I just watched this video at the blog of an old college mate, Autumn. I think we can all agree it deserves re-posting, though we may each have our own reasons why. I'll let you watch it without reference to my opinions, which you can then read in the "comment" tab.

poo, Beth, and boundaries

A lot of outdoorsfolk say to watch the animals for how to behave in the woods. There’s an eccentric and controversial long-distance hiking guru named Ray Jardine who even feels we ought to poo as they do, whether we are indoors at the toilet or out. We should sit down, poo as much as we can, and immediately get back up. If we sit for hours at the pot, we train our bowels to excrete their contents leisurely. But over time, he is convinced, we can retrain our bowels to do their business and be done with it, just like the animals, and that this is actually healthier. But pooing is a rabbit trail; the point is watching animals.

I remembered that little Rayism this morning while I watched from the window as Beth made her rounds. She looked into a tire rut for muddy water, her favorite flavor. She meandered through the leaves, sniffing at one in particular, side-hilled down the embankment to the creek, and side-hilled back up. All along the border of the property she went, seeing what's new since yesterday, what's old.

She was a live picture of the concept of visiting your life’s borders, taking stock of yourself, seeing what’s new and what's old. This is something that can only be done in stillness, non-rushedly, even if there is commotion all around. Traffic buzzed by, cars and big trucks on the road, planes overhead. And Beth, apparently unaffected by these things, kept sniffing and looking. I want to sniff and look more too!

Sniffing out the borders is something big to me about now, because Jason and I are in a holding pattern, not making any sudden movements, and it's a good time to take stock. A lot has been on our collective mind. I will blog about it soon, but in a different entry or it'd be way too long.

Great Falls Park with Brie

We spent Thursday with our niece, Brie, at Great Falls Park since she was out of school. She is very interested in Biology, so Jason had a hoot discussing animal behavior, bird tail shapes, and tree types with her. If things got too technical for me, I simply sang, "High on a hill was a lonely goatherd. Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo. Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd. Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo." - you know! From the goat puppet show on The Sound of Music! Brie brought up that song since we were on the Billy Goat Trail. And an appropriately named trail it was, with much rock hopping.

It was a stunning evening, finished up with an equally stunning supper of locally-made icecream. That brings up an interesting point. If anybody out there likes white chocolate, please. I am truly interested in why you do. I cannot taste much of anything when I eat it, which is why I usually don't. Does white chocolate have a taste? It's more just sweet waxiness, isn't it?

a few Christmas time pics

Ocean City / Steve & Darla

We went to Ocean City, Maryland last weekend and walked along the Atlantic coast. Here are some of our mini treasures. Aren't they cute all together? Even though in their days of living they might've fought each other.

We also walked along the boardwalk. Here's Jason, spending $5 at a game center to very bravely win us 37 tickets. With those 37 tickets, we were able to purchase 45 cents worth of goodies, including a harmonica, two erasers, and a green string. People might not be surprised by this - I have to say I actually was - but the harmonica did not work. It had a bunch of holes like usual but only played three tones. The picture is before I discovered this sad fact.

On our way back to Frederick, we got to have coffee with Steve and Darla, here for the holiday from Portland! He grew up in this area, as did Jason, and Darla and I are from towns a couple hours apart in Montana. Despite all that, we actually knew Steve from Alaska and hadn't yet met his wife of now over a year. It was December 23rd, and we planned to meet them in a gigantic parking lot in front of a sporting goods' store, rife with shopping humans. We both had car GPS's of our parents to find the place, as well as cell phones. With all that technology, we still missed seeing each other parked two cars apart. I mean, we were both at the far outer edge of the lot, two cars apart out of like 4 billion. Anyway, what a fantastic couple of hours we had together in front of a fake fireplace at a strip mall coffee shop, catching up on each others' lives and dreams, and discussing living with less technology, ignoring the urge to buy things out east here, the state of America's education system, and nature deficit disorder. It was nothing short of therapeutic for me.

week 3 with grandpa & grandma

By now we've been back in Maryland for a couple of weeks, but I thought it would be good to post a blog about our last week in Indiana, if for no other reason than to finish the story. Finishing things is hard business for me; I much prefer starting. The long and the short of it is that J's grandparents are in a care facility now. Actually, that's just the short of it. Getting them there was the long of it. They got checked in under the supposition that it's for temporary physical therapy. Quite simply, they wouldn't have gone otherwise. And because of a loophole in their insurance or Medicaid or something, grandma had to be admitted to the regular hospital for three days first, for no specific reason, an ordeal in and of itself. Take people who are already confused and try explaining nonsensical actions to them. You're likely to start blibbering your fingers to your lips.

The weather didn't help at dreary and freezing. Also, one day that Uncle Jim was driving Grandpa's car to secretly check out a care facility, Grandpa's pride and joy that he rarely lets anyone else drive, a deer ran onto the highway and into the driver's door and window, making the vehicle undriveable, killing the deer, and furthering that unsettled feeling among the family. The whole thing was seriously stressful. But Jason and his uncles and aunt handled it beautifully. I did too - by staying out of the way. That, and by tenderly carrying a hard-boiled egg around for a couple of days, an egg I had obtained at the hospital breakfast buffet. What? It represented new life, hope, and simplicity, see. It was nice to feel in my jacket pocket or see on the dresser, all nestled in my faded red scarf.

In other happenings, we spent part of that third week at a nearby relative's house, which is an old, cool place. Here's a photo of it, taken around 1888. Look closely at the doorway in the background for Miss Freaky Deaky in her long black dress. The house looks essentially the same now, and we stayed in an upstairs room whose door closes very slowly with a long, loud creak. The wind even howls upon the windows.

To top it all off, there's a graveyard hidden amongst the trees near the edge of the property. We visited it on a wet, dreary day and thoroughly enjoyed the setup of family plots and the old gravestones, some of which marked deaths from the 1840's. As a boy, Jason walked through the surrounding fields right past this graveyard to get from grandpa's house to David's (who owns the old house). Jason says it's probably better he didn't know it was here. After we explored it on foot, he did a bit of internet research about the people buried here. The neatest thing he found posted was a letter that a Civil War soldier had written to one of the members of this family.


Our last several days were spent back over at grandpa and grandma's place, since they were in the care facility by then. It was a very rich time with Jason's uncles Jim and Ray and aunt Beth, who are all siblings to Jason's dad. We started the process of going through photos and belongings. That prompted many wonderful conversations about Jason's dad and other family members who are gone. We found geneology information showing that Jason does indeed have Amish blood in him, explaining his beard, his propensity to find non-electric gadgets like manual coffee grinders, and thinking children should obey the first time they're told. Do the Amish even drink coffee? If not, that's what you call a good blood blend; coffee, but made non-electrically. Before Jason and I left for Maryland again, we sat with Jim and Beth in a tight circle around the bowl of remaining Watergate salad, each with a spoon to scrape the edges.

Here we are with Uncle Jim, Aunt Beth, and a waitress statue.

"My First Wicked Woman"

I like themes in life. Do you? Here's the link for a great story that The Prof wrote about his elderly aunt who recently died. (We met The Prof hiking on the PCT in 2002.)

http://iwishiwereayoda.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-first-wicked-woman.html

Be Still, My Soul

Here's a video Tamie posted to her blog this summer when she lost her grandmother, and I think of it now in our situation. I love this hymn, and it's especially peaceful and grounding set against images of imprisonment, inhumanity, and sorrow. It hearkens to some movies we've watched recently from the seclusion of our little bedroom, including "The Lives of Others," "Babel," and "Black Snake Moan."

* * * * *

Take Me by Don Chaffer

“Old ain’t a word that I’m fond of,” he said.
“And these days I’ve begun to lose count.”
Mumbling she rolls in her wheelchair, and says,
“I’m afraid that they’ve closed my account.”

There’s a blur that occurs in the line of their life
That decays the whole notion of sense
And they call to the past, insisting that it last,
While they’re climbing down reality’s fence

Singing with me
Take me
Take me
Write my name in the most Holy Tome
And when it’s my time
To assume the sublime,
Take me to my promised home

And their hands aren’t gnarled, they’re in love with the earth
And they’re dying to go there again
We say the essence of life is strong in our youth,
Slowly buried under wrinkles of skin

But there’s God in the way that life comes to an end,
In the way that it draws to a close,
In the saying of soul to the house of the skin,
You’re too weak now to really oppose

week 2 with grandpa & grandma

Twenty:

1. It's how many ounces of coffee Jason just ordered without blinking. We knew we needed to come get coffee for therapy this evening, but that's when we realized how badly we needed it. He's usually a 16-ounce guy.
2. It's how many minutes after we got home from a doctor's appointment today that Grandma looked at her calendar and exclaimed, "Oh no! We've missed today's appointment!"
3. It's how many years before dementia is even a possibility that we are going to sit our offspring down and plainly say to them, "When we get to such-and-such point, don't listen to us anymore. If we're too much for you, put us someplace for help. Do it. You have our blessing. We hope we raised you well enough that we can trust you with that decision."
4. It's how many times Grandma has whispered to Grandpa that we kids have been here too long. It's also how many seconds later she turns to him and asks if we were here yesterday.
5. It's how many times Grandpa has responded with "I dunno" and his signature shoulder shrug.

Our second week isn't over yet; there are actually 53 hours and 59 minutes left. But it has been much more difficult than last week because they are increasingly more decided that we should hit the old dusty trail. The tasks we do are outside of their normal routine, so they forget about them and can't understand we're around for their sake. Instead, they're starting to think we're milking them for something. I tell you, it's almost impossible to separate ourselves emotionally, because they're not yet totally out of it. Some facets of their real selves are still active. So, words hurt.

We're trying to remember how hard this is for them, how tough it must be to let that thing go you began striving for as soon as you could crawl: independence. The freedom to go and do and be. And now you have a couple of yae-hoos asking if you've taken your medication or if you need to use the restroom. Ridiculous! Who do they think they are, taking over our lives?

Still, when I put myself in their shoes and really think about it, I want to attain peace, not independence. I want to think that this is my lot. This is my time to let go, my season for fading. I'm going to sink into the loving arms of my family, to remember that God is holding me through them. Is that a fundamental perspective difference, a personality difference, or naivety? This whole experience makes me want to firmly establish those routines, those thought patterns of un-anxiety, of trust, that will last me.

My sister Rachel thinks somebody should make cookies, lollipops, etc. laced with weed for the elderly. I can't say I disagree. But also, elderly schmelderly; I could use a lollipop myself. Cream soda flavor, please.

family conversing

In line at the grocery store a couple days ago, there was a tired dad, a very yappy 7-year old boy, and a responsible 9-year old girl ahead of us. If I could always listen to interactions like theirs, I wouldn't mind standing in line. Be sure to read these in a thick, southern Indiana drawl:

Boy: Daddy, what are them [pointing]? What are them, Daddy? Daddy, what are them?
Dad, eventually: Them are Skittles.

....and only seconds later....

Boy: My asthma's gone! My asthma's gone!
Girl: Asthma don't just go away. It never goes away.