In memoriam

I once asked my mom what it was like to have been born in 1918. “Well,” she replied, “I’ve seen a lot of things.” Indeed. From the first airplanes to jets, then spaceships and a man on the moon. From the earliest radios to satellite TV. From silent films to great, sweeping blockbusters. From cash registers to computers. From crank phones to cell phones. From wood burning stoves to microwaves. From hand turned wringer washing machines to just-turn-the-dial-and-pull-the-knob models. From the old Model A which was her first car to the spiffy new Rambler station wagon that carried her and her children across the country and back again in 1963. (Without air conditioning, we kids always like to remember.) From wars with promises of “Never again” to wars which promise to never end. From women nearly always in dresses but occasionally in pants to women nearly always in pants but occasionally in dresses. Through every hair, clothing and cosmetics fashion one can imagine.

In grade school, my mother was taught that correct spelling, neat penmanship and an expansive vocabulary were critical to being successful in the world. In my lifetime, I never knew her to misspell a word, and I could never, ever beat her in Scrabble, even in her 80’s and I with the seeming advantage of a master’s degree in literature, she with the G.E.D. she finally earned some years after dropping out of high school.

Yeah, don’t let the lack of education fool you. Mom was smart, savvy, and pragmatic in her approach to business. She was a disadvantaged widow when my father died, but she worked hard and invested wisely, and by the time she entered retirement she could do so comfortably and could even afford to travel a bit.

There was nothing she liked better than reading.

In recent weeks, when I would call, I would ask, “What are you up to?” and she would respond, “I’m reading a book.” I think she decided months ago, when my brother passed away, that she would simply sit in her recliner and read until she too passed over. Which is basically what she did.

Mom’s life was never easy. But she rose to every challenge with fortitude and determination. She was a feminist before feminists were called such, and she nearly always managed to wrestle life around to agree to her terms. We rarely shared the same point of view, but she provided a model of strength and tenacity that I will always follow.

Mom, I miss you already.

Arta Ernestine “Pat” West
August 7, 1918 – March 24, 2010

One last walk in snowfall

We had a storm last week on Saturday. In the morning, I made a fire, did some chores, then waited for the snow to come. I wanted to do something I haven’t been able to do all winter—take a walk in the snowfall.

This winter, most of our snow has been at night, or when the snow has fallen during the day, I’ve been at work. Finally, a Saturday storm, and I was ready.

The sky continued to darken throughout the day, and at 2:00 the first fat flakes drifted down. I donned my waterproof pants and jacket, pulled on my snow boots, and went outside. By that time, the snow was falling rapidly, tiny flakes skimming down. (Think of a steady downpour only with ice crystals this size * instead of rain drops.) I walked two cabins up to Rob’s house, then stood on the edge of the canyon. When a storm rolls in, we are usually so enveloped in cloud that visibility is less than fifty feet. But this was the vanguard of the true storm, so I could still see all the way across the canyon. Imagine that little snow crystal—times a million—falling from the sky into the canyon. As I watched, the clouds above parted slightly, and the sun squinted through the gap briefly—just long enough for its light to refract off those millions of tiny crystals, creating a dazzling display so bright my Transitions® couldn’t darken fast enough. Makes one understand the meaning of “awe-struck.”

I continued my walk up the road, around Cabin #43, and up to the waterfall, slipping and sliding my way along on the snow from past storms. I stood for awhile, watching the falls thunder over the side and down through a hole in the accumulated snow at the bottom. Magnificent.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘it’s getting cold. I should probably go back.’ I turned to find that the advancing army of clouds had made its way up the mountain. Behind me on the road, visibility was down to about thirty feet.

No worries. I’ve walked to the falls and back so many times in three years, I could do it in the dark. (And I have, now that I think of it.)

I started back… but was lured off course by a snow covered trail. A fire road leads up to the falls and then makes a hairpin turn, winding up toward the top of the ski lift. In January, snow drifts from the five-day storms had completely covered the road, except for a single-track trail through the snow. I began to walk up it, the snow still falling heavily on the hood of my jacket. It’s easy to see, in these conditions, how people become lost in snowstorms. The ground all around is white. The air is white. The trail becomes obliterated…. I stopped. The clouds shifted, and for a brief moment I could see down to the valley, dark clouds hanging ominously over Upland and beyond. I breathed in the hushed silence—until thunder boomed overhead. Time to go.

The next day, I walked back to the same spot where I’d stood to view the valley, and I took the snapshot that accompanies this post.

I tell myself that when I no longer live here, I will still come up to walk on snowy days. The truth is, my intentions will probably get swallowed up in household chores, writing deadlines, and social obligations. And even if I did make it up the mountain, would the timing ever be the same again? At this point, that walk in the snowfall, the glimpse of millions of falling crystals reflecting the sun’s fire, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget.

The dogs that saved me....

Dear Followers,
I realize it has been two weeks since I’ve posted anything new here. You’ll forgive me, I hope; I’ve been working on a new book, and I’m reaching the stage with it where it becomes all-consuming. I go to sleep thinking of the next passage, wake up trying to remember what I was processing when I fell asleep, and then ruminate on it all day while I’m at work. Slowly, all my other writing work is getting pushed aside.

This book will be a memoir, as Tainted Legacy is, but the focus is a world apart from that one. In my life, some dogs have owned me, heart and soul. I never lived up to their devoted attention, affection and protection, but I tried. Some of them, at times, have saved me….

The book is being written in chronological order, beginning with the family dog we had as a child, then leading into a section on *Rufus, the dog I had as a teenager, who saved me in more ways than one. (This section has required me to write—for the first time in my life—about my wicked step-father. It has been tough going. I write about those experiences in the daylight hours, then at night, have nightmares about what I’ve written. Still, I continue. Some things need to be said.)

Just to give you a small sample of the tone of the book, here are two tiny excerpts. They are taken from the first chapter, and are separated by large amounts of text in between:

Human beings are resilient, and it has been my experience that we can find our way through some very dark times, as long as we have hope that somehow there is light just beyond the shadow of darkness. But the absence of hope will ultimately lead to despair, and from there it is a short journey to the point where we are ready to give up.
I have been to this point several times in my life, but by far the most critical time for me was at the age of fifteen. So much happened in that year that was so crushing to my young spirit, I really don’t know, looking back, how I survived it. Well, but yes, I do; the powers of the universe tossed me a life preserver in the form of a block-headed mongrel dog named Rufus.

* * *

I suppose we had expected something like the Ponderosa. What we found was anything but. Art’s property was squeezed onto a long narrow street of rundown houses—nothing like our small but neat home in Orange County. The house on his property was more empty shell than home. In the yard we saw the tiny metal travel trailer which was Art’s real home.
We were still trying to take it all in as Mom drove through an open chain link gate and up a bumpy gravel driveway. Before we could get out of the car, we were greeted by two dogs. One was a small black and white terrier. The other dog was mostly white with a couple of large brown spots, one across half his face and one on his body. He was larger than the terrier, but he was clearly a puppy, with huge feet he had yet to grow into. He jumped on us with dirty paws, wagging his tail excitedly. Art strolled out to meet us, beer can in hand.
“That’s Five,” he said, pointing to the terrier and belching. “They left her here when they moved out. That’s her pup. I gave all the rest of them away, but that one’s so ugly, no one wants him. I call him Rufus.” He kicked at the dog with his boot to make him get down, then laughed.

*Note: The dog in the photo here is not Rufus. This is Osa, my last best dog.

A moonlit adventure--of possibly dire consequences

I went for a walk this morning. And couldn’t get home. Almost.

It all started with the moonlight. Moon + snow = light at night. Bright, luminescent light. A soft glow that beckons….

So I left the cabin at 4:45a.m. to walk the loop, down to the highway, up around to the falls road, and then home by the back way, skirting behind the cabins that are north of me and emerging on my own road again. I took my headlamp, just in case, but didn’t think I’d need it. Being outside under this kind of moon is like playing outside at night in the summer after the streetlights come on.

When I got to the falls road—walking up the middle of the highway, bathed in the bluish light, no cars coming either way—I realized that someone had plowed it after the big storms of last week, clearing it all the way down to the asphalt. In the day time, an hour or so after the sun rises over the eastern ridge of this canyon, having the snow cleared makes walking easier. When the sun hits them, all those piles of snow begin to melt, and the water trickles downhill all day—until it freezes in the night. This created quite the challenge for me walking up it. Basically, I was walking uphill on black ice.

I stepped slowly and carefully, with each step looking for patches of dry pavement. Up around a corner, I was relieved to see that the plowing came to an abrupt halt, although I had to squeeze carefully around my neighbor’s truck; he’d driven as far as he could, then just parked in the middle of the road and walked the rest of the way home.

Now, walking on packed snow, the footprints of hundreds of feet still visible, I could walk at a more normal pace. It was cold—in the 20’s—and I was eager to get home to breakfast.

Far up ahead on the trail I could see lights flashing. Hikers with headlamps were coming down the trail. After a minute or so, they passed me.
“How was your walk?” I asked quietly.
“Great!” they both responded, chuckling.
I am not entirely crazy. Those guys wanted to play under the giant streetlight, too.

My whimsical moment with them passed quickly. By this time, the moon had disappeared behind the western ridge. I reached up and switched my headlamp on. The first thing I saw was a giant snowdrift that had all but obliterated the road ahead, reducing the trail to a narrow single track that proceeded determinedly up and over the drift. I’ve hiked the falls road for several winters now. I’ve never seen it like that.

Up and over I went, continuing on to find several more similar drifts. Finally, I came to the falls. I could hear the water thundering into the stream below as it cascaded down the sheer rock face, though I couldn’t see it in the darkness. I stood for long moments, listening to the quiet of the forest, the water tap dancing over rocks below. This much snow in the winter makes everything on the mountain harder—getting to and from work, bringing wood in, staying warm. No one ever complains. We know that this spring the mountain will be alive with flowers and with seeds and berries for all our furry friends. No bears wandering past the cabins in late summer, I thought, smiling. Then it was time to go.

There are three driveways that bisect the falls road. One belongs to John, my neighbor, whose cabin is closest to the waterfall. I had passed his big dually truck, completely mired in snow now. Below John’s there is another driveway that leads to the cabin of ‘Red Truck Guy.’ I have often waved to him in the early morning as he is heading out to work and I am walking along the road. I don’t know his name. His truck was the one parked where the snowplow had stopped. The third driveway leads to Cabin #54, and it is that driveway that I usually take to cut down behind the cabins to my own road. Not this morning.

When I finally found the place where the driveway should be (because I recognized the huge pine tree that stands next to it), I realized it would be impossible for me to use it; the snow that had drifted over the road had spilled down this driveway as well, creating one long beautifully rounded slope. Had it been daylight, I would have toyed with the idea of simply sliding on my butt all the way down to Cabin 54. I admit, even standing there in the dark, I was cold enough and hungry enough to think about it seriously—for a second or two. At that hour, in that place, if I were to injure myself, no one would find me for a good long time. There was nothing left to do but figure out another way.

Going back down the falls road was an option I could take, but it was the last one I would choose. Walking uphill on black ice is one thing. Walking downhill on it—for a quarter mile or so—was something I just didn’t want to think about. I turned and walked back up the road toward the falls.

I took Red Truck Guy’s driveway. I stepped in his prints carefully, and I tried to be quiet, though the crunch of each step was a resounding abuse to the otherwise quiet. If he woke, he must’ve thought a very large animal was making its way past his cabin.

Finally, I made it to the trail behind his cabin. Whew. Now all I had to do was follow the trail and I would get to my own road soon. I thought.

When I say “trail,” I really mean the area where the trail once was. Before it was covered in four feet of snow. I was now glad for the freezing temperatures of the night before, as I could walk—slowly and gingerly—along the top of the snow, making my way down in the dark with the help of my lamp, looking for landmarks, certain boulders and trees that would help me identify where I was.

Have I mentioned that the name of my road is Canyon Rim Road? It is named thus because the road was built to accommodate the cabins that were built along the rim of the canyon formed by the water streaming from the falls. What might be unclear at this point in the narrative is the fact that, if I start sliding off the (nonexistent) trail, I will no doubt keep going down, picking up speed as I fly, sans toboggan, over the edge and a hundred feet down into the bottom of the canyon. If that were to happen, most likely I would lie there until spring, when some poor hiker might stumble across whatever the coyotes left behind.

Heart pounding, I took careful step after careful step, holding onto low hanging tree branches when I could. Finally, I looked up to see Cabin 54 in the distance. I was going the right way, nearly to the road. In every other winter that I’ve lived and hiked here, someone always heads up to the falls shortly after every storm, breaking the trail, making a path. Though it has been over a week since our five consecutive days of snow, no one has been here; there was simply no place to walk. Perhaps I should say, no one was foolish enough to try….

At the last cabin before the road, a set of steep steps leads down to a driveway and then the road. The steps were buried beneath the snow, so I sat down and slid, no longer in danger of heading out of control and over the side.

Finally, at 6:15, I arrived home. From the warmth and safety of my cabin, I could appreciate the adventure. . . and the snow's promise of a beautiful spring. After all, Tuesday is Groundhog's Day.

The Wisdom in Snow

In Southern California, where I live, few people are blessed to see snow as it falls, flakes floating down slowly, as I have pictured manna raining down from heaven in Moses’ time. As it accumulates, it is so light and fluffy that snowflakes clinging to a glove can be brushed away like feathers.

I have always liked the analogy that people are like snowflakes—no two alike. I imagine us all, floating down from heaven, soft, pure, as transparent and full of color as diamonds. Innocent, in the beginning. Where and when we fall seems to have a lot to do with how we’ll turn out.

In the chill of darkness, snow will develop a hard crust, with edges as treacherously sharp as glass.

In the heat of the glaring sun, snow crystals can no longer maintain their integrity, and they break apart.

Snow that falls near heavily populated areas will be beaten down underfoot or splashed to the side of the road where it remains in the gutter until it’s gone.

There is a place, though, where I have seen a patch of snow rest in a high green meadow until spring, still looking as soft and malleable as it did the day it fell.

Of course, the life of a snowflake is fleeting. It drifts down from heaven, a tiny glistening gift, like, but unlike, all the others around it. After a brief time, its essence returns again to the earth and sky. If only we had eyes that could appreciate each separate and individual flake, seeing the beauty there, embracing each one for its contribution.

Injustice anywhere....

The little girl and the little boy in the adjacent photo are my daughter and my son.

When I was a young girl growing up in the 1960’s, I was very aware of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was on television, on the news, in the papers and magazines of the time, because the late fifties and early sixties marked the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America. As a young person, I was astounded by his courage. I tried to imagine what it would be like to stand quietly in the street while men with clubs and vicious dogs were attacking those around me. Fear would overtake me, I knew. I would run away. The type of courage he possessed comes from a place deep, deep down in a man’s soul, a place from which a certain light emanates, and a man knows he has seen enough, heard enough, and he is willing to walk through hell in order to change the status quo.

It was not until I was in college, however, that I began to appreciate the eloquence of Dr. King. Most know him as a powerful orator, and he was, but until one has read his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one cannot fully grasp the brilliance of this man as an articulate rhetorician. At my first reading, I was so blown away by his ability with language, I read the letter again from a writer’s point of view. It is one of the most concise yet heartfelt documents I’ve ever read.

I try to re-read King’s letter from time to time, especially around the anniversary of his birthday. Each time, I take away something different. This year, I am particularly struck by his plea to the white clergymen who criticized his arrival as a leader in Birmingham, Alabama. They characterized King as an “outside agitator,” telling the press that they would rather see ‘time and negotiation’ bring forth change instead of Blacks marching in the street as a form of nonviolent protest. In his letter, King lovingly attempts to help them see the life he lives, how difficult it is as a parent “when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’”

If you think that racial discrimination ended with the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1965, ask my son to tell you some stories. Oh, I can tell you stories, too. But he was the little boy who stood on a neighbor’s front porch and was told he couldn’t play with the little girl inside because of the color of his skin. He was the little boy who was called “nigger” by grown adults.

The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” includes many now famous statements by Dr. King, such as “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But my favorite remark, the one I memorized long ago, the one posted on my classroom wall, is this one:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Full text of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html

Waiting for the Light

When the December stratus clouds hover above the mountain, I love going out to walk just before dawn. By the time I get up to the waterfall, the “rosy fingers of dawn” are beginning to streak the sky with their miraculous paint. The clouds change color from light gray to the faintest pink, a huge mess of cotton candy across the morning sky. That same pink tints the snow as well, and for several moments the mountain is a quiet fantasy land. I half expect the fairies to emerge from under the huge oaks and dance until the stars twinkle out.

This morning the light show was particularly meaningful, as today is the first day of winter. The solstice! The days will grow colder, certainly, but at least they will grow a bit lighter every day. It’s the light that sustains me through the winter months. I have walked in temperatures below freezing, but if the sun is shining and there’s snow on the ground, it’s fun, especially if I walk past the campground and kids are playing. I remember those days… coming up to Mt Baldy with my next-door-neighbor, Suzy. Her dad would drive us up every Christmas Eve and we would play in the snow until our sneakers were soaked and our hands were numb. Now I wear high-tech gloves and heavy snow boots. It’s a lot more fun….

Besides the longer days (slowly but surely), I have other reasons to celebrate. Three years ago I adopted a small black cat with a chopped off tail and brought her home during Christmas break. As I write this, she sits just feet from my chair, front paws tucked neatly beneath her, watching the raccoons who have come to the French doors to beg for cookies. Sugar Plum has blessed my life in ways I don’t need to explain to those of you who love animals. She has her own Facebook page now….

And one year ago Tainted Legacy was released. Two days before Christmas, I drove up to Apple Valley to visit my mom. I spent the afternoon with her, then just before I left, I pulled a copy of the book out of my bag and put it in her hands. The look on her face was priceless indeed. She stayed up half the night reading it. In the year since the book was released, I’ve had amazing adventures with book signings, speaking engagements, and traveling back to Missouri to wander through graveyards (again) and reconnect with friends. This, too, has been a blessing in my life, and I am thankful every day that the story—as much of it as we know—has finally been told.

There’s a fire crackling in the fireplace. We’re supposed to get snow tonight. I have plenty of firewood, a warm blanket to wrap up in, and a cat who will find a spot beside me to snuggle into. Bring on the winter. I’m ready.