Straz Center for the Performing Arts - Events

Straz Center for the Performing Arts - Events

Missing

What will I miss the most if I leave? My books, finding a book at a second-hand store, authors, the bliss of something new and different to read. Hopefully, not the quiet space to do so.

Melancholy

My melancholy and cynicism are returning. Happy bliss and feeling safe are leaving.

Quote of the Day (from Momentum)

"Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy." - Robert Tew

Scary thought

I'm a believer that you can never believe something will never happen to you. I believe in order to stay safe, you have to think that you could be the victim of a shooting. I think if you're leaving a store or walking through a parking lot, you need to think about the fact that you could be robbed. Or, when you're home or you're exercising, that you consider the fact that you could be sexually assaulted. This isn't paranoia. This is how my mom taught me to be aware of my surroundings and to take care of myself.

I had this thought today that for the first time in American history, we should consider we may have to immigrate to other countries.

We may need to flee America.

I don't necessarily think this is all because Donald Trump was elected.

I do feel our country is less safe, and there will be volatility in years to come.

To think our citizens may never have to experience immigrating to another country, or to ourselves become refugees, is naive.

I want to stay in America as long as I possibly can. This is my country. I love this country.

But I am starting to think about a Plan B.

How can I save up as much money as I possibly can, be able to cash in assets and move and immigrate if I need to? Where can I go and use my skills and experience to get a job? Where is there a language barrier? Where can I be safe because of gender differences and cultural differences? Where can I afford to live? How will I feel if my family is split and I must leave and my family stays?

These are things I am thinking about. It is my job to protect my family. I will not sit back and become what Jews in countries around the world became, and think this could never happen to me.

Think it could not possibly get that bad.

Think someone will stop this.

I need to be ready to not miss my chance to leave voluntarily.

We've seen the red flags. We've seen the warning signs. We've seen the lack of public denouncement of hatred.

Today on the news, November 15, 2016, I saw hate crimes and intimidation reports are up more than 400% in one week, I saw news about a school stabbing, I saw news about an airport shooting where the gunman has not been apprehended and one victim is dead, I saw ancient cities and historical artifacts blown up, I saw news of Russian warships positioning themselves, I saw news of ISIS warnings about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I was reminded of the tragedy of Aleppo.

I will not tell you my secret place. But I have a place in mind. God keep me safe. Keep my family safe. And if I must leave, enable me to leave so that I may live.

Interesting Read #1: As an Asian American I am invisible in this country and Interesting Read #2: Brutal truths that will improve your life (and make you a better person)

https://medium.com/verygoodlight/as-an-asian-american-i-am-invisible-in-this-country-8993a78436a3#.q6hiey2xv

https://medium.com/the-mission/brutal-truths-that-will-improve-your-life-and-make-you-a-better-person-17dddf14da18#.jilrr1wn1

Gratitude 13 November 2016

-Organized breakfast with my mom, brother, sister-in-law, husband and stepson, a very long time since my brother and my mom spent time together.
-Visited historic Polk Theatre in Lakeland.
-Watched an indie film called American Honey.
-My husband made me baked spaghetti.
-I am really enjoying my book.
-Got to touch my fluffy dog after her bath.

"And not being obligated is one of the sweetest of life’s riches."

Blog post by Paul Ford How to Be Polite

"I think a good part of what informs my voice, and guides my decisions both as a writer and an entrepreneur is gained from reading a wide range of different things, all the time. It challenges my ideas and it makes me re-evaluate them constantly."

"If you don’t read, you won’t gain the information and the insight and the inspiration that you need to make the right calls, at the right time."

From the blog story 

Here’s my secret weapon: I read

by Jon Westenberg 

Reading counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

"A genius shoots at something no one else can see, and hits it." pg. 1

Another example of my uncanny ability to see or hear something and then read about it in a random book: today I listened to a study on NPR about the election and Republicans and the person being interviewed said he believes in the power of the individual. He said Republicans should figure this out; immigrants know the most about how it feels to be and act highly individually. Then I read, "Her name was Margaret Z. Buckle.
She made up the Z because she didn't have a middle name, and she had strong feelings about being seen as an individual." pg. 22

"She was determined and deliberate in everything she did, and that quality attracted people to her.

Mai had true confidence. Or as she liked to see herself, she was born strong-willed, while a lot of the world was wishy-washy." pg.69

"She is silent. 

Like me. 

I admire that in a person. The ability to keep your mouth shut is usually a sign of intelligence." pp. 134-135

"I would live here at Beale Memorial Library, if it were any kind of viable option. 

But as I walk through the double doors of this place I do wish that it were possible. Because: 

books =comfort 

To me anyway. 

And comfort is a thing of the past." pg. 151

"The sunlight has a way of dulling the world in Bakersfield, and I gaze out the window and everything is like a copy of an original.

The whole place is faded.

It all looks like it would be easy to tear apart." pg. 167

"People usually find a good place for stray dogs, or for the elderly when they can no longer go upstairs or use a can opener." pg. 169

"For someone grieving, moving forward is the challenge. 

Because after extreme loss, you want to go back.

Maybe that's why I don't calculate anything now. I can only count in the negative space. 

I'm on a different planet now. 

I only speak when I absolutely have to. 

Otherwise, I do my best to be invisible and stay out of the way. No matter how hard they try, other people do not understand because I'm incapable of communication. And that is why the deepest form of pain comes out of silence." pg. 175

Gratitude 10 September 2016

• Helped staff an information booth at Bok Tower Gardens grand opening of their children's garden.
• Got teary-eyed when I heard the story about Bok's dream as told by Bok's great grandson. And when I saw families releasing lady beetles.
• Was inspired by people who dream and plan BIG for a GARDEN.
• Felt safe, calm and comforted by the idea of sanctuary in a place, a garden, a treasured spot with many special places for each visitor.
• Took a picture of a sunflower with its rays closed and not open yet, a reversal.
• Felt proud of this part of Florida, where I've been many times with my family. I love this garden. 

Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton

Sometimes you read reviews and you think the book you just purchased is perfect for you. There are 2 times that I've bought a book based on a review and I was very disappointed.

1 was this book, Swimming Studies. (The other was We the Animals by Justin Torres). I read many different kinds of books, genres, nonfiction and fiction. These two, I almost feel bad giving them away to someone else to read. 

I mailed We the Animals to someone that requested it through an online book swap. Swimming Studies will be placed in a yard sale.

This book had the potential to be a great story about a woman who worked very hard and came close to qualifying for the Olympics but she didn't. It's about how she dedicated her life to swimming, from a very young age. 

The idea of working diligently, hard, persevering, toward a goal, sacrificing to obtain a measure of performance, self-imposed deadline, personal best, or outward expectation to succeed... to do everything right and then to fail... it is in that moment and how you process that situation, those feelings and where to position yourself for future goals is what I had hoped to discover from Shapton and apply. 

I picked this book up when I was struggling in my career. For the first time in my life, I felt I was not good at something, no matter my intention or how hard I tried. Hard work and long hours were not paying off. I felt nothing worked and I was consistently uneasy. 

This feeling came after years of being successful in school, work and at home. I had to psych myself up every day on my way to work and during the day.

I was hoping to gain strength from Shapton's story. I wanted to learn how she did it. How she grappled with striving toward a goal and not quite getting there. 

The book didn't dive into this at all. It mostly explained her early years and time with her husband, the different styles of swimsuits she wore and where she bought them and some abstract artwork that all together felt disjointed and surface-like. 

Here is what I liked:

"Everything about him has intent." pg. 222

"As I wander around the room and look in the vitrines that display his studies and notes..." pg. 222

vitrines - a glass display case

"The idea of specialness occurs to me one night when I can't sleep (or bake). That as good athletes, we defined ourselves as special, then submitted to a routine in which we did exactly as we were told. I think of the limitations that 'specialness' requires doing a series of very unspecial things, very well, over and over, a million times over, so that one special things might happen, maybe,  much later. So - I think to myself in the four a.m. blear, face squashed into my pillow - specialness sanctioned, rigorous unspecialness. An unexpected feeling of relief flew over me. Then dissipates as I start grinding my teeth." pp. 222-223

"There is a quotation from On Directing Film by David Mamet that I underlined in 1993 and have never forgotten: 'Stanislavsky wrote that the difficult will become easy and the easy habitual, so that the habitual may become beautiful.'" pg. 225


Shapton, Leanne. (2012). Swimming Studies. New York: Penguin Group.

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

"I'm greeted at the door by a silver-eyed woman roughly my own age, maybe a few years older.She stands tall and straight as an exclamation point, in bootleg jeans and a form-fitting cotton work shirt. She's coaxed her flaxen hair into an efficient bun at the back of her head." pg. 3

"I like this woman. She's tough. Forgiving. The kind that sticks it out when the going gets rough." pg. 3

"Tonight, we will have luxury, tonight, we will have opulence - wooden hangars and a minifridge!" pg. 199

"Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you've ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you've ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you've ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible."  pg. 236 

I know how this feels.



Evison, Jonathan. (2012). The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. New York, New York: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 

Notes from the Book Chanel Bonfire

This book slaps you in the face with the realization that not all moms are great mothers. I have had a few mothers like this in my life- women I know, family members. I have never prescribed to the myth that all women are good mothers. I fully support father's rights. And I think we need to be cautious with how our ideas of mothers may not necessarily represent what is actually being experienced by some children in our society. I was raised by my mom to be cautious. I don't easily trust others and I don't think things could never happen to me or my family. I was raised to protect myself, to keep alert and to observe. Having said that, I am surrounded by a lot of great women in my life who are wonderful mothers. And I am a good stepmom. A lot of good comes from good mothers and they carry a big responsibility to make our world a better place and to raise good adults. I am lucky to have been raised by Robert and Teresa Gonzalez, and I am grateful to have my mom here with me again.

"The room was dark except for the faint light from the street below. I looked up at the molding on the ceiling, tracing it with my eyes as I did every night before I went to sleep. I followed it around and around, imagining a toy train on the ceiling racing on a track. I heard the wheels of the stretcher again in the hall. I climbed out of bed, snuck over to the door, and peeked out.

Even half-dead, Mother was beautiful. She had the icy good looks of a Hitchcock heroine - a high forehead, long, thin nose, and striking cheekbones. Her blond hair, most of which was a fall attached to the top of her head and expertly teased to create a tumbling-mane effect, lay tousled on the stretcher pillow. She was wearing her blue Pucci peignoir set that brought out the color of her eyes - which were now, of course, closed.

My chest felt twisty as I watched the men in white uniforms with blue jackets wheel her down the hallway and out of the apartment. I believed Mother was safe with the calm, quiet stretcher men and their nicely combed hair and castdown eyes, but I wondered where were they taking her, and what they would do. Did they have some magic way of waking her up - a special drink, true love's kiss? Would they put her in a glass box like Snow White while she slept? I felt anxious as the questions kept coming. How long would she be gone? What would I tell my sister?

I climbed back into bed and stared again at the ceiling, trying to slow my racing mind. The low murmuring of my stepfather and the firemen ended with the clicking of the lock of the front door, and a quiet stillness that came down. I was left alone with my thoughts, listening to my sister's soft breathing. I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled over, pulling the blanket carefully over my neck..." pp. 7 - 8 

"But despite her clucking over our preferences for French cheese over fried bologna, and extra conflicts over late nights and heel-dragging in the mornings, Catherine remained our much loved anchor in the whirlwind of Mother's new life. Her strictness and resolved to provide some kind of structure made us chafe, but drew us closer to her.

On Saturdays that winter, Catherine took us down to Rockefeller Center for our ice-skating lessons. She'd take us into the dressing room and help us put on our skates, using the big lacing hook that she'd pull out of her battered but voluminous black handbag. We were constantly surprised by its contents, which she always presented with such nonchalance: a seemingly endless supply of dainty, embroidered hankies, little boxes of raisins, a small, collapsible drinking cup, a flashlight for seeing in a dark movie theatre, a sewing kit, and a big whistle on a chain.

'I've never seen anything so crazy,' she said, leaning over and grunting as she threaded our skates. 'People running around on a floor that's frozen.' She laughed and shook her head at the foolishness of it all. 

'Thank you, Catherine,' Robbie and I both said as she he slowly raised herself up and stashed the hook back in her purse for the next time." pg. 46

"Sometimes he would take us to the theater with him and we would hang around the greenroom, playing pool and bumming money off the actors to buy snacks from the vending machines. I loved the smell of the theater: an intoxicating perfume of coffee, paint, and wood that to me smelled like romance, beauty, and possibility. I felt about the theater the way Holly Golightly did about Tiffany's - nothing ever bad could happen to you there.

At the end of the summer, Robbie and I would tearfully call Mother and beg her to let us stay in Minneapolis with our dad. Mother would listen to us sobbing into the receiver and then ask that we put our father on the line. They exchanged a few words, Mother reiterating the terms of their divorce agreement, and Daddy looking down at the floor frowning slightly as he listened to my mother tell him e had to return to her.

[I have seen this scene play out so many times with my stepson and my husband. Things changed when my husband's ex-wife and her husband became abusive to my stepson. We filed an emergency order with the court and at 4 different hearings, my husband was granted emergency responsibility, full timesharing and mother had supervised visits in a public place as she underwent counseling. She used my stepson to hurt and emotionally destroy my husband on a nearly daily basis. I remember that. Yet she was behaving horribly. It is very rare for a judge to grant a father sole parental responsibility. I think we saved my stepson's life, and his mother had a year and half to learn to treat people better, to compromise, to respect others even if she faked it for the time being in order to later be able to see her son more.]

'I'm sorry, girls,' he would say, then carefully and deliberately pack our suitcases himself and put us back on the plane to New York. He always stood at the window of the terminal, waiving and smiling, until we took off. I could see the little, dark speck of his head through the small fishbowl window as the plane lifted off the ground and my sister and I cried our eyes out. The flight attendant would come down the aisle and pin on our little gold wings, the accessory of the traveling child of divorce. They were meant to make you feel special but only made you feel even more alone and pathetic. What we really needed was some Kleenex and a hug. At least we had each other - another small hand to hold as the plane rose into the air and the other passengers stared at us, shaking their heads and wondering who would let two little girls fly alone. 

The annual ritual ended in New York when my mother would unpack our suitcases, and without skipping a beat, throw out all our play clothes. Those polyester separates just didn't fit in with our cosmopolitan lifestyle. Eloise didn't wear Garanimals to the Plaza for tea, or to her French lesson. Of course, by throwing the clothes away, she cast aside our summer, our time with our father, and our memories,as well as her own. She did not want to be reminded of a time when she'd eaten three-bean salad and certainly not that she had liked it." pp. 50 - 51 

[I remember one Christmas dropping my stepson off to his mother's house. She refused to let him keep the Christmas presents given to him by our family. She screamed and yelled on the front lawn, said the gifts would be thrown in the trash if we left them there. My stepson cried his eyes out. If I had known she would react that way, I never would have innocuously thought he could take his presents inside. At the time, he stayed at his mother's house more than he did with us per the divorce order. He could use his presents there more. I felt so terrible, I felt angry and I felt duped. I had misjudged the situation. We had to turn back around, after dropping the gifts off, and pick them up and take them to our house. I was sad that day. Everything that happened was violently against my nature and I could not understand how she could hurt this kid so much.] 

"After breakfast, we took out the trash and headed over to the hospital to see our mother. Unlike Mother's first trip to the hospital, after she'd locked us in the closet for a day, when we arrived to visit at Mount Auburn, there were no moccasins and she didn't look like a fairy princess; she looked like shit. She was puffing away on a cigarette in her cigarette holder, defiantly blowing the smoke at the no smoking sing on the bilious green wall. We took turns kissing her cheek, then sat in the plastic chairs next to the bed.

'Mother, you look great,' I said. She looked as if she would have sold one of us for a glass of wine had there been a market nearby.

'They've taken out practically all my internal organs. It's a miracle I'm still alive,' she snorted.

I turned to Robbie for backup, hoping that she would say something nice, but she just glowered and snapped her gum. I couldn't think of anything to say. There was nothing to say. Sitting there, I felt overwhelmed by a deep feeling of utter helplessness. It was like a black blob crushing me that made me wish I were dead. I couldn't do anything that would make things better. Our family, such as it was, was like a big dying animal. And there wasn't a shovel large enough to bury it, cover it up, or put it out of its misery.

After about ten minutes, my mother turned her face away from us. The audience was over.

'We'll go now, Mother,' I said. 'See you tomorrow.'

I was afraid Robin was about to say something unhelpful so I grabbed her arm and dragged her away. It was best to get out before there was an eruption.

I admired Robin's fuck-you attitude, which was so different from anything I would ever dare to do. After years of trying to shield my sister from the truth, I had to almost come to believe my little Girl Scout routine. When things were bad with Mother, whatever anger or resentment I felt was channeled into my cover-up. I still wanted the neighbors, everyone at school and at the grocery store, to thing that we were just like everyone else. When things with Mother calmed down, I was just so grateful for the peace, I didn't want to do anything that would disturb it. Trying to disguise it all was my full-time job; and for a while, I thought I was fooling the world." pp. 138-140

[I think this passage depicts how my stepson, at an early age, tried not to provoke or rock the boat, but then became argumentative and learned how to not do things, how to oppose and defy. The passage also parallels, in my opinion, how my husband's ex-wife tried/tries to keep up appearances with friends, work and church (ironic to me most of all). My husband wholly got in the way of a life she envisioned, so much so that she took my husband off my stepson's emergency contact card completely and listed her husband as my stepson's father, even though the court order granted both father and mother joint decision-making authority. She kept him on days he was supposed to spend time with us, she did not notify of doctor's appointments, put my stepson on psychotropic medication and she listed her husband as Wesley's dad on Christmas presents. Life was bad until we talked to a psychologist and he told us to completely disengage with her. It was then she became more abusive to my stepson. And then we filed emergency paperwork.]

"Since the fall after we'd moved to Boston, we attended Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, where I was a senior and Robin was a junior. Beaver was billed as a 'college preparatory school' on the sign out by the stately front gate on Hammond Street. It was well-appointed with soccer fields, tennis courts, and a swimming pool. Many of the kids came from well-to-do families, and the headmaster was kind of famous because he had taken Sylvia Plath to the prom. In short, the school had just the right country-club patina for Mother. 

Beaver was our third school in three years. By now Robin and I were accustomed to being the new kids. It was our metier, and any novelty attached to it had worn off for us long ago." pp. 141-142

"As soon as I started going to V's theater classes and to Drama Club meetings, I knew I had found my place. Since my first play in London, I had known that I loved to act. But what had started as a way to connect to my long-lost father had developed into something even more intimate. I loved pretending to be someone else; it was so much easier than being me. I could hide inside this other person and, even if it was just for a short time, inhabit a completely different world far away from the one I had to live every day." pg. 143

metier - a trade, profession, or occupation; an occupation or activity that one is good at; an outstanding or advantageous characteristic 


Lawless, Wendy. (2013). Chanel Bonfire. New York, New York: Gallery Books.

Favorite Quotes from the Book Bitter Is the New Black

I rarely read a book like this. At first, I found it annoying and a waste of time. But the main character has a major life change that forces her to confront her spending habits, how she sees and treats other people, how she is treated when her perfect life abruptly ends and the time it takes to recoup from that.

And being the lifelong learner, I try to learn something from nearly every situation. And I don't give up. I finish books I start.

There are only a few dog-eared pages, but this is what I tabbed:

"...like Scarlett O'Hara says, 'I'll think about that tomorrow when I can stand it." pg. 153

Newly defined words:

• hoi polloi - the masses, the common people pg. 47
• vapid - offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging pg. 57
• puerile - childishly silly and trivial [pyo͝orˌīl/] pg. 59
• erudite - having or showing great knowledge or learning pg. 145
• detente - the easing of hostility or strained relations, especially between countries pg. 183
• timorous - showing or suffering from nervousness, fear or a lack of confidence pg. 185 

Lancaster, Jen. (2006). Bitter is the New Black. New York: New American Library.

Thoughts and Favorite Parts of the Book Claiming Ground by Laura Bell

What is a colophon?

What is a cottonwood?

This book is set in a Western landscape.

It is subtle.

You can feel the weather; you can see the landscape in your mind’s eye.

It has some pain. It mirrors our own sense of uneasiness and our own need for escape.

-Nicole Pinson

“…wonderful piece of writing, about the isolated and attentive kind of life almost nobody lives nowadays, or ever did.” – Kent Haruf

My favorite excerpts:

“I laughed at the prospect, sure of a more traditional future and certain it wouldn’t be in the lambing sheds of Wyoming. But fall was hard. I was at a loss as to how to live my life and where to dig in. I saw people with companions, homes, meaningful work, but I had no idea how to become them, how to spin that web of comfort and belonging around me. I felt alone, unmoored and unworthy.” pp. 12-13

“I’m squirming with all the attention [when her parents come to visit with her], foolish with my delight, and wondering just when it was that I began to take my leave. My mother once told my brother that of her five children, I was the one she could never hold, that early on I’d always break the embrace and toddle across the floor away from her. Born the fourth of five children and sandwiched between two sprawling boys, I later chose the ease of retreating over the bruises of competition, to be the silent one and learn to succeed by keeping out of the way. My leaving took me to empty back rooms with a book, to tall orchard grasses by the creek. If these places were lonesome, they were also magical and private. I learned to entertain myself for hours with fantasies in which I was the hero, the special one, the one who could ride the horse that no one else could ride. When I was older and had a horse of my own, I packed a book and a sandwich and left on free days to roam the hills just outside of town. Then after college, I found this ranch that would feed me and pay me three hundred dollars a month to ride, read and tend to the sheep.” pg. 53

“We have plans, later, to ride over to the snowbank on the north side of Rooster Hill and bring back salt sacks full of snow to make ice cream with the grouse whortleberries we’ve picked. Our plans for the afternoon are comfortable ones.” pg. 59

Comfortable plans are something to cherish.

“I remember everything about their coming and nothing about their leaving. In my memory, they simply disappeared. John must have come and picked them up. There must’ve been hugs, good-byes, promises to gather as always for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I don’t remember. What I suspect is that I was the one who disappeared first.

If my parents had been able to ask why this remote mountaintop seemed a safe haven, I couldn’t have answered with any other story than that of the heroine, the adventurer, the brave one. We didn’t have the language of failure to describe the dark howl that simmered below the surface; our only words were those of success. What do you love? What have you lost? If I could have asked both these questions of my mother or father, what would I have been able to hear? We did what we could. We spoke the words that we knew. I gave the names of the rough beauty in which I hid.

My father had brought my mother eighteen hundred miles to see me. As a young woman, I struggled to be enough for them, to pass muster in what I thought was an inspection. But he brought her to me in her grieving, and many years later, I am profoundly touched by the simple faith of his gesture. He brought the woman he loved across the whole country. Yes, to fresh air and open space, but also to me – for solace.

That we love each other is clear. That we fumbled in that love is painful. What we had, in our shared blood, was the grace to lay ourselves out under a vast and forgiving sky and let its steady winds blow over us.” pp. 59-60

I disappear a lot. I don’t have a lot of memories of the past. Strangely, I worry a lot about the future, seemingly not being present in the moment, yet I do live in the moment and faintly remember my life. It’s sometimes a strange feeling when I stop and think about it. I have never been a great storyteller.

I daydream a lot and enjoy escapes. This is both a plus and a minus. I can plan an adventure - no matter how big or how small and no matter where - but I get bored with the mundane. I can sit for hours in solitude. I always thought I would make a good monk or be able to live in a convent.

I have always said I could have lived a life of leisure. Like the old black and white photographs of rich, educated and artistic families painting plein air and picnicking on the lawns of vast estates.

Sometimes I chide myself, and think these feelings are of privilege or luxury. I remind myself that life is difficult for many, and sometimes it is for me.

People think I have it all together. But if you watch me on a day I am alone, I am withdrawing and rebelling from this busy, aggressive and noisy world to an inner world – whatever it may be that day and usually defined by a loosely constructed list of tasks or goals written in the morning. I worry if this is normal. Am I slightly insane? Will I get Alzheimer’s? If I do get Alzheimer’s, am I already learning how to distance myself and enjoy my life?

But this is who I am. To go against it would be unnatural.

“There was a time in my life when I thought I loved at the center of the universe – would, in fact, say that I did – because I thought everything I needed was within arm’s reach: friends, horses, family, a sense of place, and a job to do. It didn’t last for long. Likely, it’s never meant.” pg. 113

“There will be times when I worry about the change, about them leaving the solid and predictable comfort of their grandparents’ home for what can seem a disorderly life that changes with the seasons. I’ll worry over my inadequacies and those of their dad. But this is the scene I come back to when I need to be reminded of what is meant to be.” pg. 131

“Both my sisters are here, one of my brothers, and three of the in-laws. I reach down to hug my nieces, all five of them, and my nephew, gathered around me rumpled and warm, showing me the rocks and feathers and treasures they’ve collected en route. I find myself entering a circle from which I’ve so long held myself apart. My family around me, come from so far and at such cost, I’m simply amazed and grateful. But then, this is what my family does. This is what my family can do.” pg. 135

“From one of the vans, my father pulls out a cooler, and over his shoulders I can see my parents’ silver service wrapped up in plastic and his black clerical robes and stole hanging from a hook. The whole back of the van’s piled high with wedding presents, all wrapped in fancy pastels with white ribbons and cards tucked underneath.

‘Dad, who on earth are all these from?’

‘You’ll see when we get them unloaded. They’ve been coming out of the woodwork the last few weeks, dropping them off. They’d all have come along if they could’ve.’

I know where they’ve come from, of course; in my mind’s eye I can see the gracious homes with perfect lawns and heirloom clocks ticking and chiming the hour inside, with season tickets to the symphony, church bulletins, leather-bound books, and generations of tradition. These are people who love my parents and so, without question, love me as well.” pp. 135-136

“Our first garden grows up rich and lush, the vegetables huge in this virgin creek-bottom soil. The kids carve zucchini boats and sail them down the creek, play softball with zucchini bats while I hover over everything in a frenzy, building a house, scrubbing it clean, working my job, keeping my husband’s edges tucked in, protecting the idea of our marriage, smiling while simmering below. I weed and pick and cook and freeze furiously after work and on the weekends, believing that a life can be built by hard work and a home created by sheer force.

I am wrong, as it turns out, but I do the best I can.”

I liked this passage because the sentence “weed and pick and cook and freeze furiously after work and on the weekends” made me laugh, smile and consider what we women do to ourselves!

I also strongly believe “a life can be built by hard work” and have struggled along with my stepson and husband when our expectations just didn’t work out. And as Laura, unfailingly doing the best I (we) can.

“Joe brings me coffee in bed every morning in the dark, shaking my shoulder gently and saying, ‘Okay, it’s ready; it’s time.’ I’ve heard him rustling around in the kitchen and stoking the fire in the woodstove in the living room, letting the dogs out, knowing that I could stay under the covers a little longer, safe, warm, cared for. He sets the coffee cups on the side table and props the pillows up behind me, climbing in next to me and handing over a mug of black coffee that steams in a room where frost creeps up the northern wall in the winter. We sip coffee in the early dark, without speaking, and watch the windows for signs of dawn. It is in this hour that we find our comfort, that we can believe each day is fresh, that the hurts from the day before have been erased, that saying we love each other is enough.” pg. 149-150

This reminds me of Brian. He often gets up earlier than me, makes coffee for both of us and lets the dogs out and wipes their paws of dew. Sometimes we don’t speak. There is an assuredness about us as we go about our morning routine. Sometimes we can communicate by eyes, hands, posture, smiles and humor.

“What I’ve discovered these last days is that the conversation of death is filled with the language of love.

“All of you here, know that you are precious. Know that you count.

“Amy, know that you are a sweet and golden light in this world and that we offer up our hearts to help you heal.

“Jenny, take our love and grow wings.

“We pray that you have found the arms of your mother.

“We wish that we could have loved you longer and more.

“Today we have to trust that our love was enough.” pp. 198-199

I think this is beautiful.

“Tents are placed to catch the morning sun on the sheer rock face or to capture the sound of running water. Each will house the dreams of its inhabitants, what’s missing from their lives, what they hope for, and inside is the peace that descends each night when the lay themselves down, sore and worn from a world that blisters their hands, pulls their muscles, roughs their skin and reminds them they’re living among bears that could eat them. For some reason, this gives comfort to us all.” pg. 206

“I wonder what it is that we clear a space for. Of what possible use is this empty space created by loss?” pg. 210

This is how I feel having gone through my husband’s horrible divorce from his ex-wife. As in a tragic crime, you are never the same. Some of my innocence and belief in people is gone. A huge hole ached for years, contrary to my nature that life can be good and things don’t have to be made to be so hard for others. I am glad this hole is healing. There was a point I never thought we’d get through it. But we are stronger for it, and know we have each other’s back, never to let struggle alone and to listen to each other’s wisdom, caution, recap and rejoicing.

“Don’t take anything for granted. Everything in your life is there for a reason and if you ignore it, you will miss out on a lot. My name isn’t anywhere in the piece, not as someone she felt responsible for or depended on. Months after the accident, when I read these pages to a friend, she said, ‘But Laura, I hear you in every word.’” pg. 213

I wonder what my relationship will be with my stepchildren when I am older, and if Brian is gone. But I take cautious risks, and when I love you, you owe me nothing. I hope I have been a good influence on them, a light in their lives, and that a little bit of me rubs off on them. They make me laugh, enjoy my quirkiness, and indeed I am sometimes only silly around them and Brian. I want only the best for them. They deserve it.

“Within hours, the camp that had been raised and cultivated into our home is simply gone, measured into even loads on either side of the packhorses. Next to each load, I throw a lash cinch and a canvas mantie, and for the hard-sided ones, an extra Decker pad.” pg. 214

I have no idea what this sentence means.

“From here, it seems the tracks of my entire adult life are visible, scratched out across this landscape that has been my constant…” pg. 217

Lately, a lump grows in my throat and chest because I have been thinking about life and dying. I don’t know where this feeling is coming from. I guess that may be why I cling to isolated moments, to revitalize and give me time to reflect and sort it out. This makes me want to spend more time with my family, friends and my pets. I think about my dad and how he does the opposite. I wonder if he every thinks about dying; he is much older than I am. Or, maybe it is just taking him longer to get to this point. I wonder why he doesn’t translate that to spending more time with us.

“My mother comes through the security doors first, followed by my father, their faces scanning the small group of welcomers. I raise a hand to get their attention and watch them break into smiles. ‘We made it!’ He’s in a jaunty tweed cap and leather bomber jacket; she’s in her soft traveling clothes and wearing bright lipstick and the earrings I’d given her for Mother’s Day. I lean in to hug them, to welcome them, and feel them to be bright sparks, alive and awake beneath my hands. It’s been over six months since we’ve been together, and they’ve come for my fiftieth birthday and, more important, for Amy’s graduation from the University of Wyoming.

Getting them settled into my home, I pour small glasses of wine, and we visit before going to bed. They’ve brought books along, notes, and are writing articles and outlining presentations. They’re deep into the conversations of an election year and worried for our country. It’s late at night, later for them by two hours, and they’re well into their eighties. But they are engaged by life, full of it, in a way some people never are. The lamp’s amber glow illuminates their faces, and I find myself drawing close as I would to a fire.” pg. 217

I love this description of her parents. I hope Brian and I stay like this, and that we are like a light to others.

“Driving down the road, I stumble over the question: ‘What is it that lets you grow old so well? Is it luck, attitude, exercise, or some special vitamins?’

This sounds silly and makes all three of us laugh. But apparently they’ve talked about it before, and they have answers.

‘Well, we try not to talk about our ailments.’

‘We cultivate an interest in young people and their lives. And we make an attempt to contribute where we’re needed.’

‘And we exercise.’

They finish with a flourish, as though they’ve made a pact and signed on the dotted line.” pg. 229  

“So this is where I’ve come from, I think, the good news and the bad. In their eighties, instead of shrinking they’ve grown larger and more fierce. The bad news? There seems to be no coasting.

This is what I’m made of. From my father I have received thoughtfulness, a love of books and dancing, the inclination to play with ideas. From my mother I have inherited the courage to leap, the ability to compete, lightheartedness, an elemental surprise at being loved.” pg. 237

“In this pause of conversation, I look back and see my mother dozing with her head tilted into the window. Beside her on the seat are gardening shears and gloves, for the cleaning of her parents’ graves, and also a small cooler with chicken salad for her aunt Ella. In her lap are papers for a presentation she’s preparing, the pen fallen from her hand. In her sweater there’s a brightly colored metal pin of three female stick figures, arm in arm, their heads haloed by ropes of wild hair.” pp. 239-240

I appreciate the details in Laura’s writing. From this description, you can understand that her mother thinks of the details, that she is a caring person and that she is self-assured.

“It seems our love is never enough, by nature can never be enough, until you realize that it is or maybe once you decide it is. Then there it is, tender love strewn like petals at your feet, everywhere as far as you can see, thick and soft, under your feet. A place to lie down, a soft place that has always been there, but you’ve not seen it.” pg. 240

I think I am at this point in my life, where I am seeing and appreciating love as I had not done so much before. I am nearly 39 years old. Why did it take me this long to let my guard down? Do other people begin to appreciate their family around the same time, or are some earlier or later than me?

One of my resolutions this year is to plan and go on more picnics. I enjoyed reading about what the people in this story packed for their picnics.

“Horses get watered in the creek and tied along the fence, dozing with heads hanging and cinches loose under their bellies. We splash cold water on our faces and hands and pull coolers from the pickups to the cottonwood shade by the stream. It’s three o’clock and we’re famished, but inside the coolers if every imaginable delight: tubs of fat roast beef sandwiches piled with lettuce, green pepper and red onion; Fritos, Cheetos, pretzels and salty potato chips; a gallon ice-cream bucket full of chilled and juicy cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon; bags of Mary’s homemade oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies; half-frozen jugs of iced tea and water. We fill our paper plates and pockets and find a spot of grass to spread out among friends and family, sure in the feeling that all of this – the food, rest and friendship – has been earned.” pg. 132

“We throw a pack saddle on an extra horse and fill the panniers with hotdogs and buns, ketchup, marshmallows, chips, apples, sunscreen, wildflower books and rain jackets.” pg. 145

“When we arrive, Gretel has draped an ivory damask tablecloth over the old picnic table out in the grass… She’s coming out of the house headlong in a flannel shirt, her arms wrapped around a tarnished silver champagne bucket filled with ice and a bottle of something French. ‘This is a dreadful affair,’ she says, ‘so we may as well spruce things up a little.’ Press and Joe grill brook trout over an open fire for hors d’oeuvres while Amy, Jenny and I set the table with silver, linen napkins and their best crystal. Gretel finds a few blooms that the deer haven’t eaten and arranges them in a low vase just as Sonia and Robert pull up. She gets out and comes across the yard, opening her arms, saying, ‘Shall we just drink and cry all night?’ We start with champagne and move to red wine as the light slants and steaks and roasting corn come off the grill. We peel the papery husks back and toast one another across the table with the ears, and when we’re done, we toss the cobs over our shoulders into the grass and gathering dusk. We laugh and laugh, but I can feel the tears lining up for our loss. I can’t imagine my life without them, without Sonia listening patiently to the sorrows of my marriage. I don’t yet know this is just the first crack in this small community, that other friends around this table will follow in the next years…” pp. 150-151

This part of the story demonstrates how picnics can bring you together; how the subtle can be made beautiful; and how relationships change as we get older. I am feeling this a little bit now because my stepdaughter is getting married. I am happy for her, but noticing and trying to figure out changing roles. For the first time in my life, it involves my role to someone else, and not me to myself and my life. I wonder how my parents felt.

“For our return trip, Gini and Peter pack for us a small cooler with salami, cheeses, roasted tomatoes, hard bread and a branch of rosemary from their garden.” pg. 188

“When the horses are brushed and saddled, I fall back to the work shed where wooden panniers are already packed with canned goods and spices from the day before. I open the refrigerators and load insulated panniers with apples and oranges, cabbage, iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, onions, and celery, then fill the hard-sided coolers with frozen brownies, cookies, ground beef, ham, bacon, sausage, steaks, and chicken, tucking Miracle Whip, mustard, and a small bottle of penicillin for the horses into one of them. With hand scales I lift each packed pannier by the leather loops and balance it with the weight of its mate, adding and removing items, and when they match, I carry them out and set them as a pair in the dawning light.” pg. 201

“We drop to the limestone slabs and pull food and water from our packs, peel oranges and divide ham sandwiches among us. We stretch our aging, achy bodies. An eagle rises from beneath the cliff. After a summer spent with strangers, the familiar presence of my family is a balm.” pg. 217

“Rising up, we drive through Sand Draw, Sweetwater Station, Jeffrey City and Muddy Gap, then pull off the highway by some gravel piles and picnic from the open trunk. The wind’s whipping, so we forego paper plates and eat straight from the coolers – cheese and ham with mustard and crackers, coffee from the thermos, dark chocolate broken into pieces – and my parents rise to the occasion with light heart and a sense of adventure.” pg. 230

Newly defined words:

“the sheep go thick and logy in the still air.” pg. 28

logy – dull and heavy in motion or thought; sluggish.

“He’ll drink whiskey ditches in the air-conditioned dimness…” pg. 30

whiskey ditches – A whiskey ditch is an alcoholic drink, primarily a regionally used term (like in Montana), describing a drink where whiskey is cut with water. More specifically, a Whiskey Ditch is a drink with cubed ice, and equal parts whiskey and water. It's a weaker version of whiskey on the rocks.

“I unwrap the loosened latigo and let the cinch drop and pull the saddle and blackets from her back…” pg. 70

latigo – a leather strap on the saddletree of a Western saddle used to tighten and secure the cinch

“This morning a skiff of new snow brightens the ragged remains of the last storm.” pg. 106

skiff – The term appears to be colloquial, used mainly in northern parts of the country and in Canada to describe a minor rainfall or snowfall or a light breeze. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a skiff as "a slight gust of wind or shower of rain, etc. Also, a light flurry or cover of snow."

“Meadowlarks are singing down in the draws and the range smells sweet and damp with morning.” pg. 114

“…by the men who moil for gold;” pg. 122

moil – hard work, drudgery

“So I take the reins and barely squeeze the snaffle bit into the 

corners of his mouth.” pg. 123

snaffle bit – A snaffle bit is the most common type of bit used while riding horses. It consists of a bit mouthpiece with a ring on either side and acts with direct pressure. A bridle utilizing only a snaffle bit is often called a "snaffle bridle," particularly in the English riding disciplines.

“my mouth filling with the dirt and roil of the trail.” pg. 128

roil – make (a liquid) turbid or muddy by disturbing the sediment

“When finally packed and moving, we line out single file, a string of eight riders and twenty horses with all that we need for the week: duffels, sleeping bags, books, medicine, extra horseshoes, food and kitchen all loaded into metal panniers and hanging from the cross bucks of each horse’s pack saddle. Each load’s covered with a generous square of green canvas mantie tucked so neatly under the edges with exacting diamond hitches that the horses heading up the trail look to be carrying Christmas presents.” pg. 203

pannier – a basket, especially one of a pair

Source: http://prairiewifeinheels.com/cowboys-elk-hunt-2014/  

cross buck – Crossbuck is a type of pack saddle that is usually rigged for a double cinch and is best suited for carrying hanging panniers. The crossbuck is the saddle that most people think of as a packsaddle and the type you see in pictures of prospectors and mountain men. The bars (the sculpted horizontal pieces that lie against the animal’s back) are joined by a pair of hardwood crosspieces front and back that form an X. This looks like a sawbuck used for cutting firewood, and has resulted in another name for the crossbuck saddle, the sawbuck.

Source: http://articles.extension.org/pages/10183/crossbuck-pack-saddle  

mantie – If you like to pack, manties are the way to go! They are easy to use, economical, durable, and multipurpose. We offer manties in traditional canvas or in green truck tarp. 

Source: http://www.bravotents.com/proddetail.asp?prod=manties  

exacting diamond hitches – The diamond hitch is a lashing technique used mainly in the field of equine packing, to secure a set of objects, for instance a pair of pack-bags, pack-boxes or other gear onto a base, for instance a pack saddle frame, in which case it requires the use of a lash cinch. In the general sense it requires the base to be equipped with at least two points of anchorage, and a rope which is used to lash the object down onto the base.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_hitch

“Also with us is Camille, a small, lovely Georgian in her seventies who’d grown up riding hunter jumpers. She comes out of her tent every morning completely unruffled, as though she’d slept on the ground every night of her life.” pp. 206-207

“Our trail down to the lower Yellowstone is jackstrawed with dead timber, burned in the Mink Fire of 1988.” pp. 208-209

jackstrawed – “Visually, jackstraw (or jackstrawed) timber resembles the child’s game of pick-up sticks, writ large: a pile of fallen trees, most often conifer. Jackstraw timber provides both protection for new growth (inhibiting browsing of vulnerable aspen sprouts) and fodder for forest fire. Jackstrawed timber occurs naturally—the result of mortality, of blowdown, of fire aftermath—and is also orchestrated by humans to discourage browsing by animals. With poetic license, various writers have used jackstraw to describe both the chaotic arrangement of all manner of objects, man-made or natural, literal or figurative, and the delicacy one must employ in moving one piece without disturbing the rest.”

Source: http://test.t.ourhomeground.com/entries/definition/jackstraw_timber   

“On my last day here I walk the dirt road back up to the high basin, with chinook winds blowing up the valley and softening the snow.” pg. 241

chinook - a warm, dry wind that blows at intervals down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains

Bell, Laura. (2010). Claiming Ground. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Gratitude 28 August 2016

• Relaxed. I needed to be an introvert for a day.
• Went for a 2 mile walk, then walked the dogs.
• Wore my new apron and made lunches for next week.
• Read a good book.
• Wore my cactus bolero.

• Read article "A Writer's Guide to Hacking the Reader's Brain (in 5 Steps)" by Lisa Cron.
• Made a simple bouquet.

• Saw these animals getting ready for bed (including a dragonfly perched on a leaf, but I didn't get a photo of the dragonfly because my dog sniffed it).

There are 2 lizards in this picture. See if you can find them.