Esse quam videri

So there’s this nature preserve not far from where I live. It was established as a land trust by a gentleman for his daughter who loved nature and the out of doors. There are roughly 2 miles of trails, friendly dogs are allowed to walk off-leash. My 2 rescue dogs Lily and Lulu love it there. In winter we go sometimes twice a day but these summer dog days with temperatures pushing 110 we only go in the morning, very early. We always meet very interesting persons and their dogs when we walk, this week a bicycler who recently moved to the area from Chesapeake, Virginia. We spoke of native southerners vs. northern transplants and shared amusing stories of how difficult it is to change the south to conform to northern ways. Then we wished each other a good day and moved on.

The title of this translates “to be rather than to seem”. It is North Carolina’s state motto, my home. For years growing up in the south with a New Yorker Mother and Colorado cowboy Father my identity was an interesting challenge. I knew who I was, what I liked, but trying to please everyone else? That’s a problem.

Why is it so hard to break conformity? Maybe some people have no problem with it. Maybe they have a very clear focus on what is expected of them and who they are. Maybe because of their virtue and goodness they don’t need to worry about rules. Or maybe they are those strong personalities who simply draw people into their circles and find safety in numbers, even forming new and improved rules, testing the waters until a consensus is formed.

But the consensus needs to be for the greater good. The consensus needs to be something everyone else can aspire to. Like people from other places. They may seem harsh, outspoken, rude, brash, arrogant, whatever. But it’s not fair to determine necessarily a person is what they seem to be. They might just be having a horrifically bad day. Or they make a lousy first impression. Granted, with many people wysiwyg applies (what you see… etc.)

My dad could call a person usually the first time he met them. And for the most part his take could have knocked me down with a feather. Where he saw humility and grace I saw impatience and pushy. But something in that person would give him or herself away to Dad. And he was almost never wrong. The only times he ever did get someone wrong was when he let someone else’s opinion influence him. Usually my mother. She was not often wrong but when she was her error was generally based not on her heart or her gut but a current issue or situation. She seldom allowed this to play with her instincts but once or twice she let it happen and she was truly way off. But she would always admit her error, she never kept up any pretense of righteousness.

So whenever I share an impression or thought with someone I always make it a gentle one. It’s hard not to love others when you know your own fallibility.

An Epic Journey

Journeys can take place in many ways. Summit of a mountain, sailing around the world, a quest for answers, an internal journey of discovery.

Or a cross-country car trip as an adolescent, with a pre-pubescent annoying brother and two parents not having their expectations met of their adolescent daughter and her younger brother.

My dad had warned (read threatened) he might move his happy little family from the comforts of our southern home to the wilds of New York someday. He said it so often I think we stopped believing him. I should have known the halcyonic summer our family went to Jamaica to visit my mother’s aging aunt was a bribe.

The following January we played car tag on interstates, turnpikes and rural roads to New Jersey. A rude awakening.

So the following summer my parents planned this huge car trip, with a stop in Ohio to look at the portrait of my great-great grandfather who was former chief justice of the Ohio supreme court, my mothers’ parents’ graves with our final destination Colorado Springs to see the boyhood city of my father.

Roughly 1,748.8 miles each way, give or take.

The worst of it was not the chipped beef sandwiches, not even when Mom mistakenly bought  Miracle Whip and refused to take it back swearing it was better for us. She had decided we would save both time and money eating our lunches in the car.

I do not recall whether we had breakfasts at the places we stayed on the way or a fast food place. I was not a healthy breakfast eater in those days. But what really made the trip nearly unbearable was my brother, all of 13 years old and nearly 6 feet tall, lounging across the back seat with his size 11 feet stuck out the window. My window. So I had his smelly feet under my nose for that many miles and nobody cared.

The day we pulled into our hotel (Best Westerns were Dad’s resting place of choice)  in Ohio he overshot the parking lot. Instead of turning around like most people he put the car in reverse and drove backwards through 2 parking lots and across a road to get to the proper motel lot. This rendered my mother speechless, rather she burbled “bl-bl-bl” and “F-f-f-f-” with an irrepressible laugh coming up which no one in the car could interpret, including her.

After Ohio we headed west again, one scheduled stop in Nebraska, destination unknown. Remember, too this is the 70s. We do not have gps or smart phones or wifi of any kind. We had AAA Triptiks and tour books of the states we were driving through, and maps of the states and just for good measure Mom included this huge RoadAtlas of the entire United States. In case we took a left in Illinois or something.

So we’re getting tired and cranky and hungry and Dad asks Mom to start looking for something where we can stop to eat and sleep. I have given up trying to move or even break my brother’s legs. Mom mentions this little town up ahead called Cozad and Dad starts looking for signs.

I do not believe there was anything else in this place aside from this little roadside motel. Maybe a gas station. I don’t even remember what it was. There was the skeleton of a snake outside the door to our room, and my brother, excited about the swimming pool watched in awe as some teenage girls, rather large, nearly emptied the contents of the pool when they jumped in.

So we went into the little motel dining room and sat at a table, happy that our bellies would be filled and then we could sleep. We ordered, I can’t remember what anyone else had because when my mother’s food was served, a bowl of chili, she lifted her spoon and as she dipped in saw this anticipated thick, tasty bowl was as thin as water. She dropped her spoon and, as usual Dad got the brunt: “Jack!” she cried.  She did not eat a bite.

We moved on from this encounter and made it to Colorado, which of course was beautiful: pristine lakes, stunning snow-capped mountains and fresh, cool air. We saw where Dad was born in Colorado Springs, then drove to a town near Cripple Creek to look at some property he had nearby. We did stay overnight and had a wonderful dinner and floor show at an old hotel, the Imperial, complete with mugging actors and melodrama and a tinny piano. From there we drove to Aspen. Dad had some chartered land in those incredibly treacherous mountains nestled amongst hairpin curves. I learned here my fearless Mother was terrified of heights. When the sheer side of the mountain was on her side of the car she could not bear to look out her window.

Armed with walkie-talkies, binoculars, cameras and a geologic surveyor’s map Dad and my brother Jon headed up the mountain in search of a closed silver mine, leaving Mom and me deep in the wildflower-dotted valley which was rather marshy from the recent snow-melt. So we’re slogging along, not really sure why or where we’re going. Mom had recovered just months before from cancer surgery. We plodded on in silence for a bit when suddenly Mom stopped. I did too and looked over at her, her chin jutting out, stern gaze in the direction of where we’d last seen Dad and Jon disappear and declared, “People have gotten divorced over less than this!” I half-heartedly laughed, knowing their marriage was rock-solid, or at least Mother was and we meandered around this valley for about an hour. Finally Mom decided it was time for Dad and Jon to reappear but they did not so we tried to reach them on the walkie-talkie. Nothing.

Before panic set in we found the emergency channel and contacted whomever (the sheriff? park rangers?) was at the other end explaining the situation. A few minutes later we decided to start back to the car and wait. Just as we heard the rescue helicopter there appeared Dad and Jon cresting the mountain.

What a relief.

The place we stayed in Aspen offered me a job for the following summer, and my brother planned to rally some friends to camp on that mountain and try to open the silver mine, but that’s another story…..

Lost

So (a really long time ago) I used to be a librarian at a library branch in a very bad part of town in Jacksonville, Florida. I loved being a librarian, did not love being written up for warning children against playing swordfights with small chairs while jumping on library tables because their parents did not like the way I warned them. Like, what part of “Please do not hit each other with those chairs” is inappropriate??

Nor did I particularly care for greeting one of my favorite (calmer) patrons, noticing a cast on his arm and when I asked him what happened being told “I got shot.”

No, this was not a choice part of town and I only lasted there a couple of years.

Anyway, one of my coworkers who had worked there forever and whom I really admired for her unflappable attitude had this sign over her desk–

“I have gone out to look for myself. If I come back before I return please hold me until I get here.”

I found this gratifying and still find it so, having many days where I still feel this way.

But being lost in being on my own is not a problem. So why do married people feel as though single people need to not be alone? Having experienced a not-so-good marriage does not nullify the fact for me that I do know there are wonderful marriages, more or less relationships in which the two people complement each other, trust, nurture and support each other, can laugh at themselves and each other without offending anybody, where they have each other’s back, and all the other elements that apply to a happy marriage or coupledom.

I have no doubt that these exist. I have observed them. Then why, when I am more than 30 years into being single and clearly happy with my life is it important to change things up? If it isn’t broken, as they say. Yet often well-meaning (married) people will insist I meet someone that they know, someone I just have to meet.

So while I appreciate others’ interest in my well-being I have a kind of a pact with God. If He wants me to have a new dimension to my life in the way of a male counterpart He will make it brilliantly clear to me. Otherwise no thanks. My own efforts years ago fell far short. He knows me. He knows sometimes I have to be hit over the head to be made to see.

Though I’d not want to be like the proverbial drowning man who rebuffed  a person on a crane, then in a rowboat, then a helicopter and finally drowned. Finding himself in Heaven he asks God, “I trusted You to help me, what happened?” God replies, “Well, I sent a crane, a rowboat and a helicopter…. “

 

Caution — construction ahead

Some days there should be those orange warning cones around me. Seriously. There are days when whatever I say, whatever I do sends people seeking cover. Times like this tell me I need to come apart before I fall apart.

So I go to the Cove in the mountains near Asheville, NC.

This trip as most I hiked to the summit overlook. I saw lovely wildflowers–

    

and a couple of warnings:

  

and I stopped many times because I was going up a mountain. Finally I saw

 so I knew I would soon get to see

  and   

Sitting there I found all the things that had me all tied up in knots seemed so insignificant, somehow.

Coming down you are using a whole different set of muscles. These are the ones that, when you reach the bottom and rest a while tighten up to the point where you look like you are in a 3-legged race only both of your legs are in the burlap sack.

  This is harder than it looks.

This was the inn where I stayed  , and this is the main building where conferences are held, and the dining room, and this lovely stone deck–  

I recommend it. I try to go there a couple of times a year. Incredible food, lovely people, a beautiful place in the mountains.

And a stone chapel    

Waitress

So when my son was growing up and after I left my father’s employ at his newspaper (temporarily it turned out, but for me it was permanent at the time), I went through many other occupations. Legal assistant (fired because one attorney’s secretary took such a dislike to me she blamed my eyebrows whatever that meant, I have none), veterinary receptionist (horrible hours, and pretty cutthroat– those other receptionists incredibly unhelpful not to mention the sadness with some pets and their families), substitute teacher. This was an invitation for punishment. Some teacher, too weekend-hungover to go to work threw subs at the mercy of their vitriolic, vindictive students. There were not a few schools where I had no qualms telling them not to bother calling. I got consistent calls from a school with developmentally challenged students– autistic, severe and profound, various levels of educability/trainability. I rather enjoyed this. I was an assistant, but was only too glad to support teachers dedicated to their work, who threw their entire beings into their classes. It was however sporadic work and paid $45 a day. I lasted about a year at this, then went with temp agencies, lots of them. I figured I could work out my own hours. Oh sure, I knew they charged the employer upwards of $20-$30 per hour (this is in the 80s and 90s) while I got a small fraction, but I could decide what and when I wanted to work, I thought.

Eventually this too soured. I decided I’d be good at waitressing. I enjoyed seeing people having a good time, eating, being with friends. I had a lot of energy (then) and loved chatting people up. I applied to a small place downtown and learned they were looking for a hostess, it was a nightclub. Ok, I figured I was probably too old (mid-30s at this point), but I kept my name in. A few days later they called to offer me the job. I’d thought better of this job. It was in a not-so-great part of town, late hours, who’d stay with my son, so on. I declined.

A neighbor told me she had a friend who was a server at a dining club downtown. Renowned for great food and very popular for wedding rehearsals and receptions I thought I’d give this one a try. I filled out my application and was called back a few days later to interview. Had I ever worked in  restaurants before? No. Could I lift up to 35 pounds? Sure I could. Was I flexible with my hours? Yes. Ok, I was told to wait to speak to the manager of the dining room. A few moments later a young man appeared. A pleasant sort, looked a bit tired but he politely pointed me to a chair opposite his desk. He studied me a moment then asked me to tell him about myself, my previous work. I began a sort of diatribe I now realize. I can’t remember what I said or how long I talked. He rested his head on his hand, elbow propped up on his desk while I suppose I waxed rhapsodic about work and life in general. I thought at the time he was enthralled with my woven tapestry of life. Looking back I know he was probably just grateful to be out of his hectic kitchen.

I did not hear from them again.

So a new chain of restaurants was opening in the area: Olive Garden. Now popular, at the time it sounded fun and who doesn’t like Italian? So I went by one afternoon, filled out an application. They thanked me, explained I would hear “One way or the other” in a few days. Ever the optimist, I took out some of my meager savings to buy soft-soled shoes. I wanted them to be durable and sturdy but not something I’d fall over. The young man helping me was very patient. What did he think, high or low tops? I’d be on my feet a long time. Blank stare. Did he like this job? Maybe I wouldn’t be a shoe salesperson if the waitressing didn’t work out. I finally decided on low tops, black because I was told the uniform was black slacks, white shirt. I was called 2 days after. I spoke to two guys who looked to be about my age, very enthusiastic about their new venture, wanted a lot of enthusiasm and energy from their wait staff, they said. Oh, I understood, could completely be very energetic, enthusiastic! A lot of smiling, Nodding of assent, understanding. Then they excused themselves, saying they’d be right back. As they left I overheard one say, “Have we ever hired anyone that old before?” I did not stay for the rest of the interview.

From there I ran into some luck because I also volunteered at the library. One of the employees excitedly told me some positions were opening, I really needed to apply. I did. The rest is history, which resulted in the longest career in any one occupation in my working life.

And they required you be able to lift up to 40 pounds. (The black low-tops turned out to be great library shoes.)

Good fences

My rescue dog Lily’s new rescue sister dog Lulu has a lot of energy. Her little body galvanizes into action before her brain can say, “wait, no, is this a good idea? is that a huge dog over there that might have me as a snack? or that car? a collision with it probably would be a bad thing…”

So I enclosed my backyard.

Not that my yard is anything large but Lulu finds her way out of it before I know it. And across the street to chat with my neighbor who’s dead-heading her roses, or down the road to check out whatever that interesting smell is, or over two neighbors’ lawns to go after that squirrel.

Anyway, now she can’t do much of anything except chase squirrels in her own backyard of which there is no shortage, or those little lizards that keep both her and Lily occupied for hours. Just staring at it.

I went out on the beach Thursday because my feet complained they had not yet felt the sun-warmed soft sand between their toes or the cool ocean waves washing over them. Arrived round 10:30 a.m. so I found a parking spot. A sprinkling of sun worshipers, swimmers and cautious waders. Some shell seekers, frisbee throwing but no bocce yet. I walked to the end of the island, the tide coming in, and basked in the sparkling blue water’s frothy waves lapping the shore. The roped-off avian estuary was busy with birds arranging their nurseries to welcome their chicks, and the island’s  (so far) one turtle nest rested comfortably, waiting the 60 days for incubation.

I ambled back to my car and was astonished that, in the hour I spent enjoying the beach cars were now lined up from the center of the island out to beyond the causeway to begin the kick-off to their summer holiday weekend.

So we are having tropical storm 2 arrive sometime this afternoon. Landfall somewhere between Charleston and Myrtle Beach, SC, but close enough so we’ve been  having a lot of wind. And the thousands who have surged to the beaches to celebrate Memorial Day learned yesterday they cannot go in the ocean because of rip currents. Never stops the surfers though.

This morning was bright and breezy, big white puffy clouds skimming the sky. A beautiful morning. This afternoon the breezes have calmed, the sky is a solid grey, pendulous with thick humidity.

Even the air is waiting.

Not much a fence can do about a storm.

Flowers

This was a week of catch-up reading. So many books I’d been wanting to read while involved in the Master Gardening program piled up and I have still got 5 or 6 left to read. At one point I wandered around my yard and potted plants and found many beginning to bloom, so here are a few —

 geranium       lily

 

  phalaenopsis   more phalaenopsis

 

 knockout rose   tomato

 

 blurry lizard    Lulu hoping to catch blurry lizard

 

                                                    Lily and Lulu enjoying a backyard stroll

So this was our week and weekend. Next week we will have the yard enclosed so I can keep Lulu out of the neighbor’s yards and the street. A couple of days’ volunteering at the plant clinic at the Arboretum to knock off a few service hours. More books read, more books on hold at the library coming in, I hope.

I truly wish you a grand and delightfully surprising coming week.

Mom

Mother-daughter relationships are complicated.

They shouldn’t be. The daughter will never be a clone-mini of the mom (thankfully), but there ought to be a modicum of respectful obedience.

Not with Mom and me.

I was never obedient unless it was by accident. Mom called me a maverick. I had horrible grades in elementary school. I day-dreamed all through classes. Looking back I realize what a waste that was. I could have learned so much from my mother. She was charming, attractive, gracious, intelligent, funny… no matter what, I did my very best to not be whatever anyone expected of me.

Mom tried everything. She encouraged me to play golf, her one true love. Too frustrating. She took me to her hair stylist for a perm. She agreed later how awful it was. She would take me shopping and I’d hate every outfit or piece of clothing she chose for me.

Not until my father’s business transferred him to New York did she and I become close. More like sister close than mother-daughter close. And then she got cancer. They operated and she came home. I’d had to learn how to use a mop and do laundry and cook in her absence, grudgingly as usual, but I did it.

She did recover. I went to college, convinced I had to find a fiance which I did. Before him though there was a terrible boyfriend I did not exactly know how to deal with. He wrote me letters telling me how unfair it would be if I stopped seeing him, no concern as to whether or not it was a good match. He thought my family had money so he hung on. Mom had the solution. The last letter I received I wrote “addressee moved, Tombstone, Arizona”.

The fiance who became a husband did not work out. So when that union ended Mom knew I cared little for things but she decided some of those wedding presents were worth hanging on to, so she thought. She drove me back to Tennessee to collect them the week my hearing pending trial was scheduled. China, my bedroom furniture, a few small pieces of incidental furniture, crystal, silver, stainless flatware… she had a mover pack up the lot and shipped it home. She knew at that point the fight had pretty much left me so she went to bat for me.

She was never one to take very good care of herself. Golf was her exercise but she had other things that finally caught up to her. She and I had had something of a falling out before Christmas 1988. It was the only Christmas I can remember not being with my family, intentionally. I had no idea she would leave this earth for her hereafter not 2 months later.

She phoned me the Sunday before the Tuesday that she died. She had talked her doctor into releasing her from hospital after she’d had 2 heart attacks in the span of 10 days. We spoke of some bulbs I’d planted at their beach house that had come up. Did I think they were the freesia or the narcissus? she asked. I didn’t know, I’d replied. Would I plan a visit there sometime after she was a bit stronger? I didn’t need entertaining, did I? Of course I would I’d said and no, I did not need any entertaining. We said “I love you”, and hung up.

Dad called to tell me she’d died and all he said was “Your mother didn’t make it.” I guess I knew what he meant but I didn’t. So I called her best friend and repeated what he’d said. She was as confused as I, but I by then knew.

Sometimes when I am up against a hard decision or in a corner I need to get out of I really wish she were here. She could finesse or deal with anything. And sometimes an answer comes to me, just as if she had told me herself.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you.

Please Call Me By My True Names

A beautiful post by a fellow blogger….

This morning I read a poem by Thich Nhat Hahn.

Please Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when Spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond,
and…

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Spring surprises

So I would have pictures but the only camera I had with me when we saw the snakes was my phone. I have a stupid phone, flip phone actually, so I can’t get the pictures from the phone to here.

The first snake we saw I texted to my son and he swears it was a copperhead. Probably 4 feet long. I did not think this was what the snake was. My dogs didn’t even notice it. It had little diagonal boxes on its back with darker spots inside. Of course, it could have actually been the typical cross-hatched markings but my eyes chose to see it differently. Whatever. The snake just lay there. Eyes open, tongue flashing out. Even when I went back to take its picture, didn’t move.

The next snake really could have done damage. We were walking on the trail behind where I live and Lulu (now a part of our “pack” only 2 weeks) leaned over the side of the creek embankment, sniffing something. I saw the grass move quickly and heard a splash. Looked down, sure enough a water moccasin quickly squirming its way across the clear creek bed. That one gave me shivers. Those are deadly. I can remember my mother shrieking at my brother, probably about 10 or 11 when she learned he and his golfing friends were wading around the water hazards on the club golf course looking for lost golf balls. These guys didn’t sell them, they used them. They were the championship foursome in those days.

So the last snake was greenish and yellowish vertical-striped, probably around 5 feet long. Lily, stepping over it actually bumped it with her paw. It flinched but did not go after her. Doing a little research I turned up garter snake. These snakes usually eat fish, tadpoles, frogs, and carrion. This snake was nowhere near any body of water so it must have been either waking up out of its hibernation, lost, or eating something dead.  They also are non-poisonous.

One out of three is good I guess, since the first 2 basically ignored us.

One thing that has really bothered me since I moved here. I should point out this move was something of a dream come true for me. I have loved the wildness of North Carolina’s outer banks for many years. Though only near the lower barrier islands I am still closer to those islands than before and am quite happy to be here. I did not think, though, that there was anyplace on this planet that had no lightning bugs. Maybe you call them fireflies, but they’ve been something of  a harbinger of sultry, hot breeze summer nights for me as much as crickets and cicadas since I was a child and I cannot imagine life without them.

Last year I saw not a single lightning bug.

I canvassed neighbors, newly-made acquaintances. No one could recall seeing them, not in the recent past. No idea why. Salt air? No one knew. I refused to believe it.

So rescue dogs Lily, Lulu and I went for a walk, braving the early dusk since likely snakes were not sunning themselves on creek banks, on the little trail here in my neighborhood. I almost ignored the brilliant yellow flashing dots and mentally dismissed them. No… could it be?? It was!

Lightning bugs. Dozens. So maybe they aren’t in backyards but at least I know where I can find them.

Sans water moccasins, I hope.