Mickey and Karen

Smart Guy, Mickey, Karen (click to enlarge)

Yesterday my ex-boss Mickey and his wife Karen came to Bellingham for a vacation and to visit us. That's our front porch where we had a little repast before taking them to their hotel (we don't have much room for guests to stay). As you can see, it was a sunny day, with a strong breeze blowing from the south. We were only one degree shy of the record temperature for the date.

I worked with Mickey for thirty years. Karen was a secretary in our department way back in the late seventies and early eighties at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. When they began to date, she transferred out of the department, and I attended their wedding 29 years ago. Karen went back to school and got a degree in social work, which she will be retiring from this December. Mickey, although he is going on 71, is still not slowing down. I think Karen wanted him to see how happy some people can be in retirement, but he's not having any of it. He's just not ready.

Mickey is a true "citizen of the world," comfortable in every corner of the most remote areas, or in the middle of a big city. He's curious about everything and absolutely loves used bookstores. I can remember many times I followed him, waiting in some foreign land while he perused books in the local language. Yesterday we walked around in the sunshine, and I showed him a couple of used bookstores that he will go back and delve into more deeply. They will be here all day and leave in mid-morning tomorrow (Monday). I hope to take Karen to join me in my favorite exercise class before they head out of town, back to Seattle to fly home to Boulder.

Because of Mickey, I have been to many parts of the world. I've been his assistant at meetings in Paris, Moscow, Hanoi, Saigon, Havana, Geneva, Bangkok, Urumqi (western China), Beijing, Shanghai, Macao, and Budapest. I'm sure I've missed a few, but you get the idea. He still travels all over the world to climate meetings but no longer arranges conferences like we did for so long.

We sat at the restaurant in their upscale hotel yesterday, reminiscing about many of those trips, since Karen was along on many of them, as was Smart Guy. The four of us went together on a side trip while in China to Xian to see the terracotta soldiers. We all agreed that it was one of the most amazing things we have ever seen. If you know little or nothing about the Terracotta Army, that link will take you to the Wikipedia page, but here's a little of what I know.

In 1974, some local farmers near Xian were drilling a well for water when they discovered some of the terracotta figures in a pit. Dating from 210 BC, these figurines are all different from each other and some historians think they are modeled after actual soldiers. From the Wikipedia link:

The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.

After we had gone into the large area where the majority of the unearthed soldiers are housed, we were able to buy a book telling what is known about them and giving us pictures of them all. We were able to get the farmer who found them to sign our books. I guess he's there most days and is paid by the Chinese government. I was not able to take a picture of him as it was forbidden. If you ever get a chance to see these soldiers, it is an experience not to be missed. What is known about their origin is that the ancient Chinese Emperor who founded the Qin Dynasty commissioned the Army to help rule another empire in the afterlife.

My memories of the years I worked with Mickey are filled with such amazing events. You would think that we might have stayed in fancy American-type hotels, but another thing Mickey insisted upon is that we accommodate our visitors and ourselves in local hotels. This was mostly a good thing, but I do remember in Moscow we stayed at a hotel that I could only describe as primitive. The room was only about 10-12 feet wide with a narrow wooden bed with a futon on top. The 14th-floor window opened, but there was no air conditioning (it was very hot) and no screens. I could have fallen out if I wasn't careful. The bathroom had no hot water and only one spigot that swiveled from the sink to the claw-footed tub. I just held the hose and wet myself down while standing in the tub, then dried with a towel about the size of a dishtowel. The hard brown soap didn't even make a lather. Since I was there for six nights, I did get a reasonable towel and soap for subsequent "baths."

Even though it sounds rough, Mickey was right: I didn't forget that trip, and there is no way it could fade into the mists of time. I can still remember those baths. Incredibly, I slept very well on the hard futon. That is just one of the amazing experiences I had while working for Mickey. We did a lot of good things during those years.

Seeing the two of them again has brought up many memories that I cherish. Today, hopefully, we will make more memories and have some new adventures together. They might not carry the same weight as those heady days of international travel, but we are all older now, more sedate, and happy with smaller pleasures. Except for Mickey, who is still going, and going, just like the Energizer Bunny.

Dreaming

We spend about a third of our lives asleep, which seems to me an amazing statistic. Although when I get tired and want to go to sleep, nothing is as sweet as climbing into bed, snuggling under the covers, and drifting off to sleep.

Today, this Sunday morning, is another time when I couldn't decide what I wanted to write about here, my thoughts going here and there, wondering what is uppermost in my mind. I thought about old regrets that keep coming up to bother me, making me wonder why I keep beating myself up about things that nobody else remembers. They are real to me, though, which means they must still have some relevance in my daily life. Those journals from the 1990s still sit accusingly on my bookshelf, daring me to delve into them.

But lately my dreams have been so real, making me feel as though I'm living another life. I ran across an interesting article on the Huffington Post by one of my favorite authors Robert Lanza (the author of Biocentrism) entitled, "Are Dreams an Extension of Physical Reality?" It got me to wondering about these dreams of mine. I wrote a while back about my old friend Garl having died this summer in a parachuting accident. I was pretty devastated by the event, and many of my friends in Boulder held a celebration of Garl's life a few weeks ago. I felt bad that I wasn't able to be there. The thing is, if I had been willing to spend a lot of money I could have gone, and it made me feel guilty that I didn't go.

The other night I dreamed that I saw Garl walking towards me, his distinctive gait assuring me that it was indeed him, and he walked over and put his arms around me. He whispered in my ear that he forgave me for not coming to his celebration. He looked and felt like the old Garl I knew, except that when I looked at his neck while he was hugging me, it was broken. I don't remember any other part of the dream, but I remember when I woke up that I kept thinking about that dream. It felt like one of those memories I won't soon forget.

I remember when Chris died, many years ago now (in 2002), I would dream about him quite often. But one dream stands out in my memory, as if it happened. Chris always shows up in my dreams as a young teenager, or a young man. He was forty when he died, but somehow his essence to me is right around nineteen or twenty. In that dream, I was standing in a beautiful forest, with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing. There's a path in the forest that opens up to a glen. Walking towards me on the path is Chris, and another old friend who died years ago in an avalanche. They are both smiling widely, their arms around each other, and Chris says, "Hi Mom, we're having a great time. Please don't worry about me, I'm fine!" And Franz (the friend) says nothing but has his arm protectively around Chris as if to affirm the truth of it.

That's all I remember about the dream, but that scene is as real to me as if I'd lived it. Or did I? That's the thing that Lanza keeps pointing out: that we really don't know the truth of our physical existence, it's not what we think, so who's to say that dreams are not real, too? Of course, there are also nightmares, dreams that I can hardly wait to escape from. Those are often dreams of loss, losing people or things and being unable to locate them. I know some people's dreams are really scary, but thinking back I can't remember any like that myself. There have been dreams where I've been glad when I woke to find it was only a dream.

As I've gotten older, I notice that I fall asleep easily and usually have a dream or two, nothing special, and then I have a period of wakefulness, where I'm not very asleep, or I'm wide awake in the middle of the night. That's the time when unresolved issues in my daily life usually come up, and sometimes I need to use deep breathing to slip back down into sleep. I find that a dab or two of lavender oil on my wrists almost always helps me relax. I breathe it in and snuggle into my covers. That next period of the night, around 2:00 or 3:00, is when I have my most memorable dreams.

I don't know if it's wishful thinking, but I do hope that one day (or one night) I'll find out what is real. Most of my life's memories have already dissolved in the mists of time, with just a few of the many days and nights I've lived still holding any significant memories. I would feel bereft, however, if I didn't have those few dreams that stand like beacons on the signposts of my dream world.

Nine eleven

Nine years later. Yesterday I woke and used the Reader to see what blogs had been posted since the night before, and every one of them had written something about the Nine Eleven's anniversary. Then I read the news of the day, and everything was focused on the event that happened nine years ago, and reminded me how unhealed and unsettled we in America are, nine years later. It made me reflective, wondering where I've come in those years. Nine years is a long time in the life of a person, but it's not so long in the life of a country, or a planet.

I remember waking up that day, getting ready for work the same way I always did: first a cup of tea and the paper in bed before starting the day. I put on the kettle and went back to wait for the whistle. Somehow I fell asleep and the whistle never came. When I woke, I walked toward the kitchen, and I felt the heat from the stove: the kettle had been destroyed by the electric heat and the whistle had fallen off. Once I had cleaned up the mess, I wondered how I could have been so careless.

The division where I worked was beginning a three-day evaluation of its scientific curriculum; it was mandatory that everyone be present. We had scientists on the panel coming from both coasts, staying in local hotels. Although we usually didn't dress up and men didn't wear ties or suits, I knew that we would all want to look our best, our usual jeans and T-shirts left at home. Choosing a nice pair of slacks and a silk shirt, I was ready to go to work.

Our director began his presentation to a room of about thirty people. I remember noticing the date on his slides, little knowing at that time how infamous the date of September 11, 2001, would become. About the time we took our first coffee break in mid-morning, news of a plane having hit one of the towers in the World Trade Center was buzzing through the conversation.

We were all called out of the session once the second plane hit. One of our administrators had a small black-and-white TV in her office, and we crowded around it and watched in horror as we saw the images on the screen. It was deadly quiet and then I heard a sob. My heart was breaking as I watched what seemed absolute impossibility as first one tower collapsed, then the other. We were sent home, nobody could concentrate on a presentation, everyone was horrified by what was happening to our country. Then the Pentagon.

Our scientific staff could not fly home. All airlines were grounded. After waiting a few days, most of our visitors rented cars and drove home. That night I went home and sat with Smart Guy, holding hands as we watched the destruction over and over on our own TV, listened to the commentary, and felt the impact. Even going to the store for supplies, I could see the shock and fear on every face.

And now nine years have passed. We have gone to war with the Taliban and Afghanistan where the hijackers trained with Bin Laden. That name and the name "Al Qaida" are now everywhere, but on that day nine years ago, only a few had heard them. Our country went to war with Iraq for reasons I still don't understand, and our country is hated by many around the world. I am filled with unease; I feel the sadness of today's hard economic times, as so many qualified and deserving people have lost their jobs, their homes, their hopes for the future.

Every country has its ups and downs, as every person does too. Events happen, time passes, and we move from where we are today to other circumstances. I am hoping that next year, the tenth anniversary, will hold some sense of the healing of these wounds.

If you feel so moved, I wonder what happened in your life on that day, and ask if you would be willing to share it. And your sense of the direction of our country: do you see any light at the end of this long tunnel?

September song

Yesterday while walking in Fairhaven, I saw these beautiful late summer roses with the blue and white sky behind. It put me into a pensive mood. September is here already, and I'm wondering if I'm ready for  the change that is coming. Fall is my favorite season, and today I noticed the leaves are already beginning to show the first signs of color.

Some of my blogging buddies are mourning the loss of a person I never knew. Penny lived in Australia and was in a car accident and died soon after. She wasn't very old, had three teenaged kids and a full life. Donna wrote a wonderful post this morning about her (Celebrating the Temporary), and she somehow had saved a beautiful piece written by Penny about blogging which she shared. Penny's blog has been removed by her family. It got me to thinking.

Everything is temporary, although we just don't experience life that way. But it is; when you think about the food you ate yesterday that turned into energy that powered you through the day and night. It's gone and turned into something else. The wind I hear outside is bringing changes in the weather and some of the birds are starting their migration south. September is the month of transition from summer to fall.

I walked to the bookstore yesterday and browsed for a new book to read, having just finished the third book in the Stieg Larsson Millennium Trilogy about Lisbeth Salander. These books were published posthumously, since Larsson died suddenly at the age of 50 of a heart attack. He never knew how amazingly popular his books would become. And how much that persona of Lisbeth he created would mean to a whole generation of aging feminists (like me). The books were immensely satisfying, and I don't usually read crime novels. They do, however, portray a very smart woman who learns to use her skills to overcome monumental obstacles.

The book I ended up with is one I read many years ago: To Kill a Mockingbird. From this Wikipedia link:

One critic explains the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."

Although I read that book a long time ago, and I remember how much I was impacted by the character of Atticus Finch, I remember very little about the book, the way it was written, or much about how events unfolded. It's a little scary, realizing that I also saw the movie long ago and can see Gregory Peck's face when I think of Atticus. (He was brilliant in the role and won an Academy Award for it.) Somehow, though, not much of it is remembered, and I want to see what I think of it today.

Today I'll settle into my recliner in the afternoon, listen with one ear to the birds and the wind, and celebrate the temporary. Since it's a Sunday, I did think about the possibility of heading down to Snohomish and getting my knees in the breeze, but the unsettled weather and the genuine lack of real desire will keep me from heading down. That also shows how much I've changed: although I truly enjoy the activity of skydiving, the fact that I banged my knee pretty hard on last Thursday's hike gives me pause when I consider flying and landing my parachute. I am in pretty good shape for being almost 68, but still...

No, a good book and a walk to the bay in the morning should be just right. I hope you will have a wonderful Sunday and will consider appreciating the moment.

Meeting a new relative

Waking up today, this Sunday, I know that I will be traveling back home from Alexandria, Virginia on the East Coast all the way to Bellingham, Washington on the West Coast. it will be long and hard, but every bit of this trip has been worth the effort. You see, I was introduced to my niece Allison's daughter Lexie, who is two months old, born June 18. My sister Norma Jean, Lexie's grandmother, and Pete, Lexie's grandfather, and I have all been together with Lexie for five days now. Totally different from my quiet and well-ordered life at home.

Lexie is an IVF baby, with a sperm donor father. Allison has a 25-page biography about this man, and when she is old enough Lexie will be given the opportunity to meet her biological father, if she chooses to. Allison paid extra for this feature because she felt it would have been hard to explain to Lexie later why she didn't give her that option. She will know about her heritage, all of it, from the time she's old enough to care.

Allison is now a Lt. Colonel in the Army, with a career in operations research. She is very good at her job, and for the past few months has been home on maternity leave. She goes back to work after Labor Day, but since Lexie was born Allison has devoted every moment of her life to nurturing her newborn. Allison is good at everything she does, and Lexie is no exception. I am totally and completely in love with this beautiful child.

When Allison decided to have a baby as an unmarried mother, I was at first unsure of the wisdom of the action, but now I cannot imagine a world without this child. She is perfect in every way and of course at this point in her life she spends it drinking breast milk, pooping said breast milk out, sleeping and even spending a bit of time awake, and I was gifted with three beautiful smiles yesterday as I held her, cooing to her. I am amazed at how fantastically beautiful a newborn is, I had forgotten.

This whole experience has also awakened feelings in me about the passage of time. I thought I had dealt with all of that during the period when I read Biocentrism and wrote about it here. I look at my sister, two years younger than me, and as I see her through my mental lens, she still looks the same to my eyes, but now she has gray in her hair (not as much as me). Pete is suffering from COPD (chronic pulmonary obstructive disease) from decades of smoking. He still sneaks a puff now and then, and gets grief from both Allison and Norma Jean when he walks back in from the back yard. I know it's because they love him but I also know he's never been able to completely break the cycle of addiction to nicotine, even though he's dying from the disease.

I don't know if I'll ever see Pete again, and I think that each time I see him, so my heart strings are pretty darn sore from these five days. He's much worse now and fights for each breath. Very limited in what he can do now, he is still totally engaged in life through the wonders of the Internet. I helped him fix up a blog and I hope, really hope, that he uses it to leave Lexie some of his writing, his thoughts, because he's a really good writer and Lexie will never know him any other way; he won't be around.

This made me realize that I won't either, and I don't suffer from COPD. I'm almost 68 now, and by the time she will be an adult, the chances of my being around are slim. I'm just not sure I'm interested in living to 90. Having mobility and a decent mental capacity are my whole life. I don't know very many sharp and energetic 90-year-olds. Or any, actually.

The interaction between the parents and Allison fills me with awe. It never changes, really, as most family dynamics don't, but there is an undercurrent of cherished shared time together and the realization that there won't be many more like this. And then there is Lexie. Everyone centers their love for each other around this new life, this new hope for the future. Me too.

Because of today's electronic wonders, and because Lexie already has videos and lots of pictures available on Allison's Facebook page, I will watch her development from afar and will try hard to keep myself from becoming that doting great-aunt who shows all her friends the new baby in her life. But then again, most of those friends and family are also on Facebook. It's a new era of virtual connectivity, so in many ways now that I have held her, smelled her precious babyness and fallen in love with her, I will hold her in my heart forever. I will cry over her trials, and I will celebrate her accomplishments.

There will never be this moment again, but I have captured it here and I am sharing it with you, and I too can come back and visit as I pore over the pictures and exclaim as she grows from an infant to a toddler. I wish I could keep her safe from all that she will endure in life, but it's a lament that everyone who has ever loved a child understands. Now that my heart is full to bursting, I'd better stop here.

Fourteeners

In a comment on my friend Linda's blog where she wrote about her son's mountain climbing experience, I mentioned that I had climbed 26 of Colorado's fourteeners (peaks at least 14,000 feet high). She wrote back and suggested that I write an Eye blog about how that happened, so here it is.

Looking back, I have wondered just where it was that I began to exercise regularly, because I recall only hazy memories that included cigarettes and eating poorly. In thinking about how it came about, it happened with a group of friends I met when I first moved to Boulder. I was living in a rooming house with perhaps fifteen or so other residents. Although it was not an official communal living experience, it turned out to be so in many ways. We each had a smallish room but we shared the kitchen and bathrooms, which means you get to know each other pretty well. Among them were a bunch of guys who made trips into the Rockies to "bag" fourteeners. One day, they invited me to join them.

I was instructed to pack a lunch, take rain gear, water, and wear absolutely NO cotton anywhere. This seemed strange to me, as it was midsummer and hot without a cloud in the sky. I did as I was told and very early one morning we piled into Jim's big old van and headed up the road from Boulder to bag Quandary Peak.

What I remember most about that day is how early we started and how long the three miles to the top were, relentlessly heading up and up. I stopped often and cursed the heaviness of my pack and wished I had not agreed to come on the trip. Every time I thought I was close to the top, I would climb a little more and find that it was still in the distance. I will never ever forget the experience of reaching the top, however: it was glorious. I truly felt I was on top of the world, with 360-degree views of the surrounding mountains. The air at 14,000 feet is thin but exhilarating in a way I had never before experienced. We didn't have any rain that day, and I felt so good as I headed back down the trail, I wanted to do it again and again.

I went on to climb all the peaks near Boulder with these friends or others who I met through them. This was the beginning of my getting in shape. I also learned the reason for the rain gear and the early starts.

I don't remember which peak this was, but one of my friends had a camera and took this picture as he was amazed that my hair was standing on end. This, of course, was from the lightning that was just getting ready to strike! I had noticed a tingling feeling on my scalp but didn't know this was what it looked like. One friend who knew about this told us to hustle back down the trail because this was a dangerous sign. As we descended quickly, the storm moved in faster than I could have imagined possible, and above our heads we saw dark clouds forming and heard thunder. I didn't see any lightning but I did get quite wet and was grateful for my rain gear.

Over the years, I traveled around the state and ended up climbing some of the more difficult ones. Some are quite easy, actually, and one day I climbed three in one day, but they are all next to each other (Lincoln, Democrat and Bross). To be considered a distinct fourteener, a peak must rise at least 300 feet from the saddle that connects it to the nearby mountains. The most difficult one I ever climbed was Pyramid Peak. It was very steep and nothing but loose rocks in many places. I remember someone above me dislodged a huge rock that went barreling down fairly close to me. He yelled, "rock!" as it went whizzing by I realized that it would have killed me if I had been unable to avoid it. I also smelled ozone as it bounced from rock to rock. I quickly turned and yelled to the climbers below me.

This was much later in my years climbing fourteeners. I learned to be much safer in the mountains and sometimes spent as long as a week camping with my friends and climbing mountains, large and small. It was the beginning of my lifelong love of the outdoors. It's funny when I think of it, and wonder how different my life would have been had I not chosen to rent a room in that old house in Boulder.

My home town

Having grown up as an Air Force brat, I never really had a home town. I happened to be born in California, and we were stationed there a good bit during my childhood, but we lived in different places so I never had a place I felt I was "from." When someone asked me, I explained about moving around a lot. In the early 1970s when I was ready to plant myself somewhere permanently, I adopted Boulder as my home town. I lived there from 1975 until 2008, more than three decades.

When Smart Guy and I looked ahead to retirement, it wasn't easy to decide where to live. I knew I had to leave Boulder behind, because it tied me to old ways of being, and ever since I met him, when he was living in San Francisco (which he loved), I wanted to head with him back to the west coast after I retired from my workplace. Back in February, I wrote here about how we ended up in Bellingham.

Today I'm looking at what it's been like, more than two years later, living here. First of all, I've carved out a new life that is full to the brim. It contains everything I ever thought I wanted, but part of that is because I'm not the same person I was in Boulder. I am now a Washingtonian, and I'm different now. We are shaped by our environment in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

I need a social group to be happy, and the almost-daily classes at the Y have provided one aspect of that need, while the Thursday hikes with the Senior Trailblazers have provided another. The skydiving aspect is provided by the Drop Zone in Snohomish, and when we show up there, we are welcomed by our peers. I like the fact that skydiving is seasonal here, because it gives me a time to let it fade into the background, while in Boulder I was at the Drop Zone every weekend that the weather allowed, year round.

Because of my Trailblazer group, I learn about Washington's incredible natural beauty that I never would have discovered on my own. During our day-long interactions, I also have learned things about my new home town and environs that I would have missed. Dan told me about the Skytrain in Vancouver and how to use it; two of the women, Linda and Peggy, invited me to join their Saturday morning walking group and I've met new people there. I would have been there yesterday but I was in Snohomish jumping out of airplanes.

Riding the bus has also broadened my social group. Many of the bus drivers know me and greet me by name, or wave to me if they see me walking on the street. It's a good feeling to belong here now. When I ride the bus to the Y, I see the same people get on and I know their routines and miss them if they are not there. We chat sometimes, and I know some of their names and have even joined a Facebook page or two. When I walk into the coffee shop where I quaff my daily latte before class, I've become a "regular" and know the other regulars by name. We also visit and chat. One guy, Gene, and his parrot have become my friends. He's a fisherman who brings me some of the best sockeye salmon I've ever tasted. This picture shows Smart Guy, Gene, and me at the Farmers' Market in the springtime. Notice that he's obviously a native, we are bundled up and he's in shirtsleeves.

One person, Judy, who I met in class at the Y has become a good friend, and we go to movies and out to dinner together. We are the same age and I enjoy her grandchildren, as I also enjoy hearing about and visiting the children and grandchildren of my blogging buddies. The blogosphere and my two blogs fills the need to keep my mind active.

Writing all this down makes me realize why I am so content to be a Washingtonian. It's not often that we experience the kind of heat that has kept the rest of the country sweltering, although we do get some hot weather. Yesterday the high temperature broke another record. The previous high for the date was 84; yesterday it got to 88. I know this doesn't sound very hot for those of you stuck inside with much higher heat and humidity, but that's not normal for the Pacific Northwest, especially here on the coast. Just a few miles inland and it's much hotter.

And there's you, my faithful readers. You join me and I look forward to your comments. I follow your lives on your blogs and suffer with you when you have trials, and rejoice with you when you are happy. Thank you for joining me in my other home town, Blogaritaville.