Another Saturday at B&N

Here I am again between yoga and NIA classes, waiting for Doug to have some coffee with me. It is fall, but warm.
On Monday we visited the ruins of the home in Wallstreet, and It really was a relief to be able to burst into tears looking at all those ashes and charred remains and seeing Richard's hopefulness. He will have lots of help in that rebuilding no doubt, and he does look ahead to that. But he was also hoping to sift through the ruins to find anything left of his mother's things or our time in Guatemala.
Here is a picture I took--worth a thousand words, as they say:


What do you see among those ashes, Laughing Buddha?

 Also spent time with old friend, Annie in Salina. Would love to be back in Fourmile. I wonder how that can happen? See the Cedar house?  I'd do it for that.

Andrew now living with us--going on a month now--he is easy and high maintenance at the same time, if that makes sense--it's because I want to make sure he has what he needs, support him in his search for a job, keep his spirits up, give him privacy, share the bathroom with Doug, and sqeeze into our 1000 square feet. I would never NOT do this!








How long has it been? A Saturday at B & N

Niko and I hardly meet any more for writing on Mondays, but it would be so good to starts that again. There's first one thing and then another. Her head injury--I think is much better. Her care for her mother, the children coming home, the summer. The urge NOT to write--whatever is that about?

And so, my 71st approaches--and what it turns out to be, really, is a year like any other--hope and tragedy intertwined with the normal and boring, the mundane, often hoped for in times of turmoil.

And since I last posted? Let's see:

The most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, the Fourmile Canyon fire, destroyed 160+ homes, including the one Richard and I bought in Wallstreet when Andre was 2--the one we raised him in, the one where he was married, the one that Richard continued to live in , continued to work on, turning the gold mine into a wine cellar, installing in-floor heating, creating an aviary (I don't have the heart to ask about the birds). That house was Richard's major relationship, no doubt, and he is inconsolable. Andre watching him carefully.

Right before it was engulfed, as Richard was leaving

We have friends whose homes were destroyed and friends whose homes are standing, and that's really awkward, isn't it? But those amazing children of ours--the ones we raised together 30 years ago, have been returning to that burnt-out place, coming home to their parents' houses, taking care of them, Andre and Melvina--both of them having lost their childhood home--Megan and Gaylan, Pierce, sheltering and helping parents whose homes were saved. Harmony and countless other of our children, sending heartfelt condolences to Andre. We raised those children well, and they are the ones rising from the ashes, coming to the weary and heartbroken parents.

So, of course, all else that has happened seems miniscule--but things have happened--of which I will post separately

The House

Once again at B & N--in between yoga and NIA

     I'm not certain that I've mentioned Niko's fall and brain injury, but surely I have. She feels much on the road to recovery now, as she reported when we met for coffee on Weds., but we have not been doing so much yoga, so my Mondays With Niko postings have fallen away. So now it's a Sat at B&N between classes at the Y, sipping a coffee and eating a bar--a Kashi bar.
     Doug is 3 weeks into his rotator cuff surgery, and I think, doing well. Three more weeks in a sling, however, then we'll see how he rehabs. Has a PT appointment this week. But in three weeks, he should be ready to drive and more independent, although he is busy checking out bus schedules and the like.  He is in so many  ways the ideal patient, positive about recovery, staying on top of pain, following Dr's directions. But, of course, there has been the downside, the strangest of which, really, is that we go our separate ways at night, me on the futon (usually with Miranda, whose choice of beds has to do with where I'm sleeping) and Doug, sling on, in our queen size. It's not altogether bad, but does feel strange. I do get up in the mornings and make coffee and bring it to our bedroom, and we sit and talk--or sit quietly because I like for the day to come on slowly. The sling is large, because it has about a 4" foam block that curves into his torso to keep his arm stable, so there is the fear that he would either turn over and whop me, or that I or Miranda, who would surely follow me back into our bed, would toss around and injure him.
      We have spent some deliciously quiet days together, however, and take evening walks. Yesterday, we decided to watch a Netflix right after lunch: The Best Years of Our Lives, which was my idea after we watched series 5 of  Foyle's War, a great PBS mystery series set in England during WWII, and much emphasizing the price we pay when we send young men off to war, not matter the cause and the perceived "rightness" of it. I remembered The Best Years of Our Lives, (1946), although I'm not certain when I first saw it, but thought it was rather stunning to see a movie so soon after the war that itself dealt with the psychological consequences of homecoming--of the great disconnect between what these men had been doing for the last 3-4 years and the expectations (theirs and their families and loved ones at home) of the culture they find themselves back in.
     And just in case we buy into the myth that Vietnam was our great shame in our treatment of vets, William Wyler, the director, takes special care in exploring the range of responses of civilians:
--I just want you to know that we have no obligation to reinstate your job.

--Don't talk about the war--just put it all behind you.

--we want to observe the GI Bill in our loan department, but we have to keep our lending standards the same (in other words we don't want to observe the GI Bill of Rights).

--You boys fought the wrong war (said to a double amputee, a star in this movie, but also a veteran who lost both arms).

--All our jobs are being threatened by all these GI's coming home. There's not going to be anything left for us.

No spitting, jeering, ir placards being held upas "the boys" returned--we were actually a far more polite society then, but still.

Yes, this is an incredibly kind film and Wyler, the master of the small gesture that contains volumes of meaning
--Virginia Mayo, slumped in a chair, pouting, and peeling off her false eyelashes when Dana Andres says they're not going our for dinner.
--Teresa Wright tucking Dana Andrews in her bed, after he cannot get into his apt. the first night home.
--Homer's father buttoning his son's pajama tops after Homer has removed his prostheses.
--Dana Andrews in a shabby civilian suit--a transformation that takes him from a dashing airman to an ordinary chump looking for a job.

My ideas for a new blog: A childhood of movies, books, and music--what I learned.about life.
    

We Are Losing Too Many Young Men

It has now become not unusual in this college town to open the paper--about once a month--to read an all-too-familiar story that goes like this, with some variation: Roommate returns home, tries to rouse sleeping roomie, finds him unresponsive (this year always a young man), calls 911, autopsy reveals accidental overdose of combination of prescription drugs, OTC things, and usually cocaine, a variant being drinking poppy tea. So I am talking with yet another mourning mother, who thought her son was doing all right for the past few years. A big funeral for him at St A's--many young people, including my own Carla, whom I have know since birth. And then, in our own family, a young man just out of rehab, another reporting (we pray) faithfully for UAs, a son of a nephew caught up in his own turmoil. What is this about, I wonder? Availability of all this stuff? Surely the world is not more dangerous than my own time as a young persom, when we thought the world would be blown up and completely destroyed by nuclear weapons.  No, it is not a more dangerous world, but we didn't have so many pharmaceuticals to deal with that danger then, although Valium has been around for a while. Sowhat? What are the answers--delayed adulthood? too many choices? seeking escape from...? Environmentally causes addiction? We are losing too many young men.

Home again--this time from Utah

How June just flits away and how I love returning to routine. So it's Sat morning, and I've finished yogalates and have this interim at B & N before going to NIA at noon. No sooner were we back in the country than we set out for our home in Utah--and also a farewell reception for the 10th Bishop of Utah, Carolyn Tanner Irish, who ordained me. That was quite wonderful, catching up with Utah clergy and sharing a long lunch with friend Mary at the Oasis in SLC.
Also good to connect with friends at our place, to arrange for some floor repairs, sleep late, not having to get up for early morning walks or Weds. Eucharist. Cleaning and throwing out things, which I'm trying to do in both houses. Then back to Boulder, where life catches up--not knowing what has happened to our mail, for instance. Mary Kate+ has had bike accident with a mangled finger, stitches in another one, bruises and pain, numbness. I move back in to St. A's duties, feeling a tug with wanting some moer time to go back and forth, stay at home, write, and watch the portulaca bloom.
Summer reading:The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and the next one, something about a hangman's knot, features the 11-year old detective Flavia, a specialist in poisons, who has her own chem lab.  Can't remember the author's name.
Must get in contact with my Chartres group, have heard only from dear Annabel.
Portulace blooming, honeysuckle outrageously blossoming orange and theyellow columbine, must be 30 in all, up against that  bright color while the lobelia becomes a brighter blue in its yellow pot and the geraniums stubbornly refuse to put out any blossoms. Jupiter's Beard taking over the cone flowers in front, and some timid cosmos plants, small and lacey, try one more summer after being poisoned by grounds keepers last year. Lavender blooming and flox past its time. It's June in our yard--tomatoes planted once more in their bin, and we hope for the yield we had last year.
Doug scheduled for rotator cuff surgery on Tues--I manage my ulcers, and my eye checkup led my dr. to have me return in a couple of weeks for peripheral vision test re: glaucoma, since Patsy has it, and my original test showed some "thinning" of something. Just trying to keep above water here, re: the body--

At Chartres as a Pilgrim

We arrived here on Monday where I'm doing a workshop and facilitator training with Lauren Artress--Living An Authentic Life. We begin  by doing a Greek dance, move into announcements and then morning talks, divided by a coffee break, then our small groups.
--yesterday a tour of the crypt, today a tour of the cathedral--Lauren says we are tourists before we are pilgrims.  Tomorrow we become pilgrims as we walk the labyrinth in candlelight--we will prepare for that tomorrow and then also have an orientation, then rest--then the evening walk which also involves the crypt, but I'm not certain how. Lauren said we should spend tomorrow afternoon as if we're preparing to go to the Temple.
We are staying in the shadow of Chartres--a simple room, with large windows that open out to green fields and roofs of houses, and let in the cooling breezes.
I think of how I have been called to Chartres--that humanities textbook, that I crammed to learn to teach the class--then coming with Doug and Pat and Charles--mainly to see the stained glass and to climb the bell tower--we spent the day here--and, as I was tired from the bell tower, I sat down on a chair, head in hand, gazed at the floor and saw that labyrinth.
That was about 10 years ago, and since then, the labyrinth has been in my life both in Utah and in Colorado, where we just constructed a new one. and here I am as a pilgrim. Doug awaits upstairs, so I will take camera in hand to I hope post some pix here.
Holy time.
And Taize this evening.