Sep
2
Earlier this week I could smell the season shift in the air for the first time. It had been a smoky day from nearby fires (thankfully one of only a handful of truly unpleasant air quality days here in the Willamette valley, it was such a dry winter/spring I thought we’d be smoked in all summer long) and a cool breeze came in and whisked everything clean and left behind a feeling of change. Falling leaves, dropped fruit, lowered temperatures, daylight dwindling and casting new angles. It all felt good and right to me at that moment and I was glad for the feeling, because god, how I have been dreading the end of summer.
I really can’t say enough about how good this particular summer has been for me. It is a culmination of many things: the sunshine, the longer days, the warm but not sweltering weather, my suntanned skin, the joy of basking in Oregon’s beauty without bundling up. The blessed distance from divorce ground zero, a packed-full year of living on my own and all my newfound routines and habits. The way I am so much more settled in myself now after the flash-flood losses and changes of those first months. The good company I’ve had, the existing friendships that have deepened and the new people I’ve met. The ongoing pleasures of Billy and Mabel and how they have become such a funny little odd couple.
And, of course, the paddleboard. There has been something very profound about this paddleboard experience that I find hard to put into words. Maybe it’s as simple as feeling stronger physically and mentally from a hobby that requires activity and provides enjoyment and peace. But I feel like it runs deeper, the way it has built me up from the inside out.
Literally, in terms of core strength: I have new muscles that have done a world of good, improving my posture (and that alone is a Big Deal, I have always felt that pulling myself out of a droop juices my self confidence) and alleviating lower back pain. I can also dance better now! There is a sort of snakey chest-pop undulation I could never ever do before and now I can!
Also figuratively, in that I am proud of myself for taking on something brand new and being able to enjoy it on my own. I was paddling on a lake this past Sunday and when I got off the water and shlepped all my stuff to the parking lot and deflated the board with the pump and hefted everything into the trunk of my car I had a moment of WILL YOU LOOK AT THIS CAPABLE-ASS LADY JUST DOING HER THING.
Last summer I was so full of anxieties and doubts and the scariness of having my personal scaffolding getting blown to smithereens. Everything that was familiar to me and everything that felt like it made up my identity, gone. I had anticipated a slower adjustment and it all happened so fast, I had counted on certain things staying the same and nothing did.
There was a lot of turmoil and I know I did not bring my best self to the table in the face of so much change. I tried so hard to mitigate perceived damage that I likely caused more, I overshared, I felt terribly sorry for myself and so alone in my feelings.
The grace of time has led to healing and I swear that paddleboard has carried me to new internal perspectives. Every exploration is more than the waters I ride, it is a great swell of learning and rebuilding and, like … spiritual nutrition? Not in any specific religious sort of way, but rather a sense of deep connection. There is something about being sandwiched between water and sky, particularly when I lie on my back and can feel the float.
It is like knowing I actually belong in this world. It is like being held in cupped hands. It is like the scent of fall in the air this week, there is a rightness to it.
There is so much wrongness going on in our world, it can feel so overwhelming. This nightmare administration blasting us with an endless firehose of dismay, climate change rolling out inconceivable disasters on a daily basis, our country and culture crumbling away on all sides. And that’s the wide view, before I even start to focus in on my own personal heap of regrets and trials.
How dazzling it is to leave it all at the shoreline, how beautiful to be free on the waters and have only myself to contend with. My choices where to go, my decision when to leave.
Summer’s end will be bittersweet, but I will take this season with me. All of the good memories and experiences, all of the ways it has fed me. I’m standing taller now. I have better footing. I have let go of so much. I keep swallowing the small coal of courage.
Aug
25
I didn’t write much publicly about helping with a children’s grief camp last summer. It was right in the midst of the divorce and buying my house and in retrospect I can hardly believe I managed to do anything at all, much less spend a week in such a demanding environment. But this camp gives back more than it asks, and I know I was processing loss and sorrow and change just like everyone around me. It was so bolstering to be among such good caring people, and I felt the exact same way this year.
The Courageous Kids camp has been going on for 30 years here in the Eugene area, serving children affected by the death of a loved one. I learned about the organization through hospice and have been working with them for a while now, in support groups and also a day camp earlier this summer. It sounds like depressing stuff — grieving children! — and it can be sad and heavy at times, but mostly it is a wonderful chance to be in a unique role with kids. Not their mom or teacher, someone who can listen and support and joke and cat-herd and just kind of share part of their world that might be hard to access in regular life.
We had a variety of ages: littles, middles, and teens. The littles were often a mercurial bunch, buffeted by too-big feelings about everything and prone to foot-stomping and weepy meltdowns. I really cannot say enough about the endlessly patient folks who were their cabin counselors, gently ferrying these kids through the days and nights with the most creative suggestions and distractions while always, always listening.
As a parent, when you consider a job that involves working with kids I think it’s logical to assume that you can simply draw upon your own parenting experiences and skills. But the way these young cabin staff members could talk to kids, acknowledging their feelings while expertly pivoting them towards solutions — it was really something. Of course, these are not our own children, but I kept thinking how my own tendency might be to say something like “Hey knock that shit off!!” as opposed to, say, “I hear that you’re wanting to get to the next activity, but our friends are still playing, so I wonder if we could find something else fun to do for right now?”
I do think I fall short in the teacher-vibe department (my cabin-mate is a special ed teacher and the way she could use her voice and words with young kids was BEYOND impressive) but I can bring humor to the table, and that’s my own personal best way in with all the ages. Silly jokes with the younger kids and brainrot with the older ones, and the feeling like I am their ancient crumbling mummy-dust peer of sorts. I know that sounds very HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW KIDS and it’s not NOT that, but is at least a well-meaning version of that.
A bunch of us were sitting at the art cabin one afternoon and one of the teen girls randomly told me, “You look like some nice old lady.” I burst out laughing and teased her for that and for a while afterwards when I would see her I would wave an imaginary cane and tell her she was such a sweet little girl and then sometimes I would cackle like a witch and she would double over giggling. “I was kidding,” she’d say. “What’s that??? I CAN’T HEAR YOU, DEARIE,” I’d respond, groping blindly in the air.
There was swimming and art-making and singing and chef-made kid-friendly meals and candletimes for remembering loved ones and sand tray activities and games, four long busy days and nights in a beautiful setting. Swallows drawing giant swooping curlicues in the air and feeding nested babies in the lodge rafters, the glittering Fall Creek reservoir nearby, the great rising swell of cricketsong in the evenings.
It feels like such an incredible honor to have been part of this camp, and I am particularly grateful to have had the chance to go back. Last year was a bit of a fever dream, and this time I felt like I had more to give. But whatever I was able to contribute, I was paid in dividends. I can’t begin to assign a value to the experience of being in such a caring community. I’ll be there every year they’ll have me, just some nice old lady soaking up the good parts of humanity.
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