Homebody

We had a bit of sunshine a few days ago, although it brought little warmth to Sanctuary. I know because I tried to get a start on gardening. Silly me. It was quite futile. I managed to pull out the remains of last summer's tomato vines and spread a bucket of wood stove ashes here and there. That's all it took to make my gloved hands uncomfortably cold and my work-outdoors-shoes cake with mud. 

So I gave up. I shed two layers of outerwear, brewed a nice cup of tea and pulled out some photo albums. Nothing like reliving two wonderful trips to Australia, one to Alaska, and another to Europe on a cold winter day. 

It is about the only really good perk of being married to a National Asset. He gets invited to speak in the most interesting places. 

Okay, there are two. Perks, that is.

He also accrues a lot (by which I really mean a humongous amount) of frequent flyer miles, and he shares them with me.

I am pretty sure I am the first in my lineage to marvel at kangaroos and koalas in their natural habitat, and to gaze across the sea and realize that there is nothing but ocean between me and Antartica, and to study a flushing toilet in an attempt to answer the burning question: does water go down in a clockwise direction in the southern hemisphere?

And I am sure that I will say "yes" to an invitation to accompany the Asset to equally interesting spots in the future. This may be because I have only taken photos of all the good and wondrous parts of our adventures. There are no selfies, for example, of us cramped in an airplane seat for the twentieth hour with most of the toilets filled to capacity, or of the Asset trying to force me to sit up and remain awake by watching Teletubbies on television to aid acclimatization to the current time zone.

I love the idea of travel. And I love, oh, about seventy-five percent of actual travel. But the truth is, I am really just a secret homebody. 

Shocking, I know.

The online Urban Dictionary's top definition for "homebody" is as follows: A person who enjoys the warmth and simple pleasures of being at home. There are, of course, more definitions, but I picked this particular one because I am one, and it is the most flattering of the bunch.

Take today. National Asset is slaving away at work in Hawaii, meeting after meeting. 

But me, I donned barn boots and raincoat and walked round our property with the tree guy, who made a bid to remove the huge clumps of mistletoe up in the tippy tops of our tall oak trees, along with pruning the current batch of random dead wood. We discussed the option of cutting and splitting the wood instead of chipping. 

I cut many-colored cotton quilt strips for a class one of my friends will be teaching tomorrow (unless the current prediction of several inches of snow comes true) and continue hand quilting another. 

I made a pot of vegetable soup and baked blueberry muffins with my new stove that doesn't sound like it will explode when the propane turns on and off.

No, today I am not changing the world. But I am soothed by the sound of rain, which is always welcome in our dry state, and enjoying the company of Domino, my kitty. The old bread I put out in the garden was appreciated by one of our gray squirrels, the one with the gorgeous, fluffy tail. I brought in enough wood yesterday to feed the fire for a few days. Its dancing flames and radiant heat are most welcome.

I am enjoying the warmth and simple pleasures of being at Sanctuary. 

Guess that makes me a homebody.

Winter

The dark, cold nights lengthen and gain strength. 

The tall black oaks have wept their last, brittle brown tears, creating a winter blanket for the rich, red-brown earth. These leaves crunch under foot. Under mine, and the deer, and the squirrels. 

Winter is coming and the woods are going to sleep.

From my kitchen window I savor the newly exposed expanse of azure sky. But my garden also sleeps. It looks like death with its broken branches and colorless remains. Most of the little creatures who found nectar and seeds and insects during the summer have gone. 

But for those who remain, who need to get through this winter as much as I do, I offer a little support. I wrap up in a warm coat and slip on shoes and toss a handful or two of birdseed on the pathway. Bread crusts, and fruit - gone bad because I can't eat it quickly enough - get cut up and tossed there, too.  

The deer know my voice now. I talk to them as I work at the kitchen sink. What exquisite hearing they have, with those big ears that turn independently of each other, one pointing to the woods behind and the other pointing towards me, in the window. Who knew that deer absolutely love nectarines, even if they are on the mushy side?

Every day or two I pull on my barn boots and fill a cart with wood from the shed. The rambling rooms of Sanctuary cannot stay truly warm without a good fire in the wood stove during the long winter nights.  A few days ago I found blood on the little window sill where Domino likes to sit and watch the world outside. I discovered sores on the pads of two paws. He had jumped onto the wood stove while a fire was burning. Six winters at Sanctuary without such a thing from any of our cats. What was he thinking?


I am quite sure he will not be doing that again. Nevertheless, there is now an additional copper pot crowding on the stove top to discourage such stupidity in the future. 

Our cats have loved the warmth of the stove as much as I do. They often spend winter days curled in a soft-sided pet bed savoring the warmth of each other and the stove.

But this year Domino refuses to lay in it. He just won't. I pick him up and try to settle him on the cushion. He sniffs and pussyfoots and jumps back out. He and Simon used to remind me of the yin yang symbol when they were curled together - Simon's light tan body forming a circle with Domino's silky black. 

We still miss Simon, Domino and me. Somehow, this winter just seems darker without him.

I have begun taking my walks in the afternoon now, timing them to bask in golden sunsets. For several years I have been adding daffodils in our various garden beds. They are one of the few things that I have found to be truly deer resistant. I go from garden to garden, bed to bed, and find pointed green tips pushing up through the dark soil. Our coldest days are still to come, but these tenacious bulbs have decided it is time to wake up and get on with the work of producing beauty. 

Winter doesn't last forever.

Missing Simon

I think we're going to be okay, Domino and me. We are snuggled in front of the wood stove here at Sanctuary, listening to waves of welcome rain pattering across the roof like tiny animal feet.

It's been a difficult week for us. Simon, my faithful kitty companion for eleven years, began having seizures. I mistook the first on Saturday for slipping on the stairs. He had started favoring his right front paw so his gait was a little gimpy. He cried out and I picked him up and cuddled him and he seemed alright.

On Sunday he had two more. They were unmistakably seizures. They were relatively brief, ten to 15 seconds, maybe. 

They were terrible to watch. 

On Monday I called our vet's office. My favorite doc was in surgery all morning. Would someone else be okay?

A no-brainer.  But how I dreaded this visit. 

The vet gently examined Simon and was trying to find a way to soften the diagnosis I was already expecting, already dreading. I cuddled him as the first injection was given. I continued as he drifted asleep and the second, fatal injection was inserted. They gently set about positioning his body as if he was taking a catnap there on the hard metal table before rigor set in.

The assistant quietly took my payment right there, to spare me stopping at the desk in the waiting room on the way out. They wrapped him in a soft blue towel and tucked him back in his carrier and I took him home for the last time.

On Tuesday I walked through our woods, shovel in hand, searching for a place suitable for a kitty cemetery. I think it's been a long time since I buried a cat. I found a place among the trees where the rich, red-brown earth was soft and yielding. I dug a Simon size hole, retrieved him from the mudroom, carried him like a baby still wrapped in the blue towel, and gently placed him in his resting place. I gathered a collection of Sanctuary rocks and piled a cairn to mark the spot.

I felt unexpectedly lighter once the weight of this task was completed.

But on Wednesday, Domino, my bushy-tailed, black-and-white shelter kitty, stopped eating. He barely sniffed the fresh breakfast in his bowl. I never heard the crunch of dry food. Not once all day long. I put tasty food in a small bowl to tempt him, thinking if the mountain will not come to Muhammed .... to no avail. I wasn't the only one missing Simon. We adopted Domino almost five years ago, one from a litter of four looking for a good home. He doesn't remember a life without Simon.

So Domino and I carried sorrow around with us all day long, each in our own way. I walked up to the rock cairn, more than once. He fasted and curled up in a ball and slept by the warm wood stove. We listened to more bands of rain sweeping across the roof and watched a movie upstairs in bed at night.

On Thursday I was roused from deep sleep by a warm, black and white ball of fur purring loudly in my ear and kneading the quilt that covered me. 

You're feeling better! I say. You've missed him, too, haven't you? 

I think we're going to be okay.

My Grandparents' Age

When my grandparents were my age, Grandpa was retired and he lived with Grandma in a small two bedroom house with a little guest house in back, next door to their daughter, my Aunt Ruth. They lived a quiet, orderly life without surprises or adventure. They seemed content.

I was allowed to stay over with them once, when I was about twelve or so. I thought it would be an adventure to sleep in the guest house by myself, but they insisted I sleep on the sofa in their little tv room. In the evening the three of us sat in a row and watched 'Password' and 'To Tell The Truth.' And while it wasn't exactly my idea of a good time, I loved being with my grandma. Plus, she shared her box of chocolates with me while we watched. 

At bedtime, I distinctly remember the shock of seeing my grandparents' teeth soaking in the bottom of an ordinary kitchen glass on a little shelf in the bathroom. Their lips looked like they had been cinched tight with some kind of invisible drawstring. And when Grandma insisted on a goodnight kiss - on the lips - I solemnly committed then and there to a lifetime of good brushing and flossing.

My 4th birthday.
 Grandpa's the one in sunglasses.

I remember Grandpa as a tall, slim man (in contrast to my pleasantly round grandma) who was unyielding once he had formed an opinion. It was kind of dicey at our house when they came to visit during election season. Grandpa, a Republican, and my dad, equally unyielding, a Democrat. Enough said.

Grandpa and Grandma ate lunch out at a little diner every day. When I rode with them in the car they insisted I sit snuggled between them in the middle of the front bench seat. It had been encased in some kind of slippery, protective coating. This was pre-seatbelt days, and some sliding was involved. 

Grandpa had this thing about dirt. He was also fussy about the 'air' and had this system of pulling out the ashtray to block the deliciously cool air from blowing directly on me. No amount of politely telling him how good the 'air' felt to one who was used to driving everywhere with windows rolled down in the hot, southern California summers, could dissuade him from this odd notion. Must be where my mother got the idea that we would surely catch a cold from being cold....

When we arrived at the diner, Grandpa carefully parked his car in the clearly marked No Parking Allowed zone, so certain was he that it didn't apply to him. And when a new waitress seated us at a table where, horrors!, I could actually feel the air conditioning gently ruffling my short hair on this 90 degree day, he made us pick up our menus and water glasses and move to a completely different table when she wasn't looking. 

I thought I'd just die of embarrassment.

As I look back on it, there really wasn't much to do at Grandma's house. I wasn't allowed to walk on the little strip of dichondra lawn in front of it, or walk on the sidewalk farther than the end of the block. Already a lover of music and having some skill at playing piano, I begged Grandma could I please play her little electric organ? When she said yes, I was pleased. When she turned the volume so low that even I, who was sitting right there on the organ bench, could barely hear it, well, let's just say it quickly lost its appeal.

I think I am now about my grandparents' age, before they sold that house and downsized to another, and eventually moved into a rest home. How life has changed in two generations! 

According to the Social Security Life Expectancy Calculator, at my grandparents' age, I now have a life expectancy of about 25 years. And if I make further milestones (a kinder way of saying growing even older) the odds of living even longer increase.

I should confess, I am not one to put much stock in such charts and calculators. I prefer not to measure the life God has given me by actuarial tables. But I do have some thoughts on living my life from this point on.

At my grandparents' age, I want to have brand-new experiences and adventures. I want to embrace the unfamiliar, develop new skills. I want to practice flexibility, and be alert to the world around me. I want to find a way to garden with a back that gets stiff and sore, and make beautiful music with fingers that show signs of arthritis. I want to enjoy good conversations and well crafted mysteries, even if it means making notes and keeping lists of fictitious characters so I can keep everything straight.

I want to both dream of life's many possibilities and release the desire for those things that just are not to be. 

I want to savor life even as I ponder what the future holds, and what heaven will be like, and grimace at world events unfolding before me on our 24-hour news cycle.

I want to travel with National Asset and see new places. I want to meet new people and learn new things, and enjoy visits with long-time friends.

I want to make music and design quilts and figure out how in the world to garden with the veritable zoo of wild critters who seem to think I have opened a restaurant.

I want to live out my days up here, in the woods, at Sanctuary.

And then, at the close of each day, I try to gather up all these 'I wants' and present them as a prayer that ends with but Your will be done.

Amen and amen.

Sierra Sunrise

It is winter, and it is pitch black. I turn over and look at the ceiling to check the time.

Again.

We have one of those cool clocks that projects time and temperature wherever you point the movable arm so it can be seen from a reclining position. Makes clock watching very easy. Maybe too easy. 

I take a slow, deep breath and tell myself to relax and sleep.

Again.

With all the practice I've had you would think I could just sleep until the alarm wakes me for these early morning airport runs. But no, it isn't working. I tell myself I can take a nap later.

Airport runs from Sanctuary are a whole different animal than those in San Diego. There is the distance, for one thing, and the dark. Dark up here in the woods is not like dark in a large city. Especially in the early hours of a winter morn.  If you have never experience life outside of ambient city light, you will just have to take my word for this.

Finally it is time to stop clock watching and just get up, get moving. I quickly brew a cup of ginger tea, my best remedy for all kinds of travel sickness, grab a couple of bananas and a package of crackers, and we are off. 

These runs in winter remain dark for the whole trip to the Sacramento airport and back again. On my last return, the sky was just beginning to lighten and the black crest of the Sierra Nevada stood bold against the dawn. 

But now it is spring. The clocks have already sprung forward. This time I drive home with the visor down, trying to keep an exuberant sunrise from blinding me. Even at this early hour on the highway that stretches from San Francisco to Teaneck, New Jersey, the one that goes "over the top" as folks say around here, I am but one of many travelers, all of us moving steadily towards the light.

I have been on this road in all hours of day and night. I have driven it with wipers frantically swatting rain from the glass,  and with eyes focused on the taillights of a semi truck in front of me when I can't see the road lines for the thick fog. I have learned to follow lanes that seem to shift like the concrete barriers in Maze Runner. (Will the work on Interstate 80 ever be completed?)

And sometimes, we take the 'back' route. It is a little longer, but I call it the scenic route. We head west on our way down the mountain and wind through flat lands where cattle craze and U2 spy planes practice flying overhead. I find it more serene. Except this one time...

"I can't not go," National Asset is saying in a very firm voice.

I am looking out the window as snow is quickly accumulating in our woods. I have never driven in this kind of snow before, the kind with huge, heavy flakes, and I seem to have misplaced my nerve.

"Okay," I finally say. "But I am going to drive to the airport so you can teach me how to do this so I can get back home again." 

I think of mail carriers and their motto - neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds - and I get in the driver's seat.  The wipers bat huge, wet flakes back and forth. I use my follow-the-taillights-in-front-of-me technique as The Asset instructs me on use of the brake and all the what if's I might encounter on the return trip.

It begins to rain as we reach lower elevations and I start to relax. The fields are green and lovely and the cattle bunch in groups with their heads low. I drop him off at the terminal and loop around to return home. I see color in the review mirror. A brilliant, giant double rainbow arches above me and I reflect on the Biblical promise it represents. 

Now I begin the assent up the back road. There is little traffic on this early, extremely wet morning. As I reach the altitude where we had forged our way through falling snow I smiled. The clouds were breaking, the sun was rising. And the road was completely clear of snow. 

Another successful trip to the airport. A dusting of pristine snow on our road (no one else has driven on it yet this morning).

And another Sierra sunrise to savor.

Morning Prayer

I recently ordered a copy of A Diary of Private Prayer to use in my devotions. It is a collection of prayers for morning and evening, written by John Baillie and first published in 1936. My version has been updated and revised by Susanna Wright to make it readily understood so many years later.

Here is a sample to savor, this morning's reading.

O God, you are alive from eternity to eternity. You are not just at one time or in one place, because all times and places are in you. I long to understand my destiny as a child of yours. Here I stand, weak and mortal amid the immensities of nature. But blessed are you, O Lord God, for you have made me in your own likeness, and you have breathed into me the breath of your own life. Within this fragile body you have set a spirit that can relate to your own Spirit. Within this perishable being you have planted what cannot perish, and within this mortal, immortality. So from this little room and this early hour I can lift up my mind beyond all time and space to you, the uncreated One, until the light of your face illuminates my whole life.

Let me remember that my mortal body is only the servant of my immortal soul;

Let me remember how uncertain my hold is on my own physical life;

Let me remember that here I have no continuing city, but only a place for a brief stay, and a time for testing and training;

Let me use this world without abusing it;

Let me be in this world but not of it;

Let me be as though I have nothing, and yet possess everything;

Let me understand the vanity of what is time bound and the glory of the eternal;

Let my world be centered not in myself, but in you.

Almighty God, you raised your Son from the dead and set him at your right hand in everlasting glory. Thank you for this hope of immortality with which, through many ages, you have cheered and enlightened the souls of your people; a hope which you have made secure through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Early Flight

One day, completely out of the blue, National Asset asks would you like to come along with me on a trip?

Where to? I ask.

Maui, he says.

I don't even need to think about it.

Every trip has its own unique challenges and this one required the Asset's formidable skills in booking complicated flights. His flight needs to be on the current government contract carrier. Mine needs to be on the one with which he has most of his frequent flier miles. It took the two big P's, persistence and patience, to arrange flights that would both leave San Diego and arrive at our destination within a reasonably close time frame. And somehow he did it.

So the day arrives. We get up at zero-dark-thirty, after a night of clock watching on my part. The Asset has trained himself to sleep anytime, anywhere as part of his basic survival skills. He can simply fold his arms, nod his head, close his eyes, and sleep-breathing ensues.

But, try as I might, sleep eludes me the night before early travel, and this is no exception. As I finally get up and prepare to leave I remind myself that I have survived nights like this before and a trip to Hawaii in January is totally worth it. Domino, our black and white kitty, senses what's up and immediately hides under the bed. He absolutely hates traveling and is darn good at reading the signs. I get on my knees, cheek to carpet, and try to convince him he isn't coming on this trip and has nothing to fear. But it's no good. He remains an arm length away so I can't pet him goodbye.

We gather our pre-packed bags and wait in the dark at the curb for our Uber driver. He arrives quickly and is eager to help load our luggage. He makes small talk with an accent I can't place and we are soon on our way.

As we approach the airport the driver asks what terminal?

Well, both, actually, the Asset responds. Drop me at terminal one, and her at terminal two.

Two different terminals, this is a first for me, the driver states with some wonder.

For us, too, I mutter from the back seat.

The Asset hops out at his terminal and Uber Driver continues on with me.  I can just go straight? he keeps asking, gesturing with his right hand.

Yes, I keep replying until I finally just say you can drop me here. He keeps asking  are you sure?? and I keep answering yes until the car slows to a stop. He pulls my luggage out of the trunk, I thank him and I'm off. Why is it adventures so often begin in the dark of night when I am tired?

There are other firsts for me on this trip. This is the first time I have a laptop of my own that needs to go in a separate tray at security. (I figure this out by watching the woman ahead of me.) It is the first time I had my tummy patted down because I wasn't completely alert yet and picked the line with the radiation chamber and a yellow box appeared on my belly on the scan. It was just a little tummy rub, done by a female officer. Piece of cake compared with the full pat down/wand scan I was subjected to on another trip.

And (drum roll) I now have a smart phone. I grin as I show my boarding pass to the gate attendant by simply holding it up. Yup. I'm cool.

I wait at the gate until it comes time to board. I whip out my iphone, but I can't find my boarding pass. I search and search and it's just not there. So I get in line and when I get to the gate I practically whisper I can't find my boarding pass in here (holding up my phone) but it was just there a little while ago...

What is your name? he calmly asks. Thankfully I can remember my name and he finds me on his monitor and all is well.  I mouth thank you! to him and board for the short leg of my journey, to the City of Angels.

I find my seat. We take off. And in a few short minutes we slip up to heaven. All of my harried-ness evaporates and I just can't turn my eyes away from the window. Above me, a fleet of cumulous clouds float gently, tall silver and alabaster ships sailing towards an unseen harbor. Below lies a thick, white blanket of soft, clean quilt batting, giving the illusion that the world below still sleeps. 

And there, poised on tiptoe so their heads can rise above the shroud, stand the San Gabriel peaks, the mountains of my childhood, modestly draped in snow-white lace mantillas. All this beauty. So few eyes privileged to witness it. I feel blessed to be one.  It becomes mesmerizing, and I am wistfull as we descend through the batting to land below.

While I wait at the gate at LAX, I manage to find my boarding pass - in the trash (how did that happen?) on my iphone. I simply leave it there, worried I might send it somewhere in the ether before I need it once more. When it is finally time to board, I do so with the calm demeanor of one who knows exactly how to manage her new electronic device.

I find my seat, heave my carryon into the bin above and slide my backpack under the seat ahead of me. The Asset booked me a window seat in Economy Plus and I smile. My knees don't touch the seat in front of me.

The plane is not full and the flight attendant offers upgrades for people in the back, for a price of course. The man sitting in the aisle seat and I simultaneously try to cover the empty seat between us. We smile like conspirators when no one claims it and we begin taxiing to the runway.

So we're out on the taxiway when suddenly the plane stops. We wait, and finally the pilate announces that someone in the tower noticed that the panel to one of our engines is hanging open and we have to wait to have it checked. We wait, and wait...

A service truck drives over. What's happening? my seatmate asks.

There's a guy coming over...it looks like he has a screwdriver in his hand, I say as the man disappears behind the giant engine below my window.

Again we wait. Another truck pulls up, another man walks over.

Suddenly a panel covering a third of the giant engine slides open, revealing all these monkeys running on treadmills inside!

Okay, I couldn't resist. No monkeys. Pretty soon the panel closes and the pilot says we're good to go. Next stop, Maui.