I traveled without a camera. I had no companion along to snap pictures. No excess baggage. Instead, I bought lots of postcards-particularly in San Francisco. In Seattle, my gracious cousins accommodated me with housing, sightseeing plans…and a camera. Here are some shots ot the most beautiful day one could desire.
“I sold that house, there, last week.”
“They’ve already moved in.”
“Oh, yeah, at closing. That’s the one with the tiger wood floor – imported from Brazil, got a good deal on it, nice light / dark stripe running down the board like this sample.”
“Exotic.”
“Now, this house here, we can go inside; it has bamboo flooring first time I’ve used bamboo, not sure I like it as well as the tiger wood.”
“I’ve heard it’s the new thing, a bit more green.”
“Supposed to be, but I don’t know.”
“Wow! This is nice! I do like the light color of the bamboo.”
“Come on upstairs. Four bedrooms and a bonus room up there.”
“I love this cubby over the stairs, I’d put my desk here under the window and use it as a writer’s nook.”
“Everyone that has looked at this house likes that nook. They say immediately, ‘I could put this or that here.’…funny thing, the realtors all said that wouldn’t go over well. The plan had a two story open staircase right here and called for a hanging chandelier, I had the framers change it.”
“You have an architect and a designer?”
“I’m the designer.”
“You take the idea to an architect?”
“I do my own plans.”
Driving through the neighborhood:
“I built that house there, and the one behind it…
Now over here I had to wait to tear down the old rental and then add half a lot which I bought from the lady next door and then subdivide the new lot into two…This cul-de-sac we’re coming up on, I built these 5 houses about 20 years ago, when your dad was up here. He helped me clear the property…
“The lady in that house? That rancher? I didn’t build her house, but, she would vote for me for president if I ran.”
“She really likes you, huh. You get to know her while you were building?”
“She has a nice little lattice work surrounding the patio out there in the backyard, you see? She has an outdoor shower out there and she likes to go out the do her yoga and exercise and meditate in the outdoor shower.”
“Ah, you didn’t put windows in that side of the house you built next door?”
“I went in with two plans. One was a split level, and this one is a cut out where the lower level roof extends about 10 feet further out than the upper level and the upper level has windows in the front and back, but none to the side. No neighbors will ever be able to peep into her backyard.”
Driving through the larger community:
“I built that house… I have a permit out to build on this lot… This lot is planned for 5 houses, had to build a special water vault for that, should have gone for just four houses there… and, I can’t get the excavator to finish his job… remember when the garden used to be here?”
“And the rental? Yes. Did you build both of those?”
Affirmative grunt.
“It must be kind of satisfying to drive around town and see everything you have built, besides stuff you worked on while serving on the planning commission. Do you know how many houses you’ve built?”
“Don’t know. Probably about sixty, I haven’t counted recently.”
“I think we have seen about 12 or 14 today.”
“To tell you the truth, I think I am kind of reluctant to actually sit down and count. It was kind of on that “bucket list” as you call it to build a hundred houses here before I quit and I’m afraid to count because I might fall short.”
“So, if you built 99 houses you fall short and are disappointed? And if you built 101, you have over – reached your goal and have to stop? I don’t think that is the idea of goal sitting and the bucket list.”
I think, in fact, gentle reader, that I am in the presence of a very modest, understated, specimen of the American work ethic and middle age success.
“Whatever would you want to go to San Francisco for?” I was asked by the older generation. Many my own age were envious. I could have enjoyed the company of several travelling companions had schedule and budget allowed. After yesterday’s wanderings in the city, I now know. I came for the view. Chinatown was fun. The food (butter cake, banana roll, rice and beef, stuffed shrimp at the wharf) a treat. The cable car a must. The cheesy, top-off double decker tourist bus (though over-priced) provided much needed bearings for the city. But the crowning moment for me was a stroll to the end of Fisherman’s Wharf and a wander out to the end of the pier. I had already walked to the end of the Embarcadero, smelled the smells, shopped in the little shops, purchased a cable car music box for my mother (so I could tell her that’s what I came to San Francisco for). I pressed forward. Passed a sandy beach where two children built sand castles and a couple of die-hard swimmers trained in the cold water. I rolled my toes in the sand without taking my walking shoes off and continued on my morning’s journey. Just before the entrance to a wonderful military park, I veered right and followed an aging cement pier a half mile or so into the harbor. By this time I had squirted a couple of honey straws and an individual peanut butter package into my mount to give me energy and keep me going. The pier was wide enough for pedestrians and two-way cars to pass, but, motorized vehicles are no longer allowed. On the way foot traffic was mild and I found myself mingling from a distance with single photographers and their tripods and a couple of serious fisherman. There were, perhaps, a total of 12 people on the long, curving pier. No one paid much notice to anyone else. In the distance, Alcatraz Island rose out of the fog when the clouds parted and the sun came out. The view was breath taking and breath giving.
I found myself saying, “This moment, this view, was worth the whole trip.” At that moment, alone at the end of the pier and looking out toward the water, a sea lion surfaced, not more than twenty feet away. He (or she) was coming straight for me, nosed up out of the water, blew (a friendly kiss, so it seemed) and then dipped and was gone. What a moment! What a view!
Today I ate Chinese food in San Francisco, something I have been longing to do since about 1995. Over two years ago I wrote a few blogs on the theme of 10 Things I Want to Do Before I Die http://einefeistyberg.wordpress.com/2007/04/22/the-list-contains-10-ten-things-i-want-to-do-before-i-die/ It seems like an appropriate time to revisit that list and see if my focus has remainded true.
I wanted to return to Colorado before I died. I returned to Colorado in 1997
I wanted to be a published author. I have completed a 229 page novel, 40 pages are in progress on another, six pages of still another, 115 page children’s novel independently published; but, the only items I have published for pay are five newspaper articles.
I wanted to be the quintessential Proverbs 31 woman. I still long for the day I can check all items off on this list
I wanted to mentor younger women and be mentored by older, wiser women. Some, but not enough
I began to say that my “Fantasy Island” would be performing on the stage at Red Rocks. Actually, performing anywhere would be fine
I wanted to find the best public education possible for my kids. K-12 is a wrap
I wanted to spend time around stages, microphones, studios and musicians. Since all three of my children are musicians, and one owns a studio and lots of microphones, and I teach music and direct performances of children, I guess I can say this goal is thriving
I wanted to invest my life, make a difference in my world, and make a difference in the lives of others. May it continue to be so
I wanted to travel and see places unknown, via plane, and train, and auto, to experience “the good life,” in all its changing forms. I am in the midst of living this goal. Today I ate Chinese food in San Francisco. I arrived by train and have experienced the cable car, streetcar, double decker bus and walking tour. One of my travel goals is to visit all fifty states.
Been there, done that. The first event of the train trip came less than 15 minutes out of the station – delay for maintenance workers to get out of the way. Been there, done that. I am used to train delays for maintenance, passenger train delays for the freight trains (who own the railway) and delays to change crews when crews have been on the rails longer than the union allows (due to aforementioned delays). A mere three years ago this would have been a new and unique experience for me. Since that time I have made several rail trips from Denver to GJ, GJ to Denver, GJ to Glenwood Springs. Even with the delays, I continue to enjoy train rides. Trains have plenty of legroom, luggage storage, and big windows. The overwhelming plus for train rides is the freedom from driving. This freedom; to write, daydream, think, crane my neck, be an armchair traveler and really reach the destination; is huge.
Ruby Canyon- I have not been here or done this before. In his best tour guide voice the conductor tells us we will be following the Colorado River for the duration of our ride from GJT to SLC today. The Colorado River ends just 40 miles short of the Pacific Ocean after providing showers and filling swimming pools for the populace of Southern California and trickling into Mexico. Ruby Canyon is aptly named. Red rocks flank the Colorado River and make this evening trip well worth the effort. We pass at least three different groups of river rafters who have made camp for the night on the opposite banks. Some totally ignore us. One group waves; but none of the groups have any sense of obnoxious tradition, thus disappointing a group of 40 something, female sight-seers from Chicago and points further East.
Dear God, show me truth. Show me your will and direction for my life. God, please grant me the power to carry it out rather than the constant worry and striving to make it happen on my own. For my daughter; grant a deep and abiding knowledge of who you are-and are meant to be- for her. Grant that she be always a fulfilled and loved woman, peaceful and wise at heart whether single or in a relationship. For my son; I ask that you grant him an awareness and revelation of truth: who YOU are, God of the Universe, and who he is to be. Give to my son power and strength and wisdom and boldness in the things of the true and living God. For the one estranged, who, because of his raging and insults has become my enemy, I pray for the higher good to master him. I pray he would have truth and beauty and self-awareness. For my grown and settled children, I pray that you would continue to knit them together in a strong cord of love and ethics. Bring out the best in them. You have given each of them marvelous strengths. Burst on them at every turn in beauty, truth, joy, the energy of life and love. And for my friends, my listening ears; I pray your protection on them, that my “viruses” would not attach to their “systems”, but that they would remain whole, beautiful, joyous, successful, and wise. May it be.
At the top of the fourth he turned to me and said, “I am really enjoying my father’s day present.” I was too. Its been 30 years or so since the last time I baked in the sun or got damp and chilled in the rain at a JUCO game. In the space of 3 hours, we did both today- despite being well armed with umbrellas.
We found seats directly above home plate and were free to form our own opinions about the accuracy of the umpire and the strengths and weaknesses of the teams. By the top of the fourth the pace of the game was starting to pick up. He had already had 3 little naps in the stadium seat. I found out that he played baseball in high school. I remember when he coached our small town equivalent of little league summer after summer. I have known all my life that he was a starter on the high school basketball team, but I had never heard about high school baseball.
During the slow beginning innings where the pitcher merely threw strikes and there was little action in the field, I tried to beguile him with conversation, tell him about my seventh grade students who argued just this past week that you can catch a fly with an outstretched baseball cap because it is still attached (all this because I asked them not to be playing baseball in literacy class with detached player equipment- as in, water bottle and pea gravel). I took the counter position that the cap extends further from the hand than the distance allowed in the fingers of a glove. He did not take the bait, just nodded and said, “Ummm.” Sometime next week he will probably tender his final position on the subject – after he has consulted the online rulebook.
Admittedly, there was more purpose to my invitation than just an early Father’s Day gift (I told him it would take a load off my mind if he would go to the game with me, because then I wouldn’t have to worry about what to get him for Father’s Day). Always the hard worker, my 75 year old dad has been working non-stop the past couple of weeks and exhausting the middle-aged men hired to help. It was truly time for a holiday. Baseball fit the bill.
After six innings of reflection I have concluded that baseball is a lot like life. You spend months and years in training and a good deal of time nonchalantly standing around waiting; as a spectator getting a trifle bored, but you have to keep your head in the game, tensed, alert, and ready at a moment’s notice to make the all important double play-that makes your day or defines your life.
Recently someone tried to convince me that starting over is never a good idea; it just doesn’t work. Essentially she was saying that one needs to just stay in the pit one has dug and continue plodding, maintain the status quo of the circumstances and people one finds oneself with. I understand the Biblical principle behind her adamance to never start over (Peter’s example of a sow returning to wallowing in the mud, or Paul’s question as to why the Galatians were returning to the weak and beggarly rules they started out with which led them from the school master to grace).
I also dislike being bumped back home or to the hospital as much as the next person playing Careers or Monopoly or other reality games. While I understand the necessity to refrain from continually running away and starting over, I have found that retracing one’s steps is often beneficial to ascertain why one went to the kitchen in the first place, what one was thinking of, desiring and wanting, before allowing oneself to be distracted by outside urgencies or circumstances and the daily stresses of life.
So, pardon me, if, in my mid-life quest to be all that I can be and all that my Higher Power asks of me, I decide to return to square one, a mile marker with clear directions.
Though it appears to some that I am starting over, I am actually still standing expectantly on the beach waiting for the next big wave – not just any wave, but a true quintessential pipeline, something I can ride all the way into port; “or be content to sail with God the seas,” as Emerson penned.
Voo Doo Prayers; I hate them. I refuse them. They release way too much negative energy into the world through thoughtless, selfish, controlling words. You know what I mean. Voo Doo prayers go something like this:
Dear God, please make Jane trip and skin her knee right here so I can help her up and be her hero.
Dear God, please help Joe’s plane to have mechanical problems so it never leaves the ground because he shouldn’t be going on that trip anyway. Dear God, do something bad or scary in John Doe’s life so he will have to call on God for help and know that I have been right about God all along…….
How much better it is to pray a recovery style prayer, “Dear God, please give Jane, or Joe, or John, knowledge of your will for their lives today and give them the power to carry it out.” Oops, I forgot to ask God to keep me in the loop and tell me what his will is for Jane’s life – how will I ever know to pray heartily for that will and what I can do to make sure Jane does that will (are you smiling?).
Voo Doo prayers; I hate them, I reject them. Someone has been meddling with my car and my computer with voodoo prayers. I reject them. Onward, straight into the wave of what positive and good (tho sometimes hard) things God has for me.
GOODBYE MOUNTAINS, HELLO FRIENDS
I came to the mountains in the first place to be alone. Well, sort of. I like my space. I love being alone during the day to putzy about the house and arrange things and indulge in creativity. I am inherently that quintessential stay at home wife or mother who is nourished by planning great things for her family, anchoring and stabilizing her brood and her man by her presence in the home, and the good things that come from her kitchen, her sewing machine, her garden, her pen and her heart.
Two things conspired against me. 1) All the neighbors also came to the mountains to be alone. There was a huge dearth of friends and an abundance of isolation. 2) One cannot live on mountains alone. One must commute to the city and work full time in order to pay the mortgage on the cabin and provide the components and ingredients for those abundantly nourishing meals.
So commenced the commuting and the stress: One foot in the mountains, one foot in the metro; with the shoe always on the wrong foot. What I really want is to live in the mountains and be alone during the day, write my thousand pages, feather my comfy home and hearth, attend to my music and spiritual nourishment; and then-when the lights go down or the vacations come—escape to beaches and exotic places, symphonies and shows, with family and friends in tow to enjoy all that cities and countries and culture has to offer.
How is it that things always turn out backwards? Now I am living in the high desert, still working full time, but with a short three mile commute; two life long friends and several family members close at hand; numerous opportunities to cultivate new friendships. Still I crave: Alone time during the day-Social time in the evening and on days off. I can still go to the mountains or beaches for vacations-and I do! I have just returned from 48 hours in Gunnison; walking and hiking at 7,000 feet; writing in a luxurious motel room complete with hot tub; but, where was the social life at the end of the day? The kids were off doing college activities.
Townsend and Cloud, in their most enlightening and healing book, Safe People (Zondervan, 1995), note that isolated people, socially anorexic people may have fantasies of vacation and doing something fun ALL BY THEMSELVES. Guess I am not there yet. I love to share fun and vacation with the right people! Now where are they?