There were moments when she felt no pain. No pain from recent bodily injuries. No pain from heartbreaks of the past. No pressure and throb from stress. No emotional upheaval. No bereft of loss. No memory of embarrassment. No lingering thought of failures behind to threaten the brilliance of future success. Yes, there were moments when she felt no pain. Most frequently those moments came when she was surrounded by beauty. Because beauty heals.
She spent a lifetime raising young musicians. And when I say a lifetime, I mean all her adult years. I guess you could say for the 21 years previous to adulthood she was only raising one young musician – herself – but that would not accurately account for her parents’ hand in the business. Anyway, she raised three – musicians that is – three to whom she gave birth (this story is not about the hundreds of students whom she raised to love music) and she watched them fledge and fly away and continue forward with the music business because each of them, at the approximate age of 16 began to play with bands; marching bands, rock bands, punk bands, reggae bands, celtic bands, worship bands; every kind of music one could imagine. Likewise, these young musicians began to be independent, to learn more from the big wide world of music, less from the mom who gave them birth and especially they learned from the School of Hard Knocks and paying your dues. So it happened, after they were grown from home, that whenever she passed a street musician – which was usually when traveling to San Francisco or Pike Place or other colorful and cultural locations, she was careful to tip the musician – a little change here, a dollar bill there because she was never flush with money. And each time she dropped the money in the hat, she thought of her kids; wished them well. She hoped that someone, somewhere that day was dropping some money in the hat or jar or fishbowl for her children who were making a way for themselves with music.
***
He was born three weeks early and came out using his lungs and with the ability to grasp and grip objects. His parents sang a cappella harmonies while his mother nursed him. A few days later he could roll over. Before the age of five weeks he was pushing himself up to a standing position in his mother’s lap. This in itself seemed precocious. But the amazing thing was, he was pushing himself up, bouncing, keeping accurate time to the rhythmic crooning of a traveling black music evangelist. Six months later she boarded a city bus in San Antonio with this little man child held securely in her arms. She was only 19 and a little skittish of the big city, strange surroundings, people and customs different from hers. An old woman with a large and worn shopping bag occupied the seat behind causing her to think of all sorts of fairy tales with old hags. Across the aisle sat a young Puerto Rican looking desperate and hungry, she knew too much about Westside Story. She tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, to melt into the bus interior. But Baby would have none of that. He squirmed until he was turned to face the Puerto Rican. He stuck out his little cherub face and coughed politely. No result. Determined, Baby coughed again. The young Puerto Rican man finally looked up, whereupon Baby beamed at him and then turned his attention to the weathered woman behind to begin the social process of introduction again. Working the crowd. That was 47 years ago. To her certain knowledge, that child has been a consummate showman and performer ever since. He loves people. He reads the crowd.
Child number two had to be rocked to sleep standing up, the one who watched the patterns of the LED music readout on the stereo over her shoulder to make sure the music was not stopping, only advancing to the next song. This made sense. This child was born to parents who worked in radio and had a mortal fear of dead air time. She was the dancer who moved her arms gracefully to the music before she could walk, the toddler who sat at a piano keyboard and attempted delicate arpeggios instead of pounding. As a young adult she was the drummer, the mandolin player, the songwriter and the one woman show.
Child number three was born using his lungs and never stopped. Always self-contained, mindful and confident, he knew what was expected of him and delivered on stage by the age of five. His pitch was as sure and accurate as that of his older siblings. He was able to engage adults in meaningful conversation at a young age. He toured the world with a children’s chorale, sang for weddings, and soloed on the concert hall stage before entering high school. As a young adult he knew his path and located himself in music hubs, playing concurrently with as many bands as possible.
***
So now, when she plays the Saturday and Sunday morning gig at the French Bakery, she thinks of her kids. She thinks how encouraging they are – all three of them- how excited for her that she has this unencumbered opportunity to play live music, enter this world they have survived in and loved for decades. She thinks of her oldest child when she makes eye-contact, smiles and acknowledges each guest that comes through the door while she continues to play. She is pretty sure she learned that habit from her son. She thinks of her daughter and a one-woman show as she keeps the music humming without benefit of drum or guitar fills for a few solid hours. When happy guests tip her handsomely – and when they don’t, she thinks of the seasons her kids were busking on the streets to survive. She recalls the street musicians she has tipped over the years. And she wishes, she wishes she had tipped more – tipped it a little further forward!
While it is true she was thinking too much again – as was her habit. It was also true she kept putting one foot in front of the other – plodding but steady – continually moving forward. Today she was taking a hike, breathing deep; strong snuff breaths taken in through the nostrils, exhaled through the mouth, exercising her lungs. The focus was on using her lungs, not depending on her heart to do all the hard work. But still, she couldn’t help thinking about her heart. Inevitably, when she hiked in the great outdoors, her heart got involved. Today was no exception. Was it the sheer beauty, the majestic mountains, the crystal-clear creek, that stirred her passions, made her long for more, piqued her desire to open her whole being and consume and be consumed by loveliness – or was it love she desired?
What she wanted, more than anything, was a relationship like this trail. It was rocky. It was stony. It was anything but smooth. It was uphill and downhill and uphill again. It was sunny. It was stormy. It was sometimes difficult and other times a breeze. There were bridges to cross and mountains to climb – real mountains, not molehills. There were mosquitos, pesky, annoying nuisances, and gnats – but not all the time – and not if she kept moving. There were bears of which to beware and other reasons to sing and announce one’s presence. Her heart was singing and longing for ever more beauty. Miraculously, the trail delivered! She crossed streams and got her feet wet. She balanced on logs with the aid of hiking poles. It was not without challenge. It was tough – but beautiful. And she found herself asking, pleading, petitioning for a relationship just like this trail. A Trail Relationship, not a Trial Relationship. A relationship where no matter what difficulties one encountered, the relationship was always beautiful. Rugged. But beautiful at every step, the entire length of the journey.
A trail like a marriage, or a marriage like a trail – beautiful from the get-go – keeps getting better, ups, downs, rocky places, no regrets, always beauty.
I was re-reading Patti Hill’s book “The San Clemente Bait Shop and Tellephony” the other day. If you must know, I was perusing it to see what format she used and who did her graphic design and layout. Anyway, I got lost in the story again and I remembered Patti saying it was a story about love – unconditional love.
I was re-reading Bonnie Grove’s book “Time and Again,” as I dropped off to sleep the other night. I pulled it out on my Kindle reader the night before to see how she denoted her chapters and timeline of the story. I got lost in the story again and read to the end of the book. I pondered what Bonnie had to say – through Morris – about love—real love.
I took a nice long hike yesterday and mulled over Patti’s take on unconditional love and Bonnie’s take on unconditional and enduring love and my thoughts ran something like this:
It must be true. Too many authors write about it for it to be false. Even Charlotte Brontë wrote about it. I wonder if those authors experienced it? One thing is for certain, I was never able to get anyone to love me that way. I was never able to inspire unconditional, enduring love. Yet something is wrong with that thought right there. It smacks of control. Can you MAKE someone love you? It is one thing to admit that you have never received unconditional or enduring love. It is quite another to think you are a failure because you were never able to inspire or draw out that kind of love from another toward yourself.
***
There is, in each of us, a little trigger that if not competitive, is at least jealous.
While competition is healthy, uplifting and encouraging in its place, here are some things for which a person should never be required to compete:
The fidelity of a significant other,
The love of a mother,
The support and protection of a father,
Fidelity, Love, Support, Protection – Not out of pity or need or awarded as a trophy, but just because. Because it makes us better humans to give and receive.
Judging by my quantity of birthday cards and greetings received this year, and all the good wishes therein, I’ve a prosperous 365 days to look forward to in the immediate future.
“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,” I take this sell-worn saying and phrase to mean that one must take action of some sort to make wishes, dreams, plans or goals, come true. Yes, wishes are all well and good, but they come to naught unless the recipient makes choices to facilitate the wishes. Several friends wished me a beautiful day out in Nature. I took steps in the right direction. I took a drive to the mountains. I spent time outside. I put my kayak into the lake. I did my best to make those wishes for a beautiful day out in Nature come true.
My mother used to say that children should only have as many birthday guests as they were years old. Though we are at the widening end of a pandemic, I had no birthday gathering. Yet, thanks to Facebook, my birthday wishes equaled my age.
The number of actual birthday cards received via snail mail has remained static over the years;
A prompt card – always the first to arrive – from my parents; faithfully sent this year by my dad in the absence of my mom; a card from my cousin-my quasi sister; and a card enclosed in the birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law. I have always known if you want to score the perfect birthday gift, you need a brother like mine. Now I didn’t take a single action or make a single wish to request a brother when I was three years old, but he has always had a knack for choosing just the right gift for me, be it birthday or Christmas. Thirty years ago I acquired a sister-in-law. Once again, I had no hand in this acquisition, but my sister-in-law has a knack for finding superb, artistic, one-of-a-kind greeting cards. They are lovers of everything Nature, everything out of doors, things artistic and things scientific. Together these two are expert at gift-giving. Just like wishes, cards and gifts may not arrive on your birthday. They may arrive early when someone discovers a perfect card – or they may arrive late if a proper gift cannot be found on time – or delayed due to traditional mail delivery bottlenecks. In fact, perfect presents or cards may arrive anytime during the year. But this year, this year the gift and card arrived precisely in time for my birthday – and what a winner it was! The gift was a book (which, more often than not, it is from my brother and SIL) – a debut novel by one Andrew J. Graff, and I loved it! I didn’t know they published books like this anymore. I wanted Mr. Graff’s next book. As a writer, I wanted his agent. I wanted his publisher. He writes well, and he writes about things he knows. He treats his characters with respect and understanding, he writes about things I know and have learned.
***
But, before I got to the book, I read my birthday card and the card was awesome! It had a kayak on the front and … well here, just let me show you:
The back of the card informed me that friluftsliv is the new hygge. Remember hygge? It’s that Danish word for coziness and comfortable conviviality; feelings of wellness and contentment.
Friluftslive reportedly is a Norwegian word meaning a way of life that involves spending time in and appreciating nature. My heritage is one half Scandinavian, so these words resonate with me.
Inside the card, my sister wished me much friluftsliv. My brother wished me happy paddling and many adventures to come and solitude… astonishing beauty of Nature. Those were great wishes. I acted on the wishes immediately. I sallied forth to commit friluftsliv. Because, if you want to experience hygge or you want to enjoy friluftsliv, you have to make the right choices – choices that support your wishes. Otherwise, it’s just a house of cards!
What a life I’ve had!
Ah, what a life I’ve had!
But I think I’ll have some more;
More pain more gain, more money, more glory!
Ah, what a life I’ve had!
Nothing the same for the past,
Sixty or sixty-five or seven,
Not one year like the other.
I must have lived nine lives,
Not as a cat;
But as a Mother,
As a sister to a brother,
As a wife, a partner, a daughter.
Ah, what a life I’ve had;
Running a business, commanding my own Starship Enterprise from an office chair,
Taking out the garbage, sweeping the dust,
Eating the losses.
Ah, what a life I’ve had,
Singing with the best, accompanying all the rest
With 88 keys at my fingertips;
Raising the young to love history and rhyme;
What a life, what a life.
Studios, stages, microphones, lead-lines,
What a life I have had,
Learning that everything speaks,
Stooping to hear what is said,
Taught by rocks and rivers and meadows.
What a life I have had!
What a fine time cutting my losses, hedging my bets,
Smelling the roses – – by whatever name.
Ah, what a life I have had!
But, I think I’ll have some more;
More pain, more gain, more money,
ALL the GLORY – this time!!!!!
Cherry Odelberg, May 2021
When it comes to preparedness, I’m your boy scout.
I read a verse in Proverbs when I was about 13 – the verse that says, “she is not afraid of the winter, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.” I like red, it’s my favorite color – second only to black. I like sale shopping. So, yes, consider my household clothed for the winter. I like to shop ahead, make sure my / our needs are covered so there is no frantic last-minute push. We are prepared for any emergency. At any given time, there are three little black dresses in my closet. A hiking pack, extra water, PFD and swimsuit stay in the car. My purse holds an emergency sewing kit, measuring tape, wallet knife, and dimes for the potty and payphone. Dimes for the potty? Now there’s a historic artifact.
Anyway, I try to be prepared. But that can also make me overconfident. Yesterday I took my kayak out on the river for the first time this year. I’ve had it on the roof of the car just waiting since April. My kayaking bag is in the hatch. All I really had to do was switch to my swim shorts and drive away from the house and 22 blocks to the put in. A ten-minute drive. Thirteen minutes untying and unloading the kayak and I was in the water blissfully paddling upstream, against the current as usual. Three quarters of the way to my turn around point I realized something: No sunscreen. Blue sky. Sunshine. Swollen river. 80 degree weather. Immediately I was thankful for a sit-in craft – at least the tops of my feet won’t get burned. I took a few more powerful strokes and remembered something else. I usually put moleskin on the thenar webspace between my thumbs and forefingers. Do I feel blisters coming on? Both moleskin and sunscreen are in my daypack – back at the car. So much for my preparedness image.
In much the same way COVID-19 did not catch me unprepared. I was not out of toilet paper. I had food for a couple weeks already in-house. I even had a collection of bandanas to use as masks. Who cares about social distance? I was new in town so there was no one to miss. No reason to repine and whine. I was used to hiking alone and living alone and I’m an introvert.
But the delayed reaction now, fourteen months later is about to do me in. During the long months of quarantine I practiced piano, I practiced guitar, I learned to play bass, I took some classes by Zoom, but I am woefully out of practice at this social thing. I’m fully vaccinated as are most of those in my would-be peer group, but there is no place to go, no one to see, nothing to do. 14 months later it is time to scramble and catch up with all the things I meant to do when I was new in town. Otherwise I, even I – the loner – will become lonely and blue. Intentional friend-making and job-hunting, inserting myself into the lives and worlds of others has never come easy for me. But delayed loneliness is no laughing matter, folks.
I know three people from our graduating class who are authors, she wrote via email. You, Barbara Jones, and Harry Brown. Do you know of any others? The class of ’72 – what’s left of 399 of us – are beginning to coalesce, starting to get reacquainted, communicating more as we gear up for our 50th (gasp), 50th class reunion. I’ve ordered your latest book, she continued, and I had the privilege of reading one of Harry’s before it went to print.
Classmates. We have in common a high school graduation year; 1972. We have memories of three years spent in the same building, 180 days per year; choirs, teams, bands, academic awards, achievements. Some of us share in common the writing habit. One of Barbara Tyner’s books is on my nightstand waiting to be read. Another is on my computer-top, delivered electronically. After responding to Helen’s email, I clicked around the internet for several minutes, finally discovering Harry Brown’s The Magic Club. I pressed the instant download button and money was withdrawn, the plot delivered.
Aptly classified, a coming of age novel. I read with dogged attention, though I found the chapters and sections disjoined and hard to follow. These are the landscapes and people of my childhood, never mind that some of the names have been changed. I know these places – the canal bank, the Three Sisters, Monument Road. I know these characters. I, too, was part of the Class of 72, although I don’t believe I ever shared a class or a conversation with Mr. Brown. There were 399 of us. We were baby boomers. I laughed out loud at the religious girl with the outdated cat-eye glasses who makes a couple cameo appearances in the book. Could there have been two of us? I was not alone after all! Wonder of wonders, there must have been another classmate as suppressed and repressed as I! She wore her cat-eyes from first through 12th grade. I only got mine in 6thgrade. Oh, and in the book (The Magic Club, 2012 Harry Clifford Brown), she graduated valedictorian-something I could only dream of. As an author, I was absolutely fascinated by Harry Brown’s fictional rendering and remembering of the chaotic and tender age of 17-going on 21. Nice to get a glimpse of 1972 from the other side – the male perspective – the jocks – the achievers – the leaders. I honestly didn’t know it was as hard (and heartbreaking) for them as it was for me!
He was the one who went straight to the car after Sunday evening church service, often taking one of the children – whichever was most sleepy or squirmy – with him while her mother chatted with friends, attended to choir business or emergency young peoples or women’s board meetings. Oh, she had heard him be noisy, coaching from the sidelines without benefit of in-ear amplification; training basketball players who were running gym laps, calling instructions from the bench as needed. But for as long as she had known him – and that was all her life – she had presumed him a quiet introvert who favored being alone.
When she planned for a long road trip to visit family, she opted for out -of- the- way solitude, quiet airbnbs that suited her need to be away from the crowd. It was near the end of COVID-19. Old people had been vaccinated. Hope was beginning to dawn. But still, out of caution and scrupulous attention to rules and suggestions, she pursued contactless check in, single family lodging, places where families could cook their own food, avoid crowded diners, stay in their own bubble and not brush shoulders with strangers.
But Dad didn’t see it that way. On a preliminary trip to Capitol Reef, just before the second wave of COVID, while bnbs were barely making a comeback, but doing it with contactless check-in, it worried him that he never saw the hosts. Once the long road trip commenced, he inquired at every stay for the names of the hosts, worried at their absence, began to suggest stops for meals at this roadside café or that diner. A high point for him was exiting the interstate somewhere in Idaho and breakfasting at a restaurant with an intriguing name and a chatty server. Violia was of late middle-age and knew how to joke in the old-fashioned way trading cliches and rolling with whatever eccentricities came from the lips of an 88-year-old man with half his hearing intact. He remembered this as one of the highlights of the trip.
On the other hand, highlights of the trip for his 66-year-old daughter and millennial granddaughter included staying at isolated mountain cabins, lighting wood stove fires, and hiking alone to rainforest beaches. He was gleeful about having met a host accidently on a gravel walkway whilst taking out the trash. He loved to see people. He loved to see faces – even if they wore masks – but especially if they didn’t. He reveled in talking with strangers though he saw and heard only half of what they did and said.
In reflecting on the trip, she realized that for many of the miles and days, she and her dad had unwittingly been at cross-purposes. While she had been industriously planning social distance and solitude, he had been deeply longing for close contact and society – not just with the family members they were carefully trying to visit, but with people, strangers, hosts, waitpersons, the vast outside world that had too long been withheld from him – most lately by a pandemic, but cruelly for the preceding years while he and his invalid wife became increasingly shut-in.
This was so clearly brought home to the daughter – she who craved solitude and independence – on the return trip. In Leavenworth Washington, in lieu of the desired secluded single-family cabin with kitchen, she booked an old motel turned Airbnb, complete with – well, it wasn’t complete at all-it boasted only a microwave and dishes were washed in the bathroom sink. Her dad inquired as to the name of the host. Jessica. She reminded him this was a contactless check-in and they would not see the host.
Whereupon Dad replied philosophically, “Well, miracles do happen.”
The rooster began before dawn at 5:19. She had not yet fallen back to sleep after the second trip to the bathhouse was completed at 4:29 am, but it didn’t really matter. Seven hours of restorative sleep had already fortified her. She was only lying awake to contemplate her blessings. Lodging in a tiny house, 288 square feet of authentic repurposed 100 -year -old farm furnishings, every square inch meticulously decorated with cotton doilies, linens and hand-sewn quilts. No sign that says, “do not touch.” Every indication that she is to wrap up in the quilt, pull out the exposed springs on the crib-sized trundle daybed and luxuriate for as long as she likes in her 650 down sleeping bag purchased for her birthday last year and brought along on this road trip for such a necessity.
Any moment now her daughter will pop in from the farmhand bunk and make use of the hand-crank coffee grinder and organic coffee beans. Once the coffee is perking, they will gather eggs from the hens and have a fine omelette. Rain gently taps on the roof intermittently. Dad still snores softly from the quilted queen-sized bed nestled under an eastern stained glass quatrefoil window and concealed by an antique secretary bookcase now commissioned as china hutch. The bookcase is identical to a pair from her father’s childhood home, one of which graces her brother’s well – appointed professorial study while the other has use at the home of a cousin. It is 7:14 am and still Dad sleeps – an amazing feat for a man used to rising early on a farm, used to getting up before dawn to feed the horses and break the ice in the watering trough. But then, he has been up twice in the night for trips to the bathhouse. Trips on which she accompanied him because the path is unfamiliar and very uneven. Trips on which she, at the age of 66 and allegedly in her prime, reaches out to him and steadies him like she would a toddling child. When your parents age, it helps to have been a mother. The bathhouse has every luxury from clawfoot tub to heated toilet seat. The only thing resembling the old farm outhouse is the aged barnwood paneling the walls and floor. It takes time to enjoy these amenities when you are 88. It also takes time to wash your hands and get back into your coat. While he washes his hands and gets back into his coat, she slips behind the partition and makes use of the heated toilet seat for herself. A wise woman goes at every opportunity. She, too, might want to sleep until the sun is up!
Last night when Silvergirl pulled into the driveway about 7:00 pm the three travelers were greeted by a cacophony of bleating goats, honking white geese and clucking hens. By the time she and her daughter enjoyed a pit campfire and headed for bed the hens were cozily perched in their custom aviary and the frogs and toads in the pond were loudly singing an evening serenade. The amphibians were at it again briefly this morning once the rooster alarmed them.
What a beautiful morning! Such is the life in Christopher Robin’s Writer’s Cabin, next to the 100-acre-wood, on Whidbey Island, on a working farm – when she is not the one working!
