Chapter Three – Papa  (story begins 9/8)

Has anyone else gotten the impression that the majority of xanga blogs are by women students in their 20′s in Texas – or some combination thereof? Not that this is good or bad…..

Chapter Two (last page – poem)   (story begins 9/8)

Far away in the kingdom of long before dawn, snow flowers open downward in the dark.  In the long barn cows rest, the lashes dark against their eyes, and outside  meadowgrass stutters with the cold and listens to the river turning white.  Morning, and a child stands in the door.

Her name is youngest flower.  From the windows there are two who watch across her to the elm where no one plays often, to the rose garden of the grandmother, and the fairest tree of all, even its name, larch, is music.  They are called the king and the queen.

The king is sitting where you cannot see his height, but he is tall enough to speak to birds when they are flying and perhaps you hear his fields grow when you hold his hand.  The queen is not so tall, because of bending down so often to the river or the earth and yet her arms will fit around almost anything.  The whole of morning they have been there, thinking.

It is Christmas and this year they want to find for youngest flower the most lovely gift of all her life.  Before it was a small green house beneath the larch, and once a bed of pansies, and another time a cradle fashioned by the king himself.  And far into the afternoon they smile together with the answer coming to them separate and same.

The dark comes quiet and the moon climbs down the branches of the trees and walks across the graves of last year’s clover to the edges of the windows where it sings that youngest flower has been given dreams to open…

Night is all around.  It breathes into three faces framed by love and in the last moment before sleep, when every shadow rests against another, it begins to whisper

alleleuia.

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Deep Thought:  When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we’d all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn’t until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.

the leaves turn upon their silver stems and it is autumn - in the morning early I wander vacant streets gathering silence and leaving only footsteps hesitant behind - it comes to me then in the clean cold air that I too long to turn upon my stem – I have a rightful place among the seasons

(inspired by lovingmy40s)

It’s so very hot in Portland once again. Record temps for this time of year. And apparently going to continue into the week. I felt pretty thrashed all day yesterday by both that and my lower back acting up. I’ve had chronic lower back pain for 40 years and never have found a good solution. What it feels like is that if my skeleton was a building, part of the building on one side has collapsed, throwing it off balance. Going to the back doctor tomorrow morning for one more try at answers, but also because I want to get referred to an osteoporosis specialist to keep an eye on that aspect. Since I starting working out at Curves doing circuit training I figure I should be more careful. Stay tuned.
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Deep Thought: The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me. I remember we’d all pile into the car – I forget what kind it was – and drive and drive. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I think there were some trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called “Dad.” We’d eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave you.

More Squirrel Saga

So okay, a few days after I saved a young squirrel from the jaws of my cat, there was a knock on my door in the early morning. There stood my young neighbor from across the street in her nightgown to ask me for a cat box in which to put a baby squirrel she had found huddled in a puddle in the street by her sidewalk. I grabbed a cardboard cat carrier and went across the street. With a towel I picked it up and put it in the box. It didn’t run when approached and seemed stunned. (Later I found out baby squirrels are practically blind and deaf.) I left it with my neighbor who was going to call the Humane Society when they opened. When I returned in the early afternoon from my errands I checked to see what had happened. Eventually I found out the Humane Society had said to leave it alone. So she took it to a nearby vet and left it with them. They apparently told her it looked fine, or that’s what she reported to me. She seemed ambiguous about what they were going to do with it. The very next day my next-door neighbor, 77 years old, pounded on my door. She had seen a second baby squirrel in the same location but under a tree. So we went to look. This one seemed more chipper but also didn’t seem to know we were there. It curled up in a ball right in front of us in the pine needles at the base of the tree. Knowing there are many cats (including mine) in the vicinity we left it there with trepidation, thinking there was nothing else to do (by now it was Sunday). I learned that later that evening the young woman took it inside and fed it and had it in a box.

On Tuesday, because we had now seen a third baby squirrel, I made some calls from work. I found a vet that treated exotic and small animals and they told me about a woman who did squirrel rescue. First I called my 77-year-old neighbor to see if she would make the phone call to this woman to sound her out. She refused, which really hurt my feelings. So I called the squirrel woman and 45 minutes later knew this was a true animal saint. Also a non-stop talker who told me everything about squirrels I would never have thought to ask. So then I went home bursting with the news that there was somewhere to take the remaining 2 babies. What I found out was that the 2nd squirrel was dead already. The young woman and her husband acted like they were dumbstruck and almost annoyed at the solution I’d found. He did produce a box and towel, and I finally in exasperation took the box to my house and called the squirrel lady, who was now at dinner in a restaurant. With no perturbance whatsoever, she took her cell phone outside where she could hear better and said when she finished her dinner she would drive home, get an incubator, and come fetch the squirrel, a matter of at least an hour of her time for the trip. I had to go somewhere before she came, so I left the squirrel in its box on my 77-year-old neighbor’s porch. This time at least she was willing to let me do that. The 3rd baby squirrel is now recovering safely with Squirrel Lady. She’s already taken him to the vet for the antibiotics he needs to cure an infection, but he seems otherwise okay and fighting to survive. She said the squirrels were probably kicked out of their nest and lost their mother somehow and were much too young to be on their own. She has given him a name – Baby Joe.

In the meantime, I called the vet and found out that they had simply taken squirrel #1 back and released it in front of my neighbors house where it had begun. They had told me on a previous call that someone had “taken it home.” I assumed that meant to the home of the vet employee, but apparently not. I think my neighbors knew this and didn’t tell me. I also never got my catbox back in spite of asking my neighbor if she could retrieve twice.

The upshot of all this is that I was disgusted with the behavior of my neighbors in this mini-crisis and felt really taken for granted for my own efforts. On the other hand, I thank whatever gods there are that there are people in this world who care enough to interrupt their lives and drive across town for the sake of one tiny creature. (By the way, Squirrel Saint Lady has about 20 squirrels in various stages of babyhood which she raises for 5 months and then releases into the wild.) I guess that’s how life is – on the one hand it’s depressing and on the other hand it’s glorious. Life is a paradox.
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Deep Thought: (and by the way the Deep Thoughts are not mine, they’re from Saturday Night Live – they just make me laugh)
To me, clowns aren’t funny. In fact, they’re kind of scary. I’ve wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad.

Meant to say I’ll save the last page of this chapter for Monday as my computer at home is too sluggish.

Chapter Two (cont.) – story begins 9/8

When I was four, my mother and father separated. My father went to California to work in an aircraft plant and my mother and I to the farm. They corresponded and eventually reconciled approximately six months later near my fifth birthday. I am told that I didn’t mention my father for most of the time he was gone but when he returned I flew across the room and into his arms. I don’t remember this, but I do remember a tiny silver airplane pin he sent to me. I can see it clearly pinned to his coat in the closet of the house on the farm of my childhood.

Thus began the years we were all together. Until I was 17, it was my extraordinary luck to know no other world but this one of crops growing, rivers flooding, animals being born and dying, fresh nature-scented air, and adults who worked hard to nurture it all. I had no way to know how I would miss it years later in the perspective of city life and world travel and grown-ups who have lost their way.

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Deep Thought:  Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.

Chaper Two (cont.) – story begins 9/8

During these years, when I was two, three, and four, we lived in a small house within a few blocks of the home of my grandfather on my father’s side. This past summer I went with my daughter to find that house, not having seen it in 50 years. It was a sunny day, and we found it vacant and for sale so that we could approach it and even look through the windows. Inside, I could see the spot on the living room floor where I began to write my “a,b,c’s.” In the back was the bedroom where I lay in my crib with the chickenpox. To the right of the front door was a closet where “Uncle” Chet, who with his life Lou were friends of my parents and shared the rent of the house with us, told me a wolf was hiding. He and I would sit on the couch listening to the huffing from behind the door. These are my earliest memories.

When we left I picked a flower from the yard and brought it home for pressing. Another delicate, tangible link to long ago as I follow the thread of my life story. (to be continued)

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Deep Thought:  I wish I had a Kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away.

Chapter Two (cont.) – story begins 9/8

In the few other little photos from this period we look like vagabonds, sitting at picnic tables in the park. I was to have my own drifting years to come and these images of my parents represent for me a link from my own history to theirs.

During these Second World War years, I am unsure why my father was not sent to fight. In my mind there is a story that at some time he had wanted to enter West Point and had been disqualified for physical reasons, perhaps that he was too thin to float in water. It is a vague memory. What I do know is that after New Mexico we came to Portland, Oregon and here my father worked in the shipyards, learning the skill of drafting which would enable him to create complex buildings on the farm in later years. He was gifted at this, as he was at many things, and I think he sometimes wished that he had turned to architecture rather than psychology in school.

My mother also contributed to the war effort. She was granted a War Emergency Certificate to teach nursery school in Vancouver, Washington, minutes across the Willamette River from where we lived, and she also organized Victory Gardens in our precinct of Portland. (to be continued)
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Deep Thought: Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let’s say you’re an astronaut on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he’s not Dracula, but you just say, “Think again, bat man.”