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Looking Ahead

5/17/2020

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**It’s a strange time to do anything– have a baby, get married, start a business – but I know people doing all these mind-boggling things. Meanwhile, I can barely make my breakfast.**

I forget what I’ve put in the pancake batter, slosh it on the counter, reach for a paper towel, only to remember I don’t haveany paper towels. A pandemic snatched up every paper towel in America.  I gaze out the window and wonder: what day is it? What is it I was doing?

I don’t know much about anything these days.  I keep trying to make a plan, but I have no idea what to plan for.   One thing I do know: the middle of a plague is a strange time to launch a book.   How do you even dothat?  I know ZOOM parties are all the rage.  I just hate them.  They just depress the hell out of me.  Books, like babies, however, pick their own time to be born, and for some reason, mine picked now.

I wrote this book because rivers, in general, inspire me, and true happy-endings inspire me, too.  Our kids get so much doom heaped on their shoulders, and somehow they’re supposed to fix all that their elders have screwed up. Thanks a lot, folks.  But there are beacons of hope out there.

I Am the Elwhais a picture book about a special river on the Olympic Peninsula, a true story for nature enthusiasts, animal lovers, budding scientists, historians, artists and conservationists.   The story of the Elwha is important because scientists the world over see it as a prototype for troubled rivers everywhere.

It’s customary (and fun) to pop champagne and celebrate new books with family and friends, but now is not the time for champagne or merry-making.  Drinking alone, I’ve noticed, is not particularly festive, either.

Nonetheless, books and babies do require a welcome, no matter when they show up, and I’m grateful to welcome this one, from the amazing StrongNations Publishing crew in Canada.

When the UPS guy dropped off the box, I was afraid to open it.  I hadn’t seen the illustrations yet.  After three years of work, what if I hated them? But I did not. I loved them.

Laura Timmermans did a dynamite job bringing this story to life. On top of finishing our book in record time, she’s incubating her own first-edition, **a REAL baby,due in just a few weeks.  She’ll deliver a new book, anda new baby, in less than 8 weeks. Holy smokes.
Robert Elofson – Tribal Elder, biologist, and driving force behind the dam removal and river restoration – collaborated on this book, and taught me so much about his river.  When his copies arrived yesterday he was so happy that he had to call me.

And what he said just made my day.  Robert said he realized he’d done what every kid dreams of in college—accomplishing something that makes the world a better place.  And that if today were his last day, he could “die a happy man.”

I Am the Elwhais just right for older kids (third grade and up) to read by themselves.  For younger kids, it’s good for snuggling on the couch and reading aloud.

Mostly I wanted kids just to enjoy a good story, and maybe even be inspired.  But, if education is on your mind, parents and teachers can check off language arts, science, and history.  Find the river on a map, or figure out a road trip, and you’ll cover math and geography as well.  Unit Study enthusiasts can wrap in Native American culture, art, and drama too.

This spring is ushering in all kinds of promise… new rivers, new books, new babies of every kind.  Life seems determined to carry on, in spite of plagues and our anxieties.

And though I wobble between sad, worried and confused, I look forward with hope to the day when we can open that champagne, toasting not just to our survival, but to the missed celebrations and milestones we usually celebrate together.

Joel says he wants to have a “Hugging Party” once this over (and we’ve all been vaccinated.)  I want every one of you available for that party.

So stay well, carry on, and keep your eye out for happy endings.

If you’re interested in a copy, *I Am the**Elwha*is available at www.streamriffs.com**

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"Barn's burned down. Now I can see the moon."

4/7/2020

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“Barn’s burned down.  Now I can see the moon.”
(Mizuta Masahide, Japanese poet, 17thcentury)

This week, I took a hammer and tore into my old barn.
It was a small barn, so small that a woman could tear it down, mostly alone. After awhile, my husband joined me, knocking down the heaviest beams, but for the most part, it was me alone.

My childhood barn was covered with poison oak vines and sagged in the middle.  It needed to be removed for fire prevention.  During this shelter in placetime, we’ve been cleaning up brush on our property. In the midst of one disaster, we prepare for another, the coming California fire season.

While I smashed at the walls, I cried.  The tears weren’t only for my old barn, my long-gone horse, and my carefree childhood days.  The tears were from pent up sadness, fear and anger, after three weeks of waiting for the end of the world, while we are all in coronavirus lock down.

It was clear the old barn needed to come down.  Another summer is headed our way, bringing more fires that will be searching for fuel.  My husband and brother assured me it was time.  But I didn’t want to say goodbye.   I’m a sucker for nostalgia.  The barn is a landmark of my childhood.  It is where I spent every morning and evening, feeding and brushing my beloved old, swayback strawberry horse, until it was time to run for the school bus, or to come inside for dinner.

The barn is where I hid out, when I needed time alone, trying to sort out the complexities of growing up, sitting on a hay bale, surrounded by the scent of hay, molasses, and horse sweat.

It is where I lay, the night I broke my shoulder. My brother and I had been riding in the pasture, double, bareback, barefoot, with not even a bridle to steer our steed.  Cheyenne, more interested in her dinner than her cargo, headed for the barn in a hurry. We hit the ground hard, and rolled in a heap into the powdery dust. I couldn’t get up, but lay next to the barn, while my brother ran to fetch our mom.  I remember it seemed like I was like looking through a kaleidoscope, the colors of the trees and sky blurring together, because of the tears pooling in my eyes.

Before it was my barn, the little shed was my Grandpa’s.  He built this barn, for his son’s sheep, over 70 years ago, from virgin redwood trees, sawed in his mill, with his huge, strong hands. My Grandpa built everything: houses, churches, picnic tables and aviaries- a desk for my room, and frames for the pictures I painted.  He called me ”Apple,”as in, the “Apple of his eye.”

It was only when I got much older that I realized, with shock, my grandpa’s and my family’s role in the decimation of these ancient, irreplaceable redwoods.

My husband wanted to tear down the old shed by himself-he’s fast and efficient, and likes to get things done.   He’s on a roll this week, hacking through the shrubs and trees to make a “defense-able space” around our little house, while he’s got time on his hands.  I knew he could do it much faster than me.   But he would not be likely to stop for any reverent moment.   Why would he? To him, it’s only an eyesore, and a threat to the property.

So, to honor my Grandfather, and those giant redwoods, I would not turn my back and let someone else do the demolition.  I would take it down myself.  I threw the rotten ones into one pile to burn.  Most were beyond saving.  But some were not.   I piled up a ragged stack of boards, silvery with age, and tinged with algae, but still sturdy. I want to build something new from the old, but I don’t have any idea what this will be.  I’m still waiting for light on this subject.

My hammer smashed.  Boards fell. Tears fell. Tears for all of our collective fear, and sadness, for the losses so many have had, for the potential losses that may be coming. Tears, for our lost routines, for our lost simple pleasures, for the lost joy of touching and gathering together.

With each board that fell, though, the view opened up.  It was a strange revelation, making a window through a wall.
So much light came in.  Now, when I stand on the deck of my Grandparents’ old home, there’s nothing to block my view. I see not a wall, but a patch of Easter lilies that my mom planted, fifty years or more ago, in full bloom.  I hadn’t noticed them before.  It makes me wonder.

I don’t expect a miracle to end to this virus anytime soon. But this not the first Easter we’ve have stood in the dark, grieving.  Holding our tools, our salvaged lumber, our sorrow, our prayers, and, without even touching, holding each other, we wait for the light.

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Shelter

3/24/2020

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Shelter: Noun, a place providing temporary safety from bad weather or danger

As I sat down to write about my shelter experience, two bluebirds landed on the walnut tree outside my window, drying their wings from the rain. I always get excited about the return of my bluebirds, cleaning out their nesting boxes and adding new ones. Sometimes I worry that they won’t return, but then they do, bringing with them the promise of another spring. Today, though, I can only tell they’re bluebirds by their shape and size. Due to the gloomy weather this morning, they look like grey birds.

It turns out bluebirds’ brilliant blue color is an illusion; or at least, not a real pigment. The structure of their feathers absorbs all other colors of the spectrum, gathering up only the blue waves and reflecting them back into the sky. On sunny days, they look like sapphires. On grey days, they pretty much look grey.

It’s ironic that the dark days of the Corona Virus arrived just as the rain finally remembered California. I’m grateful for rain, but the worldwide gloom is palpable. We’ve been ordered inside for an indefinite period of time in hopes of slowing the rampage of the virus. We’re restless and worried. Somberly, we wait, as if for a tsunami.

But the bluebirds -- historical symbols of luck and happiness -- have returned. Even on this dreary day, when the bluebirds are not blue, they remind me that spring is here. They’re shaking off the rain, scoping out the real estate, making plans for the future. Which seems like a good plan to me. We have to get through this rough patch to get to brighter days.

Yesterday I took a long walk, trying to outpace my gloom.  I came around a bend and saw my favorite Valley Oak, just beginning to leaf out. It’s mossy old branches stretch skyward, like arms reaching up in prayer, and low, nearly swooping the ground.

I’ve read that the Chumash trained some ancient oaks to grow low, for easy acorn gathering. I ponder this as I walk by. But Gus, our lazy St. Bernard, who cares neither for history, nor acorns, only wants to rest under this tree.

Instead of urging him along, as I usually do, I decided to rest a moment with him. I looked at one of the low branches that seemed exactly bench-height, and sat down. Sturdy but springy, it supported me easily.

For a moment I worried about loitering there, as I was on private property. But I was tired, and my nerves too ragged to care. So, I settled on the mossy branch. And then I had this moment.  It felt like the tree breathed with me.

It was, of course, only the swaying of the branch. It was the wind, plus my weight, plus the springiness of branch, but it felt exactly like when I was 16, loping through a field, bare-back, on my old mare, feeling her chest rise and fall beneath me, breathing as if we were one. It startled me at first—this sensation that I was on a living, possibly even breathing thing, but then it was lovely.

Small, unseen birds filled the oak, twittering and singing. A spring breeze lifted my hair. I breathed in the scent of grass and wildflowers. I closed my eyes. I felt safe from the storm.

Enclosed in that circle of branches, I suddenly understood the meaning of the word shelter. It isn’t meant to be permanent. It is meant to offer rest and safety, until the conditions are right to journey on. For that moment, the oak tree was the best of all possible shelters. And even though it was just a feeling, who’s to say that this oak did not, in fact, inhale and exhale along with me, exchanging, instead of only C02 and O2, but also, my great anxiety for its great calm?

I cannot sit on a tree branch forever, though. And bluebirds can’t stay forever in their nests. When the babies are safely grown, they’ll return to the woods and the sky. But for now, shelter is what’s needed.

It is the same for us. We’ve been asked to “shelter in place.” But more than just physical shelter, we need emotional shelter. Using the scaffolding of our lives, and the sturdy canvas of our gifts, we each have tools. Maybe our gifts are time, compassion, skill, talent or humor. Maybe it’s cooking, music, art, scientific minds,leadership, courage, ideas, or whatever it is you were sent here to share—all of these are the soul of shelter.

I find regular refuge in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, and Annie Lammot, who cobble together both shelter and light with their work. I find refuge in the funny photos and songs that artists put out. This is our job for now. Create shelter. Offer shelter. Accept shelter. Be a candle, while we wait for brighter days.

A bluebird’s dazzling color is not, in fact, a mere illusion. It’s the breathtaking result of their design and structure, combined with light. It’s their small superpower. We have superpowers too. We only need light for them to activate. Hold on for the light. Better still, become the light.

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Free Days and Sweet Dreams

12/29/2019

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There’s something about the days between Christmas and New Years that are my favorite of all.  Not much real work happens.  Not much is expected of us. It’s a sort of limbo-land between the holy days of Christmas and the start of a new year.

After this, we’re expected to buckle down and do life diligently again. Resolutions, determination, and responsibility.  But for now, for most of us, these in-between days are like stolen time.  I’m pretty sure that the great Counter of Our Days doesn’t count these forgotten days. These are the freebees.

The truth is, by the end of December, we are all exhausted.  The year is old.  The days are short.  The Counter offer Days is old and tired.  Who wouldn’t be, after trying to keep this wayward batch of humans on track? I’m getting old and tired, too, which is exactly why I’m putting myself to bed.  Hitting the sack early makes me feel young and safe again, like I’m being tucked in.

All I know is, tonight it’s dark, cold, and a long time until daylight.  There’s no place better to be than bed.  A few days ago, we celebrated the Winter Solstice, so-- while-- Yay for the light beginning to return--it’s still pretty damn dark and cold.   And none of the news on TV is inviting enough to stay up for.

When we were kids, if we were lucky, someone kind ushered us through a soothing bedtime ritual: bath, tooth-brush, story, prayers, pillow fluff,  covers tuck, lullaby, good night.   Who wouldn’t sleep well after that?  Why do we not still need this? I’m pretty sure we still do.  We just have to do it ourselves now.

I generally fall into bed after only a cursory skirmish with toothbrush and soap.  My bedtime prayer is more like a mutter: “thank GOD,” as I bury face into pillow, hoping for a quick oblivion, while the trials of the day buzz around my ears like mosquitos.

But tonight, I’m reviving the ritual of tucking in.  It’s ridiculously early; no one knows I’m hiding here in my bed. But I’ve done all I can for the problems of the day.  It occurs to me that some of these problems may just have to sort themselves out, without any help from me. I don’t seem to be making lots of progress anyway.

Honestly, some problems will only be resolved by the eventual demise, or at least memory lossof all concerned, whichever comes first.   And some problems may need SEVERAL lifetimes to sort out. This mindset takes off a lot of pressure. After all, who said we were the ones in charge of solving them anyway?  I think that’s why God invented Himself, to figure out all the problems, so I’m handing them all off on a silver platter.  You’re welcome!

So, no worrying allowed in our bedtime ritual.  Only soothing activities.  That rules out most TV and social media.  For me, a pile of my favorite books. Christmas lights shining outside the window, big pillows, warm blankets.  Something nice to sip.  I plan to swat away annoying thoughts like the biting bugs they are.

I confess, I have a secret weapon.  On my nightstand is a small stash of chocolate toffee, which arrived from the UPS man, with no identification.  If no one takes credit for sending this, are there any calories involved?  Is this chocolate as free as these in-between days?

In the blackest part of winter, toffee cloaked in dark chocolate with a few sips of red wine is sublime.  I’ve stumbled upon at least one kind of Divinity, nestled in the quiet, magical, unassuming days between Christmas and New Years.

If you didn’t remember to claim these days as your own Private Retreat this year, it’s not too late.  Even in the midst of real life, you can claim a retreat, without ever leaving home. Just be sure to remember this early next year.

If we’re all lucky enough to be warm, and fed, and dry on this dark night-- we are lucky indeed.  Tuck yourself in.  Before you close your eyes, thank the Counter of Your Days for another chance tomorrow to figure out what matters most.  And tonight, may you have the sweetest of dreams.

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Shadows and Light

11/7/2019

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I haven’t posted for a while, because I was confused about my life, and I couldn’t seem to find the words. I’m not sure I do now, but I’m giving it a stab. I often write about water, because it interests me, how it’s both life-giving and life-changing, and the topics are endless. In my last essay, I wrote about the muddy, swift and pretty damn cold water that was swirling around me.

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High Water

3/22/2019

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“Help. Going under!” This would be a good sign, like the sandwich-board kind, for many of us to wear, during times of daunting change. Then, those on high ground could toss us a line, or shout encouragement from the shore. Life abounds with ways to try to sink us. Strangely enough, others can’t usually tell we’re going under. We look pretty good, even while gasping for air.

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Jump Start in Bradley, California

11/5/2018

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It’s early November and Central California is still smoking hot, like an overheated griddle, and drier than an old tortilla chip. Our creek is dry, river is dry, well is drying up—and no rain in the foreseeable future. My own wellspring of creativity, optimism, and trust in human decency is as jaded as the news, as withered as the roadside weeds.

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Boundaries

9/30/2018

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My husband and I corralled our three grown sons for a last hurrah before school and jobs claimed them for the year, and paddled for five days through the forest-lined lakes and rivers of the Boundary Waters, between Minnesota and Canada. The fall colors were just beginning to flame, yellow and red torches against the dark green. Every half mile or so, we spotted boundary markers, letting us know where the US territory ended, and Canada began.

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Summer Plums

7/1/2018

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The first ripe plum on our little plum tree dangled in front of me this morning. The birds hadn’t even a pecked a hole in it, yet. The Santa Rosa plum, one of Luther Burbank’s best inventions, is a pretty, purpley-red color, with a frosted silvery sheen, and sunshine-yellow on the inside. I plucked it off the tree, bit into it, and stopped in my tracks.

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Flow

5/1/2018

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Confluence: Old Latin, adapted, from “com” (together) “fluer” (to flow) The point at which two rivers come together.

Hiking with friends recently, the word "confluence" popped up, as we came upon two pretty streams flowing into one another. I should have stopped for a picture, but I didn’t. You can picture them yourself though—swift and clear, lined with willow trees and wildflowers, gravel beds sparkling as sun filtered through the trees. The idea of confluence was tossed about as we continued on our way.

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streamriffs.com

Looking Ahead

"Barn's burned down. Now I can see the moon."

Shelter

Free Days and Sweet Dreams

Shadows and Light

High Water

Jump Start in Bradley, California

Boundaries

Summer Plums

Flow

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