Earth Day 2011
“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” – Rachel Carson
YouTube Video via Greenpeace
It’s been a year since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Who better than Jimmy Buffett to remind us that a lot of lives (human and otherwise) are still being impacted. From his 2010 Gulf Coast Benefit concert:
“It was bound to happen, where greed and crude appear….” – Jimmy Buffett
It’s still impossible for me to imagine the level of corporate disconnectedness responsible for the perfect public relations storm earlier this month when Transocean (the Deepwater Horizon part of BP) awarded a number of corporate executives huge bonuses based on 2010′s “safety statistics.” In reaction to the resultant PR nightmare, the executives subsequently donated (some of) the bonus proceeds to the families of the 11 workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Nice gesture. Too late. Business as usual.
We watched an excellent, well-balanced and beautifully photographed biography of naturalist John Muir on PBS last night (their American Masters series). Watch for it if it’s rebroadcast by your local PBS affiliate. The parallels are obvious between this historical perspective and what’s going on in Federal ”budget talks” right now. Given the GOP’s reactionary environmental platform, I guess it shouldn’t be any surprise they’re fighting so hard to disempower the Environmental Protection Agency and defund PBS.
“It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods, — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ’s time — and long before that — God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods, but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.” – John Muir
A Blessing For Absence
May you know that absence is full of tender presence
and that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which holds
the presences that have left your life.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore of your grief turn into a well of seamless presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear
from and may you have the courage to speak out for the
excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight
are one and may your longing inhabit its deepest dreams
within the shelter of the Great Belonging.
-John O’Donohue
Eternal Echoes
via Whiskey River
Saturday, when we returned from several days away, it was clearly apparent that both cats were extremely ill. Dart had a palpable lump on his hip and an obvious wound on one paw. Both cats were extemely lethargic and not eating. A short walk with Dodge demonstrated weakness in her hind quarters, she was unable to jump up to her normal perches. Both cats slept and hid under the beds emerging from their dens only long enough to drink water and whine plaintiffly at me. Dodge, in particular, has never been a very vocal cat.
Although, Dart had some symptoms of lethargy before we left, Dodge had barely started demonstrating a low appetite. She’d been out hunting in the sunshine and seemed fine. I thought perhaps she’d eaten a mouse that was moving through her system slowly. Dart had been lethargic (for him), but he was jumping up on the bed with ease and showed no points of pain. His robust purr was in good working order whenever I handled him. I noted the lump and decided I’d take him to the vet when we returned. Neither cat seemed critical enough to warrant a pre-trip vet visit. Their feral natures have always made vet visits very stressful.
Fortunately, Pet Emergency Center in Mount Vernon, Washington, is open 24/7 including Sundays. So adding insult to the cat’s miseries, I got them into carriers and off we went. I knew matters were serious just by how little they fought being placed in the carriers.
Blood work demonstratead immediately that Dodge was in advanced renal failure. Dr. Jane Reynolds was frank. “If this were my cat, I wouldn’t treat. The values are extreme. In attempting to get the blood test, it was apparent that her veins are breaking down.” Euthanasia was the only option. I spent quite a few minutes with Dodge, soothing her and holding her. It was obvious she was ready. She passed very peacefully with her head in my hands. We’ll never know for sure why she declined so rapidly at the age of 13. When you allow your cats the freedom of the great outdoors, there are always risks of exposure to many unknowns – some of them toxic.
Dart could not be effectively examined without sedation. The presumption was that the lump was an abscess. His white count was extremely high. Dr. Reynolds suggested we go home and she would call post-surgically. Unfortunately, the surgery demonstrated the lump was the tip of an extremely large tumor. With Dart’s white count as high as it was, Dr. Reynolds doubted if he would survive the invasive surgery that would have been necessary to remove the tumor. Unfortunately, we had no opportunity to say goodbye. There was no point it bringing him out of anesthetic before euthanizing him as well. I always worried about Dart’s love of traversing the railroad ties that support our ivy. Even though most of the creosote was weathered off the tops, I can’t help but wonder if exposure to those toxins played a role in the development of the tumor. We won’t get more cats until we have an opportunity to replace the ties. Cats are notorious for going where they want to go, not where you want them to go.
There are now two piles of rocks under a large cedar which I can see out the kitchen window. My wonderful friends now lie in repose where they once frolicked and lived life fully. My heart is broken, but I’m doing okay. Part of pet ownership always includes taking the responsibility of not allowing them to suffer. Losing both in one day is almost too much for the emotions to grasp. The house is quiet. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday, clearing cat dishes, bedding, toys and other reminders from the house. It’ll be some time before we’re ready to start again. In the meantime, it seems easiest to not be looking at the memories daily.
I am not religious but I have strong non-religious spiritual beliefs. Loss gets no easier, but my confidence in some variety of continuity grows stronger with each passing year. There may be no guarantees about what happens after death, but certainly suffering is relieved and profound love continues to comfort those of us who must grieve. I like to think death is the beginning of new adventures, I have strong confidence in the benevolence of that grand and final uncertainty.
Dart
Goodbye, my freinds. Thank you for enriching my life. May your new adventures bring you as much joy as you brought to me during our brief time together.
Dodge
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!” CANON HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND (1847-1918)
quotation via The Solitary Walker
Dad was named after St. Patrick and he was proud of his Irishness though he was just as much English and Scottish 
and above all American. He made it to Ireland briefly during World War II, though he spent most of his three overseas years in England. Had it not been for the war, he may never have met his grandfather.
Dad’s birthday was March 18, so St. Patrick’s Day just started the celebration in my childhood home. My parents were not big drinkers, but a little Irishness and the “wearin’ o’ the green” seemed to get the laughter rolling without a lot of alcohol. Shared laughter as a vital part of family love is one of the greatest gifts my parents gave me.
Dad was also a firefighter. The bagpipes at his funeral were as much for his profession as for his Irishness. The American tradition of bagpipes at funerals for police officers and firefighters stems from the our “potato famine” Irish immigration days, when many Irish immigrants could find no other work than the most dangerous professions. For awhile in the United States, being a firefighter became synonymous with being Irish. The bagpipe tradition has endured.
Interestingly, my father also chose the firefighter’s life for economic reasons. His family had a tough time during the Great Depression. He left school at the age of 14 to help support his family. After the war, Dad’s firefighter-brother-in-law sold him on firefighting as a “depression proof” career.
I was named after my father, so indirectly I too was named after St. Patrick. Until college, I was actually called Pat at school and Trish only at home. In high school (in those long lost days of only one land-line phone per household), boys would call up and ask for Pat; and (much to their terror) the next voice they heard was that of my father.
With the start of college, I chose Trish for both public and private venues and ultimately legally changed my name from Patricia to Trish for consistency’s sake. I sometimes wonder if I’d have become a whole other person had my parents chosen “Patty” as the at-home nickname. Either way, it is a testament to the loving family environment my parents provided that, even in those break-away teenage years, I chose to become who I was in their home over who I was among my school friends.
Thank you Dad. You’ll always be the true St. Patrick in my life.
Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, it is a truism that our loved ones watch over us after they’re gone - at the very least poetically; and in our memories, most certainly psychologically. It is from them that we learn to love and learn to laugh - core skills of personal resilience. Love and laughter endure far beyond the death of any or all of the beloved.
We only have about 16 inches of snow and we could get out with the truck if necessary – the driveway slopes downhill to the gate. Getting back in – at least getting all the way back uphill to the house - becomes problematic if we don’t plow the driveway. In 2008′s big snow, we learned that plowing the driveway with our tractor is arduous (no angled blade) and leaves a big mess after the thaw as a certain amount of gravel winds up displaced with the snow.
Griz’s tender back is in highly tender phase right now and the weather guys are promising warming by Sunday, so we’ve chosen to leave ourselves snowed in. It’s an easy decision for us - a full pantry and freezer, a warm stove, lots of gas for the generator if needed, and assorted other little self-sufficiencies are a natural part of our lifestyle. Plus – there’s nowhere else that we absolutely have to be.
We usually ship Tools-n-Gizmos orders the same day they arrive, but we posted an online notice indicating we won’t ship until Monday this time. Most of our regular customers know we’re not a big operation. They appreciate the personal attention they usually get and are thus very forgiving about the occasional glitch. There’s great value in not pretending to be something you’re not.
In the quiet whiteness, I’m again thankful for the lifestyle we’ve arranged for ourselves. Solitude isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – many can’t arrange it, even if they want it. But for us - choosing solitude when we want or need it is an easy and extraordinarily valuable option.
I’ve posted more of this year’s snow pics on Flickr.
“You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence.
But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive.”
- Wendell Berry
via Whiskey River
I did a post awhile back about not getting stuck with the music of our youth and I still consider it important to regularly sample contemporary music and add what we like to our playlists. But some music of our youths is too imporant to let go. Over time, specific music becomes our life’s soundtrack. Memories of the time resurface with each listening.
All great romances should have “a song” which lingers from the courtship days. For Griz and me, it’s Sheena Easton’s “For Your Eyes Only” – perfect for its lyrics, enhanced by the fact that it was the title song of a James Bond film complete with sexy opening-title visuals. And although Roger Moore wasn’t my favorite James Bond [Connery & Craig], for us sailors, this film’s pre-digitial underwater photography was well worth the price of admission.
Griz and I have been together for more than 30 years. Today is our 29th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary, Griz:
Another Sheena Easton song that came out during the same time period resonated with me and remains one of my favorites:
Sigh. Pretty close – though Griz nearly always ”sticks to his guns.” “Abandoning the fight” has never been a comfortable option for him, but he has mellowed over the years. And I hope he realizes how much I appreciate the many concessions he’s made on my behalf. One of the things we have in common – neither of us is particularly easy to live with. Fortunately, with benefit of time, romance is augmented by the symbiotic gestalt of mutual admiration and respect, not to mention just plain old getting used to one another. Griz and I disagree from time to time, but we very rarely fight.
Recent research indicates happy, long-term marriages most often contain an “expansive” element. Rather than the old paradigm of “two people becoming one” (and ultimately more alike) - each member of the couple feels his individuality is expanded by the presence of the other. It’s 1 + 1 = 3 (2 healthy individuals plus 1 relationship). That fits. It’s a great partnership model and a very comfortable place to be.
