Choosing

Last year about this time, I wrote a post entitled "Frost and Frost" -- a reflection following a walk in icy frostiness, about my choices and the life I'm leading here at the Allison.

This last week has provided me ample opportunity to review the choice to live at this remote ranch: icy roads this time have increased my daily commute substantially, giving me time to think about why I am choosing to live 40 miles from town and work. As my normal 45-minute drive has nearly doubled this week, my subconscious mind has chewed over the five-year-old decision to make my life and home on the ranch, and the implications of that decision.

I am not a cowgirl, so living on a ranch does not have the typical perks that attract my neighbors: I don't need the extra pasture for my barrel-racing horses, don't relish the thought of feeding cows and pulling calves for a livelihood. To borrow a phrase from my friend, writer Pat Frolander, I'm "married into it" -- married into this lifestyle, this home, this place. If my husband wasn't a ranch manager, I would not be living on a ranch; it's that simple. I don't have the skills to hold a ranch job on my own; therefore, the provided house wouldn't be something I could attain. My own mother still lives on the farm where I grew up, and my brother is slowly buying that from her -- so the prospect of returning to my childhood country home doesn't exist for me. And financially, I could no more manage to purchase a ranch than I could feed all the hungry children in South America.

Being married into it, however, doesn't limit me the way it might have limited a woman of an earlier generation. I work hard to free myself from preconcieved notions of what I should be as a ranch wife, as the woman who now lives on this place. It's been an uphill battle to convince some people -- most especially myself --- that this ranch is big enough to accomodate all different types of ranch women.  I don't have to fit into a box. 

Having that freedom has allowed me to really think about the daily choice I make to live here. I live on this isolated ranch, this place so long neglected and forlorn, because:
* The silence I experience on my morning walks envelopes me, making the rest of the world seem like it exists in a parallel galaxy. A cold winter morning, with little traffic on the highway and little sign of another human,  reveals a peace and perfection that no human creation can mimic.
* My closest companions on my "ranch" days are dogs, cats and occasionally horses -- and none of them demands anything more from me than a caress and some food.
* My children are safe here. Sure, there exist a multitude of dangers on a ranch; but they are safe in another sense. My children are safe here from the materialistic, media-inundated, me-centered lifestyle that so many other children succumb to.  They understand that they are part of something here that is greater than they are, and that their part in the whole is, paradoxically, both insignificant and important. They may be just feeding a cat; BUT, they are feeding a cat.
* My powers of observation sharpen here. I see birds I'm learning to identify; weeds I'm working to eradicate; land formations I'm hoping to memorize.
* This lifestyle forces me to develop the qualities I most need to work on : resourcefulness, creativity, patience and gratitude.
* My morning and evening commutes have become times to pray, to listen, to learn: I have, on a daily basis, nearly two private hours for enlightenment.
* The work my husband does here is important; he is feeding the world. Despite the incovenience of our distance from town and the incessant work that ranching requires, there is a pride to be part of this place that supplants the discomforts of it.

Probably there are many more reasons I choose to live here, but today, on this windy, brilliant January day, those are the ones that touch my spirit. On another day, there will be other reasons.  That's how it is with choice: while you think you make them only one time, the important ones are ones you make over and over, every day.

Solstice

This week is the winter solstice - a time to mark the returning of the light, the lengthening of the days and the shortening of the nights. But you wouldn't think that to look outside; it is 3:45 p.m. and the afternoon light fades by the minute, giving way to that winter dusk-light that blends the earth and sky into one band of white. Still, we trust that after today's shortest period of light, we will have more sun and less darkness from here until mid-summer. Sometimes what you can see with your eyes is not the only truth.

That's an important lesson for me to remember at this time of the year. I am in the last week of holiday preparations, worrying about which gifts haven't arrived, about how lean the budget looks, about how to maintain family peace when difficult relatives visit this weekend, about how to balance my work and family obligations with the added expectations of Christmas. Any woman who "does" Christmas at her house knows the tune I sing; her verses might differ from mine, but we can all chime in on the chorus. This time of year raises more stress and guilt among women than any other that I'm aware of.  But, the do-it-all-with-good-cheer stress does not have to be our only reality. Behind the busyness and the anxiety lies the true reason we fret: we love our families and dearly want to bring them joy this season. The packages we wrap and hide are but symbols of the gifts we are really trying to give: love, joy, peace, and wonder. This can be our Reality if we let it.

There is another truth behind this season, another invisibilty that merits remembering. Many of us mourn loved ones who are no longer with us; this time of year can be particularly hard if it is the first Christmas without someone we miss.  I personally know three people who have lost parents this year, and tomorrow my daughter and husband will attend a memorial service for a high-school boy who died ten days ago. To experience such sorrow in the midst of twinkiling lights and merry carolers is to experience a true disconnect from reality. Believing that the spirits of the people we have lost are still with us -- that the Incarnation we are celebrating truly means that death no longer can separate us from one another -- requires such a leap of faith.  It requires us to have the same belief in a world we cannot see as we have in the solstice and the return of light. We must believe that the truth we see with our eyes is not the only truth.

Of course I know the history about why the early Church decided on this time of year to commemorate the birth of Christ. Of course I know that no actual birth record exists, that Jesus could have easily been born in April or August, not December. Of course I realize that the holy-day that I'm preparing to celebrate was scheduled largely to coincide with the pagan celebration of the solstice, to maintain the familiarity and importance of a mid-winter holiday for early Christian converts.

But I don't care. That the first Christmas is celebrated at this time of the year rings right and true to me, even though I know intellectually that it could be celebrated at any time. That we first notice the returning of the light in the natural world, and then, just a few days later, celebrate the return of spiritual light into our own darkened lives seems the perfect blending of nature and humanity, a blending that, like mid-winter dusk, blurs the boundaries between our visible reality, and our Reality.

Counter-Cultural

Early this Sunday morning, after mixing some batter for quick bread and sorting through the last week's stack of mail and school papers, I ventured down into the basement to retrieve our Advent wreath. Today marks the first Sunday of Advent, a period -- not of 25 days -- but of four weeks before Christmas, a time intended to be set aside for reflection and good works. My intentions were to take out the entire box of Advent decorations; each season, the first things I put up are our Nativity set and collection of angel statues. But as I first walked through the rooms of the Allison, still decorated for Thanksgiving, I couldn't quite make myself take down all the pumpkins and turkeys to segue into the Christmas season -- yet.

I realize how counter-cultural I am in this; many of my friends have already said goodbye to autumn and hello to the season of wreaths and tinsel, gift-buying and carol-singing. And as much as I love that season, I'm not ready to enter into it. I spent Black Friday - a day of frenzied shopping -- here at the ranch, taking pictures of some horses we have for sale and mixing up a batch of my grandma's monkey-face cookies, because I hadn't had a chance all fall to taste them. Yesterday, I did travel into town to do some shopping, but it was a lovely, leisurely afternoon: I dropped my kids off at the salon for haircuts in preparation for Christmas programs and concerts, then walked through the downtown, buying just three gifts at our local toy store, and two kuchen from a food shop specializing in authentic German cuisine.  The toys are for our three youngest; the kuchen are for me, for my birthday supper this evening.

Perhaps it is because my birthday falls at the end of November that I am reluctant every year to let go of the season of the harvest. Throughout my life, harvest has symbolized fullness, abundance, completion; these are the spiritual gifts I want to reflect on as I turn another year older. It is more than that, however: before I begin buying and decorating, feeling that there is never enough time or money, I want to spend one last weekend remembering that, in the words of author Sarah Ban Breathnach, "all we have is all we need." Truthfully, despite some great deals on Black Friday, my kids don't need another thing. Neither do I.  What I do need, and really want, is a sense of purpose and gratitude, a realization that my life is so full that I am one of the luckiest women in the world.

Being counter-cultural comes fairly natural to me: at nearly 41, I don't own a home, don't have an impressive investment portfolio (though I do have investments and savings -- I'm not that naive). I have six kids; that fact alone marks me as unusual in a world where raising more than three children seems a badge of honor, or insanity, depending on who you talk to. I live in a renovated 100-year-old house where strange noises and creaks still wake me up at night, and where I have to be careful about how many showers are taken in a row, or how many appliances are plugged into the upstairs outlets. I spend my free time -- when I have it -- tromping through the pastures with my dogs or trying to capture profundity here at the computer. My husband isn't the "Marlboro Man"; he is a simple cowboy who smells like horses and diesel fuel, and who doesn't own a suit.

My life, however, feels so right to me.  I struggle sometimes, trying to keep current professionally and socially, while still living on a ranch that hasn't changed much in 100 years. Since I started this blog, I've acquired a Facebook page and a Google reader account. I carry a cell phone, use the computer the way my husband uses a lariat, and travel to conferences and meetings where I am considered a valued colleague. My children are active in the local schools, and I spend many, many hours behind the wheel of my car, traveling to work, basketball games and concerts. In many ways, my life is not that different from that of an woman in any city, striving to work and raise a family the best way she can.

But this morning on my tromp with the dogs, a bald eagle watched me from the nude branches of a cottonwood tree by the river. The hired man's pup sniffed at a carcass of a deer, drug up from the river bank by coyotes, picked clean by that same eagle, no doubt. That eagle, that carcass, those coyotes -- they could have been here 100 years ago, could have been here long before humans parceled off this place, named it the Allison, and began to raise cattle and sheep. This morning, away from phones and computers, down by the river, I could have been a true pioneer woman, a Native woman, any woman. Allison reminds me nearly every day that despite my rushing and trying to stay connected to a world that just goes faster and faster, my true connections are here, to the land, the animals, and the people I share this place with. These are the connections that color my world this Thanksgiving weekend.

And so, I returned from the basement with only the Advent wreath. For now, its purple and pink candles nestle incongruously with the orange and russet decorations. Tonight, we'll light just one candle, reminding ourselves that, although salvation, and Chrismas, are on their way, they aren't here just yet. For now, pumpkin pecan bread in the oven and bald eagles in the pasture are enough to keep us satisfied; for now, our thankfulness is all we need.

Boys

Three little boys died in our state this weekend.  One only lived two weeks; the other two lived longer, but certainly not long enough by our mortal standards.  I don't know why the baby died -- have only heard about his death through a Facebook reference, and am uncertain whether it was due to a birth-related illness or to prematurity.  It doesn't matter. My Cody arrived prematurely; I have been in that spot where every breath becomes a prayer for that tiny child's survival.  I cannot imagine the crushing despair when that prayer is not answered.  Does that baby's mother still have the strength to believe in God?  I don't know if I would. 

The other two deaths were the results of accidents.  In other words, a simple moment -- a terrible, reversible, simple moment -- stole these two boys from their families.  These are the deaths that will keep me awake tonight.  These are the deaths that chill me, even though I faced Cody's death daily when he was born nine years ago.  It is one thing to anticipate a death, even when your soul cries out against it. It is another thing to assume your child is safe and healthy, only to have death snatch him from you in the time it takes to turn your head.

Cody is nine now; at one time in his life, he could have been that baby.  Now, he could have been either of those two older boys. One died in a freak ranching accident -- the kind of thing that is so rare, one doesn't even think about taking precautions against it.  The other died in a dangerous experiment, unattended.  He was 12 -- old enough to be left alone for a while.

Again, I don't know if I would have the strength of spirit to be those parents.  From what I understand, none of them can be blamed for negligence or for allowing their child to indulge in risky behavior.  From what I understand, one family had to make the decision to turn off the life-support equipment and allow their son to die.  I barely managed to heal from this decision when my 62-year-old father's death was the result; this was a 10-year-old boy.
From what I understand, the other boy was discovered by his sister; her heart is broken, I'm sure.

Living here in the country, we are well-attuned to the risks inherent in this life.  Shawn and I take any reasonable precaution to prevent the accidents we can foresee.  Cody doesn't drive the four-wheeler or shoot a shotgun; he is allowed to play with his B.B. gun only with permission and supervision.  The horses he rides meet Shawn's high standards for reliability and safety.  I've carefully outlined the boundaries where he and his sisters can play outside, and rehearsed what to do if they encounter a snake.  There is a list of emergency telephone numbers posted by the phone, and he knows how to dial 911.  On the days I work in town, his dad makes sure to meet the bus after school and stay around the ranch yard until an older sister is home to babysit.  We use seatbelts, sunscreen, and riding helmets.  And yet . . . . in any moment, an illness can strike, an accident can happen, and every precaution we take will not be enough to save our children.

My Cody's weekend was filled with chores, homework, church, errands, and even a wonderful surprise and dinner with good friends. Tonight he attended his first 4-H meeting.  His life is full to overflowing, and he fills our lives, too.   I don't know why I have my son with me, and three other mothers are mourning theirs. There is much that I don't know.

What I do know is that life is not fair. I know that, here on the ranch or anywhere, we are just not in charge. I know that the only time I have for sure is right now. And I know that, right now, I just want to hold my Cody, to thank God for my boy . . . and to pray for the three boys who are with God right now.

September's Perfect Imperfection

The four o'clocks are blooming today, though the morning temperature barely clears 45 degrees.  In other places, other gardens, my four o'clocks bloomed in the height of summer, opening to scent the air only when evening breezes cooled the air a bit.  In that sense, I suppose it's natural for them to bloom in the chill of the early fall morning. The fuchsia and butter-yellow flowers sparkle amid a few golden cosmos, a lone russet marigold, and the dying greenery of some tiger lilies.  The flower bed, encircling an old cottonwood tree, is spotty and quite amateurish . . .and to me, beautiful all the same. Even the fact that those flowers didn't bloom until just now, a few weeks before frost, doesn't bother me.  Actually, several spots of late-season pinks, purples and golds brighten the yard as I shuffle my children off to school and load my work bag into the car.  Our summer warmed so slowly this year, and offered only about six weeks of heat and humidity; I'm grateful that I have flowers at all.

The Japanese have a philosophy -- wabi-sabi -- that celebrates the beauty of imperfection. My front yard, littered with a red wagon, some branches of fallen cottonwood leaves, and several bikes and scooters, would never merit a picture in a magazine.  The flower beds bloom haphazardly, and sometimes the blue flax threatens to take over everything.  I have roughly the same amount of grass as I have of weeds, and the entire space lacks the green uniformity of a manicured city lawn.

But as I arrive home after a long day, my eyes don't see the yellow spots, or the weeds growing along the fence:  my eyes take in the moss roses that have finally spilled over the edge of the hanging baskets, framing the front door in color. I see Emily and Katie spilling out of that front door, eager to tell me about their spelling tests and who played with who at recess.  I see Shawn circling a colt in the round pen, and the horse's smooth chocolate-bay coat shimmers in the early evening light.

September for so much of my life has been about success:  pursuing perfection in school and on my job, to the point of reaching such stress I miss the beauty of the season.  And yet, September is my favorite month, because the natural world reaches a fullness, a peak of achievement that perches for a few short weeks before the letting go, the decline into a natural death.  The achievement, like the late blooming of the four o'clocks, does not necessarily reach perfection; and yet, it is enough.

I'm questioning myself professionally and personally this month, wondering if I'll ever reach that point of feeling worthy to celebrate my accomplishments; wondering if I'll ever feel my work is worthy to put into public.  But it seems silly to question all my efforts, to hide my foibles and flaws, when all around me the world is celebrating itself just as it is.  Those four o'clocks didn't realize that their prescribed bloom time should have been a month ago; they are showing themselves off nevertheless, for as long as they have.

Would that I could do the same.

Slow Down

This month's quote on my calendar:  "There is more to Life than increasing its speed."  -- Ghandi

I know this because I just turned the calendar today, 13 days into this month.  What have I been doing that I haven't even turned a calendar page yet?  Take your pick:  watching the kids at county fair with all their projects; battling the weeds in my garden and back yard before they go to seed and make the problem worse next year; catching up on all the little jobs at work that got pushed aside by the demands of a summer reading program; trying to get six kids ready for school to start this month, plus celebrate two of their birthdays; and attempting to do all the daily things that make a house, family and job run smoothly.

I read the calendar quote feeling this paradox of both agreeing with the wisdom of Ghandi's thought, and wondering how the hell I am supposed to slow anything down.  Lately it seems that the magazine articles, devotionals, and even novels I've been reading have been written on a dfferent planet, one on which August is simply a month to drift in the pool, sipping lemonade.  Do people really live that way?

In my community, August is simply the break between the craziness of haying and the rush of fall work.  August means fire watching, equipment repairing, hay stacking, and grain harvesting.  August brings bumper crops of zuchinni to put up, and bumper costs of school supply lists to fill. Even the creatures are busy; early this morning, as I pulled weeds from the rudebekia, a honeybee buzzed from brown-eye to brown-eye, busily gathering pollen.

So, what to do?  For despite my frustration at the impracticality of this quote, I am drawn to its truth.  There is more to life than getting it all done; there must be, because "it all" is never completely finished.  I know that if I wait until my to-do list is all checked of to relax, I will simply never relax.  For most of my life, I've simply tried harder:  made better lists, thought through the organization of my days, worked harder and more efficiently.  And all that efficiency and hard work has given me . . . more jobs to do, more obligations to fulfill, more impossible demands -- mostly self-inflicted.



This week, in my perusing of the Internet for book review site, I stumbled upon a reference to "Slow Family Online."  Its Facebook mission states that it is devoted to bringing back "lost arts" and it encourages us to "Trade frenzy for fun."  The Facebook postings are mostly referrals to events and activities that force one to slow down; after all, a blueberry buckle takes a while to bake and cool, and then to eat.  Whoever authors this site, thank you.  Such simple ideas for really finding joy in simplicity and slowness. 

And the site, the quote, the wisdom of this place, remind me that it all comes down to choice.  For 40 years, my choice has been more -- more work, more house, more activity.  Could slowing down be as simple as just choosing differently?  My choice could be "less" or "slow" or even "good enough."  

What if?  What if, every day, I did take some time to just stop for a minute?  What if, instead of jumping up from my morning coffee to reset the sprinker. I just let the sprinker run a little longer, until I finished my cup?  What if, when Shawn asks if I'd like to look at my horses, I actually walked out into the corral and stroked them, instead of looking through the gate for all of three minutes? What if, instead of getting one more load of laundry folded or one more room cleaned, I baked cookies with Katie and Emily when they ask?  What if, instead of reviewing more book catalogs, deciding more purchases, I just sat and read one of those novels for an afternoon?

Who knows?  Perhaps one day, if I choose carefully, you might even find me floating in a pool, sipping on some lemonade and living the August I dream about . . . if only for a few hours.




 

Dragonfly on the Clothesline

Part of my summer morning routine, along with watering the lawn and garden, is to hang out at least one load of laundry before I go to work.  I like to think I'm at least doing my part for the earth . . . or at least, that hanging out these loads somewhat offsets the other damages I do with my large family.  This morning, as I reach up to hang another pair of jeans,  a dragonfly lands on the line.  Events like this deserve mention:  we live far enough from the creek to not often see dragonflies, and it was still early morning, not yet the heat of the day.  Nonetheless, there it was . . making me smile and remember.

Years ago, when Maria was not yet one year old, I attended a writing retreat at the South Dakota ranch home of my friend and mentor, Linda.  While I was there, I stayed in a small, cheery room named the "Dragonfly."  Linda, ever passionate about the prairie surrounding her ranch/retreat, had named each room for a creature of the earth surrounding us.  As I left the retreat, changed in my view of myself and my writing in ways that live with me still, I decided that a dragonfly would become my personal totem.

The Native Americans who lived on this high prairie, both where Linda's retreat home lies, and where our ranch stands, would understand about totems.  A totem was, and is, a personal symbol of a higher life.  A young man with a bear totem would be reminded to be courageous and strong . . . both qualities a bear might represent.  A young woman with a lioness as totem would try to live her life with both the extreme tenderness and the protective ferocity of that animal.

My totem, however, doesn't work in the traditional way.  I don't know that dragonflies necessarily possess any qualities I want to emulate.  Instead, seeing a dragonfly reminds me not to let my dream of writing and publishing become buried under the daily-ness of life.   Seeing a dragonfly, for me, is the Universe's push to get back to the desk, to the computer, back to myself and my thoughts, and to spend time trying to capture them on the page. Seeing a dragonfly tells me that the woman who attended that writing retreat, who took time out of a busy life even back then to write and talk and read, still lives inside me.

This morning started off like any other Monday morning:  I was up and doing  before I was fully awake, trying to cram too many things into too few hours.  But summer only lasts a few short months, and dragonflies only happen to land on the clothesline on rare occasions.  The ideas in my head buzz in and out like an elusive insect, beautiful and sparkling, but gone in a breath's time.  I can only hope that they keep landing in my life.