Swimming in melted snow

After several days in a row of disappointments, rejection slips and discouraging news, I decided it was time for me to go in search of tall trees, rushing streams, and birdsong. It’s true; where I live, I needn’t go farther than my front porch to find those ingredients in the formula for serenity, but I craved a long walk in a deep canyon as well… and a swim in a mountain pool.

So I drove to the Santa Anita canyon hiking area. I was happy to see few cars in the parking lot, and as I headed down the trail, I could see that most of the hikers were following the path which leads to Sturtevant Falls, a beautiful waterfall at the end of a pleasant walk down. I opted for the small single track trail to Hermit Falls, a much smaller waterfall—really, just a section of stream where the water slides over a tall boulder but splashes into a very deep pool before it continues on its way, running down the mountain.

The narrow trail follows a series of switchbacks down, down, down into a very steep canyon where the tree canopy is so lush, you are always walking in shade, no matter what the time of day. Because it is still early summer, I walked past wildflowers of lavender, pink, yellow and pale blue. I moved slowly along the trail, breathing in the scent of wild sage, remembering lines from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” poem, the treatise he wrote for his sister about the immutability of Nature. Things change. People change. These “rocks and rills” remain the same for countless generations.

When I reached the falls, I was only mildly disappointed to find that a group of young people had arrived before me. I had barely arrived when a young couple approached and asked me to take their picture. I obliged, playing the role of serious photographer for a moment, then moved as far away from their group—and the wafting pot smoke—as I could, nestling down onto a smooth boulder next to the emerald water of the deep pool.

I hadn’t hiked alone in this canyon for many, many years. Usually, I go at least once each summer, always taking a male friend… just in case. But yesterday I was alone… because I needed to be. For a few moments, I sat on the rock, venting my feelings in the words that poured into my journal. The sun was hot as it reflected off the surrounding rocks, and it didn’t take long before the lure of the water drew me in. I stood up, removed my shoes and socks, remembered my truck keys in my pocket and placed them safely in my backpack, then stepped ankle-deep into the water.

The first ten years I hiked to this spot, I never swam in the pool. The water cascades down from the San Gabriel mountaintops, and it is comprised primarily of snowmelt. It’s freezing cold. When I first started hiking in the canyon, I would go in spring or fall, because it can be perilously hot hiking out on scorching summer days. But finally, some years ago, I took a friend along, and he patiently waited with me until I mustered the courage to jump in. (I told him he had to be there in case I had a heart attack—so he could let my kids know I died doing something I loved.)

Yesterday, as I stood on the rock feeling my ankles go numb from the cold, I contemplated not going in. I just didn’t want to feel that first immersion into the aching cold. Yet I knew if I didn’t go, I’d be angry with myself all the way back up the trail. And I would feel defeated. If I needed anything at that moment, it was to feel victorious over something, anything in my life. I crouched over… and slipped in.

The first shock is never pleasant, but the joy of having it over with, of being free to swim in clear water with nothing but a blue sky above, is delicious. I swam several laps of the pool, then floated on my back for a few tranquil moments. Finally I pulled myself out, shorts and tank top dripping. The warmth of the rock spread through my bones as I leaned back comfortably to dry out and eat some lovely cheese and a few crackers. As I finished, another group of young people arrived, challenging each other to jump into the pool from the rocks above, and I knew it was time for me to head back up the trail.

Yes, at times, life sucks. I have no idea what changes will occur in my life in the following year. But one thing remains constant, and that is the beauty of that deep mountain pool. If the forces of the universe are willing, I will return to it again next year and somehow find the courage to dive into the icy waters… to taste that wild freedom once again.

The business of writing

The hardest part of my role as writer is marketing my work because doing so involves contacting a complete stranger and somehow convincing her or him, in a few brief sentences, that (1) I am a pretty decent writer and (2) that other folks want to read what I’ve just written. Having to do so is tantamount to torture. I can sit for hours at the keyboard—when I was working on Tainted Legacy, I would sometimes do five-hour stints without food or potty breaks, and I could do that because I loved the work. But composing a query letter that somehow makes me shine above all the other thousands of writers out there trying to get books published? Please… don’t… make… me… do… that….

I can remember being in my early twenties, attending my first writers conferences, watching people get up and prattle on about their books. I knew I could never do that part of it. “Read me! I’m great!” is just far too embarrassing for me.

It’s not that I’m shy; I taught Lamaze classes for years before I began teaching English and Journalism. I love to speak to writers groups. In fact, I’m passionate about doing so. But shameless self-promotion is another beast entirely. At the signing for TL last spring at Border’s, the reason I had so many people approach my table had to do with friend and comic Tim Chizmar standing near the front door shouting, “S Kay Murphy! Right there at that table! Her great grandmother might have been a serial killer!” I sold 24 books that day. (Thanks, Tim.)

My reticence to promote myself has to do, I think, with having a particularly introverted, reserved personality. I simply don’t assert myself. The same was true back in the days when I was singing a lot. It all started because someone at church told someone else they’d heard me sing. Next thing I know, I’m up in front of a couple hundred people at Harvest in Riverside, singing and playing guitar. Then someone asked me to sing in a wedding, then someone else, and the next thing you know, I’m singing the National Anthem a cappella in front of 2,000 baseball fans at our local Quakes stadium.

Wait. Maybe I’ve discovered the key here. Perhaps instead of sending “Read me! I’m great!” letters out to strangers, I should fly to New York, stand on Broadway, and simply read from my next book (which, by the way, is a memoir about the dogs who’ve owned me—Hope you get a chance to Read it! It’s great!). If only….

I’ve gotta get back to work on this query letter, but don’t be surprised if you see me later in downtown Upland, standing in the gazebo, manuscript pages in hand….

[Just for practice at SSP (shameless self-promotion), here's an Amazon link to The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford.  Forgive me.]

Best Big-Eared Woman I Know

Last week my son drove me in his fancy car to Arizona, where I had the opportunity to talk about Tainted Legacy to a group of writers in Prescott, sell a few books, and, on our second day, visit with my good friend, Willma Gore, in Sedona. Willma (yes, two l’s) has been my mentor in writing for about a decade. She is 89, and still the most prolific writer I know. In fact, she’s just finished writing a memoir (finally) and has already found a publisher, so I suspect the book will be out by her 90th birthday. It was Willma who arranged the gig for me with the Professional Writers of Prescott group. The members were gracious and responsive to my talk—no doubt because Willma had insisted to them that I was a good speaker and they’d darn well better appreciate me. She’s like that, and it always reminds me of my mom. Both were women who did not have the circumstances of life unfurl gracefully before them, but rather had to fight with life in order to wrest some satisfaction from it. I see Willma now, still writing, still publishing, still teaching workshops and doing book tours, and I know that there is hope for a long life of creativity for me as well. While we were in Sedona, Willma told us she had recently met a man who said to her, ‘You have big ears. That means you will live a long time.’ May it be so, my friend, may it be so.

Bear as Totem

Hanging from the rearview mirror of my Tacoma is a Zuni fetish necklace that was given to me by a somewhat demented poet nineteen years ago. It is made up of birds and other small animals carved from stone, but the primary fetish, the one that hangs down front and center, is a bear. When G.K. sent me the necklace from Arizona, he told me that its purpose was to keep me safe, and he acknowledged, back then, my connection to the bear as totem. Before the Tacoma, the necklace hung in my Dodge. Before that, the Bronco, and before that, the Bronco II. It has been in every truck I’ve owned and, apart from other drivers tapping me, I’ve not been in an accident.

Several Sundays ago, a yearling bear cub found its way onto my back deck from the forest. This is not the first bear to visit my cabin. Three summers ago, on my birthday, I looked out the French doors at 5:00a.m. to see a huge dark chocolate bear snuffing around on the deck. I watched him for an hour as he licked up some birdseed I’d just scattered for the jays and juncos and woodpeckers. Then he ambled off. That was a hot, dry summer that followed a dry winter; the bears had little to eat, so the big guy (whom I called Roosevelt) and a smaller, cinnamon colored bear cruised by often, usually at breakfast when they smelled toast, though Roosevelt did come by one evening after I’d heated some pasta with pesto sauce. They were good bears, and they would leave when encouraged to do so. We never saw them in broad daylight.

When this little guy showed up, it was 11:00a.m. I had some guests, my neighbor Eric and my friend Liz, over for brunch, and I’d baked a peach cobbler. Apparently this young bear had picked up the scent, and as he trudged up the stone steps and onto the deck, his nostrils were flaring as he sniffed the air. We looked out the window to look for a mama, but there was no sign of any adult. I stepped out onto my back porch step, one hand left casually on the doorknob as an escape plan. The cub shuffled up to me. He was bearskin on bones, sharp hips protruding under his scruffy hide. He nuzzled my hand, then licked it. I spoke to him quietly, all the while searching the forest beyond my deck for a mother bear. He was too skinny, too lethargic. Mama was long gone. Eric and Liz watched from the window. When the little cub began to nibble my finger to taste for food, I tried to withdraw my hand slowly, so as not to spook him, and ended up having the side of my finger pinched between his teeth. The skin cracked, and it bled a bit, so Liz made me come inside. While I doused my finger in peroxide, smeared it with Neosporin and covered it with a small band-aid, the young bear climbed up on the roof and wandered around up top, looking down through the skylights. Finally, he disappeared back into the forest.

That was a magical encounter, something you think of as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, like the day the huge buck walked out of the forest and onto my back deck, or the night I walked through the cabin in the dark at bedtime and saw, in the moonlight, a small fox looking in at my French doors. We never expected to see the little bear again, and we wondered if he would survive on his own.

Sadly, we have seen him again—and again and again and again. A day or so after he was here, he discovered the lodge down the road. A young woman there has begun to feed him. The folks in the Forest Service (which, by the way, is an imprecise nomenclature, but don’t get me started) have a saying: “A fed bear is a dead bear.” Thus it is only a matter of time for our little friend. He comes by nearly every day. I’ve seen my neighbors throw rocks at him, set their dogs after him, and have overheard plans to shoot him with a paintball gun. Bears that become “trash bears,” dependent on humans to leave out or hand out food, quickly come to expect it, then demand it. On Sunday, I chased the cub out of a neighbor’s car. He was after the pizza left in the front seat. By Wednesday, he had already attempted to break into a car, though the owner insists she’d left no food inside.

In these cases, the Forest Service will wait until the bear becomes a nuisance or has a dangerous encounter with humans, then they’ll shoot it. It’s only a matter of time now. The little bear is seen every day across the highway at the campground. Small and skinny, he makes a great photo op for the campers (whom I’ve heard have been feeding him all manner of things). When he is a couple of hundred pounds heavier and rifling through the food they’ve left out on the picnic table, it will be a different story.

Yesterday the bear showed up on my back deck again. I walked out to gently shoo him away, telling him to go back to the forest. He stood his ground as I walked toward him. I raised my arms gently to shoo him off, and he growled, then snapped his jaws in my direction. He wasn’t being aggressive, it was just a warning, and I understood. He’s had his loss of innocence, and he knows now not to trust Two-Legs. I retreated quietly into the house.

This is what I find difficult, and perhaps ethically irresponsible, about living in the forest (and believe me, I include myself in the accusation). The bears were here first. They’ve lived on this mountain for hundreds of years, and they live here so they can keep their distance from humans. What are they to do when we encroach on their territory? Their patch of forest grows smaller every day. As rugged as this mountain is, there are very few places now untrammeled by hikers and mountaineers. Our arrogance is foolish and naïve when we assume the right to go everywhere, explore every place. Again, don’t get me started.

Feet of steel, not clay

Somewhere in Ridgecrest, California there is a satyr-like man doing a satyr-like dance around his livingroom, imbued with a sense of revelry because he thinks he was right, profoundly, absolutely right about something.

In 2006, when Floyd Landis won the Tour de France, I was happy for him. Floyd seemed like a nice guy, and he was a good cyclist, having ridden with Lance Armstrong. But immediately following the win came the announcement that Landis had tested positive for extremely high levels of testosterone, meaning he’d supplemented the hormone to enhance his performance. Thus began a flurry of email exchanges between myself and the satyr. On my part, I was defending Landis, just waiting to see what his hearings would bear out. On the satyr’s part, he saw this as concrete evidence of what he’d believed all along—that all professional cyclists dope, including and especially Lance.

Sigh. Of course this is a man who does not follow and has never followed professional cycling. When you talk to someone who remarks, ‘Why is this a big surprise to anyone? All cyclists dope!’ you can be sure they don’t follow cycling. You can be equally sure that they’re entrenched in their opinion—like the satyr, who was convinced that my starry-eyed love of Lance had blinded me. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I didn’t even like Lance before he had cancer. I’d followed his career since he was a teenager, and I didn’t like his attitude. To say he was rough around the edges is an understatement. Most boys who ride bikes competitively come from a background of privilege, which is understandable, given the cost of the sport. Lance was raised by a single mom who, at times, struggled to make ends meet. Lance was strong-willed, and he lived and rode with a huge chip on his shoulder for years. Fighting cancer knocked that chip off, made him human, then made him super-human as he fought valiantly to come back even stronger than he was before. The chemo-therapy changed his body and metabolism permanently, making him a lean, less-mean pedaling machine. People have told me, ‘He almost died. How do you think he came back and won the Tour de France? He had to have taken steroids.’ My response has always been, ‘You don’t know Lance.’ It will continue to be so until there is evidence produced that he has used performance enhancers. Even just once.

Before the recent Amgen Tour of California, Floyd Landis, no longer suspended from cycling, expressed his desire for an invitation to race. As I understand it, he sent out emails months in advance of the tour, vaguely threatening to go public with information about others doping if he didn’t get to race. He didn’t, and suddenly in the midst of the tour, he made an announcement admitting, finally, that he had used performance enhancers. Part of his ‘confession’ included telling tales on nearly every professional cyclist out there, not just Lance, but men like George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer, cyclists who are known as men of integrity in the sport.

You will draw your own conclusions. The satyr has, I’m sure. Though we no longer correspond, I’m confident in my vision of him doing a victory dance. I would only caution the public, as Emerson did, to form opinions slowly, and be ready to change them if new information arises. Winning in tour competition is not a matter of the strongest, fastest man on a bike. Winning requires experience, skill, strategy, teamwork, quick-thinking, fierce determination and a whole lot of luck. Lance was fortunate to have had all those tools in the years that he dominated the sport. And, post-cancer, he could add one more critical component: The ability to withstand intense pain without giving up.

Has the revelation of Floyd Landis diminished my love of cycling? Not one whit. I look forward with great excitement to next month’s Tour de France, will plan my summer schedule around it as I have for over twenty years, and once again, seeing what these guys endure will inspire me to work hard for what I want to achieve in life… and it will get me back on my bike.

*Note: The photo accompanying today’s blog was taken during a stage of this year’s Tour of California. These riders created a six-man breakaway that led nearly all of a 135-mile stage. In the Stars & Stripes jersey is George Hincapie, my hero and last year’s National Professional Road Champion.

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.