Making it your own...

Over the last few years I’ve come to dread the Holiday season.  Starting sometime in mid-October, before Halloween, and continuing through Christmas and New Year’s Day, a veritable bevy of holidays parade through the weeks.  And with them, expectations that you will participate, purchase, spend, decorate, and generally be one-of-the-masses.  If not, what is wrong with you?  

We are constantly barraged with advertisements telling us what we should do, how we should act, where we should go and how we should feel. Long looks from neighbors and coworkers when you don’t wear the right colors. Expected attendance at Christmas parties. The inevitable holiday family movie, with everyone making up and getting along in the end. A fairytale of good times that everyone can enjoy.

But life doesn’t always follow those paths.  And when it doesn’t we are expected to feel bad that they don’t and we ourselves somehow bear that blame.  Is it any wonder that depression is highest during the holiday season?  I think perhaps it is not just due to the shorter days. 

I used to feel that way, that I was wrong in my budding dislike of the season.  That I should be happy this time of year.  That is, until several years ago, when I was told by someone I respected that there are no rules.  I can chose not to participate.  Or perhaps instead, take some part of that holiday season make it my own.

Sage advice.

I don’t consider myself a Christian anymore and haven’t for some time. So why was I celebrating Christmas?  Why am I stressing about something I no longer believe.  Why am I pandering to the pressures of a holiday that strikes me more as an opportunity for consumerism, than a celebration of spirituality.  

I can’t say that it was a simple or quick transition.  I clung to my past like a lifeline.  But times change and people change.  I changed, too.  I learned I could navigate that pool of holiday cheer. That I really did know how to swim and swim away from it.  That I don’t have to get in line and get with the program.  That there is a different drummer out there if you listen hard enough.

So starting with Samhain, I will try, as I do every year now, to walk my own path through the field of holiday land mines.  You won’t find me putting out pumpkins or hanging bed sheet ghosts from my myrtle tree. You won't see cardboard turkeys in faux Puritan hats in my windows.  My December decorations will be of more natural things like evergreen wreaths and centerpieces.  I love the smell of them and they get an honored place on the table, and by the front door.  The week before and after the Solstice, I will light an oil lamp each night for a few hours. And on the day of the Winter Solstice we will mix our batch of mead and open the one present we get for each other.  We will walk out into the park and watch the sun set over the lake.  Then, when we return to the house, we light the candles, eschewing any electric lights. Each a tiny bonfire of marking the longest night of the year, and welcoming the return of the sun, with one lone flame burning through the night until sunrise.

I still buy Christmas presents for family and friends.  I respect their tradition, just as I hope they will respect mine. And I will continue to say "Happy Holidays" as we approach the end of this year.  And to my friends and family I may even wish you a Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, or Ramadan, or Kwanzaa, or Omisoka.  I may even wish you a Merry Solstice if I know which way your wind blows, so to speak. But please don’t take offense if I wish you “Happy Holidays".  Christians aren’t the only ones celebrating a holiday this season. I don’t assume to know your tradition.  

Why must you insist I follow yours….?

Looking the other way...

Anti-Solar... looking west at dawn.

August...

Hot!

      Hot!

            Hot!

Clouds.

       More Clouds.

              Dark Clouds.

Raining. 

       Hard!

            Rainbow.

Sunny!

Humid! 

        Humid!

                Humid!

  

 August 

          in 

             Florida.

On the edge of the day

 Just past full, the moon baths the yard in a cool light. Everything is muted, grays and whites are all you can see.

Whip-poor-wills call and respond, like a preacher and his flock. One near, one far. First to the south, then to the north. They call the song of the night, their nocturnal chorus nearly finished. 

Cicadas vie with the crickets for the underlying melody. 

A cacophony of peeps rises nearby. The songs moves down the ditch like a froggy Game of Rumors, each telling his neighbor a secret to be passed to the next. Then the sound rolls back up the ditch to pause and wait for the next round. 

Tree frogs climb the porch drain pipe, then back into the gap at the top and disappear. Their larger companions croak challenges from across the ditch. 

As if uncertain he remember the calls he is tying to imitate, a mockingbird breaks into his first tentative songs. Before long he sings more lustily, proclaiming his territory to all comers. But he never mocks the whip-poor-wills. Perhaps he’s never had the time to learn their song before they settle in to wait for the return of the night.

The moonlight slowly dims. The stars fade from the sky. Thunderheads over the Gulf catch the rose hues of sunrise as they race eastward across the sky. Kissed by the first light of the morning, they ripen to orange then brilliant white, greeting the sun still below the horizon to the creatures below.

Blue jays scold what only they can see, jumping and flitting from tree to tree and branch to branch. Something has invaded their territory and they don’t want it there. A woodpecker taps a rhythm on the telephone pole, while crows head east to meet the sunrise, cawing to their friends in flight. A tenor voice answered by a baritone. A coded conversation understood only amongst their peers.

The grays and whites have transformed into millions of shades of green.  Sprays of pink flowers from the myrtle and the periwinkles populate the yard. Tiny yellow peanut flowers sit on the end of fragile stalks, waiting their turn to open. Cardinals dart from from scrub to maple and back again. Streaks of red in the growing light. 

Dawn. A new days begins. 

Visiting Tanya

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer seven and a half years ago I stared into the face of my own mortality for the first time. Up until then I, like most people, felt somewhat immortal. That was my first wake up call. But I am a survivor.    

Some of us make it through to the other side. Some of us don't.  

Tanya was diagnosed right about the same time as I was. She was also about eight years younger then I am, and while I was considered to be young to be diagnosed, she was younger still. Breast cancers in younger women are more aggressive. Tanya’s case it was no different.  

By the time her cancer was diagnosed it had already spread to her lymph nodes. Chemo first, then surgery were her course of treatment. The first round of her battle seemed successful, but within the year, she was diagnosed with “mets”. Metastatic Cancer. The disease had spread.  

Tanya fought as long and as hard as anyone I know. Perhaps because she had a young son.  Perhaps that was just her personality. She was an advocate and a fund-raiser. She was as strong willed as anyone I know. She travelled to cancer clinics where they tried new treatments. Some with a measure of success, others less so. But ultimately, the cancer was winning.  

Earlier this year we got the news that there was nothing left to do. It was only a matter of time.

About two weeks ago I got word that she was in Hospice. So, for the second time in my life, I went to see a dying friend, someone who I would never have known had my life not been interrupted by this disease.  It’s one of the hardest the thing I've every done.  Again.  She was a awake and alert. She recognized me and we talked a little.  She didn’t have a lot of strength. Palliative care kept her comfortable. But there wasn’t a lot more to do.

This last week I went to see her every day. Thursday she was sleeping so I didn’t stay, and another friend let me know later that day, it was probably time for only the family to visit. It wouldn’t be long now.  

Tanya lost her battle with cancer last night. She fought the good fight.  Her son, now 8, has turned into a bright, smart young man. I had dinner with him last week. His whole life has been his mother’s fight with cancer. He participated in her treatment. Travelled with her when he could. Understood that she would leave, and knew that she loved him. His grandparents have been helping raise him since he was a baby, and will continue to do so. His life will go on and with him Tanya’s memory, Tanya’s legacy and Tanya’s light. 

I didn’t know her as well as others did. While we lived close to each other, we didn’t have a lot in common. We were friends, but we never became close. But each time I went to see her this week, she smiled and was glad to see me. When I asked her if she wanted me to come back, she said “I it love when you come. You can come any time you want.” So I did go back, again. Every day.  

Tonight, I will light a candle for Tanya, as I have for the past two nights knowing that the end was near. Tonight, I light a candle for a life lost, but well lived, and a battle well fought. Tonight, I will light a candle for all those who have not survived, and for those of us who have. For we must now carry the torch she no longer can.

My thoughts go out to her son and her family in this difficult time. Peace, Tanya. May you ever dance in the light....

I'm 52. It's time to get over it.

 I think one of the biggest disservices we do to ourselves and our daughters, literal or figurative, is make a big deal about getting older. Society has decreed that a woman shall never tell her age. That is some how unseemly for you to know how old she is.  And never, ever ask her when she was born. It's a taboo.

 I once asked a woman cutting my hair how long she had been in the business.  "Oh we're not going to go there." she said with a clipped tone and a forced smile. 

 Really?  

 We venerate the likes of Patrick Stewart, Morgan Freeman and other staid, venerable gentleman for the years they have accumulated. The roles they get are often statesmen, advisors, or mentors. They, like a fine red wine, only get better with age. 

 But for women, is it the same?  No one can argue that Sophia Loren or Lauren Bacall are not respected. But do they get the same types of roles? Or are they treated like a white wine, where the best years are limited, and if you wait too long you end up with only vinegar.  

 A quick scan of 35 actresses over 60 years old on IMDB shows 51% of the women with photos from their younger days, while for the photos of 30 actors over 60 only 13% are from their younger days. Is that their choice? or the editors?

 When I was growing up, my mother never made a big deal of her age. At least not that I remember. She never seemed to care. She was the age she was. That made a lasting impression. It was just one of the many life lessons she gave me.  One I haven't forgotten.

 Perhaps I have an advantage.  I don't think I look my age.  I certainly don't act my age.  Being a redhead certainly helps hide the gray hairs.  But if you look closely at my face or neck or hands you can see it.  I exercise regularly, and try to take care of myself.  Like Peter Pan I don't want to grow up, but that doesn't change the fact that I am getting older. We all are. And there is nothing any of us can do about it.

 Lying about our age hurts no one but ourselves. Our daughters look to us and think that's the way things should be. Instead of learning that age brings experience, and with that wisdom, we teach them that it is something to be ashamed of, something to hide from other people for fear they will think less of us if they know how old we really are. In women we focus on how young you are.  We throw away the crone and look only to the maiden, and with that we loose our self-respect.

 Lying about your age doesn't make you look younger, it makes you look stupid.   Lying about your age doesn't change the fact that you are the age you are. Lying about your age only shows your lack of self-esteem. Teaching our daughters that age doesn't matter could be the best lesson of all.

 I'm not shy about my age.  I won't lie about it. Go ahead, ask me. I promise I won't be insulted. I'm 52. Next year, I'll be 53.

 It's time we all get over it.

Pushing Planes

  

  In January of 1981 I spent 3 weeks on San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.  It was a course on Bahamian geology offered by my advisor during the month long January mini term also known as "J-term".  Hartwick offered one class during January.  It made for interesting opportunities for study that didn't cut into your regular course work.    

  We'd left Hartwick at about 3:00 am and travelled through New York, to Miami where we boarded a DC-3 twin engine aircraft for the trip to the island.  In fact, there were two of planes, as our group of geologists was accompanied by biologists and other researchers conducting their own research in a place far warmer then mid-state New York in January.  

  The planes arrived on the island about mid-afternoon.  At the time, the airfield was fairly rugged, with no lights and a small shed that served as the home for the Customs officials that greeted us when we arrived.  Needless to say, it took some time for our hosts to process all the arriving passengers.  

  As the sun began to sink in to the west the pilots of these two DC-3's began to make preparations to return to the US mainland.  They had to leave before dark.  There was only one problem.  The way the two aircraft were parked prohibited the pilots from using their engines to maneuver the aircraft out of the parking area and onto the taxiway under their own power.  I'm sure this had happened before and apparently wasn't a problem.  The pilots had large supply of young, energetic, if somewhat tired students at their disposal.

  They positioned us at a number of places along the wheels and other structurally sound surfaces and told us to push.  With about 20 of us in various places on the aircraft, we pushed the DC-3 into a position where the pilots could safely start the planes and head home.  I remember begin amazed that we could move the plane, and that we would even need to do such a thing.  I marked it up to one of the many incredible experiences of that trip.  But before it left I captured a picture of the setting sun behind the plane.  One of my favorite pictures from that trip, and one of the few that has survived over the years.

  Fast forward 32 years...

  Part of my job at the USGS is Aviation Safety.  So it made sense recently when I was asked to help with the collection of lidar data.  Lidar is an aircraft based laser ranging system that measures either land elevation or water depth using a laser to determine the distance from the aircraft to the target of interest.  My familiarity with the aircraft safety rules and my experience from years of photography flights had put me in a position to be helpful to the crew conducting the surveys.

  We had flown from St Petersburg to Crocker Reef, off Islamorada in the Florida Keys.  We had been flying about 6 hours when we landed at Marathon to meet colleagues with NOAA and to refuel.  The general aviation services facility at the airport in Marathon had closed at 6 pm, about an hour before we got there, but they had a self service pump for fuel.  Wayne pulled our plane up to the pump, nose in, so he would be able to reach both wing tanks with the hose.  One of the NOAA pilots, Jeff, met us at the airport.  

  Refueling took about 15 minutes, but as Wayne was finishing, another aircraft landed and pulled up to wait their turn at the pump. The problem was our plane wasn't in a position to move away from the pump under it's own power.  No problem.  We'd push it.  

  Wayne and Jeff told me where to stand then the three of us started pushing.  The aircraft, a Cessna 310, is a lot smaller then a DC-3, yet it was surprisingly easy to move, even for only three of us.  As the sun set, we easily moved the plane across the tarmac to a parking space between two other aircraft tied down for the night.  And like before, I got out my camera afterward and snapped a picture so very reminiscent of that day 32 years before.  

  To those who fly small planes this would not seem like such an unusual event.  I've seen it happen at least one more time since then.  But to me, a layman in the field of aviation, to now count in my experience twice pushing planes around an airfield is a once, well, now twice in a lifetime experience.  

Storyteller's Rock

  We went to North Carolina for our 20th Anniversary, back to the same Inn we'd stayed at for our honeymoon.  We had a lovely time.  While we were there we got in some hiking.  One trail, the Nuwati Trial, on the Blue Ridge Parkway, lead up to a place called Storyteller's Rock.  I'm a geologist, let's go see the rock.  Now, I was expecting a big rock, but this was more then I had imagined.  

  Storyteller's Rock sits at the end of a 1.6 mile trail up a gentle mountain valley.   The trail was well marked and well traveled.  It crossed many a spring meltwater stream, tunneled through mountain laurel groves and crossed forest floors covered in princess pine.  The end of the trial was one of the steeper parts, but terminated at a campsite at the foot of a large outcrop, Storytellers Rock. 

  Standing approximately 40 feet, at best guess, above the ground on the downhill side, Storyteller's Rock has been split along an old faults that runs through it.  It was hard to tell without a fresh surface exactly what Storyteller's Rock was made of. and while the base had metamorphic characteristics, the top looked igneous, if not granitic.  

  The trail signs kept indicating a "view" and so harkening back to my younger geological days, I wandered through a large crack in the rock and started climbing.  While the slope behind the outcrop was steep, it was well vegetated, and to the best of my best "billy goat" nature, I scrambled up the slope and found my way to the top of the rock, with Edward pulling up the rear.  

  To my delight, there was the view, looking back across the valley we'd just climbed.  But there was more.  Across the top of this part of the rock, several parallel gouges scored the surface.  There is only one thing these could be.  Glacial striations.

  A glacial striation is a grove cut in the surface of a rock by another rock embedded bottom of the glacier's ice as it moves downhill.  They are commonly found on mountain tops in areas that were glaciated during the last ice age.  But we were in western North Carolina. The continental glacier did not reach this far south, and we were by no means at the top of the mountain.  

  The striations also indicate the direction that part of the glacier was moving.  Behind us the rose part of Grandfather Mountain.  It was no stretch to imagine an alpine glacier having formed above us, then flowed down into the valley below.  Here was proof of that glacier existence.  

  After we got back home I did a search online.  In 1973, L.A Raymond and J.O Berkland documented "glacial polish, grooves, and striations" at the headwaters of Boone's Fork.  They surmised that the glaciation occurred during the Pleistocene.  Confirmation.

  I know that I am not the first to see those long lost traces of a glacier that had passed across the top of that of Storyteller's Rock, possibly a little as 12,000 years ago.  My fingers will not be the last to trace the smooth grooves and look down the valley that had, in part, been carved by the glaciers passage.  Today that valley bears more of the v-shape indicative of being carved by countless streams flowing down it's heart.  But, these marks, hidden under the sun, tell a story of something greater that passed this way, leaving only a few telltale cravings behind, a story that can be heard, if only you know what to "listen" for. 

  

Talking it on the chin…

..literally.

 I got together with friends from my BC group the other day.  Elaine, who moved to Germany last year and was in town, and Terri from over in Tampa.  They came down to the USGS and I gave them a tour of the buildings.  Then we had lunch downtown at Moon Under Water, a nice British Colonial pub in downtown St. Petersburg.  

 Afterwards, I walked back to work.  It was beautiful day and supposed to be only a 15-minute walk.  One of the last cool days we’ll get before the summer closes in again and you start to melt the minute you walk out the door.  The walk was to be my exercise for the day.   But here’s the thing.  I didn't make it all the way back to work.  

 I was about two blocks away when I tripped on a raised sidewalk edge.  You know the kind.  It’d been pushed up by tree beside the road. Not much, only about an inch or so.  But it was enough.  A hard stub of the toe and I couldn't catch myself.  I went down.   Hard.  

  My first thought was, there goes my lunch.  I had been taking my leftovers back to work for the next day.  Second, there went my glasses skittering along the concrete.  My less-then-one-week-old glasses.  I also felt my mouth connect with the sidewalk.

 I sat up, without thinking about injuries, and looked down at the sidewalk. Drip, drip.  Oh Crap!  I pulled out my handkerchief and put it to my chin.  Yup, a fair amount of blood.  In addition that, the palms of both hands were scraped up.  I had scrapes on my chin and mouth, and I realized later that I had whacked my knee on the concrete.  I did not crack my teeth, thankfully, or bite my tongue.  Lord only knows how I didn’t.

 A very nice woman who lives in the apartment next to where I fell, came rushing out.  “Are you OK?  I heard you fall.  Don't get up.  How can I help?”  She was a retired kindergarten teacher.  All those caring instincts kicked in for her, which kicked in my first aid training.  Dumb to sit up without thinking.  But that was done already.  I decided to sit and wait and figure out if I was OK. She offered me a phone (because I didn't have mine!) and let me call the office, where I got hold of Chris to come rescue me.  I figured it wasn’t a good idea to finish walking back to the office.

 We had Molly take a look at my chin when we got back.  Molly is a former med-tech.  The question was not if it was OK, but what level of care to seek next (ER, Urgent Care, or CVS for butterfly sutures.)  We opted for Urgent Care and Chris drove me up to the one near work.  We figured that would take less time then the ER.  It gave me time to recover enough to drive myself home.  But it still took about 3 hours before we got back to the office.  

 My booby prize for this little adventure was 4 stitches in my chin.  Luckily, its somewhat under my chin, so even once it's healed the scar won't be that noticeable.  I’ve got a good lump there now that I’m hoping will go away with time.  My palms are healing nicely, the right healed quickly, though the left, because it was somewhat worse for wear, is taking a bit longer.  As for my knee, well, that may take a while longer yet to get back to normal.  I hit it pretty hard.

  And my glasses?  They survived, though I don’t know how.  Perhaps it was the way I landed.  Or perhaps I just sacrificed my chin to save them.  After all, the chin will heal.  The glasses won’t.

Lost... and Found

Poems written in an old notebook then lost… and found


Flood the moment with delicate beauty
  A vision shining as the sun through a diamond
   Recalls a thousand pictures.

  - June 3, 1996


  Felicia

  A child born different from us
   a girl, a daughter
    through magic you came to us
     one evening long ago.

  Now you have passed beyond us
   an angel on the wing
    remember us when you drink of life again and return

  Lest the sad ache remain forever with our missing you.

  - June 5, 1996


  An embrace
    Soft in the night
  Your touch
    Like mist on the wind
  So near
    Whispering just beyond understanding.

  - June 10, 1996


  Love lies there
      Silent and gentle
  Real and beyond reach
      Like a dream, gone with the dawn
  Leaving only memories, and heartache.

  - June 10, 1996


Alliteration

  Lazy laughter lingers long on the lake of life.
  Foolish friendships fly forever free.
  Secret smiles swim in the stream of a sunlight symphony, 
    pure as spring rain.
  Ready to sing again.

  - January 8, 1997