Ventura Highway

Nothing can take me back faster to Southern California in the '70's than "Ventura Highway" by America. This song is linked to every one of my senses and it pulls at my memories like a magnet.

It's the end of summer and I'm back from another idyll in Utah. School is going to start in less than a week, and we've celebrated our Opening Social for the youth in our church by spending a day at the beach. It's been a long, fun day with friends that I haven't seen for almost two months. So much to catch up on, so much to tell. The windows are down as we continue to enjoy the briny smell of the ocean.

It's hard to get comfortable. Too many bodies, too close together in the family station wagon. I can feel the first heat of sunburn on my shoulders, thighs, and nose. The sand is e v e r y w h e r e and my hair feels like straw as salt stiffened strands whip and crack against my face from the wind coming through the open windows.

The excitement/dread of a new year at school squirms uncomfortably in my stomach and becomes more palpable with each mile/minute closer to home. This was the last Hurrah! of the summer. There's the new thrill being able to drive as we all have our licenses and two of my friends have cars. We can drive to the beach on a Saturday if we want to! We sing along with the radio to songs by 'Bread', 'The Eagles', 'America', 'Seals and Crofts', 'John Denver', 'Olivia Newton John'...carefree, for the moment.

We trade the damp scent of ocean air for dusty desert heat as we wend our way through the hills on the Moreno Valley Freeway and then down into what I call the 'true desert'.  Oleander bushes, tamerisk trees, date and fan palms seem like the only green in the beige, tan and taupe of the landscape all around. The California sun has set behind us now and I can see the ghostly wind trails on the freeway made from the sand skidding lightly across the road. Though full dark it's still hot very warm outside and I stick my hand and arm out the window and let the force of the wind move the changing angle of my hand up and down in long curvy waves and imagine what it might be like to fly like the sea birds I'd seen floating effortlessly and stationary over the crashing waves at the beach. "I would love to be able to do that", I think.

I thought that time in my life would last forever.

Ventura Highway is an 'oldie' now.

Childhood memories

I was listening to the radio the other day and a song came on called "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert. I was so touched by the lyrics that I decided to write down some of the sights, sounds and feelings that are triggered in me by songs from my youth.
John Denver's 'Sunshine' can take me right back to when I was 15 years old:
I'm at Gramma's sitting on the little hill that slopes down to the big lawn. I'm wearing my cut off jeans and my brother's old blue, button-down shirt. My long hair is making my neck sweaty and I can feel a cool trail begin to run down my back.  I'm eating sun warmed cherries from the big cherry three that grows by  the car port and spitting the pits as far as I can into the hedges. It's almost time to irrigate and I can smell the water, wet and earthy at the same time, and the languid warmth of the afternoon air is saturated with the aroma of lush, sweet peppermint that grows wild along the ditch bank. There's the sound of a train whistle. I can feel a slight rumble beneath my back and feet when I lay back and close my eyes. The long grass tickles the back of my neck and ears.

I'm thinking about the boy that lives down the street and wondering if he's going to come by this evening after he finishes with his lawns and everyone's had dinner. Maybe we'll get together with my brothers and sisters and neighborhood kids and play hide-and-seek or tag on the big lawn until our parents call us in for bed.

Or maybe we'll just go for a walk and he'll hold my hand...maybe. Anticipation curls in my stomach and I smile to myself. "Now that would be exciting", I think.

Dinner...the age old question. If only it had one answer...

...let's eat out!

Seriously, it can ruin my whole day if my first thought of the morning is, "What will I make for dinner tonight?" Therefore, I try not to think of it. But it's a question that must needs have an answer when there are male bodies in residence. Male bodies have male minds in which food plays front and center at least half of the time. Male bodies also have male stomachs which in my experience are rarely full. There's always room for a little smackerel of something. Sound familiar?

The question gets bigger as the day progresses. Thinking turns to pondering. Pondering turns to worry. Worry turns to fretting. Fretting turns to anxiety. By around 4 pm, if I haven't figured something out I actually start getting angry that it's always up to *me* to answer that question, "What's for dinner?" If someone were to ask me what I wanted to fix for dinner I would probably say, "Cold Cereal...or how about pudding and Popsicles? Toast? with cheese? Peaches?"

When faced with these answers the beloved male face(s) looks downcast and sorrowful. "No MEAT? No potatoes with gravy? No large burrito smothered in sauce with black beans and rice on the side and maybe several one homemade chocolate chip cookie for dessert?

Its not like I don't know how to cook, or that I'm not a good cook. I know how, and I'm a pretty good one. It's just that I've been doing the 'food thing' in my house for more than 30 years: shopping for food, buying food, putting the food away, getting the food out, deciding what to do with the food, cooking the food, cleaning up after the food, throwing food away...AND,eating too much food...

(I even have a sign above my kitchen doorway that I painted that says, "Go ahead, eat all you want, just try squeezing out the doorway.") Do you realize how much time is used in a day dealing with buying, preparing, eating, cleaning up after, and eliminating, food?
Okay...breathe. *sigh*

For the past year or so we've had an agreement, my beloved man and I, that when I come home from work on Fridays we 'go out' for dinner. It's been nice. I'm not faced with a monumental decision at 6 pm after being on my feet all day. What a relief! I *am* faced with a semi-monumental decision every other week though. We take turns choosing where to go. When faced with that decision a few weeks ago I just wanted to put my head in my hands and cry, "I don't want to choose! You choose!" Actually, I think I did do that. Not the tearful crying jut the frustrated don't-make-me-do-this 'moany-groan' whine. (Hormones) He looked at me in mild surprise and said, "But it's your turn." I think I may have gone into some kind of tirade like in the previous paragraphs detailing how many times I've *actually* been in charge of choosing what we're going to eat, and that he would have to choose every Friday for the next 1,000 years where and what we were going to eat in order to catch up to me. He may have smiled at that, hoping to disarm me so as not to have to deal with too many more 'words'. (He would rather be faced with the prospect of eating 3 family Thanksgiving dinners in one day than partaking of my full day's allowance of words.) I think he chose where to eat that night. (Smart man.) And since then, when it's been my turn to choose he asks me where, and if I have a place in mind, I tell him, but, more often than not, I give him that "please no" look and he drives us right to Paradise Bakery and it's all good.

Someone told me that a very long time ago we fought a war about this right to choose...I just didn't know so much of it was going to involve "What's for dinner?"

The Mountains - a renewing influence

Eleven-twelve years ago...let's see, that would make Jason 17, Jeni 16, Daniel 13, and Stephanie 10...Yeah, *that* was a busy time, I was standing on my old icky deck with a dirty mop and a dirtier bucket looking at my weedy back yard and knowing that the floor I just mopped would go unnoticed and unappreciated. I wanted to cry. It was one of those days. Anyway, as I was standing there I looked up from my weedy backyard and eastward and there...there were the mountains.

Not the Uintahs but familiar Utah mountains. I was engulfed by memories of childhood camping trips, hikes, summer tobogganing on mountain snow, campfire sing-alongs with Uncle Denny, watching my Papa whittle me a spoon from a piece of kindling, wildflowers and water lilies, tadpoles and polliwogs, glimpses of timid deer and the sight and sound of stones skipping on Mirror Lake in the evening. It was such a healing experience at the time that later that evening I tried to put my feelings down on paper and came up with this...

Being Filled

I stand

with mop and bucket in hand

ready to begin another task.

My eyes, hands and body are

tied to daily chores, and worldly cares.

My list is long

and my cup is empty.

The cup that is drained

by constant giving, giving, giving.

I sigh…

The mountain breathes.

The cool wind

touches my face

and takes with it some heaviness.

As my eyes rise from the ground at my feet

to the towering peaks

my spirit travels the mountain trails,

carpeted with pungent needles.

I walk

in reverence of the beauty.

Splashes of color adorn the upward slopes

and create a symphony of visual music.

Sun on snow and grass and limb

brighten my vision.

Deep, velvet shadows bid me

to pause and listen

to the Creator’s voice.

I close my eyes

and breathe in

the peace and serenity

that my spirit craves.

I am loved.

I feel it permeate my being

and the bindings evaporate.

My soul is lighter.

My cup begins to fill.

This past week I was having another one of 'those weeks' and knew I needed a break from the valley so I suggested that we take a trip into the mountains again. I know I always feel renewed after a visit. So...yesterday Steven and I, along with Jason and his wife Jen, went up to the Uintahs for the day. Jen had never been past Heber so it was all new to her. We visited The Falls below Trial Lake where I used to go as a kid with my dad to 'shower' after a few days of camping. I'd walk away with a cold headache but that didn't matter. I was with my dad doing something 'adventurous'.

The water at the falls wasn't very swift or full, probably because of the new reservoir and dam above at the new Crystal Lake Campground, but there was water and it was still beautiful.

We walked a bit around Trial Lake campground where Steven and I took the kids camping so many times...

…then went over the ridge to visit Mirror Lake Campground…

...and found our old camping spot at the top of the hill, unoccupied. Crazy. Strange. I could pick out the places where we pitched out tents year after year. Where our picnic table always sat. The rock where I used to sit when I watched my captured polliwogs. The trees were different though. So many were gone. A horrible beetle infestation has killed soooo many trees over the past 8-10 years.

I could faintly see the trail we walked daily down to the polliwog pond, (my mother called it the local mosquito nursery) then over to Bonnie Lake…

…where I would pick lilies and lily pads for my polliwogs. I remember when my dad and his brothers would have log rolling contests on Bonnie. They'd find a likely tree, dead, chop it down, saw it into a decent sized log, cut off the offending little branches to make it safe(er), then they'd roll it into the lake, climb up on it and try to knock each other off it, one standing on one end, the other standing on the other end, and they'd roll it with their feet, back and forth. OH! how exciting that was. They all ended up drenched and muddy and laughing thar heads off. My dad was a 'god'. My mother was always so worried but I *knew* in my heart that *nothing* would ever happen to him. It was impossible.

One year, when I was a teenager, my dad and his brothers/BIL (Denny, Brent & Dick) cut down some dead trees and we had a log sawing contest with all the Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. The next day they took the logs down to the lake and with a bunch of rope they lashed them together and made a raft. After that they took two lawn chairs and lashed them to the middle of it, then led their parents (Nana & Papa) onto their raft, seated them like royalty and poled them out onto the lake. With that much weight on the raft the logs ended up sitting just below water level and it looked like everyone, chairs and people were standing/sitting on top of the water, moving as a group. Weird. Wonderful.

I could almost hear the ghosts of our laughter as I wandered. It was magical, that time in my life, and I'm so very grateful for my parents for providing us with a safe place to explore, invent, imagine, and play. I hope Steven and I were able to do a bit of the same for our kids. I think so. Each of them has a love and appreciation for the mountains and nature. That's so important.

The drive was so therapeutic. There were patches of snow everywhere when we got above Trial. We rolled down all the windows and opened the sun roof and listened to John Denver as we breathed deeply. It was funny, I was having some serious problems with allergies before we left. I felt clogged and slow. Steven predicted that it would only get worse when we got into the mountains but...it cleared right up! No problems whatsoever until we got back into the valley and I started sneezing again.

On our way home we stopped and got some awesome jerky at this tiny little store just outside of Kamas, then stopped at "Dick's", a local burger joint in Kamas and had some burgers, fries, and shakes. Very good.

Before we left the spot on the hill Steve carried a couple of large stones from there to the car so I would always have something from that magical place in my childhood. One is resting in my herb garden.

The honeysuckle and roses are overpowering this morning. The daisies are blooming and the snails have decided that they love marigolds for breakfast.