Two Hearts

Right now, I feel like I am living a double life. I have been and will be spending a fair amount of time in Missoula, MT. There is a boy there that continues to bring me delight. We both have Fridays off from work. Weekends seem to begin on Thursday nights now. I like it. It’s a 4 hour drive to Missoula. It goes over a high mountain pass. It has been a mild winter so far. It has been quite doable, even taking the smaller car without 4 wheel drive. Holiday weekends, like this past one, mean I can bring Jasper with me. He can spend some time with his sister. We get to go skiing together on the way home. Perhaps the only thing better than knee-deep powder skiing is seeing my son’s ear to ear grin while he is skiing it.

I like Montana. As I descend the east side of Lookout Pass, my spirit begins to soar. There are real mountains, deep valleys, and the Clark Fork river is a constant side-kick companion. The basalt with granite outcropping gives way to the layers of sedimentary rock. The Rockies of MT were the first mountains I spent any significant time in during the summer I worked at Glacier Park. Back in 1981, I promised I would return, and that I would live in them someday. I like Missoula. There is a ski area within 15 minutes of town that has exceptional tree skiing, and the best bar food I’ve ever seen at a ski resort.  There are endless places to backcountry ski, hike, or bike; from the Rattlesnake, to Blue Mountain, to the canyons and peaks of the Bitterroot. There is more than one place to get sushi, and multiple microbreweries in town. They have an old theater, a thriving farmer’s market, lots of liberal hippie-like folks, funky old houses, and the best bike shop west of the divide.  There is a boy that makes my heart sing, his old dog that I get to spoil, and I can take my daughter out for breakfast anytime I want. It is with a heavy heart that I leave at the end of a weekend. I like Montana.

I like Idaho. As I wind my way down Hwy 95 in the dark, my heart fills with all that is waiting for me here. I see all the snow in the mountains, and I know the rivers will be fine come summertime, even if the fields are barren now. Moscow Mountain becomes visible on the horizon, and I am reminded of all the mountain bike rides, all the trail runs, all the close encounters with moose, and all the naps in dappled sunshine. I drive into town past my favorite coffee shop, and notice folks in the corner setting up to play live music. There are empty seats, and there is no traffic. My friends are here. We make our own sushi and cake, we dance in living rooms and collapse into cuddle piles on couches. They keep me out late, and then I meet others at 5:30 am to swim. My dog is happy to see me, I let my mom know I am home safe and sound, and I return to the work and volunteer life that has taken me 20 years to build. Moscow cradles me in her nest. I like Idaho.

When Jim was dying, he once told his massage therapist that he had 2 hearts. It confounded both her and I. I’m beginning to get it. I feel like I have 2 hearts…and they are both full to overflowing. How lucky am I?

Old and Familiar

Yesterday I decided to go back country skiing at LoLo Pass with Emerald. In planning, it seemed like a great idea. John was here for the weekend, this would get him most of the way home. Emerald could sleep in and ride up with another mutual friend. I’d have to do a bit more driving to get home, but it seemed a small sacrifice compared to the joy of being in the snow with people I love.

I threw far too much gear and an abundance of food into the car. Grabbed the iPod and the cell phone that gets no reception on any part of that drive. Just me and my thoughts for a full 4 hours…and then it hit. Driving up the Lochsa, memories of all the camping spots and hot spring soaks, anticipating my first back country ski outing with my daughter without her dad. The old and familiar grief. Driving past the take out, glimpsing the grotto, I was in full on racking sobs. We stopped to look at Lochsa Falls, which at this time of year is merely a trickle through some impressive boulders. By then, I was merely leaking a little, with eyes and nose red. John got out of his car and just held me. He says I need to give grief the time and space it deserves. By the time I got to the pass, I was again giddy with the delight of seeing my daughter, and the prospect of a day on snow with her. The old and familiar grief had passed. The snow conditions were….challenging. There was not a lot of energy that could be given over to grief. It took everything I had to keep up with that daughter of mine.

On the very tired drive home, I thought about the old grief. Slipping into it is familiar…and in an odd way comforting. I know it. It has been my constant companion for the last couple of years. It is a wellspring of sadness that I understand. It is also incredibly self-indulgent, and distracts me from the very real challenges that are present here…and today:

• People I love are struggling with cancer diagnoses. While not labeled “terminal”, there are still medical appointments to keep track of and decisions to be made about care. I will miss a friend’s memorial to take Jasper to see his sister for the weekend. I’ve just heard of another family decimated by a GBM diagnosis. Even though life is a terminal condition, I still think dealing with cancer while living sucks.
• We are waiting to hear back on college applications for Jasper. His closest option is an 8+ hour drive, we are visiting the others via a plane over Spring Break. I will truly have an empty nest very soon. I asked Jasper what happens to “family dinner” when there no longer is a family. He replied, “You’ll still eat well, won’t you?” I hope so.
• I’m in a new relationship. Though he may be old and familiar to me, he is a new face to my children, my family,  and most of my current friends.  I desperately want everyone to get along, but also know I cannot forge their relationships. Being true to myself, while also recognizing that this is not about me, is hard.

By the time I got home last night, I was toast. I will give the old and familiar grief the time and space it deserves. I will take comfort in it while still looking ahead. And I will be grateful that it again opens me up to the bittersweet nature of this thing we call life.

Happiness

I’m happy.

His name is John.

He loves bicycles, old dogs, fresh snow, and good food.

He thinks I am amazing, and I think he is wonderful.

I might tell you more, but you’ll have to ask.

Oh, and I didn’t feel like puking the 1st time he kissed me…..or the 650th time either.

I….am the luckiest girl in the universe.

Content and Happy

http://youtu.be/nXPaGVFXuog

I’ve been struggling with words lately. I guess that comes as no surprise to most of you. I’ve been thinking about the words content and happy, discontent and unhappy. My on-line dictionary defines them as one in the same and opposites. I would argue this. To me, there is a very big difference between begin content and being happy. I also know that I can be extremely happy and yet discontent…at exactly the same time. And, unhappy in my contentment.

When I was in my last year of physical therapy school, I had the world’s best running partner. She was also in her last year of school, we were roughly the same pace, and we both thought logging a bunch of miles through the arboretum followed by scones and coffee was the best way to spend a 2 hour break between classes. We generally solved all the problems of our world, at least our small and limited world, in the course of 3-7 miles. We figured out how to endure the university’s worst journal club class (chocolate), we debated religion vs spirituality, and we talked about boys. She had a boyfriend who did not appreciate her nearly enough, and I was engaged to a guy that was out of town for the year doing his own medically related internships. Discontent fueled many a run. When hers got extreme, I could not keep up with her. But running with her, scarfing carbohydrates and caffeine, I was happy.

There were times during that year when we were content. No confrontation or crisis, nothing really good or tasty on the horizon either. Our runs were slower, our discussions less heated. The surrounding days were filled with going to class, doing the homework, working our respective jobs, eating, and sleeping. Going through the motions of life, passing the time. Don’t think too much, don’t feel too much, just get up in the morning and get ‘er done. We coined this state, “auto pilot”. Content, but I don’t recall being particularly happy. Then, there were those runs, when I was content….AND happy. Perhaps anticipating a visit from the distant fiancé, maybe he had just written me a nice letter. Those were the runs where she couldn’t keep up with me.

Much of my life over the last year has been “auto pilot”. Get up, swim or run. Feed the dog, make oatmeal. Go to work, feed the teenaged boy, do chores, feed the dog again. Try to sleep. Weekdays are easy, weekends, much harder. I have loving family, I have great friends. I have everything I need. I have been content. Contentment is peaceful, it means one’s needs are met. It is easy to compartmentalize. One spot in my mind for family, another for work, a big chunk for friends. Bills get paid, house stays clean, snow gets shoveled, work gets done. My heart is safely walled off by bricks….lest I ask for what I want, rather than what I need. Happiness means tearing down that wall, asking for what I want, even if it is not what I need. It means jumping off auto pilot, and into the rich fullness of this one wild and precious life. It is scary, not peaceful. It perhaps breeds discontent.

I have torn down the brick wall. I am happy, happier than I can remember. I fluctuate between being content, and being so very discontent. My current running partners and swimming lane mates don’t know what to expect. Some mornings I am dancing on the top of the hill, a full 5 seconds before they can get there. Other mornings it is all I can do to get to the pool before the warm up is already over. I don’t want to rebuild the brick wall. I’d take happy over content any day.

http://youtu.be/6WuEIMwvCNo

Pourers and Drinkers

Last weekend, I took Jasper out to a fancy dinner to celebrate his first B. I never rewarded our kids for good grades, never had to cajole them to strive for them, never sat down to help with homework. My sole contribution to the studying scene was “Do you have homework? Would you like a snack?”. That…and despite desks in every room in the house, not complaining when 95% of it occurred at the red kitchen table which had to be cleared every night for supper. Never gave out money for A’s…but we would often go out to eat at the end of a semester, and we certainly celebrated Emerald’s first B. A B is a rite of passage. It teaches that knowledge is not all about just working hard. Emerald’s first B was in Trig, Jasper’s in Literature. It fits.

At dinner, we pondered the word “deserve”. That particular blog post has fostered far more discussion, both with him and with friends, than perhaps all the others combined. The discussion with Jasper morphed into the idea of people who are givers, and people who are takers. He pointed out that perhaps a better analogy is pourers and drinkers. I like that! Think about it. If we are open, the universe fills our pitchers. We can pour, or we can drink.

When I was in Paraguay for the Peace Corps, I spent many an afternoon sitting with the locals and drinking terere. Terere is an iced yerba maté drink. An iced pitcher of herbed water is poured over mate packed into a guampa (cup), and a bombilla (strainer straw) is inserted to drink out of. The youngest in the group begins the pouring, and the terere is passed clockwise around the group. Whomever drains the guampa, pours for the next person. If you are sick, or have had your fill, you refrain from drinking, and the guampa is not passed to you again during the session. Lots of talk, steady sipping, taking a turn at pouring…..and the hot afternoon would pass. Greedy gulping just meant you had to pour more…and guzzling mate is never a good idea, it’s pretty strong stuff. Paraguay may have been a developing nation with a corrupt government at that point, but the people were genuine and generous. Their rituals reflected that.

After several courses of really good food, Jasper and my conversation wandered into chaos theory and the ripple effect. Kind of like karma, if a person does good things, then good things spread and come back to them. The model works well…as long as one thinks about life as a calm clear pool. My life is more like a river, and the wind often blows. If I huck a huge stone into the river, it creates ripples. But those ripples come back somewhere downstream, or the wind erases them. I may be floating along in the river, or standing on the bank, or attempting to cross using an upstream ferry angle. Life doesn’t fit into neat theories and models…and I love the mystery.

Over dessert, we asked the harder questions. The hows…and the whys. How did I get to be the luckiest mom in the universe? Why did my kids end up with an internal drive to work hard and do their best? What drives some people to open their pitchers wide, and pour goodness into the world? Why are compassion and empathy elements of almost every world religion? How can we be aware if something is luck, or an effect? I don’t know…its a mystery….and knowledge of this kind doesn’t come from merely working hard.

What Do I Deserve?

I am happy. I feel like the luckiest girl in the universe. I have meaningful work that I enjoy, 2 children that are entering the world of adulthood as interesting people, an older dog who still thinks she is a puppy, and I get to live in the beautiful inland northwest. I’m healthy, I have time to work, exercise, and play, and I am living within my means. I feel loved by my family and extended family, I have old friends, I have new friends, and I have old friends I am getting to know in new ways. My life is full, and my heart sings with gratitude.

I’ve had a few folks say that I deserve to be happy. I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last few weeks. The word “deserve”, according to my online dictionary and thesaurus means “to have or show qualities worthy of reward (or punishment)”.  Synonyms are “earned, just, and fair.” When the kids were little, I (like most parents, I suspect) heard the lament, “but, it’s not fair!” more times than I could count. My snippy, but accurate retort was always, “Life isn’t fair…get used to it.” An attitude of entitlement, in my children, or in Jim, or in myself, was something that did not receive much cultivation in this house. I preferred, and encouraged, an attitude of gratitude. Life, however fragile is a gift…and we celebrate and are thankful for that gift.

To deserve to be happy implies that someone or something owes me something because I earned it. I worked hard, I put in the time, I made the sacrifices…and now it is my turn to be happy. It implies that I would have chosen this life, these circumstances, with my eyes on some distant prize. I would have had the ability and skills to manipulate happenings and people to reach this place of joy. In karmic terms, it assumes that good things happen to good people. Because I lost a sister to a car accident, and Jim died of brain cancer, nothing bad can now happen. I deserve this happiness.

Life doesn’t work that way. Good things do happen to good people, but bad things happen, too. I don’t have the omnipotence to alter events nor people. The ONLY thing I really have control over is my reactions to life, and my attitudes towards it. I’m very aware that there will be more loss, more pain, and many more tears on this precious ride I call life. I don’t deserve more sorrow, but life is not fair…and I am used to it. For now, I am happy. I don’t deserve it….but I am oh so grateful.

http://youtu.be/5uISq6BaVuI

The Female Crying Point

Today is a holiday! One of those rare days where there is enough snow to close down the school district I work at, but not enough for Jasper to stay home. I am caught up with things around the house, and though there is always work that I can be doing, I am choosing not to. It is quiet, there was time for that second cup of coffee after breakfast, and the dog is sleeping. And…it is snowing. Hard. I already shoveled 6 inches this morning, and I will head out soon to shovel again. Once it gets to about 10 inches on the metal roof, or it warms up a bit, the roof will slide. Crack like an avalanche…and slide. Avalanche debris is not light and fluffy, it is heavy, and sets up like cement. Jim did the math once, and figured out that each time this occurs, I move about 2 tons of snow. He helped sometimes, but due to the nature of our schedules, and his back issues, most of this chore fell on me. It pushes me to my absolute physical limit…there is no need for a gym workout when the roof slides.

A few years ago I redesigned our back porch area so that the house slide and the garage slide did not combine, and there was not a gate in the way of pushing snow where it needed to go rather than lifting it. It has reduced the load somewhat. Still, I came home to multiple slides after a backcountry trip last year, tired, hungry, just wanting to hit a shower, some food and my bed. Realizing that help was not coming, I started to shovel. I got about 1/2 way through before the tears and the snot started flowing. I had hit the female crying point. Fortunately, Jasper arrived home from an after school meeting after about 15 minutes of sobbing. He gave me a good long hug, he let me wipe my nose on his sleeve, he picked up another shovel, and we finished together. This, his kindness, made me cry again.

When Jim and I first got together, we went on lots of adventures. Back packing trips, climb and skis all over the Cascades, mountain bike rides with no maps, and he asked me to marry him on top of a 9000 ft peak…in the middle of a hail storm. I went back country skiing for the first time when I was pregnant with Emerald, and we hauled her up there again when Jasper was 1/2 way cooked. Jim was an endurance animal, and a finely coordinated athlete. I guess I thought it was a compliment that he assumed I could keep up. I hit the female crying point. A lot. Using every ounce of strength I had to haul heavy skis on my back to far above timberline…all the while wondering how the heck I would ever make it back down that scary steep chute. Trying to keep up on a mountain bike trail when my wheels were 24″ and everyone else’s were 26″. Refusing to give my pack up to the guides as we skied out of the Wallowas on a bobsled run, and every time I fell, having to remove it and my skis, turn over onto all 4′s and stand up, as my abdominal muscles had already been split by pregnancy.

After a few years, I stopped crying. My skills improved, the equipment got better, and 2 kids left less time for novel adventures. I also learned that “follow me”, was not a command, and that slowing down allowed me to enjoy my surroundings a lot more. Jim learned how to make things easier for me. He always took my boat through a rapid if it scared me, being half again as big as me, carried twice the load. We also did less together. Tag team parenting meant that I went running in the early mornings, he rode his bike in the afternoons. Epic bike rides and spring run off rivers were shared with stinky boys, rather than his wife. Having now gone through menopause, I have slowed down even more. I love being outside, I feel like I can go on forever, snow and water make me laugh, and running trails on Moscow Mountain is a dance. I never seem to hit that female crying point during outdoor activities or athletic pursuits, joy is ever-present.

Yesterday I cried. Jasper presented his Extended Learning Internship (ELI) at the high school. He presented on service organizations, utilizing his Wish Crane Project as his area of study. Jasper dressed up and looked far more handsome than any teenage boy has a right to be. He was articulate, concise, and funny. Self assured and passionate about his topic.  I was in the audience with a friend and his mentor. I held it together until I was alone, and about 1/2 way home. Realizing that  my son was not only OK without his dad, he was going to be just fine. Knowing that, if his dad had lived, Jim would be proud, but Jasper would not be who he is today. The awareness that the kindness of this community has held so much of the burden of grief…for my kid, and for me. Kindness makes me cry.

There is a lull in the snow, so I need to get out and shovel. The roof has not let go yet, though I did just hear the first crack. Now that Jasper is done with his ELI, he will likely help when he gets home from school. I will cry again.