ones I’ve just met recently who stopped by with words of encouragement, tidbits from their own experience, and flowers to remind me that spring is on its way. My family were wonderful about indulging my love of SCRABBLE by playing endless games to pass the time.

And it certainly was a great place to work on my book. Fortunately, I was in the edit-re-edit-re-edit phase, so I didn’t have to work on my piles of paper and files and research notes. I just had the piles of corrected manuscript printouts. It’s easier to write when someone else takes care of all life’s little details like laundry and bed making and meals! I think the Victorian men writers knew that: they always seem to have wives, or valets, or landladies who took care of the mundane details! Of course, now we have machines...but it’s not quite the same.

And I picked up a wonderful term from one of the CNAs —“buffer fat” --which is the little extra poundage that provides more resources for the body to heal as we get older. How positive. How pleasant. What a nice reminder when I look in the mirror. Even flab has its sunny side!