January 3… Squak Mountain State Park.  Tony and I took the dogs on this trail.  Did 4 miles.  Pretty and green.  Trail length was 7 miles round trip.  I’ll have to go back on my own soon.

January 2010… Snowshoeing at Sun Mountain Lodge near Winthrop, WA.  Also, walking at Grande Vista Ranch at Carlton, WA

Weekdays.  Walks with the dogs around the neighborhood.  Yes… this counts!

Last week in January…. Cissy and Ted came up for a visit.  I took them to Skagit Valley, Deception Pass, and we all spent three days on the Olympic Peninsula.  Hiked at Deception Pass, to Sol Duc Falls, Rialto Beach, Cape Flattery, Shi Shi Beach, Dungeness Spit.  Tony was a trooper as he did all this hiking with us!!   Great time!!

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.From Lines Written A Few Miles Above the Tintern Abbey…… William Wordsworth

“It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness.  We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
— Chuck Palahniuk (Diary)

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”  Edward Abbey

“What happiness lacks in length, it makes up for in height”  Robert Frost

I shall be coming back to you
From seas, rivers, sunny meadows,
Glens that hold secrets:
I shall come back with my hands full
Of light and flowers….
I shall bring back things I have picked up,
Traveling this road or the other,
Things found by the sea or in the pinewood.
There will be a pine-cone in my pocket,
Grains of pink sand between my fingers.
I shall tell you of a golden pheasant’s
Feather….
Will you know me?

Hilda Conkling, Age 10, 1922

*****

Hope   Emily Dickinson  

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

*****

On Happiness

People always say you have to make yourself happy.  What goes into that?  How does onemake oneself happy”

Short, easy description of a long, difficult process:  Figure out the things that make you feel confident/fulfilled/energized; that give you a sense of purpose or accomplishment; that tap into your natural abilities and strengths; and that don’t put you at the mercy of any one person, and orient your life around those.

Often, this requires the separate step — concurrently or as a precursor — of reducing the role in your life of things that make you feel worthless/empty/exhausted; that don’t excite you; that require skills that don’t come naturally; that feel like a waste of time; or that put you routinely at the mercy of others.”  Advice Column

*****

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

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Feb 2, 2010…  Cathy shared this one with me!!

A Parable of Sauntering

by Albert W. Palmer

Excerpted from The Mountain Trail and Its Message (1911)

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There is a fourth lesson of the trail. It is one which John Muir taught me [during an early Sierra Club outing].

There are always some people in the mountains who are known as “hikers.” They rush over the trail at high speed and take great delight in being the first to reach camp and in covering the greatest number of miles in the least possible time. they measure the trail in terms of speed and distance.

One day as I was resting in the shade Mr. Muir overtook me on the trail and began to chat in that friendly way in which he delights to talk with everyone he meets. I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike!

“Do you know the origin of that word ’saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.”

John Muir lived up to his doctrine. He was usually the last man to reach camp. He never hurried. He stopped to get acquainted with individual trees along the way. He would hail people passing by and make them get down on hands and knees if necessary to see the beauty of some little bed of almost microscopic flowers. Usually he appeared at camp with some new flowers in his hat and a little piece of fir bough in his buttonhole.

Now, whether the derivation of saunter Muir gave me is scientific or fanciful, is there not in it another parable? There are people who “hike” through life. They measure life in terms of money and amusement; they rush along the trail of life feverishly seeking to make a dollar or gratify an appetite. How much better to “saunter” along this trail of life, to measure it in terms of beauty and love and friendship! How much finer to take time to know and understand the men and women along the way, to stop a while and let the beauty of the sunset possess the soul, to listen to what the trees are saying and the songs of the birds, and to gather the fragrant little flowers that bloom all along the trail of life for those who have eyes to see!

You can’t do these things if you rush through life in a big red automobile at high speed; you can’t know these things if you “hike” along the trail in a speed competition. These are the peculiar rewards of the man who has learned the secret of the saunterer!

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Source: The Mountain Trail and Its Message (Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1911)

I think it is Tuesday, December 15…  Christmas is less than two weeks away.  It’s going to be a different kind of Christmas this year because of we are back at Stanford going through another cancer chapter with Matthew.

Matthew has been in the hospital a week.  He had the cancer cut out of his right calf last Tuesday and it was sent to the pathologist to confirm whether or not the margins were clear.  It took 5 days to find out for sure… and the results determined the next surgery.  The margins did come back CLEAR!!!  So Monday… yesterday… Matthew went back to surgery and the plastic surgeon harvested skin from his upper left thigh and applied to the  cut out calf area.  Now Matthew remains in the hospital… the plan is to change the dressing for the first time on Saturday… and if it looks good… Matthew will be discharged.

Matthew has said he has dodged the bullet again.  He gets to keep his leg… and as much as this experience has painful, at least he won’t  have to figure out how to live without his leg.  And for that we are very thankful… grateful.

The second cancer experience has been totally different from the first time… not as emotional this time… probably cause it was soooo emotional the first time.  And now we know that more cancers are inevitable.  Matthew’s attitude… and ours also… was to do what we have to do.    Matthew has showed much courage and strength… and has come thus far with his very own brand of humor.

Now back to Christmas…. I have barely thought of it.  Christmas is not my favorite time of year.  I do not like the commercialism and busyness of it…. feeling caught up in all the trappings that are “needful” in order to have a “good” Christmas.    This Christmas will be very simple for us…. barely returning home from Stanford but returning with thankful hearts.   And that attitude of thankfulness will most surely make this Christmas special.

I returned from a trip down home about two months ago.  It was an unexpected trip to help my mom move out of her house into a retirement home.  My sister and I told her one night and moved her out the next day.  Sounds insensitive but we all figured the less time she had to ponder it, the better things would go.  I stayed a week with my mom in her room at the retirement community.  We fixed it up really nice… were able to move some of her furniture and other personal belongings into it.   We were hopeful that she would accept the move and be happy there.   I have to say she approached the move with a good attitude but after a few days, reality set in and SHE WANTED TO GO HOME!   I felt like I was deserting her when it was time to leave.  Saying goodbye to her has been very hard the last several years whenever I have visited her.  I am very conscious that it the “good bye” may be the last one.

I was totally exhausted by the time I  got  back home to Seattle.  I was so glad to get back to my house… my home.

Now that I’ve returned to my home, I think about how difficult it has to be for my mom.  I would hate for someone to do to me what we had to do for her.  I know she had to move out of her home for her own well being, but I can entirely understand when I call her and she is having a bad day and wants to go home.

I hope she can get used to the move and come to think of the retirement community and her “room” as home.

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It’s been about two months now… when I call her, my Mom no longer talks about going back home.  She is pretty satisfied at the retirement home.  Her days are full… she especially likes exercise class.  She’s won a couple of times at bingo and in arts and crafts, she has made several picture frames I understand.  I’m relieved she is doing this well.

She still has occasional bad times.  Lately she has been concerned about dying.  She thinks about this when it is quiet at night and she is trying to go to sleep.  She says she sleeps on her couch with her door open.  The nurse’s station is right outside her door which I think is comforting to my mom.

A couple of nights ago, my mom called me… on the phone… first time in years SHE has called ME.  She thought I was coming to see her the next day.  I hated to disappoint her, but did tell her that we are gonna try hard to come home for Christmas.

It’s difficult to be so far away from her.  I feel pretty helpless and out of the loop.  I call my mom every couple of days, but I know I don’t get a complete picture from talking with her.

I’m gonna write just cause I want to.  I’ve been feeling a need to but have not written much at all in the last couple of years.  I flew home to visit my mom recently and I sat by an interesting man on one leg of the trip.  He was a writer.  I don’t know if he was a published writer, but he was a writer.  I knew he was because I could feel his passion when he talked about writing.  He  reminded me that it is important to write everyday… be consistent with it… kind of like exercise.  You’ve got to do it consistently, rather you feel like it or not, and soon you recognize the benefits from being disciplined.

I watched a good movie last night.  I had rejoined Netflix and apparently this was one in my leftover que that they sent out to me.  The name of the movie was The Mudge Boy….  the description which got my attention  was that it was about a young teenage boy whose mother had died and he dressed up in her clothes.  Kind of wierd… I don’t know what it says about my tastes in movies.  Maybe that I like unusual kinds of movies…. which is true!!

Anyway….. I loved the movie although I was totally disturbed by a scene near the end.  I’ve thought about the movie a lot since last night.     And that’s what I consider a good movie…. one that leaves me thinking… one with more inner turmoil than outside action…one that doesn’t end neatly or happily!

Some of my favorite movies:  Night Mother, The Hours, Sophie’s Choice,  and now…. The Mudge Boy.

I just finished listening to my first book on CD… The Jungle written in the early 1900’s by Upton Sinclair.  I first heard of this book in a college US History class over 30 years ago.   All I remembered about it was that it was one of those books that brought to light social problems of the day and was an impetus for change and reform.  So… when I was browsing through books on CD at the bookstore and saw this one… I immediately decided it was the one to read… well, actually… to listen to!

Boy… what an education!!  What  a way to learn… fuse the message into a story… into the lives of characters the reader cares about.  I  thoroughly enjoyed the book… I can’t say I was entertained by it… Rather,   I was transported, horrified and enlightened by the book.

***

Upton Sinclair titles his book The Jungle to make a specific criticism of the capitalist system. The mechanization of American society was supposed to bring progress and increased order. Sinclair, however, notes that this increased industrialism has had the reverse effect. Sinclair’s Packingtown more closely resembles an amoral jungle, or Thomas Hobbes‘ envisioned “state of nature” — individualistic, ultra-competitive, and amoral. Every man must learn to fight for himself, and the strong constantly prey on the weak. Thus Sinclair contradicts the belief that industrialization and capitalism bring increased order by equating such a reality to that of the jungle. The Jungle is a major critique of laissez-faire capitalism and the greed and fierce competition that it brews.

P.S…. I wrote this several months ago and just now publishing it.  I start out with an idea sometimes and forget to finish!!  It’s hard to come back to it later…  it’s like you can’t relive any part of your life… you never can capture that exact “state of being” .   Anyway…. I want to publish it cause the book left a lasting impression on me.

I have redeemed myself…. I stewed over it all weekend but finally got on the treadmill this afternoon.  I have been running outside… on my way home from work… at the Sammamish River Trail in Bothell for the last month.   My treadmill died in early January and it took the repairman forever to get the part and even after repaired, it still would stop… just stop for no apparent reason.  So… after spending nearly $800  for repairs and I suspect… another $200 to replace bearings (that’s the new diagnosis as to why it stops)… I have this treadmill that I’m wary of using cause it’s frustrating when it stops and I have to reset and start again.

It snowed this weekend… that was my excuse for not getting outside to do my run/walk…. I am up to 3 miles running/2 miles walking.   I’ve just sat around feeling guilty about not getting in my exercise… doubly so… cause last week I only got three days in.

So…. I got off the couch and changed clothes… got my i-pod and headset on for music… and hit the treadmill.  God… did it feel good and easy and just plain therapeutic.  AND… it never once shut off.

Now I can sit and “do nothing” without guilt.

My last trip home I brought back a stone with the word “attitude” etched into it.  I had seen it laying around in my mom’s house for years and several times I had thought to ask if I could have it.   It always reminded me of the time my dad pulled me aside years ago  when Matthew was a baby and tried to console and give advice on dealing with the skin disease Matthew had been born with.  He told me that having the right attitude would help me accept and cope with it.

I have to confess that I it took me years and years to find peace regarding Matthew’s skin disease… I never perfected the “right” attitude which would have saved me a mountain of grief.  Honestly, I don’t think it’s so simple to grow the seeds of “right” attitude… I think they grow  as you apply them to your life experiences… Maybe in the end, that’s why we associate wisdom with older people.

Anyway…I never forgot what my dad said to me.  He planted the seed even though it has taken years and years for it to grow and bear a tiny bit of fruit.

So…. now I have this six inch or so stone in my bathroom and I see the word “attitude” all the time.  I’ve never really thought a lot about what  exactly “attitude” is….  I think it’s one of those words you hear so often that you assume you know what it is.  I’ve heard “change your attitude”… “get a better attitude”…. “your attitude stinks”…  but when I try to think of what the word means… I can’t come up with a good definition.  I do know it has to do with the perspective at which you look at something.

Soooo….. I looked it up online and found this definition:

Attitude:  a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways

Wow… that sounds complicated… and hard to consciously do!  It’s not like a garment that you can put on and take off.   Attitudes grow slowly and are tested with each life experience… and if we hone them and allow the best to become a part of how we live, the right attitude can be a most useful tool down the road.

Pardon my language… but after watching some of the Republican Convention this week and especially hearing John McCain’s VP running mate, Sarah Palin, belittle, make fun of, personally attack Barack Obama…. my blood started to boil…  and I’m one who, in the past, has not been too interested in politics!!  About all I know… and care to know… about the workings in Washington DC is what I hear in the mainstream news.  Not my cup of tea, don’t care one way or the other,  not a subject that I have been passionate about… till now!!   I heard Barack Obama speak, was immediately impressed with what I heard and overnight… became an Obama supporter.

But to be honest… I don’t know if I want to care about politics.  I’ve wached how politicians use sound bites, half truths, down right lies to light the fires of their supporters… and work them in such a frenzy that they forget reason and tolerance.  There are strong feelings and they tend to bring out the worst in people.

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It’s now under two weeks till election day.  I have had to take a step back in order not to get caught up in the frenzy of emotions.   It’s really been a little frightening… the polarization…  the “us” against “them” attitude… the intolerance…It’ll be interesting to see if emotions settle down after the election.

This entry is “piece mealish”, but still has some insight worthy of putting out there…. so  there you are!!

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I sure am glad I read a biography on Albert Einstein recently.   He has lots of good quotes!!!!

“All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. ” ~Albert Einstein

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I returned from a week in Alaska not long ago.  We (my husband, me, and my sister) had planned to go back in the Fall of 2007, but dealing with Matthew’s cancer put the trip on hold for a while.   Anyway…I planned every detail of the trip… no tourist traps… I wanted to see and experience “real” Alaska… and I must say,  the trip surpassed my every expectation.  I have so many stories  and I want my time there to stay with me… I don’t want to forget the details.

I brought a blank journal with me and some nights my sister and I would go over what we had most enjoyed during the day  and I’d write down bits and pieces to help me remember later.   Since I’ve been home, I’ve wanted to sit and write, but I have to say, I haven’t known where to begin.

So…. I’ve decided to start with my most memorable experience…. my words are just an attempt to capture what I saw and heard and felt… they are inadequate really.

We spent several nights at a bed and breakfast over looking Favorite Bay on Admiralty Island, Alaska.  Our room had this big picture window that looked out at the bay.   There were blinds that we shut at night cause the daylight lasted past 10:00 or 11:00 at night and my husband wanted the blinds closed so it would be darker and easier to fall asleep.  Well, one night I woke up around 1:00 a.m. and peaked out the blinds.  It wasn’t dark like in the middle of the night.  It was like twilight with a dark shade of blue and a narrow, faint band of yellow outlining the horizon.  I was so taken  by the beautiful sky that I tiptoed around and got my camera positioned on the tripod at the window.  I opened the window all the way and while composing my picture,  I heard a whale blowing very close by in the bay… literally right in front of me.  I saw the ripple of the water from where he barely stirred the surface.  My mouth dropped and my eyes went wide and I was frozen and mesmorized for a time.  I heard him blow again and again… about every 45 seconds to a minute.   After a few minutes I could tell he was moving up an inlet as the blowing sounded more distant now.  I sat at the window that night for at least 40 minutes listening to the whale blow.  From a distance it sounded like a lone fire cracker or the pop of a gun going off.

I’ve tried to find words to describe the feeling that came over me as I sat there that night and watched that beautiful midnight blue sky and listened to the whale blow.  It was so very spiritual and just totally filled me with awe.  It was humbling and I felt enormous gratitude.

Here is a picture of what I saw that night!