Matty

It's October again and I can't believe how quickly the last year has passed. This time last October my familiy surrounded my son Matthew as he lived his last few days. He had been sick for a long time and we knew he was on his way to a better place, but we didn't know how to live without him.

A year later, I'm still not sure. Matt's life was complicated and challenging and he was often a large pain in the ass, but that was never his intention. The thing about Matt was that he was always so sure of himself and his place in the world. When he was a little child he liked to visit with elderly neighbors. He explained he needed to go see them because, "They'll be so glad to see me." He was right. They were glad to see him.

When he was seven and eight and nine he was sure he would play for the Mariners some day. He didn't notice the ever widening gap between what he could do physically and what his classmates and peers could accomplish. The gap grew even wider when he started having strokes in his early twenties. His balance was bad and he couln't see very well but his confidence didn't waver.

For me, Matt was a lesson in the eternal presence of love. He loved me with the devotion of a three year old. I was his mom and that was enough. I wasn't even close to a perfect mom. I'm not that patient, or kind or self sacrificing, but Matt loved me in a most childish and perfect way. No judgement. No stipulations.

Yup. I was privleged to know the love of my imperfect son. I won't forget. It's still with me. I love you too, Matt.

It's Not A Diet

That's what they all say. It's not a diet. It's a change in lifestyle. This time I'm trying the Southbeach Diet and I'm doing well with it. I really want bread with my peanut butter but I feel so good without the bread that I'm willing to keep eating the veggies.

For the last ten years I've gradually gained weight. A lot of weight. I've gained more since my son died last year. I'm out of control. I'm embarassed to go out in public with my husband. He's a really nice looking man, young for his age, and he's lost a few pounds in the last couple of months.

I never planned on being a fat girl. I was always the smallest person in school, at camp, at college, in my family. I liked being small. I liked having small feet and a small waist. It's how I saw myself. I was fairly athletic too. I'm prett coordinated and flexible but you'd never know it now. It's all covered up by sixty pounds of extra me.

My daughter is getting married next summer and I'd really like to look nice at her wedding so let the games begin. I want my kids and grandkids to be proud of me, not embarassed because I'm bulging. Bring on the vegies.

Rachael's Birthday

My oldest grandaughter has been on my mind all day today. Maybe it's because she is turning twelve on Monday. She's a beautiful, smart and absolutely pleasing girl. I keep thinking of the day she was born, a day that held several revelations for me. One was about her mom. Before Rachael was born I didn't realize what a generous and trusting person her mom was.

There she was after just giving birth, looking lovely and not nervous at all about being a first time mom. Some new moms are afraid to let everyone hold thier new infants but Rachael's mom seemed comfortable letting us each have a turn.

We watched as the nurse tended to the baby, each one of us wanting to grab her but I had the inside track. The nurse was an old friend of mine and she wrapped Rachael up tight and handed her to me. I looked at that tiny little face and knew there had never been a more lovely child.

I wasn't an official family member then. I was Rachael's grandpa's long time girlfriend. But Rachael changed that. Loving Rachael made me a family member. Her parents probably never knew how much it meant to me the next Christmas when they gave an ornament that read "to Grandma Cathy. I love you. Rachael."

We have eleven grandkids now and they are all beautiful and smart and full of life and they all call me Grandma, except for Jack who is two and a half and calls me Gaga. I have to admit that most of them like Grandpa best but since I like him best too I can understand.

Happy Birthday, Rachael. I still think you are lovely and I'm so proud of you.

Gratitude Journal

Since I opened my bookstore I haven't been able to watch Oprah in the afternoons. I've admired Oprah for a long time but there are times when she has really annoyed me. One of those annoyances came from my perception that if a mother and daughter were in conflict on her show, Oprah always takes the side of the daughter regaradless of the situation. She's been a duaghter but she's never lost a fortnight's sleep over a child's illness or a daughter leaving home and moving across the country. When everyone else was cheering and congratulating Oprah for her tough interview with James Frey, I thought she seemed self righteous and condesending.

All of that aside I am thankful to Oprah for introducing me to the concept of the gratitude journal. It was pretty easy to find things to be grateful for because my life has been blessed by my children, my husband's children and all those grandkids. Gratitude has it all over music when it comes to soothing the savage beast. Even in the darkest hours I can conjure up reasons to be grateful.

At Oprah's urging I started writing down a few things I was thankful for every day and eventually a pattern emerged. I would write down things like the how beautiful the river was that morning on my drive to Longview or how warm my dog is when he's cuddled up next to me while I read or watch TV. I'd list good health, good weather, good conversation, my ability to observe and write. You get the picture. It's so easy.

Eventually I realized that there was one entry that I wrote every day. Sometimes twice a day. I am grateful for my husband. Every day I am grateful that my partner is such a gentle, funny, generous, intelligent man. I get to spend my life with the man whose face I'm always glad to see. I don't even care that the grandkids seem to like him best. I like him best too.

I knew I loved him and he loved me but I didn't realize how importand he was in my life until his name popped up every day for a year in my journal.

So thanks Oprah for a fine idea. And thank God for all of his blessings, especially the one I married.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

One of my favorite poems is "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats. It's a brilliant piece wirtten at a time of conflict and despair. I like the poem because I can read it and know that every generation at some time or another feels like things couldn't get worse. It gives me confort when I'm thinking the same thing.

The first stanza contains the most quoted lines:
The best lack all conviction while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Ain't it the truth? Our leaders have led us into an impossible war with all of the passionate intensity and conviction imaginable. They didn't listen to advisors who said it was a bad idea. There was no plan for management or withdrawl. I am as astonished at this foolishness as I was when Nixon was elected President. How could this happen? We may have been misunderstood by the rest of the world in the past. But now I think they understand all too well. We've become the aggressor without a plan.

The other night Bill Maher suggested we should give Iraq back to Saadam Hussein. He's a bad guy but he had knowledge we didn't. He held his country together by fear. Not an admirable method, but an effective one. Maher was kidding, of course, but he had a point.

I have eleven grandchildren. The oldest is almost twelve. She doesn't deserve to inherit a world at war. She deserves leaders with a little less conviction and a lot more reason. Those eleven beautiful children deserve a promising futrure in a country where they can grow and thrive and give the best to their children and grandchildren.

The answer is not to despair but to pay attention. Get involved. Stir things up a little. Write your representatives. Believe me, all of this goes against my peacemaking nature. I've never carried a sign in protest and I've avoided conflict my entire life but I can't be quiet about theis insantiy any longer.

The last part of my plan is to pray. You don't have to join the 700 Club or procalim your faith to strangers. Just take a few quiet momnents to contemplate q peaceful world and pray for your vision to come to fruition. It can't hurt.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of god."

Betty, Coretta, My Daughters and Me

To say that I admire the women of my mother's generation is an understatement. They were the girls born in the twenties, raised during the Depression, worked in factories during World War II, and raised families for the next twenty years. From my point of view as a child, they were competent and mostly happy but appearances are deceiving.

My mom was widowed when she was thirty. In 1954 it wasn't the norm to raise children alone. She was the only mom on our block who worked outside the home. She worked every day and never saw me making a fool out of myself as a cheerleader. Neither did she attend school programs held in the afternoon. She was happiest baking on Saturday and going to her parents' home on Sundays for dinner and conversation with her mother. There was no family leave, no job sharing, no equal work for equal pay.

I'm reminded this week of the courage of women who were of Mom's generation. Betty Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique" in the late fifties and became the hero of several generations of young women seeking their own potential. She spoke of her own mother's unhappiness and lack of choices as inspiration for her work. Friedan died last week but her spirit carries on.

I caught a snippet of a talk Oprah Winfrey gave last week about Coretta Scott King. She closed by describing Mrs. King's efforts to make the world a better place for Afircan American women than the one her own mother faced. I was surprised by how those words touched me. Mrs. King personified dignity, as far as I'm concerned. Her example as a wonam of courage and tenacity will live on as well.

The mother-daughter relationship is profound and complicated. Hopefully, we are inspired by our mothers, whether we aspire to be like them or to be nothing like them. I ache for my mother's sad life but I'm powerless to change it. I can only make choices in my life, aspire to dignity and honesty and meaning.

I'm a daughter, a mother to two daugters, and a grandmother to a baby girl. My daughters are college graduates and support themselves. I'm so proud of them that tears are coming as I write. I fully expect them to make lives for themselves even though I've never supported myself or lived alone in my life. Okay, I'm a hypocrite but my trust in them is well placed. I have the advantage of knowing their great-grandmothers who were strong and loving women.

I celebrate five generations of women. It's an honor to be the link between those who came before and those who were born to me and my children.

Small Town Living

I live in a small town on the Columbia River west of I-5. You might say we live off the beaten path. Most of the time living off the path is just fine with me but it has its disadvantages.

The hiway between our town and civilization east of here is the most beautiful drive you can imagine. For several miles the drive is right along one of the most spectacular rivers in the world. The hiway is between the river and high cliffs to the north. The drive, though beautiful, is often treacherous. Rain soaked cliffs release rocks onto the road and deer and elk often cross the road at night.

Over the weekend several large rock slides closed the road to Longview and the estimated time to fix the road is uncertain. The only way to drive east of here is to take the Puget Island Ferry or to drive to Astoria and cross the bridge at Megler. A forty-five minute drive has become a half-day experience either waiting two to three hours for the ferry or adding an extra three hours a day for the drive around to the Oregon side of the river.

People in my town are amazing. They have found creative methods to accomplish the commute. My stepson and stepdaughter are leaving their cars on either side of the river, walking onto the ferry and using each other's cars on the other side. The county commissioners have established a shuttle service from Cathlamet to the ferry and bus service to Longview several times a day on the other side of the river.

The most amazing thing is that I've heard very little complaining. Poeple are extrordinarily inconvenienced, yet they continue to get to work with little grumbling. We may have been able to put this into perspective because a woman from Kalama was killed by a falling tree last Saturday on her way to Cathlamet for a basketball tournament. What's a little inconvenience compared to her family's shock and sadness?

Still, I have to pay homage to my freinds and neighbors who have risen to the occasion, to the Sheriff's office for thier professional and effective service, to the delivery people who have added hours to their day to deliver food, drugs and other vital products, and to each person who has tried to make the best of the situation.

Sometimes I Just Can't Help It

The other day my favorite blogger over at Hickopolis.com wrote about an article in a Seattle paper bemoaning the ignorance of store clerks and young celebrities who think Chicken of the Sea might just be chicken. Can chickens swim?

I wanted to chastise the writer for feeilng so superior in her intelligence and sophistication but I had an experience this morning that changed my point of view.

Some are born to smuggness, some achieve smugness and some have smugness thrust upon the. (Excuse Mr. Bard)Today smugness was thrust upon me. I tried to duck but it landed squarely and I wasn't quick enough or nice enough to cast it off right away.

As I was sitting at my computer desk in my bookstore, something moved behind me. It wasn't tall enough to be an adult. I looked around a just caught a glimpse of a white tail as it left my shop and went into the hall. I coulnd't resist. I really love dogs and I was pretty sure I had just missed a visit from one whom I hadn't formally met. I walked out the door and went into the visitor's center next door and sure enough,the dog and two men were talking to my neighbor.

The dog came right over to me and his owner said he was a "Dalpit." Then he explained that the dog was half pit bull and half dalmation. I was wondering who in his right mind would breed the reputidly meanest dog with the most energetic dog. A mean dog with tremendous energy and stuborness. Whoa!

To be fair, the dog was friendly and wasn't tearing anyting up. I was ready to go back to work when the owner told me proudly the dog is four years old.

"Born on Elvis'birthday." It was obviously a proud moment for him.

I said he must have just had a birthday.

"No, August 27. Elvis' birthday."

I said I thought Elvis was born in January wondering to myself how I know that Elvis was born in January. Yup, I thought, he's a Capricorn just like my hubby.

"August 27, Born on the King's birthday."

They turned to leave and I said good-bye to the cute pooch.

A google search confirmed January 8 as The King's birthday and now I'm feeing smug. I wonder if some dememted dog breeder (Dalpit?) just told the man who may or may not have been wearing a t-shirt with a replica of a black velvet Elvis portrait on the front that said dog, maybe a Pitmation, was born on Elvis' birthday.

I hope he doesn't know how to use Google. I hope he continues to enjoy his Elvis birthday sharing pooch for a long time.

Just One More Round of "Let the Sunshine In"

I need more light, less rain, more company, less wind. We have freinds and relatives who leave thier homes for the winter. They just pack up and leave for warmer weather and blue skies. I'm starting to realize why. How many days of rain and gray skies and wind can a person take without buying a therapy light or moving into a tanning bed?

I've been reading the dialy journal entries of Lewis and Clark's men during the winter spent at Fort Clatsop on the northern Oregon coast. I don't claim to be as hungry or wet or cold or homesick as they were but I'm beginning to see why they didn't rave about the vast beauty and irrisistable quality of life here. I think their word was "uninhabitable."

I guess we were spoiled last year. January and February were amazingly sunny and pleasant. The rain finally came in the spring but by then our attitudes were way up there so we didn't complain much. We're close to breaking a record thirty-three consecutive days of rain. Is this day twenty-five or six? I don't know. My brain doesn't work without a little light.

In order to get out of this dark funk, I'm going to list a few things for which I'm grateful. Lets, see.......my dog Oliver, my kids and grandkids, my lovely husband, my home on a hill way above the flood plain, my nieghbors at work who are such nice people, my big warm bed, my good friend, my son's uneventful tour of duty in Iraq, my little town and my ability to express myself.

I wish I could be grateful for a little sunshine.

A Good Read

The last week has been really slow at my bookstore so I've had a little time to read and write. I had to pick a book to feature in an advertisement in a regional monthly newspaper. I picked Jim Lynch's "The HIghest Tide," without reading it. I noticed that several northwest booksellers recommended the book so I felt safe in the choice.

Now that I've read the book I can tell you it's a gread read; a coming of age story about a fourteen year old boy who's knowledge of the bay near his Olympia area home is extensive. His voice is young, and fresh and cynical at once. His descriptions of the tide pools and the life within are rich and enticing.

I live near the most amazing river in the west. The Columbia's history is as rich as the life within it. A life I'm almost totally ignorant of . Sure I notice the river. It changes color hourly and I'm in awe of its massive twice daily tidal comings and goings. I notice when sea lions and seals poke thier heads out of the water and I'm frightened when the river runs high and is full of debris from tributary flooding. The drive between Cathlamet and Longview includes long stretches of highway right along the river. But I can't say that I know the river well.

Lynch's book has brought me up short. He's made me aware of my own ignorance and my unconscous willingness to take my surroundings for granted. It that's what he intended he is successful. If not, his book is worth reading anyway. His characters are familiar enough to be my neighbors and endearing enough to make me care about them.

I've never been a fourteen year old boy but I can identify with Miles O'Malley. If you haven't read The Highest Tide I recommend you pick up a copy, read it and loan it to your favorite reading friends. It's worthwhile.

Neil Diamond: Not Just For Fat Old People Anymore

One of my favorite Christmas presents was the new Neil Diamond CD from one of my daughters. I've been a fan of Neil's (I've been to enough concerts to call him by his first name) since his first album came out when I was in high school. Back then he seemed soulful and a bit mysterious, like the nice looking bad boy who's parents owned a music store down the street.

Neil saw me through some long days when I was at home alone in a strange new town with my first baby. My husband worked long hours and I listened to Holly Holy over and over for a couple of months while we saved up for that first black and whilte tv set.

The Johnathan Livingston Seagull alblum contains some of my favorite music. The movie was pretty awful but the words and music on that album did just as the composer intended; It made me feel like I was soaring. I loved the African rhythms on Tap Root Manuscript and the lovely "Ladio" on the Beautiful Noise album

I took exception when Neil, whom I knew to be Jewish, recorded a Christmas album in the nineties. It seemed a slightly desperate attempt to keep his career alive, and let's face it folks, the man ain't no Johnny Mathis.

His new album, Twelve Songs, is his best in a long time. It's just Neil and an acousitc guitar. Twelve songs that coulnd't have been written by someone in his twenties. Songs of Experience. (Forgive me Mr. Blake) I like "Hell, yea" and "I'm onto you," best but there's not a klunker on the CD.

Who would have thought back in 1966 that the young guy from New York would still be turning out great music forty years later?