Vacation

July 7, 2011

Hi Andrea,

Vacations.  Without the alarm waking me in the morning I lose track of what day of the week it is.  There are no deadlines, except those I put on myself.  There are no obligations, except the ones I create.  This vacation, I have decided to just be wherever I am in the moment.  I let the days caress me, put their arms around me, accept the offerings of blessing that I find.

Lisa took care of Sadie while Steve and I went to Montana to visit with his sister.  I know this is an extra burden on her with the baby Annalise and Tanner and Alicia.  But she and the kids love Sadie, and Sadie loves them. 

This morning, I went to Albertson’s to pick up the ingredients for your favorite—what I always called a Farmer’s Omelet.  Frozen country hash browns, brown and serve sausage links, eggs and cheese.  I wanted to make it for Lisa and the kids.  In Idaho, I had picked up some huckleberry scone mix and huckleberry jam as a thank you gift. I wanted to make the scones for them also.

Sadie was ecstatic to see me.  She woo woo wooed, her form of talking, trying to fill me in on what she did while I was away.  I acted like I understood.  And in a way I did.  She missed me and I missed her.

Annalise is getting so big.  The last time I saw her was Mother’s Day.  She is 5 months old now.  She smiles easily at me and shows me she has discovered she can make sounds.  My heart rearranges itself around her.  In the space it creates, there are echoes of you.    

I remember when you first discovered your voice.  Erin, your dad and I were all out for a drive on a sunny April afternoon on Vashon Island.  From the back seat came your first vocalization of sound.  You were delighted to hear the noise you could make with your tiny vocal chords.   You had learned to consciously tighten your throat to create sounds with your sweet milky breath. 

Over the following months you learned to moderate the flow of air across vocal chords—to contract and relax muscles.  To make vibrations of air across vocal cords vibrate at higher and lower frequencies, refining the sounds you created until they formed to create your first words. 

I made your dad pull over to the side of the road so I could take you out of your car seat.  I mimicked the sound you made.  You laughed.  I mimicked you again.  You watched my mouth. I watched you.  Baby legs, creased, fleshy plump kicked at the air in delight.  You made a different sound, listened to yourself, smiled and began to experiment with the sounds and pitches you discovered you could make—arranging them, then rearranging.

Those first pitches you created, to my mother’s ears, they were a symphony of melodic sounds.  I mimicked you, you mimicked me.  Your sister watched intently.  I wonder now if she was young enough then, to remember these same moments with her when she was a baby.  Or was she wishing she were you in that moment, when you and I made that first verbal connection--a mother and her child’s communication that exists before words form.

I miss all of you, but that communication, it is what I miss the most.

A morning at Lisa’s. Making breakfast, cooking with Alicia and Tanner.  Watching Lisa as she works at her kitchen table creating a lesson plan to teach reading to grade schoolers. Annalise in her lap, absorbing sights, smells and sounds around her.  Teaching Alicia how to flour her hands when she works with sticky dough as we make huckleberry scones together, having her help me navigate the cupboards to find bowls, frying pans, cookie sheets, cooling racks.  Handing a spatula off to Tanner, showing him when to turn hash browns, how to have patience, let them crisp.

These connections that we make.  The communications.  Some are easier than others.  The more someone wants to take from you, expects from you, the more complicated it becomes.  Layers upon layers build up--create potential for avalanches, slides that obliterate the landscape.

Here, this morning, nothing is expected of me.  Nothing is asked or demanded of me.  My presence here, my vibrations and sounds blended with those of my niece and her children, my creation of food I once made for you, my observation and absorption of these tiny, flowering- in-slow-motion moments of time on this day, is a vacation in itself.

                                Love,

                                Mom           

Fourth of July

July 5, 2011

Hi Andrea,

Twenty one days and nights have passed since my last letter.  It is not that I have forgotten about you.  I just have not been able to write.  Life has been busy with Steve graduating, him moving back to his house in Issaquah, work, gardening, watching the birds come and go from my backyard.  Adjusting to never ending change.

This weekend Steve and I decided to take a road trip.  I have a week off work.  Destination, Noxon, Montana--where his sister, her husband and their dog Olivia live.  I was nervous about meeting Jana and Ken.  I knew I’d get along fine with the dog.  I generally always get along with dogs. 

The last letter I wrote you took everything out of me.  Erin has commented and I have nothing to say back, except to say she chose to adopt Jasmine as a young woman.  Jasmine has a lot of problems.  I do not want to be part of any of it.  Erin has made many choices I have sat back and abided by.  After all, a mother’s love is unconditional, is it not?  But as unconditional as love may be, there came a time I had to make my own choice.  I cannot accept things as they are with Erin, but I cannot change them.  I have to preserve myself—what little there is left of me.  This choice has not been an easy one.  She is my daughter, after all.  But I will not engage with her this time.  Enough of that, though.    

Ken and Jana live 50 miles from anywhere in any direction.  They share their land with cougars, elk, wolves, deer, bear, birds, chipmunks, ground squirrels and moose.  Shortly after we arrived, a doe came chasing after their dog, Olivia.

“The doe is nervous,” Jana leans in and tells me.  “She has a fawn and she is protecting it.”

I watch the doe as she stands outside the French doors.  Her big ears moving, settling in on every sound.  The ravens cawing in the distance.

Steve asks Ken, “What is all that racket?”

“Ravens” Ken answers.  When they find a fawn or a calf they make that noise when they are getting ready to attack it.”

“They kill deer?”  I ask.

“Fawns and calves.” He answers. 

“We live in the midst of nature here.”  Jana explains.  “Nature is not always kind and pretty.”

 It pays to be reminded of this.  To have this verbalized.  Mother nature.  Mother.  I am a mother, like her. 

The doe stands there for several minutes.  She turns and walks away, past the fenced vegetable garden.  Past the greenhouse.  She disappears.

In the morning, I wait to see her again with her fawn.  I sit on the front porch with Steve, Ken and Jana.  While they visit, I get the binoculars and Jana’s bird guides.  There is a feeder full of seed and various species of birds.  A chipmunk and a ground squirrel are enjoying the buffet.  I recognize pine siskins from my backyard.  There are cowbirds dark and ordinary.  I note them in my bird log book, just the same.   

Identifying birds is harder than you might think.  Even with two bird guides and over two hundred years of experience shared between us four adults. 

“What is that one?”  I am excited.  I interrupt the conversation like a small child demanding everyone’s immediate attention. 

Jana looks up.  The men continue their conversation.

The bird is black and yellow.  “It has a distinctive black mask and a bright yellow head.”  I say to Jana.

“And a short beak, built for cracking seeds.”  She adds.

It leaves as quickly as it came.

I want to call it back, study it until I can identify it.  Jana and I look through the Peterson’s and National Geographic bird guides.  We pass them back and forth. 

I think it looks like it might be a grosbeak.  But I cannot find any pictures that match exactly.  Jana and I get up and go to the kitchen.  We are after coffee.  It is 11:30 and we are still in our pajamas. No one is in a hurry to do anything.  The air is warm.  Wild daisies, hawkweed, Indian paintbrush, orange honeysuckle, wild grasses make an elegant bouquet between the small yard and the tree screened creek.  It is the Fourth of July.  A holiday for all of us.  I am with Steve and he is with me.  We are at his sister’s house.  I am meeting her for the first time.

“I was hoping we would get to meet you last summer.”  Jana says.

“Steve and I were still new.”  I told her.  “I am glad that you and I are getting to know one another now.”  Jana is just a few years younger than me.  Steve is her big brother.  

“I am glad my brother met you.”  She tells me.  “I was worried about him.  After his wife died, a part of him died too.  He seems at peace now.  Happy.” 

I tell Jana about you.  I tell her that you died. 

“Steve told me.”  She says. 

I try to say something.  There is nothing that can be said about Steve’s and my combined losses except Steve and I are of great comfort to one another.  I tell Jana this. 

The doe returns to the yard.  She stands watching the men on the porch.  Jana and I return to the bench.  I pick up the binoculars and study the doe’s face, her eyes.  She is watching, listening.  Her fawn is not with her. 

“I am worried.”  Jana says.  “I think something may have gotten it.” 

Putting the binoculars down, I pick up my cup of coffee.  Jana and I sit quietly.  The men still are visiting.  If I wanted to know what they were talking about, I could tune in and listen.  But I am content just listening to the voices of two good men and sitting quietly watching birds with a woman I am connecting with in a place that knows no words.  She, too is a survivor.  We have both been redefined by losses, but they do not always define us.

This morning, as I stood out on the porch with coffee, the doe came again.  Her fawn was not with her.  She would never leave it.  The fawn would never leave her.  The fawn is dead.  It is time for me to accept her loss, even though I still cannot accept mine.  As she looks at me with round brown eyes, giant ears moving to collect every sound around her, I wonder what consoles her.  Or even is she can be consoled. 

Somehow, the chipmunk has found his way up the pole and to the cylindrical bird feeder.  He is hanging upside down, eating seeds.  I laugh at his acrobatics.  A hummingbird buzzes me. 

Being aware of life, of these moments.  Gratitude for simple blessings that come my way.  This is what sees me through these days now.  Paying close attention to everything around me, keeps my focus away from myself.

Seeing a grosbeak, hearing birdsongs and bird calls, smelling the coolness of this morning—the hawkweed, honeysuckle, wild daisies—this is what consoles me.

Life is full of choices.  Some harder than others to make.  I choose those things that move me forward.  Even if that means sometimes I have to move away. 

A belated 4^th of July to you.

                            Love,

                            Mom    

Your Sister

June 15, 2011

Hi Andrea,

          Six more days until the first day of summer.

          A pair of chestnut backed chickadees have taken up residence in the bird house on the front porch.  The box is full of baby bird chirp chirp chirping.  All I saw when I peeked in was the open throats of the cheeping babies crowned by beaks.  I could not count how many.  Stella amuses herself by sitting on the bench by the front window.  She presses her face against the glass twitching, watching.  Mom and Dad engage in a relay of bugs and grubs brought back to drop into the  open throats, the hunger endless.  I am surprised they do not wear themselves out trying to catch enough to keep themselves alive , trying to  satiate the growing hunger of their nestlings.

          Right now—I’d just like to have my porch back. 

          And you.  I need to talk to you.  About your sister. 

          She texted me this past Saturday, “Jasmine is graduating from high school.”   She wanted me to come to graduation.  I was busy all day Saturday.  Did not see the message.

On Sunday morning, at 9:05, she texted again, “So I guess I have your answer.  And I guess I am done waiting for you to find a place for me in your life.” 

Your sister knows how I feel about Jasmine.  She is her friend, not mine.  All the months that you were sick and all the drama she created.  I will never forget the last time you were in the hospital.  I called your sister to come have dinner with me,  and then come with me to see you.  I talked to you before dinner and told you I was meeting your sister and Jasmine for dinner.  They would be coming to see you with me.

          “Mom,” you said resignedly, “Jasmine will never come see me in the hospital.  All those times I have sat with her in the ER, brought her Sadie, she won’t come.  And if my sister comes without her, she will call non stop and create a huge drama.”

          “Oh , Andrea.  That is silly.  She’ll come see you.”

          “No Mom.  You wait and see.”

          That was the last night I got to spend with you.

          After dinner your sister announced she would meet me at the hospital.  She had to drop Jasmine off somewhere.  I tried to coax her to come.  Jasmine wouldn’t have it.

And sure enough, when your sister came to the hospital without her, she was calling your cell phone, your sister’s cell phone , the  hospital phone.  I never got the whole story about what was going on.  But the word chaos comes to mind in describing that whole scene now.

          I texted your sister back “I did not get your messages until this morning.  To answer your question I always have room for you.”  It is her friend I have no room for.  Your sister knows this.  She conditions a relationship with me on my acceptance of Jasmine. 

          Not long after I sent the text, she responded “You don’t even try to make time for me, never have .  Sorry to bother you.”

I think your sister started telling me this when we moved to Cambridge, right after I started law school.  Yep.  She knows where my buttons are.  This is her mantra.

          And for that reason, I have not responded yet.  That, and I have nothing else to say.  I am done fighting.  I have no energy left to fight with.  She wins.  I was a terrible mother.  I am a terrible mother.

          But she is 35 now.  It is time to stop blaming.  Stop demanding.  I gave her all her baby pictures and toddler pictures after you died.  I wanted her to have that, to look through that so she would remember how much I love her.  She was always so jealous of you, she could never see that.  Jealousy poisons everything.

          What she doesn’t understand is that in addition to being a mother, I am a human being too.  I have needs and wants.  What she doesn’t understand is that she is a woman now.  To have a mother, she has to be a daughter.

          How can I tell her that?

                                                             Awaiting your reply.

                                                             Love , Mom

Learning

June 7, 2011       

Dear Andrea,

         The evening sun is making intricate  rectangle cut patterns on the living room wall.  Sadie is laying under the desk, her back across my feet.  Stella sits on the foyer bench, her chin resting on the window sill.  She watches the chestnut backed chickadee mother and father fly in and out of the white steeple birdhouse on the other side of the window.  I can see them from where I sit as they come and go.  My house looks like a crime investigation scene—yellow caution tape cordoning off the walkway and the front door inside and out.  Even so I have sneaked a peak or two at the three babies.  I didn’t really see the babies themselves.  I just saw three beaks wide open waiting for food to be dropped in. 

Damn it.  Every time I click over to Facebook there ‘s your ghost again wanting me to “friend you.” Then the memories begin crowding their way on stage like a bunch of giddy 3rd graders at a Christmas Pageant.  I try to tell them,  “Wait”.  Reassure them they will each get their time in the spotlight with all the audience they need.  I promise to be attentive.  And to bring Kleenex.  Keep my sniffling to minimum.  To not disturb those around me.

I try to focus again on the chickadees.  I Google “chestnut backed chickadee” and find out they use mostly fur to line their nest.  They eat bugs and seed from trees.  I am tempted to log into Nest Watch and report their location, but I feel like an informer if I do.  The bird family needs its privacy. 

It is June and time for graduations.  Your senior year of high school I took you to Western Washington University in Bellingham.  To the University of Washington campus.  To Central Washington University.  The Evergreen College in Olympia.  I wanted you to have the dorm room, girlfriend, college life I never had a chance at.  You showed no interest in applying anywhere.  Now I think--I should have filled the applications out for you.  But then, it was important for me to let you find your own way.  To follow whatever dream you had, rather than dreams I had for you. 

You wanted to live at sea.  To captain a ship.

I settled into wanting you to live a productive life and to be happy.

You did live at sea, on many seas, on oceans.  Stern wheeled up and down the Mississippi River, the Columbia.  Stood at the helm of a ship as it made its way through the Suez Canal.  Stood watch for pirates off the coast of Africa.  I am certain you would have captained a ship if you had lived longer.  If you had not spent the last four years of your life fighting a disease nobody fully understands, and therefore, most doctors would not acknowledge .

My daughter the  lusty pirate queen that loved to cradle babies in her arms .  You loved the  Pirates of the Caribbean pirates, but not real pirates and what they did.  It was the romanticized notion you fell in love with, we all fall in love with. 

  I remember when you started selling tours for the Victoria Clipper.  I’d come up to Seattle to meet you after work.  There you would be, jumping from the dock onto the ship and back onto the dock again grinning so hard I thought the corners of your lips would meet in the back of your head.  Then, working your way up from cocktail waitress on the American Queen out of New Orleans, to ship’s photographer on that same riverboat.  After that, you got a job at Lindblad cleaning cabins on small cruise ships that made their way up and down Alaska’s Inside Passage in summer, around the Baja Peninsula in Mexico.  Your calls from Glacier Bay talking excitedly about breaching whales and calving icebergs.  Desert hikes on the Baja Peninsula, how I’d love La Paz and that I’d have to stay at Los Arcos but be sure to rent a cabana then walk along the promenade and get a fish taco from a street vendor and ice cream to “die for” at a little place halfway out of town.  Then the job with Military Sealift Command.  At every port, Dubai, Shanghai, Chania, Catonia, the Seychelle Islands –and ports with names I have forgotten--you called me from the docks as soon as you could leave the ship.  “Mom, you’d love it here.” 

If I tune out every noise around me, close my eyes, plant both feet on the floor, let my arms drop and hold very still , sometimes I can hear you telling me that now. 

You thought you disappointed me not going to college. 

You did not disappoint me.   How could you--following your dream?

I am proud of everything you did. 

On Friday I will be sitting in a metal folding chair.  Watching Steve and his daughter graduate from Evergreen.   Seeing a shadow of you and I as we walked across red square , me encouraging you to do your learning in a classroom.  You knowing there was a whole world you wanted to learn.  You did not want a cap and gown.  I had to honor that.

It is dark now.  Except for the lamp on my desk and the screen of the computer.  Sadie has gone to bed upstairs.  Stella is curled up on the blanket at my feet purring.  I hope the chickadee mom and dad are asleep in the nest with their babies.

I am proud of who you were Andrea. 

I am proud of who you were. 

I wish I would have told you that more.

On Friday, as I watch Steve and Steffie cross the stage and accept their respective degrees, I will not be able to hold back the tears.  They will think they are tears of joy for them.  In part they will be.  Tears for Steve’s loss of his wife, Steffie’s loss of her mother who would have loved to see her daughter graduate from college. 

Mostly though, my tears will be for me.

                               Love,

                               Mom

                                                                 

Terrible Teacher

June 6, 2011

Hey Andrea,

You teach people how to treat you.  Two people told me this today, a teacher and my sister.

 I have been a terrible teacher. 

This knowledge bubbles up and spills itself into the corner of each eye, makes rivulets down my cheeks, falling on my breasts.  It curls me into myself, then hurls me back out. 

Even the quail couple foraging on the rock wall outside this window cannot distract me tonight.

I am full into it, and I just have to ride it through.

There can be no name for this, this total carnage of myself.

If I can just catch my breath, I know I will be fine.  Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe in and out.  Don’t hold your breath.  Don’t let it grab you by the throat and tighten its fingers.  But release to it.  Release.  Become fluid.  Become the salt water in the rivulets burning ditches in your face, dripping on your shirt.  Let it be.

Is this my lesson, now, with Steve? We have reached a point today that seriously tests the longevity of our relationship.  It remains to be seen how it will play out.  He is ignoring me.  And the harder he ignores, the crazier I become.

Look up.  Look out.  Breathe.

While I am here, I might as well stay awhile.

Scott was your first, and I believe, only true love.  His mom tells me you were his true love.  I know it provides little solace to you now, but Scott wishes he had given you that wedding you wanted.

I remember when you and Scott first moved in together.    A few months together, you called me.  Before the first word was out of your mouth I knew you were upset.

“Mom, Sadie and I are coming home.”  Each word punctuated by a sob.

“When?”  I asked.  Having you home would have been great.  I was selfish.

“I can’t stay with him anymore.”  You hiccupped the words.

“Why?”  I asked.

That conversation lasted for an hour.  At the end of it, you began to see things differently, I told you to make demands of him, let him make a choice.  If he continued to make bad choices, then at least he was forewarned.  Before you hung up I told you, “Make sure to bring your pink KitchenAid I bought you if you leave him.  I’ll pay for the postage to get it back here.”

I wish I had really learned, known that I was teaching people how to treat me.  I would have worked at it and done a better job.  I probably would have been much happier much earlier in my life.  Instead of here at the table typing this pathetic letter with red swollen eyes.  Wondering how one day I can be laughing and think things are going wonderfully, and the next an atom bomb has dropped and I wonder if there are any pieces to pick up.   One step backwards, one step forward.  Some days I am lucky if I can keep even. 

But here tonight, as I lift my head, see the quail couple out on the rock wall, blue delphinium, pink peony in full bloom, marigolds, hear the song of chickadees who are nesting on my front porch a current runs up my spine. 

I am going to become a better teacher.

Celebrations

June 2, 2011

Dear Andrea,

Today is the first celebration of something I can have that is unconnected to you.  It is the anniversary of my first date with Steve.

And I found out the polyps from last Friday are not cancer.  Precancerous.  Not cancer.  I called my sisters to let them know they need to make appointments now too.  Seems the family has a predisposition for colon cancer. 

Steve is at the dining room table here across from me.  He is working on his final paper.  Next Friday he will graduate and get a second degree—a BSc in Evironmental Sciences.  His daughter is graduating on the same date from the same college.  We will celebrate with a barbecue in my backyard.  I hand made all the invitations for the party.  It is the kind of thing you would have liked to help me with.  Along with the decorating, planning the menu, laughing with our guests.

But that celebration will be tinged with grief.  Steve’s daughter is graduating from college and Steve’s wife, her mother, will not be there to see it.  She died two and a half years ago.  I suspect she is around, though, and will view from wherever she is now. I feel her sometimes.  Even though I never met her. 

Steve, his daughter and I are careful with each other’s losses.  There are wounds we refuse to nurse or bandage.  We want them in plain sight, where everyone can see them.  Except they are invisible to everyone, but the three of us.  Steve and I acknowledge this amongst ourselves.  We pay grief its due respect.  But his daughter.  She has lost her mother and I have lost my child. 

I am not sure what to do with that.  There is a line.  I feel it.  I cannot see it.  I am afraid to cross it.

This is a time of change.  I am not sure what is going to happen when Steve graduates.  He has his house in Issaquah.  He talks about moving back up there.  Looking for a job up there.  Going back to the schedule we had last summer.  I go up to his place on Fridays and leave for work in Olympia from there on Monday mornings.  That leaves four nights here at my home—just Sadie, Stella and I.  The problem is I have grown accustomed to him being here.  So have Sadie and Stella. 

These nine months, in the morning I set my alarm for six a.m. with absolutely no intention of getting out of bed then.  If Steve were not here I would turn the snooze alarm off every 10 minutes until the second alarm went off at 7.  At six a.m. I hear him downstairs in the kitchen, whispering to Stella.  Sadie is usually sleeping curled against me.  I hear the coffee grinder, then smell coffee brewing.  The refrigerator door opens and closes.  I hear him looking for things in drawers and cupboards.  The sound of the gas stove lighting, a pan being set on a burner.  Making breakfast.  It is my morning music.

When the snooze alarm goes off the third time, I usually meet his hand as he is turning it off for me.  He has come to watch me during those last few minutes of sleep I am stealing.  He has come to pull back the comforter and welcome me to a new morning. 

I do not want to have to miss this.  You have taught me how short life is.  How quickly life can end.  Not to waste one minute.

How can I tell him this?  Even as we are with one another, Steve misses his wife.  I miss you.  

In the midst of that, we have our celebration.  One year together.  Another year ahead.  There is no guarantee of anything.  Just a promise to be kind. And friendship.   

I am trying to be ok with that.  And I think I am.

To celebrations! 

                             Love,

                             Mom

Birding

May 28, 2011

Dear Andrea,

I am waiting for the grass to dry.  It rained all night.  Now, the sun is flirting with this day.  It remains to be seen if she wins the clouds over, bleaches the gray from their edges with the radiance of her smile, leaving white cotton threadbare sheets floating on wind currents.

Baba Maal is playing on the stereo.  I love listening to this singer from Senegal whose destiny was to become a fisherman like his father.  I am pretty sure you would like him too.  His music lends itself to making up your own dance, gliding and twirling on the maple hardwood floor.  We used to make up our own dances until you got to be a teenager.  Then, when I would try to entice you, you would roll your eyes at me and sigh “Oh Mommm.” 

I cannot understand the words Baba Maal is singing.  They are in his native language, Pular.  On this Nomad Album, that is full of vocals carried along on complicated, strings, percussion, and wind instruments, is my song—the one Steve dedicated to me.  The words in English, the ones I understand are “…cherie, cherie, you’re like the sun that shines on in the night…”  This is the first song anyone has dedicated to me, except My Cherie Amour, which is not very original since it is a pretty common song.  There’s been one too many asshole who has begun singing it like he was the first to ever think of it after I introduced myself.  But then, Steve is an original, himself.  That is why I am with him.  “you’re like the sun that shines on in the night, my love, my lover, you’re like the sun that shines on through the night…”  I sing along.  Steve is in the kitchen humming in the background.

Waiting for the grass to dry, I open my computer.  It starts to whir.  The dark screen lightens and I click the MSN icon.  I get most of my news from there and my Facebook page.  Once in awhile, I read a newspaper.  On Facebook, Michelle, a cousin you never met, has written “tons of police are heading towards the Green River.  A two year old fell into the river.” 

I cannot read any further.  I am frozen on those two sentences.  I not only see, I feel the two year old’s parents.  Looking up from her post, I am confronted by a ghost on the right hand side of the web page under the heading People You Know.  There you are.  A white silhouette in a baby blue box.  Andrea Peterson.  1 mutual friend.  Add as a friend.  I cannot add you as a friend.  There is no one who can accept my friending.

                                    i become

                                    pillar of salt

                                    dissolving

                                    weeping

                                    willow

                                    willow weeping

                                    tears

                                    pay homage

                                    to this sorrow.

I sit waiting for my heart to return to my chest.  For it to sit like Phoebe, the hummingbird hatching eggs I watched for thirty minutes last night on my computer on Nest Cam. 

Mouse clicking my way through text and images on my computer screen, like a mad woman blinded, lost in a thicket, I find Phoebe again.  I can breathe. 

But Phoebe is restless this morning, like me.  She’s on her nest, ruffling her feathers, twitching her tail.  The sun is shining on a Channel Island, where she lives.  There is a gentle breeze rocking her and her babies in the home she built for them from lichen, moss, the filament of spider webs and fluff from plants she has collected on a rosebush stem.  Phoebe and her nest blend in perfectly with their surroundings.  This reminds me of one of my children’s books I used to read to you before bed at night.  The Best Nest.  “I love my house, I love my nest, in all the world, my nest is best.” 

I get up.  Pull a mason jar of iced tea from the refrigerator.  I am becoming like the kids that go to Evergreen.  They all drink and eat from mason jars.  I sit back down.  I startle when Phoebe flies from her nest as I am watching, waiting for something to happen.  There are two unhatched eggs the size of jelly beans.  They are so pale there is hardly color, but I detect pink, apricot.  As quickly as she left, she returns, her needle long beak holding white fluff.  She felts the fluff inside the nest, seems to dance as she shuffles her eggs.  A male hatchling, recently flown from the nest, hovers by for a momentary visit.  If I had blinked, in that moment, I would have missed it.

Yesterday, I went in for a colonoscopy.  I floated in and out of consciousness.  I awoke enough to see blood as Dr. Heap removed a polyp.  There were three.  I don’t know what this means—that I have polyps and there were three.  Later, at home, I Google “polyps”.  “Flat polyps are more likely to be cancerous.”  I read aloud to Steve.  I look at the photos of the polyps in my colon Dr. Heap gave me. I show them to Steve.

“Those polyps in the photos look pretty flat to me.”  He comments.

I promise myself I will not worry.  I don’t know how I will keep that promise. 

I am feeling like a nomad soul.  “Let’s go for a drive.”  I suggest.

“Where?”  Steve asks.

“Nowhere in particular. Anywhere.”

“How about lunch at the Olympia Farmer’s Market?”  he suggests.

“Great.”  I answer.

Except I am not hungry.  But, there, I buy three kinds of apples.  I eat one right away.  Two d’Anjou pears for later with cottage cheese.  Some zucchini, hubbard squash, spaghetti squash starts.  I grab a napkin from one of the food vendor places and eat my apple.  It is tart and crisp, though it was harvested last fall. 

Steve asks, “Have you ever been to an apple storage warehouse?” 

“No.”  I answer.

“Places are amazing.  They cool them to right around 32 degrees, just above freezing.  Then they suck all the oxygen out of the room so there is just nitrogen.  Prevents oxidation.  The apples stay fresh.”

I am grateful someone has figured out how to do that so I can eat this Washington Pink Lady in May, at least four months before the apple harvest happens again.

“Do you mind if we take a little side trip?”  he wants to know.

“I don’t mind.”

“I want to drive along

West Bay Drive

.  I need to see if I can find some knotweed for my presentation tomorrow.”

“I have not been out there in awhile.  It sounds like fun.”

As we get in his truck, it starts to rain.  Then it hails.  “I did not bring shoes for tromping in the woods.”  I show Steve my sandled feet. 

There are no shoulders to park along

West Bay Drive

.  The truck moves slowly as he scans the hillside on the driver’s side.  I have no idea what we are looking for.  I watch Mud Bay from the passenger window. 

“I see some.”  He says.  “Stuffs all over here.” 

I can’t tell what he is looking at.  It is all just green to me.

“Knotweed is an invasive species.”  He tells me.  Once it is planted it just takes over.  Nothing else can grow.  Stuff grows 3 inches in a day.  Root systems 45 feet wide and bigger.  Busts right through concrete.  One small piece of rhizome and the stuff gets started.”  Later he shows me a video of it on YouTube.  It reminds me of the horror movies I used to watch late at night as a kid.  A scientist finds tissue entrapped in ice, brings it to the lab, thaws it out, it grows and eats everything.  Nobody can figure out how to kill it. 

He turns the truck around at the parking lot to Tugboat Annie’s.  There is a marina there.  Someone has a garage door to a storage unit open.  Two men are welding, working on a race car.

Driving back he slows down, finds a place to park in what used to be a gravel driveway.  I get out with him, though I have to stay on gravel.  I can’t follow him into the brush, not with my sandals. He does not go far.  “See that?” he asks me. 

I look to where he is pointing.  “That tall stand with big leaves and the dead stalks in front of it?”

“Yep.  That’s knotweed.  It is kind of hard to get to though.”

“Let’s drive along

Deschutes Parkway

.”  I suggest.  “I bet we find some there.  And we can stop and pick those nettles we saw the other day, just past the Interpretive Center, before they flower.  I want to dry some for tea.”

On

Deschutes Parkway

I spot the stand of knotweed first.  But I am tentative in my new found role of plant identifier. Steve is so much better at this than I am.  “Is that some over there?”  I ask pointing to the railroad tracks across from Capital Lake. 

“Sure is.”  Steve says.  “And it looks much easier to get to.”

Now, I see knotweed everywhere. 

Back at the dining room table this morning, still waiting to mow the lawn, wandering around on my computer, Steve is doing the same across the table from me, on his.  I am thinking I should create a clever email, send it to him.  Or post something on his Facebook page. 

“Oh. My. God.”  Tears fill his eyes. 

“What?”  I ask.  I am having my own crisis--trying not to worry about three polyps, avoiding the emotions of Michelle’s post, and having seen a ghost of you.  And trying not to show it.

“Two year old…”

I don’t let him finish.  “I know.”  I tell him.  “Drowned.  Swept up in a river. What site are you on?”

“King5, PI, Seattle Times.  It’s on all of them.”

I know better.  I should watch Phoebe as she warms her eggs, waiting for the chicks to hatch.  I type in King5 and there it is.  Headline news.  Mom and her two year old son were camping with friends.  Dad was on his way to join them.  She put the little guy in a chair near the campfire, turned her back to fix him lunch.  She turned around, the chair was empty.  The rivers are high this weekend.  When the two year old got too close, the river claimed him as her own.  Took him, tossed him, stole his breath and filled his lungs with water.

I immediately go back to Nest Cam.  The wind is blowing harder on the Channel Islands.  Phoebe sinks lower in her nest.  Ruffles her feathers.  Settles in.  Her body pulses with her beating heart.  Her head turns back and forth.  Tail quivers.  Eyes blink.  She is alert.  I have watched her leave for just a few minutes to eat, to gather more fluff to tuck in the nest around the eggs.  Anything could have happened then.

Our last stop yesterday was Heritage Park.  There was a huge healthy patch of nettles by the river. Steve pulled a plastic bag and a pair of gloves from behind the seat of his truck.  “You tell me which ones you want.” He told me.  “I will pick them for you. 

“Ashley, my classmate who studies herbs and harvests them said to only take one out of every ten.  That way you leave some for others who might want to pick them.”  I look to find the ones with the healthiest leaves.  Under the shade of the cottonwoods, along a stream feeding the Deschutes, the nettles are tall.  A few more days, they will flower.  We have come just in time.  It is not long before we have a pile.  It won’t fit in the bag, so we put them in the bed of the truck. 

“We should look for knotweed in the marsh across the wooden bridge that leads to a view of the delta.”

Two mallard drakes are walking around like two batchelor best fishing buddies.  One catches my eye. They both do their best at jog waddeling.  Steve and I are walking slow.  The pair start following us around expectantly.  They waddle alongside us with their big orange web feet.  We walk purposely slow so, having caught up with us, they can keep up.  Their yellow bills are pointed at the unpeeled banana in my right hand.  “Quack, Quack, Quack.”  They entreat. 

“They want you feed them.”  Steve interprets for them.

“The banana?”  I laugh at him.  “Ducks don’t eat bananas.”

“Let me see the banana.”  His arm is outstretched.  He is motioning with all four fingers for me to give him my trail snack.  I hand it to him, he peels it, breaks off a piece, crouches down, offers it to the drakes.  They eat it from his hand.    Their metallic green heads and necks sparkle in the sunlight spotlighting them through the heavily leaved trees. 

Steve hands me back my banana.  “You try.” He says. 

I separate a small piece of it, crouch down.  One of the drakes hangs back.  The other approaches me with confidence, maintaining eye contact even as he picks the piece of banana up from the palm of my hand.  The movement of his bill against my skin is barely perceptible.  After he has taken what I have offered, he moves back.  Waits to see if I will offer more.  It seems it is the same for males in any species.  They take what is offered and wait to see if they will be offered more. 

I look over to my right and see a sign that says “DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS” in big red letters.  I look at the drake sitting there and point to the sign.  “You!” I said, pointing at him accusingly.  “You tricked me.  You knew I was not supposed to feed you.  You knew about this sign.  You are a scoundrel.  You know that, Mr. Drake.  A scoundrel, I say.  First you escorted me, then you flattered and cajoled me with your handsome presence, drew me in just so you could get what you wanted.  And all the while you knew about this.”  I sweep my right hand up and point dramatically at the incriminating evidence—the sign.  My left hand is on my hip.  My left elbow forms a pivot point triangulating my upper arm, my forearm, the side of my ribcage.

Mr. Drake looks down at the grass.  Steve is laughing at my outburst.  He takes my hand and we walk to the bridge that will take us back behind the marsh where we can see the Delta.  We can watch the Deschutes empty into Capital Lake, which empties into Budd Inlet and out into Puget Sound. Mr. Drake follows us for about 10 feet, realizes he’s been had and walks back to his bachelor buddy.

The hens are all hanging out at on a small arch of bare soil jutting out farther that the rest of the shoreline.  It turns to grass and gently slopes up from the river.  Some hens are sitting in the grass.  Others float or wade in front of them.  This looks like a women’s only party.  Perhaps they are having a big day of pampering themselves at the beach without the guys where they can put their beaks in the air and let their feathers blow one last time before the ducklings hatch. 

Steve reads my mind.  “There should be ducklings soon.”  He comments.

“I hope so.”  I answer.  I saw a raccoon here, sneaky as a thief tiptoeing from one brush clump to another, two weeks ago.  I tell Steve this. 

We follow the gravel trail to the wood bridge.  Crossing the bridge, we walk into an arch of trees.  Steve has not been here before.  I am excited to show him this path edged in miner’s lettuce out to the cat tail marshes, to the view of the delta, of the Deschute’s emptying itself, becoming part of something bigger.  There is movement in the cat tails.  Perched on the tip of one is a red winged blackbird.  He is announcing to all who are interested, and any who might accept his offer, that he is available for mating.  We watch him for awhile.  We did not witness any takers. 

At the end of the trail, I point to the delta.  One bird is walking along the shore.  “What is that?” 

“I don’t know.  You’ll have to look it up in your Bird Book when we get home.”  I did.  It was a plover.

Taking the trail back to the truck, I hear birds calling.  Each has its own sound.  I look up.  I put my arm out stopping Steve.  I point.  “Look.” I whisper, “What kind of birds are those?”  There are two birds close to one another in the tree limbs right in front of us. 

He ponders for a moment, “We’ll have to look that one up too.  Remember the gold band at the end of his tail.” It was a mated pair of Cedar Wax Wings. They mate for life.

Some bird was in hysterics on the left side of the trail.  Steve spotted the nest built in the saddle of a tree.  “That must be the mother close by.  She is protecting her nest.”

I search the branches one by one following her sound until I see her.  I try to memorize what she looks like. I point to her hoping Steve sees her too.  He can’t.  She was yellow with black and an orangey, apricot coloring on her neck and chest. 

These birds were beautiful.  How many times had I been out in the woods, oblivious to everything around me, focused on the trail in front of me.  That will not happen any more. 

I look away in time to see two drakes gliding just above the Deschutes preparing themselves for a soft water landing.  I catch my breath and point, seeing the rear wing assembly.  Only an exceptionally gifted artist could have designed such beauty with such precision.  The broad white border that ends abruptly at a blinding blue spectrum of color hidden when the wings are folded. 

The Cedar Wax Wing couple and the bird I do not know the name of fly off.  Steve never sees the nameless bird.

Here now, on the computer screen, Phoebe has just left her nest again.  The grass is dry.  It is time for me to mow.

I promise myself I will not worry.  It is a promise I break, even as I make it.  I will wait quietly through Memorial Day for the results of the biopsy.

A child died today in a river.

Phoebe sits on her nest on a Channel Island waiting for her eggs to hatch.

When I turn off the computer, this particular ghost of you will disappear into cyberspace.

When I finish mowing the yard, I will grab my binoculars and Sadie.  I will let her run in Heritage Park, then she and I will walk the trail to the delta and see what birds we see today.

                                                                           I Love You,

                                                                           Mom