Category Archives: love

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merganser blessing

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bird.

This is the second time that I have been blessed by mergansers! I am sitting on the front rocks, which face east, with P in the early morning. Tea, journal and camera. Camera just in case. The family of mergansers swam around the point and we froze. They came up on the rocks, about 15 feet from us. I took pictures and otherwise we held very still. The family groomed themselves. One settled facing the woods and the others slowly settled, the parent bird still on the alert. After they rested enjoying the early sun, the parent led them back in the water and they swam along the rocks in front of us.

I read an article about productivity yesterday. It talked about taking breaks and more importantly breaks outdoors. A study of work after breaks showed that people thought an outdoor break was better than an indoor one for relaxation, but the measured effect was even greater than expected.

I can only be blessed by mergansers if I go outside and wait and am quiet. I feel so blessed.

 

 

 

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slow deep

on the rocks, the canadian shield, old rock
rock that extends for miles and miles
water cupped in the rock
cupped like a hand, holding a lake

you say
You seem so deeply at peace

I say
No, I am not at peace at all

then I say
Yes, in the depths I am at peace

like the lake

the surface is all weather
glassy sometimes
then surface chop
then rain singing and bouncing
then waves crashing on the shore
reflecting the sky
light, dark, blue, the green of trees
pale pink in the morning
or orange and blue with the setting sun

the depths change slowly
not that slowly
in the fall the water temperature drops
to 4 degrees
and the lake turns over
all the 4 degree water dropping into the depths
and the warmer water rises
until the whole lake is 4 degrees and most dense
and then the surface freezes
the ice is lighter and floats on top
until it is solid and deep
and the lake winters over

in the spring the ice melts
and the ice breaks up
and the lake rolls over again

my surface is choppy with emotion
memories
grief and joy

my slow depths turn over

and there is deep peace

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loon

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sobriquet.

Are loons loony?

The lonesome call of the loon in breeding plumage on lakes turns out to be long distance communication: calling for one’s mate or for relief on the nest or staying in touch feeding.

The laughing call of the loon is anxious. It is done to lure predators and dangerous others away from the nest or away from the young. The young are in the water, riding on the parents’ backs when tired, by about 48 hours after hatching.

The sobriquet loon mean something very different to me than the usual meaning of loon, beloved and sober.

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water

For Raynotbradbury’s “my life in percentage” challenge.

I have just returned from a vacation, a trip, a pilgrimage where I was unplugged. No list. No goals. No internet. No outlets. Just a lake and old cabins and meals and weather and quiet. Percentage, I wonder, of what? Happiness? Efficiency? Joy? Gratitude? Percentage genuine? Percentage genuine and present. What percentage is a loon at?Β  Either 0 or 100 percent and they are both the same.

We travel to the lake. It’s hard to get to from my home. We drive to a Seattle hotel for a park and fly. Stay the night. 6:08 flight Seattle to Detroit. Short layover but I know the airport, we make the gate with 120 seconds to spare. Our checked bags make it too. Flight Detroit to Sault St Marie, MI. I did not reserve a rental car soon enough to get one in Michigan, so we have a limo reserved. It’s a van. The van takes us across the border into Canada and to the Sault St Marie, ON airport, where we get a rental car. We drive to a grocery store and get a few groceries. The plane landed at 3:08, and I would like to get to the lake before dark. We drive from Sault St Marie to Blind River, and the 17 miles to the lake. We find the old boat, load in our stuff and get the four stroke started, one hour before sunset. The cabins can be reached by boat, no road. The dock was destroyed by ice so I have to pull the motor up as we come in to the pebble beach. I am just big enough to do yank the motor up. We are here. We unload.

Crazy, right? I have been describing it as “shacks on a lake”. No electricity. Propane stove and refrigerator. We used to use candles, but the fire risk is high this year. LEDs now. One cabin was built by my grandparents somewhere between 1936 and 1938. The other is a log cabin, built in the war years by a pair of French Canadians, logs chinked like tinker toys. Not quite though. It’s the log above chinked to the log below.

We set up tents and are unplugged. I have two phones. My t-mobile won’t work at all. The old I-phone will work sort of sometimes on the front rocks. I have camera batteries and take a lot of photographs.

I open my computer once at the library in two weeks.

We sleep in tents except for the two nights with major thunderstorms. It’s really the outdoors I want. The lake changes color and mood from moment to moment. I swim this year: I am way stronger than in 2015 or it’s warmer or both. We are in the cabin to eat and do dishes, but otherwise we are nearly always outside. The loons call. A family of mergansers comes up on the rock with us, 10 or 11. Otter sliding through the water. A pair of raccoons. A snapping turtle the size of a platter. Three pileated woodpeckers come to check out my flute. Three sandhill cranes by the road on the way into town. My cousins report a moose on the way into town.

The loons answer when my daughter plays violin: every time she plays the E string, they reply.

I’ve been visiting that lake since I was 5 months old. The lake, the rocks, the trees. The lake changes color every moment, changes surface mood, change. But the depths change slowly and are present, a turnover when the lake thaws in the spring and freezes in the fall.

I am the lake and the lake is me. Unplugged and being. Minimal doing. No list. Eat when hungry. Sleep so deep and swim and canoe around the lake.

I canoe and there is a woman, way across the bay. We talk. I know her last name, she knows mine. She remembers playing at our cabin with me and my sister, our long hair, running around while the adults talked about Watergate. About 1970. Her father just died in his upper 80s. He defied the doctors after a stroke a decade before, walked again and she kept bringing him to the lake. Now they are trying to maintain an old cabin, as we are.

Home again.

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My sister’s writing about the lake from 2009: Rain on water.

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Ms Boa signifies

Ms. Boa looks the way I have felt this week. And hearing that Aretha Franklin died, I think this expresses my mood.

This is for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: respect. Respect for loss, grief, and cat knowledge too.

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Princess Mittens, the cat on the left, is gone. One day she was in the living room, sitting under the vent and staring up at it. I finally paid attention and realized why.

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There was a bat in the vent. I could see claws. Ms. Boa became very interested too.

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We did get the bat out, by opening the windows upstairs and the vent. Keeping the cats downstairs.

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Ms. Boa was sad when our other cat was killed by a car.

Thank you so much for the music, Aretha Franklin.

 

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Stages of Grief: anger

I am thinking of the songs that comfort me in grief.

And thinking about the stages of grief. Five, right? Denial, Bargaining, Anger, Grief and Acceptance. My sister said, “They left out Revenge and Acting Out. ” She died of cancer in 2012 at age 49. Six days after her birthday and the day after mine.

Anger songs for grief. But denial is first, right? Not necessarily. These are not stages you move through in a certain order. This is more like a spiral, where you go from one to the next and back to the start, from day to day or even hour to hour.

I’ve already written about My Name is Samuel Hall. That is an angry song, unrepentant, that my sister wanted the last time that I visited her. I knew that she was furious about dying and leaving her husband and daughter. And me and her friends.

My mother sang:

“Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go eat worms. Big fat slimy ones, little tiny wiggly ones, see them wiggle and squirm. Bite their heads off, suck their guts out, throw the skins away. I don’t see how anyone can live on three meals of worms a day… without dessert….”

She also taught us this:

“I don’t want to play in your back yard
I don’t like you any more
You’ll be sorry when you see me
Sliding down my cellar door”

My parents had songs for every mood I can imagine. There were moods they would not speak about but they sang them.

My favorite angry groups are The Devil Makes Three, Hank Williams III, The Offspring, and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Sweet Honey in the Rock? Yes. They sing about death a lot. This song is not about death: it’s about a “bad” woman, wanted dead or alive. But listen to the song: they are singing about a real event and a woman who fought back against a rape. On the thirty year album of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the group says that their first “hit” was this song, played by news stations. “It was a hint that we were not going to be top 40.” The song is Joanne Little.

So here are three songs by the others:

The Offspring: Why don’t you get a job?

The Devil Makes Three: All Hail

Hank Williams III: My Drinking Problem

And how do families show anger? They fight. They fight with each other. They fight about how someone should die, what should be done about mom, whether dad can live alone any more, about the right way to grieve. They fight about small things or big things and they even sue each other. Before you wade into the fray, step back. Remember, families grieving are always a little bit insane, very stressed and it’s all grief.

Hank Williams III: Country heroes

Blessings on the people I know in hospice right now and on their families and loved ones. Third one today. Sending love.

 

 

 

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At the fair!

I had fair duty yesterday at the Jefferson County Fair. Two hours in the Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary booth. We’re in the new Commercial Building. The day started out with a fabulous band parade. I got a few photographs, next post. The fair booth is to tell about our Sunrise Rotary and what we do in the community and the world! The list is the banner on the right, everything from picture dictionaries for every 3rd grader in the county, to exchange students learning about the world, to Polio Plus and Shelterbox and big and small projects in our county and other countries. Hooray for teamwork and for all the people who donate their time and energy and fellowship and money.

The booth is still up today. We are already selling tickets for our “Running of the Balls” fundraiser. We roll numbered golf balls down Monroe Street before the Rhody Parade and the winner and 2nd and 3rd get cash! $2000.00 to the winning golf ball!

If you buy five tickets for $20.00 at the fair, you go into a drawing to get 50 more numbered golf balls in the race. Stop by!

And for the golfers, we need more golf balls. We don’t have enough for next year. Some get away, darn it. Contact me or another Sunrise Rotarian to get rid of the old golf balls.

 

 

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dish prayer

Beloved, thank you for these dirty dishes.
Thank you that I have hands to wash the dishes.
Thank you that I have water, clean water, hot water and soap.
Thank you that I have a sponge and a sink.
Thank you that I have a home, that it has not burned or flooded or been destroyed by war.
Thank you that I had food to feed my family and my self, to dirty these dishes.
Thank you that I have food to put on clean dishes today and tomorrow.
Please, Beloved, help me bring food to those who need it, clean water, soap, dishes, homes.
Please, Beloved, open our hearts to others in need.
Thank you, Beloved, for these dirty dishes that now are clean and for the circle of life they represent, clean to dirty to clean again.

 

The Olympic Peninsula only has one wild fire currently, but the sunset last night was lit by smoke.