Stars and Pelicans

Let’s just say 2012 has not been the best year when compared to many that preceded it. And, for some odd reason, I really don’t feel like blogging when a lot of what I have to say will sound really whiny. Let’s face it; that’s not what you want to hear nor is it what I want to have recorded for the years to come. And besides you get enough of that when we’re together in person. But I thought I would share a couple of moments from this past summer that were definitely awesome and worthy of remembrance.

So for our family vacation we travelled down to Tampa, Florida to visit our longtime friend Jessica and her awesome mom, Diane. They let us stay with them, showed us some great places to eat Cuban food, and lent us their abuela’s (grandmother’s) Ford Taurus to tour the Gulf Coast. We made our way down to Sanibel Island, renowned for its shelling (as it sits at an optimal angle to the gulf and thus catches all of the good stuff on its shores).

There were so many shells there that you become really choosy about what you would pick up and carry around. And then, at the end of the walk, you carefully edit through to decide what to keep. We would wade and sometimes venture out to swim in the surprisingly warm and shallow water. The birds did not seem to mind our presence and would walk the shore and pick up shells right along with you. Ibises, great blue herons, gulls, and other, smaller birds would scavenge and only spook if you got right up on them. But the massive pelicans were the ones that would really steal the show.

When the boys and I were out in the water, either hauling up dinner plate-sized live sand dollars (which Julie deemed much too big and alive to keep), throwing a football around, or just swimming or splashing, the pelicans would occasionally hurtle from the sky and dive bomb right into the surf, plucking fish out of the waters around us. It seemed like they were only feet away in some cases, not caring how close we might be to their impressive descent. Sometimes the prehistoric-looking creatures would tuck their legs and float on top of the water nearby for a moment . . . but when we would stalk them, they would flap, kick, and sail out of reach with ease. Really cool birds.

Another moment that stands out was the first night at Alturas Lake this past summer. As Alex and I drove up and over Galena Summit to our favorite lake in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, I was concerned that it would be a bad year to visit my childhood vacation stomping grounds because of the smoke generated by a forest fire near Stanley. But while it was hazy most days, that first night was clear. The second we pulled into camp, some Drakes were headed to the lake. So we hopped in their van and headed on down. I am forever grateful that we did.

We walked out to the end of the dock and looked up into the night sky. I have never ever seen so many stars nor felt that I could see so deeply into space. The Milky Way, the Big Dipper, that One Dude’s Belt, galaxies, and planets . . . it was truly incredible to view our place in the universe and to feel so blessed to live on this planet. It was humbling but also empowering to think that each of us are also one of God’s creations and of the potential and promise that holds for each of us. I did not get a photograph of that sky but the image remains in my mind and fills my soul with its infinite glimmering. (Yeah I’m not gonna write the word “twinkle” . . . I’m just not).

No coincidence that the memorable moments are when I am with family out in nature and have a moment to reflect on what’s important. Gotta find more opportunities to do that.

That’s all I got. Hope it was something. Have a great fall.

A Wurpee at the 10-11

So spring has arrived here in Provo. The bulk of student activity on campus and the roads I travel most is at its annual minimum (at least until the terrifying, thunderous herds of minivans descend on campus for women’s conference tomorrow). I won’t even mention that the ladies are using my basketball court for a service project. (What are they thinking?) I had my first Slurpee of the season this week and am now addicted to the sugar rush and obsessed with the purple specialty cups in all of their rolled aluminum purple glory. When our boys were little we used to take them to 7-11 often but I guess not often enough. One day Alex asked in his little boy soprano voice, “Can we go get a wurpee at the 10-11?”

So for the first time in weeks (months?) I feel like I can write something positive. If I had blogged before this today, you would have heard a lot about our cat dying unexpectedly, my back going out painfully, and a lengthy and gloomy laundry list of why life was pretty sucky. So you and I have both avoided that bit of unpleasantness.

All of the gloom of late winter reminds me of a story of another dark day a couple of decades ago. I was driving our gray Toyota Camry on the road that circles around the south end of campus. I was feeling pretty low and actually had the thought in my head, “Can it get any worse than this?” At that precise instant, a fist-sized blob of bird poop hit the car’s windshield right in front of my face, obscuring my vision and answering my rhetorical question to the heavens. Yes, yes it can. This particular answer lightened my mood and I actually began to smile, then laugh, then count my blessings. In place of self-pity, suddenly there was gratitude, especially the thought that I come from a family with a history of depression coupled with a healthy sense of humor. Despair can be covered with poop but poop can be erased with laughter.

With leaves on the tree and a fresh blue sky (sans poop), I feel a little more optimistic and am really trying to enumerate life’s positives. We have a new cat named S.C. (slender cat) and/or Rescue Panther. While this strange auburn-black creature does not replace the eight years we had with our gray puddle of cat, Ixi, this new one is another feline source of amusement. Today my back is well enough that my opponent in noon basketball remarked that I was trash talking during a play (not just before and after, as is usual). My Celtics made the finals when, at the beginning of the season, they were really playing poorly. And a few hours ago, I got a text with four of my favorite words in the English language, “Clair box on porch.” I highly recommend liking the same sport, same teams, and growing to be approximately the same size as my big brother. Such stature and predilections have some truly cool benefits. I did have some trouble deciding to go with classic Jordan Bulls red or modern Celtics green for our trip to the 10-11 tonight. Decisions, decisions.

And, biggest blessing of all, in just one week, I will have been married to the love of my life for 25 years. And I can tell you right now, the first 25 years are the hardest. (And if you get that joke, you understand that it can extend to 40 and beyond.) Here she is in the place I found her, somewhere near 5th North, just a few years back. A tall drink of water, not a wurpee, . . . but cool and wearing purple.

Take it One Cougar at a Time

This is for my nephew who is a prolific writer and kindly offered encouragement for me to blog more. Always be careful what you ask for. :)

Writing is a lot like being mentally ill. There are voices in your head and they all want you to document their existence, tell their story in such a way that other people can truly understand and relate to them.

And when you are working on one of those stories, all of the other ones start screaming, “My turn, tell my story!” So you close the document and try to find an excuse to take a nap. But you can’t because of all of the voices in your head.

That’s when I turn to Annie Lamott (who I just channeled) and the best book on writing that I’ve ever read, Bird by Bird.

When it’s a huge and daunting task and the deadline is already past (yep this sometimes happens), I first think of the advice Annie’s father offered her older brother as he lamented the impossibility of working on his report on birds (due the next day). “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” For me it’s been “cougar by cougar” . . . but I really don’t want to talk about it . . . even though Cosmo’s birthday is tomorrow; I’m trying to focus on how I’ve survived.

Anyway, the most important thing, Annie says, is to just start writing. Get the words out there even if they’re “let’s-pretend-she-says” crap. Allow yourself to have a crappy first draft. And then hope you don’t die before you can revise what you wrote and make it into something less crappy because somebody will find your crappy first draft and think you really write that way.

The thing that gets in our way, she says, is perfectionism. And she devoted a whole chapter to it. I think this is applicable to more things in our lives than just writing.

Here’s how the chapter begins:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a “crappy” first draft.

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California). Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground-you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath or suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.”

There’s some great stuff in between but this is how she ends it:

“Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? Vonnegut said, “When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use up lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here—and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.”

Good advice I think for those of us plagued with the compulsion to apologize for our areas of untidiness, both mental and physical. I’m not very good at making messes yet but thank you for letting me share some writing advice while I work to improve.

Oh. And happy birthday, Cosmo.

I Went to Kansas City on a Friday, By Saturday I Learned a Thing or Two

I just returned yesterday from a trip to Kansas City, Missouri, where we attended a funeral for Lin, my oldest brother Lorin’s wife. It was a somber and reflective trip but also a time to reconnect with family, to laugh, to cry, and to share stories.

Even though years may pass between Walker family gatherings, I do not feel like a stranger. We’re are close, even with, in this case, 1,105.9 miles between us. Everyone at the cottage welcomed our arrival—it also helped that a goofy adolescent photo of me hangs on their “family wall,” which is described in my eldest brother’s blog here: http://walkerswalkabout.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/family-wall/

The room where Lin spent her last days felt peaceful . . . and sacred. Birds continued to fly in to the bird feeder outside the picture window. Lorin was also there and everywhere, comforting each visitor who was in need of comfort. (I also got hugs from my sister Charlotte and nephew Austin . . . two of many who had gone the extra mile to care for Lin as her cancer progressed.)

At the Saturday funeral, as Lin’s life sketch, eulogy, and a letter to her children were read, and musical numbers played, it emphasized to me that each life is a collection of memories and experiences. And when life ends, whatever relationship we have at that point is precisely what we are left with, at least for a time. This added perspective and motivation for me.

It was good to hear the stories; many I had heard before through the family grapevine but a few were new because each speaker had a different perspective and different interactions with Lin.

Her life is an excellent pattern we can use as we add stitching to our lives. In all of my experiences, I can honestly say that Lin was never unkind to me. I can be annoying and at the age that we saw each other the most, I could be truly unbearable. But she never broke.

Back in the day, her young son Austin and I had been running and splashing through the deep gutters of Orem; a system for watering the orchards that used to dominate the landscape there. Of course we were barefoot and eventually Austin’s small foot found a sharp piece of glass. I carried him on my shoulders the blocks back to the house, blood dripping down my t-shirt.

When we arrived home, there was some concern but there was also a calm, and once the injury was deemed not life-threatening, there were smiles. Admittedly, I was and can be annoying, always looking for attention, finding buttons to push. But I never recall hearing an unkind word from Lin. I am impressed with Lin's ability to let boys be boys, to “let him do him own thing.” Unflappable, calm, classy, but more than these, she was kind.

She accepted imperfections and she radiated kindness. I am not always kind… and that gives me something to work on. How we treat the people around us is more important than we realize. The funeral reminded me that we will be remembered for our words and deeds forever—be they kind or otherwise. Did I mention we should be kind? It's really important. That point made I can move on.

What I initially planned to share here is a story that wasn’t told at the funeral but at my mom’s 80th birthday celebration in the Sawtooth mountains where Lin made a dramatic surprise appearance. . . mentioned here in my mom’s blog: http://vwwalker.blogspot.com/2010/08/of-woman-of-courage.html

I had previously solicited stories about my mom (Verna Walker) for the birthday party and Lin predictably responded with a true gem. I feel that I must share it here for anyone who might have not heard it.

A Texas Christmas Story

by Lin Walker

Mom and Dad came to visit us in Texas for Christmas one year.  Micah’s #1 desired gift that year was a pellet gun and that fact got mentioned in the course of conversation with Mom. She seemed a little taken aback at his request but, as it so often goes in households with lots of little kids, the conversation was soon on to something else and we didn’t pursue it.

So on a particularly bitterly cold Christmas Eve, Mom asked if we had gotten Micah’s gift yet.  We said “yes” we had.  She asked where it was and we said we were keeping it in the trunk of the car until after the kids had gone to bed. She looked a little concerned but didn’t say anything.  A while later as the Texas winds howled, she asked very politely if we didn’t think it was a little cold to be keeping Micah’s gift outside. Now what was that all about—never heard of a pellet gun that was picky about its environs!

On further questioning we realized that she thought we had gotten Micah a pelican rather than a pellet gun. To this day, I have this hilarious mental image of a poor bewildered pelican shivering in the trunk of the car!

And the really telling fact is, she knew our family was probably weird enough to buy a pelican!

The Latest Buzz from the Beehive State

A bee adds to the hexagonal structure of its honeycomb.

I love small flying things both furry and feathered. It started, I believe in Buhl, Idaho where we had a row of mountain ash trees in front of our house. When they bloomed they attracted thousands of honeybees. I loved to go out with a quart canning jar and see how many I could gather in it. I wouldn't stop until more escaped than were captured each time I opened the metal lid to try and squeeze one more in.

The magic number was around thirty. When I released the bees, they never scared me or stung me; I stood with no fear in their midst.

I graduated to bumblebees. My sister Lissa likes them too, well enough to pet the unlikely aerial acrobats when they land on the flowers in her lovely garden.

In recent years I have transferred all of this affection  and awe to hummingbirds.

But this spring, as a neighbor turned beekeeper and his wandering swarms visited our apple tree, resulting in more fruit than ever before, my thoughts buzzed back to my little friends from days before.

Then last month, both beecause I like bees and for the beewildering potential for puns, I went to a lecture by artist Rose-Lynn Fisher who had taken a seriously close look at bees—with an electron microscope. As she examined the curve of the bee's eye, she noticed that it was made up of hexagons, the same shape that makes up the honeycomb in a beehive.

A bee's eye at 370x magnification.

Could it be that what a bee sees somehow influences what it creates? A scientist told her that hexagons are just nature's efficient way of packing circles together; but her artist's soul expressed to her that this similarity in structure was much more than convenient coincidence.

Beeyond the bee-yootiful images and the hexagon connection, the artist engaged in punning, showing the bee's knees, the beehind (including a closeup of the stinger, because that's the point) and ended by reminding us all that beauty is in the eye of the bee holder. I left wanting to get me a hive.

Duly impressed, I am trying to get permission to print some bee scans in Bee Why You Magazine. (Okay, I'm done with the puns for now.)

The photos and some live bees are on display in BYU's Bean Museum, not far from Shasta the Liger. But that creature is another story, or maybe just a song, for another day.

To read the artist's lovely introduction to her bee art and to see the stinger or bee's knee, you can follow this link: http://www.rose-lynnfisher.com/beepage.html

Coons and Karma Will Both Gladly Bite You

Our friends had set out a live trap last night to capture some noisy, pesky squirrels and a raccoon had gone for the bait instead. Before we could get to their house this morning, a meddling neighbor had unfortunately called Animal Control. (Unfortunate for him, that is.)

We wanted to eyeball the furry bandit . . . he growled and twisted and hissed as we approached. It looked thirsty so we dropped in an apricot, which he spitefully bit and spit and stomped to dramatically demonstrate his disdain for us.

We wanted to transport him up to the mouth of the closest canyon but our hands were tied since the local officials had been summoned. So we chatted with our friend Cathy for a few minutes, said our goodbyes to the masked intruder, and left a little depressed, knowing that Animal Control would likely dispose of him. I didn't even take a picture because seeing it later would just make us sad. I guess I should have got a shot, seeing how things turned out. (Update: Our friend Cathy had snapped a few photos so here's the optical proof.)

We went to the local farmers market and, a little while later, Cathy called us with some news that made our day. The tattling neighbor had picked up the cage to move it, stumbled over some tree roots, and to avoid twisting his ankle, let go of the captured raccoon. The impact popped the cage open and the liberated animal ran "like a bat out of hell" for the bushes, across the street, and out of sight.

The neighbor then had to call to report this development to Animal Control. Later the official vehicle was seen cruising the neighborhood but there was no raccoon to be found.

We were told that, not long after this incident, the neighbor went up to an equipment shed to prepare for an Scout outing and was promptly stung above his eye by a wasp.

I think the moral of the story is 1) to mind your own business, 2) be kind to animals, and 3) be prepared for nature to bite back if you ignore rules 1 and 2.