Mud Season

'The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.' - e.e.cummings

It's mud season in Breckenridge.

Also Gracie shedding her winter coat season.

Things are sort of messy here.  Soggy and smelly and somehow sublime.  Funky and furry and full of promise.  Some mornings we walk out with the dogs and you can feel it in the air.  Everything changing.  Life circling.  Gracie is getting ready for warmer weather.  The earth is soaking up the snowmelt.  There are worms on the roads and birds in the trees.  Mucky magnificence is everywhere.  It's springtime in the Rockies.

It's spring, and it is quiet.  Ski season is over and the mountain has closed.  Most of the tourists have left town.  Summer is still a few weeks away, so the hikers and bikers have not yet arrived.  A lot of the restaurants in town are taking a break and have closed their doors for a few weeks.  The ones that are open are running some really good specials.  Which we have been taking advantage of.  On occasion.

Tractor Shed Red at Modis

Elk at Hearthstone

Some of the locals have told us they love this time of year.  They like how you can go downtown and get a parking spot on Main Street.  They like how there aren't long lines in the grocery store, and how it feels like their town again.  They like the quiet.  I don't know if they like the mud.  Gracie does.  When we go out walking she heads straight for every puddle and ditch she sees.  Gracie is pretty low to the ground.  And yellow.  Ish.  At least when we leave the house.

Boreas Pass

Gold King Road

Burro Trail

When she gets home she is sopping and stinky and ready for a rub down.  Which she loves even more than playing in puddles.

I kind of love the mess and the muck too.  But then dirt has always made me happy.  I love to dig in it with my bare hands.  To weed and plant and help things grow.  Maybe it's because my ancestors were farmers.  Maybe it's because I was born under an earth sign.  Or maybe it comes from my childhood.  I don't remember my mom ever getting mad at us for coming home muddy and dirty.  We played in the field behind our house all year long.  There was a pond in the field, and a long ditch leading to it.  We had ditch jumping contests, and sometimes we fell in.  We brought home tadpoles from the pond that we left in the garage and forgot about.  We built forts in the field.  My mom let us make messes.  She let us get dirty.  Maybe she was just distracted.  Or maybe she knew what science now says is true.  That playing in the dirt is healthy.  That playing in the dirt can actually make you happy.

When we were in the process of moving out of our place in Lihue, the place that had no room for me to dig, I had a dream.  I dreamed we had moved in to our new home in Kapaa with the jungle backyard and that I was lying spread eagle on the ground embracing the earth.  I was hugging the ground with my whole body.  And I was happy.

Gracie's hair doesn't make me all that happy.  It's everywhere.  Floating in the air, landing on the table, getting in our food.  It covers our floors and clothes.  Even Rufus, the big black lab, has her hair all over him.  Life's messy.  Especially in mud season.  And giving birth is messy.  And creating things is messy.  Sometimes messy is good.  I will always be grateful to my mom for letting us make messes.  For letting us create.  And get dirty.  And play in the mud.

I hope I never stop wanting to play.  To splash in puddles.  To see the promise in the fuzz and slime.  Because what are the chances that we even get to be here to experience it?

'And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.  Lucky me, lucky mud.' - Kurt Vonnegut

There's always something to get through.  Mud season and Gracie shedding her winter coat season are temporary.  The next season will come.  There will be blossoms.  Things will come back to life.  There's no way to avoid the mess right now, so we are splashing right through.  Waiting to see what comes next.  Looking for buds.  Anticipating blooms.  Trying to remember to look up.

And to find joy.

In mud season.

Or any season.

A Smallish Nap or Two

"Let's begin by taking a smallish nap or two..."

said Winnie the Pooh.

We have begun our time in Breckenridge by taking a smallish nap or two. Possibly three. Actually, we have been napping a lot. We are blaming the lack of oxygen. Also the altitude. Are those the same things? We are also blaming the snow. And maybe the universe. Are those the same things too? When it snows so much that you can't get out of your driveway, it is almost as if the universe has given you permission to rest. To sit in your comfortable chair and read and think and do quiet at-home things all day. And to nap. Should the need arise. We have been trying to listen to what The Universe is telling us. And right now, here in the mountains of Colorado, it seems to be telling us to nap.

We haven't been napping the whole time of course.

One of us has been learning a new skill.

And we have managed to get out and meet some of our neighbors.

We have even been sharp enough, on occasion, to notice things around us that we haven't seen before.
Like fire hydrants and electrical boxes with big fluorescent poles attached.

Does the snow really get this deep?

And bags of chips in the grocery store that look like they're going to explode.

If the altitude can do this to a bag of chips, what is it doing to my body?

When we are feeling especially alert, we have even ventured out to the state of the art Breck Rec Center.

Where we have exercised.

With caution.

And of course the dogs do need to get out and poop at regular intervals.

Not napping.

In our previous lives we didn't nap this much. We used to be productive members of society. Maybe we were even addicted to being productive. I used to measure out my days with lists in my head of everything I was going to accomplish. Exercise and lose ten pounds! Memorize all of Bach's Two Part Inventions! Read the 100 greatest books ever written! Eat green smoothies for lunch and drink only one glass of wine with dinner and live forever and lose ten pounds. Read and study and practice and be a better piano teacher. Be patient and kind and inspiring to every single student. Paint the house, clean the yard, organize everything. Be a better daughter, mother, sister, wife and friend. And in my spare time, save the world. Self improvement, home improvement, everything improvement. Everything on The List. Ticking items off in my head as I did them. Measuring my worth by how many I had accomplished by the end of the day. By how well I used every single moment of every single hour. Feeling guilty if even one second was wasted.

And then there was Gary. Living on adrenaline. Living in a world where you were praised for coming in to work early, and praised for staying late. Where your value as an employee increased in direct proportion to the number of times you said yes to evening and weekend commitments. A world where you were applauded for making your job your life. A world where all the superhuman humans were expected to be available 24/7 to put out the latest fire. To deal with the latest crisis in a world where there was always a crisis. A world where you couldn't just sit and listen to the rain, because in the back of your mind you knew if it started flooding you would have to go in and open up the Emergency Operations Center, no matter what time of day or night it was. And of course it was exciting sometimes. And of course sometimes it felt like what you were doing really mattered. That you were making a difference. That you were making the world just a little bit better. But still. There wasn't much time to nap.

And Gary couldn't keep living on adrenaline forever. And I was tired of being a slave to my projects and my lists. So we decided to try and change things. To take the time, and make the time, to rest. To take the time, and make the time, to try and think about the hard things, and try to find some answers we could live with. But so far, here in Breckenridge, the resting part is winning.

We both brought our little projects with us on the road. I brought my cross-stitch supplies. Gary brought his ukulele. We brought the chess board and the backgammon set and two packs of cards. But after 100 days on the road, and a whole month here in one spot, we haven't used any of them. There is a pool table here that we haven't touched. Instead, we have been resting. And reading. And getting lost in cyber-world. We have been watching House of Cards, and Game of Thrones, and movies on Netflix. And drinking too much wine with dinner. And napping.

And it is hard for me to get away from the idea that I am being lazy. It is hard to get away from the idea that I need to be more productive with my time. That we should be out immersing ourselves in everything this area of the country has to offer. That we should be thinking more about the hard things, and using this time to better plan our future. We are participating in the "sharing economy." We are taking care of two beautiful dogs in exchange for a place to live. What we are doing does have some value. And maybe it is actually one of the most valuable things we will ever do. To take care of these living beings. To help someone and have them help us in return.

But it is hard to get rid of my old ways of thinking. I still have my list. It's shorter, but it still exists. I still want to read the 100 greatest books ever written. I still want to exercise more and lose ten pounds. I still want to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. And how to save the world. Or at least make it better in some tiny Lisa way. So I have been reading. And documenting each book I finish on my little list on Goodreads. Which somehow helps a little. And I have been exercising. When I have the energy. And we have spent time charting out the course of our next few months on the road. We have scheduled house-sits, and a work exchange, and free time to visit family and friends. But it isn't enough to silence the judge in my head.

But resting was on the list!

We are productively resting! We are accomplishing rest!

We can put a checkmark next to it!

So I am working on letting go of the guilt and just letting myself be. Without expectation. Without judgement. The dogs are good role models. They eat. They play. They poop. They nap. Mostly they nap. Sometimes we all nap together. Gary on the couch. Me on the loveseat. The dogs next to us on the floor. All of us snoring blissfully. The snow falling outside. Nobody thinking. Nobody trying to save the world. Nobody trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Everybody resting. Doing nothing at all.

And maybe someday I really will lose ten pounds and get rid of this menopausal basketball that has appeared without my permission in the place where my stomach used to be. And maybe someday I really will memorize all of Bach's Two Part Inventions. For no apparent reason. And read all 100 of the greatest books ever written. If I can figure out which list to use. And I will be a better daughter, mother, sister, wife and friend. And I will figure out what to do with the rest of my life. And how to save the world. In my spare time. And I will drink only one glass of wine with dinner. Which will probably help with the basketball thing. Someday. But maybe, just now,  I will begin by taking a smallish nap or two.

Snow!

Seventeen days in Breckenridge. And it has snowed on nearly every one of those days. Snow. The kind that's big and wet and juicy. The kind that sticks in your hair and melts on your tongue. Snow. The kind that's pellets pinging on your coat and bouncing on the frozen ground. The kind that's fairy feather light, or winter whirling psychedelic into your windshield. The kind that fills the whole world white. Snow!

We wake up in the middle of the night and peek through the blinds, whispering to each other, "it's snowing,"as if it is something mysterious and secret and ours alone. We take out our phones and take pictures and get back in bed smiling. In the morning there is a fresh thick layer over everything, and when we step outside we are the first ones in the untouched universe, making footprints before anyone else is up.

Everything is muffled and magical and I feel like I'm ten years old,

tromping through the snow in the first boots I have owned in thirty years.

We take the dogs to Boreas Pass. We're running and playing and falling into drifts. I'm a kid, and every thought has left my brain. And if ever there is a time when I am in the moment it is now,
frolicking in the snow with the two big labs on this crisp cold Colorado day.
And it feels like Christmas and it feels like life and it feels like everything.

Boreas Pass, Breckenridge, Colorado

Broken Open

Berlioz didn't break me open, but Bach did.  The beauty of the Columbia River Gorge didn't break me open, but 'birds flying upward over the mountain' did.  Maybe I break too easily.  Or maybe the cracks appear to let the good things in.

There were a lot of good things in Portland.  One of them was music.  Gary and I went to the symphony while we were there.  We went to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall downtown, the one that is on the National Register of Historic Places, the one that is all done up in Italian Rococo style.  A place where you sit there feeling sort of grand and sort of cozy all at the same time.  We went to hear Berlioz's 'Symphonie Fantastique'.  There were other things on the program too, but it was really all about the Berlioz.  It is a symphony that tells a story.  The last movement is supposed to depict a 'Witches' Sabbath' and the percussionists owned it.  Two sets of timpani battering away in the back, crescendoing until there was nowhere else to go and everyone was on their feet.  Gary was on his feet.  I was on my feet.  I wasn't broken open, but the drums had beaten their way into my body and at the end I was cheering with everyone else.

And there was more music.

Jeremy came over to 'our' house and brought his guitar.

He knew his mother was going to ask him to play.  And sing.  And I did.  And he did.  He played every song I asked for.  Even the ones he didn't really know.  We looked up lyrics, and I don't know how he did it, but somehow the right chords were always in the right places, and every song sounded like it was supposed to sound.  And I asked him to play that Iron and Wine song that I love, the one that has some words that go like this:

Mother don't worry, I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed

Mother don't worry, I've got some money I saved for the weekend

Mother remember being so stern with that girl who was with me

Mother remember the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten

Sons are like birds flying upwards over the mountain

And as he was singing his voice broke and he stopped.  And he looked at me and laughed and said, 'this is a good song'.  And my eyes filled up.  And I was broken open.

There was music in Portland and there was walking.  Gary and Jeremy and I walked along Waterfront Park down by the Willamette River.  There were giant metal bridges everywhere and the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom, their pink petals falling all around us.

And I don't remember what we were talking about, but it somehow prompted Jeremy to say, 'Novelty is overrated.  What most people want is comfort and familiarity.'  And maybe he was right, because later Gary and I went driving around Portland looking at houses for sale, joking about giving up the adventure and settling down.  We both knew we weren't done wandering yet, but there we were driving around dreaming of homes.  And comfort.  And familiarity.  And thinking about where we might end up one day.

And then one day Jason appeared in Portland.  We went to pick up Jeremy at his apartment and Jason opened the door instead.  He had come to Portland to surprise us, so that the four of us could be together in the same place for the first time in three years.  So for three days Gary and Jeremy and Jason and I were together in Portland.  We went to the farmer's market at PSU, where there were flowers and nuts and apples and chocolate for sale, and I wanted to buy everything I saw because it all looked so good.  We walked downtown and ate at Cheryl's on 12th.  When we left the restaurant I was freezing, because I hadn't worn the right clothes, so we stopped at Ross and Jeremy bought me some socks.  And a sweater that made me look like a mushroom.  We walked down to the river and on our way to the famous  Saturday Market we stopped and smiled for the camera:

Jason, Jeremy, Lisa, Gary

And then Jeremy had to go to work.

And the rest of us wandered around some more taking pictures of famous buildings.

The Portland Building

And azaleas.

I think.

Then we took Jason back to the house where we were house-sitting and ordered pizza.  And it wasn't just a house.  It was our home.  Because when we sold our house on Kauai we told the kids that from now on, home would be wherever we were.  And there we were.  And it was home.

And then it was Jason's last day in Portland and the four of us went looking for a waterfall.  On the way we stopped at the famous lookout, the Vista House, and we looked out.

The Columbia River Gorge

We read about the visionary engineer and landscape architect that had designed the famous highway through the gorge.  And then we found our waterfall and took the little hike to the top.

Latourell Falls

And everything was beautiful, because the Columbia River Gorge is one of the most beautiful places there is.  But somehow that day it didn't get in, because I knew what was coming next.

The four of us ate one more meal together and then we dropped Jason off at the airport.  He walked away reluctantly, his shoulders drooping, and then he turned around and watched us.  And I think he stood there watching until he couldn't see us anymore.  And we didn't know when we would see him next.  And he didn't know when he would see us next.  And my eyes filled up.  And we drove away.

A few days later, Gary and Jeremy and I went to see Bach's 'St. John Passion' at the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Portland.  And there was glorious German music echoing everywhere inside that vaulted space.  And when the alto soloist sang Es ist vollbracht - 'It is finished' - the world stood still, and the silence was everywhere inside me and there was nowhere else for it all to go but out my eyes and down my cheeks, leaking into the world.  And in the quiet of the cathedral I was looking for a kleenex.  Jeremy on my left silently turned a page of his book, and I knew that he had missed it.  But Gary on my right had not.  And I was broken open.  And something got in through the cracks.

And soon it was time to say goodbye to Jeremy too.

We fed our hungry child one more time.

India House, downtown Portland

Because it always feels good to feed your hungry children.  And then we dropped him off at his apartment and stood there hugging each other in the parking lot.  And Jeremy wouldn't let me go for a long time.  And we didn't know when we would see him next.  And he didn't know when he would see us next.  And my eyes filled up.  And we drove away.

And everything is messy and you never know if you are doing the right thing.  Or if there even is a right thing.  If leaving your family and wandering around is the right thing.  Or if it is just a thing.  And your grown up children can still break you open, the ones that came through your body, and the ones that did not.  The ones that were with you in Portland, and the ones that are far away across the ocean.  And Bach can break you open.  And books and beauty and this confusing world.  And you never want to stop being broken open, because so much can get in through the cracks.

We went to see the movie Birdman while we were in Portland.  A movie about people trying to love each other.  About the mess we all make of things.  About art and magic.  About people being broken and about people soaring.  And there is that scene at the end where the father is flying (or is he?) and his daughter is left behind, and she is smiling.  She is standing there watching her father soar, and she is smiling.

* * * * * * * * *

Spoiler Alert:  There are probably as many interpretations of the ending of 'Birdman' as there are people that see it.  In my opinion Riggan didn't kill himself, he killed Birdman, and in the process gained everything, including the love and respect of his daughter who can now watch him fly free of his past.

Same Song, Second Verse

You know you are in

when one of the biggest tourist attractions in town is a bookstore.

A bookstore that is home to more than one million books.
A bookstore where they don't just have a section for fiction, they have a whole room.
And where there are all these eloquent and pithy descriptions of books on little pieces of paper attached to the shelves. Descriptions which cause you to start making lists on your phone of all the books you are pretty sure you are probably really going to read someday. And in spite of a small feeling of despair in the pit of your stomach at the sight of all the books you are pretty sure you are probably really never going to read,
you still feel compelled to try.
And so you purchase more of these:

 Even though you really don't have any more room in this:




And later, as you are wandering through the neighborhoods, 
you stumble across several of these:

And you discover that these are a thing.
A tiny neighborhood lending library designed to "nurture literacy and camaraderie."
And you learn that these little boxes have been appearing in neighborhoods around the city
for nearly twenty years.

And you know you are in Portland
when the people you are house-sitting for created this in their backyard:

 An urban co-housing ecovillage,
complete with chickens and vegetable gardens and communal meals.

And when you take sweet Molly the rat terrier

for a walk,



in the Cully neighborhood you are calling home for three weeks, 
a neighborhood located in a city that is home to more than 600,000 people, 
you only have to walk two doors down to see this:



and a few steps later this:



and a little farther down the road this:



Every other house seems to have raised beds in their front yard, 
and piles of black compost in the driveway waiting to be worked into those beds.  
And everyone seems to be out in their yards planting their spring gardens, 
and cleaning up after winter.  
And everywhere you look there are chicken coops and plastic growing tunnels and bamboo trellises.

And even a goat.




And you have to remind yourself that you are only about 40 blocks away from this:



Your son who is walking with you says it feels like somewhere in West Virginia,
even though you are pretty sure he has never even been to West Virginia.

And even though Bea, your temporary cat, is heavily medicated:



You are not.

Although you probably could be.



But you already feel so calm.
Surrounded by all these gardens and books.
And the people that care about them.