Nothing to fear in the present

Nothing to fear in the present

By Debby de Carlo


A friend once said that when he died, he wanted his gravestone inscribed “95 percent of the things I worried about never happened.”

Over time, my friend learned to spend less time worrying. I’ve learned the same thing. It takes practice. The key, as so many books point out, is staying in the present moment. When I start to worry, invariably, I’m spiraling into the future, and as I do, fear spirals too. Feeling fear is a signal for me to come back to the present moment. In the present moment, I’m not alone. I’m connected to the world. Usually, all is well in the present. If there are problems, the answers are found in the present, too.

I have a mundane but interesting example. It was 1999 and I was a month away from moving to the Pacific Northwest. I was returning home to Madison after visiting friends in Iowa when the engine in my car stopped as I drove east on the highway. I coasted to the shoulder and got out of the car with my 75-pound golden retriever, Ernie. It was 95 degrees. I thought to myself, all is well. We’re fine. I’m not alone.
At that moment, a woman in a mini van pulled up and said she’d give me a lift to the next exit. (This was before I owned a cell phone.) I pointed to my dog. “That’s fine, hop in,” she said. We did. The next exit was just a few miles down the highway. I realized it was the hometown of my best friend from Madison, and I knew she and her husband were there in Iowa that weekend, visiting her mother.
The good samaritan dropped me off at a gas station. I described where my car was and one of the gas station attendants drove off to check my car. Meanwhile, I remembered Nancy’s maiden name and called her mother’s house. Nancy answered. If my car was not drivable, she and Jay would be happy to give Ernie and me a ride home.
The mechanic arrived back at the station. “I think it’s your timing belt,” he said.
“That can’t be,” I said. “I just had it replaced a few days ago.”
“Well, take it back to where you had the work done,” he replied.
“How am I going to do that?” I asked. “I live in Madison, 100 miles from here.”
“Well, you’ve got triple A Plus. It covers 100 miles of towing.”
Nancy and Jay picked Ernie and me up and we headed to Madison. The next day, my car was delivered to my mechanic who fixed it. (It turned out to be a defect in the starter motor that Ford later described, but we didn’t know it at the time.)
I’m convinced that fear keeps us from seeing solutions that are always available to us, solutions that we can see when we stay in the present. The fear causes us to lose perspective. One of the great things about prayer and meditation is that they quiet the mind, bringing us to the present.
Try experimenting. I’m not advocating getting into the car of a stranger, by any means. But the next time you feel anxiety, remind yourself that you are in the present, and that in the moment, you’re connected to the world. Notice what happens. And if you’re like me, keep practicing.

Forgiveness

The Gift of Forgiveness

In recent months, two people I knew all too briefly died. The first was Forrest Church, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, prolific writer, and my neighbor in the 1970s. He died Sept. 24, the day after his sixty-first birthday.

The second was Vernor Schenck, who died Oct. 16 after learning a little more than a month earlier that he had cancer. He was 90. I’d met him last January during an interview after he’d learned the Public Relations Society of America had named its lifetime achievement award after him. During the interview, he said he had written about his life. “It was therapeutic, and it led to a much better relationship with my grown children. I’m happy to say I have a good relationship with all of them today,” he said. He made it clear that was his greatest achievement.

When Schenck walked into the office a couple of months ago, I asked him how he was. “I’ve got cancer,” he said, “and it’s closing in fast.”

I told him I was sorry. “Don’t be,” he said. “I’ve had a great life. I’m 90 years old. I’ve told the doctors I don’t want any treatment. I’ll have hospice, but right now I’m not in any pain.”

I told him he had done the really important things in life, including healing relationships with his children. “That’s right,” he said, smiling.

After Church learned in 2006 that he had esophageal cancer, I heard him speak on public radio a couple of times. We all die in the middle of our story, he said. The important thing, he underscored, was to die without any unfinished business. He meant making amends for past wrongs and extending forgiveness to others.

Church had taken care of a lot of his own unfinished business when he quit drinking in 2001. In his book Bringing God Home, he described how he had neglected his family and even himself because of what he called his affair with alcohol. By taking responsibility for actions and making amends, Church transformed resentments into peace.

I had been divorced many years before I made amends to my ex-husband. For a long time, I stubbornly said I wouldn’t talk about my part in the dissolution of our marriage until he talked about his. Then I realized two things: His part was none of my business, and my continuing refusal to look at my part was poisoning me. Resentment, I’ve heard it said, is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

I wrote a letter to my ex-husband, writing about instances I had been self-centered and less than an ideal and supportive mate. To this day, I have no idea if he ever read it or simply put it in the waste basket. It doesn’t matter. I wrote the letter for me, and I felt wonderful after I wrote it and dropped it in the mail. When I accepted responsibility, I stopped drinking the poison of resentment.

When my father died years ago, I still had some resentment toward him. He hadn’t been a perfect father, but I hadn’t been a perfect daughter either. For years I’d focused on his shortcomings—his temper and his prejudices. I wrote a letter, forgiving him his outbursts and thanking him for exposing me to culture, including plays in New York, and providing my sisters and brother and me with all the books we could want between our house and the library across the street. I apologized for wasting a semester’s worth of private college tuition while I stayed up late in the dorm discussing the war or playing bridge until the wee hours. Once again, I wrote the letter for me.

Of course, I’ve had plenty of others to make amends to and to forgive. Sometimes I create new resentments. Some resentments take time to reach my consciousness. I’m convinced they do only when I’m ready to see them. I can help the process by going into the silence of prayer and meditation, something I resist too easily. Once I see my part, I can apologize. That’s all I can do. The outcome is never in my hands. I know, though, that if I don’t feel peace afterward, I haven’t wiped the slate clean. It’s a sign I still hold resentments and need to get back to the work of forgiveness or making amends to others. It’s an ongoing process.

These thoughtful, articulate men reminded me by their actions in life the peace that comes from taking care of business. Their deaths emphasize the need to not waste another minute.

Spring Cleaning

How I cleaned by closets and found myself

My spring cleaning, such as it is, has changed over the years. As I tackle closets and files, I become ruthless. Each item I get rid of gives me a sense of freedom. And self.

There was a time when spring cleaning meant moving everything, cleaning, and then putting everything—everything—back. I had all the clothes I’d bought over the years. Some I hated and never wore. Many were just too small. I figured I might drop 20 pounds one day, so I hung on to slacks I couldn’t begin to squeeze into.

What was really incredible, however, was the amount of other stuff I had accumulated: knitting needles and yarn even though I hadn’t picked them up in years. Crochet hooks even though I’d never crocheted. A piano. Canning equipment. If the day ever came when I felt like learning to play the piano or putting up a harvest of vegetables, I’d be ready!

Sometimes I avoided closets. They were reminders of goals I’d set and hadn’t begun to reach--of dresses I wasn’t sewing, sweaters I wasn’t knitting.

I began to realize that perhaps one reason I didn’t knit anymore was that I designed and made quilts. And I didn’t can vegetables because I was out watching birds or writing a story. As I came to accept who I was, I also came to accept who I wasn’t.

That spring years ago, my cleaning became a purge. I called a friend who’d always wanted a piano. “Your piano is in my house,” I told her. “Can you come and get it?” She did. I gave the canning equipment to a friend who cans, and the size smalls to Goodwill.

Instead of guilt, I now feel something approaching joy when I get rid of things. Joy that I know who I am, that I know I’m happy making use of the gifts and talents I have. Joy that I’m passing on things to people who can use them. Joy that I make time for the really important things and people in my life, especially my grandson.

This sense of self has brought order to my life. But not too much. Books will always litter my living room. The floors need polishing because I’ve been out watching migrating sandhill cranes.

My closets are free of knitting needles and crochet hooks, though. My attic is empty. I’m not totally free of illusions, however. I’m hanging on to a couple too-small dresses.

© 1987 Updated 2008

Migration

I’d planned on making the trip to the Skagit valley in January. A book packager I was working with told me to wait, pointing out I could combine the trip with research I’d be doing in British Columbia. By the end of January the book was in doubt. I plugged away at a technical assignment, reading hundreds of pages of laws. By the last week in February, I’d finished. Though it would be the end of a steady paycheck for a little while, I felt like celebrating, even if gas was $3.30 a gallon, a near record so far in 2008. Before prudence could get the better of me, I put my binoculars and a change of clothes in the car and headed north. It was early March and I knew it was now or never for this year, anyway. Before much longer, wintering swans and snow geese would leave the Skagit valley to nest in Canada.

From Portland, it’s not a bad drive on I-5. I crossed the Columbia River at about 10:10 a.m. and arrived at the LaConner exit at 2 p.m. There were about 200 swans in a field along the west side the interstate before I reached the exit. On a clear day, the Cascades are a majestic backdrop to the east. This day, though, they were shrouded by clouds, making it easier to focus on birds. My first stop was a parking lot on Fir Island, a fan-shaped estuary where alternating fingers of land and water from the Skagit River meet Puget Sound. The lot was half full as people came to watch snow geese descend in a field adjacent to the Sound. There were close to 8000 of the geese, with more arriving each minute. I walked up to a fence, joining other birders. The geese, white with black wing tips, seemed to greet each other, so much honking. The juveniles were present in almost equal numbers, easily distinguishable by their gray feathers.

After so much anticipation, I stood there, present, taking in the sight and sound of snow geese. I turned, and there, in a large, deciduous tree, were two adult bald eagles and what looked to be a fairly new nest. Turning back to the Sound, I walked out, seeing a few ducks in the distance before returning to the geese. By now, another section of the field had turned from green to white and black and gray.

I got back in the car and went in search of swans. They’re found in fields, and the best place to observe them is from the side of the road. This can be tricky in the Skagit area where shoulders have been replaced by ditches to catch water. Here and there are tractor roads, little graveled places where one can park and watch swans.

The year before I’d spent two days driving up and down nearly every road in the area, carefully looking at each swan in search of a whooper swan usually found wintering the Aleutians. This year I could relax and simple drink in the beauty of these birds. There were a couple of hundred here, a hundred there. In fact, there are hundreds of wintering swans near my home west of Portland. But not in the numbers seen in the Skagit flats. And here, the swans are closer, easier to see. Perhaps they’re used to reverent tourists like me. Trumpeters are bigger and lack the little bit of yellow between the black beak and eye of the tundra swan. Watching them at rest in a lush, green field, I was reminded swans represent transcendence to some native tribes.

A male Northern harrier, or marsh hawk, swooped in and hopped along the edge of the field, looking for rodents. I could spend the remaining hours of daylight here but a friend offering a place to stay east of Blaine was waiting for me.

I took the Mt. Baker Highway at the southern end of Bellingham and drove east /northeast to my friend’s country place. I love the drive, and knew I’d see bald eagles and their nests regularly in the intervening 40 miles or so. I stopped at a couple of flooded fields and saw American wigeons and green winged teal. There were a few swans still wandering about, but most had already flown north. Within a mile of my friend’s house, I saw eagles on the ground in a nearby field. I pulled the car over to the shoulder and grabbed my binoculars. There were 2 adult and 3 immature bald eagles. One adult and two immatures were about 20 feet from 2 Labrador retrievers. The other birds were further away. One dog trotted toward them. As the dog neared, the birds took off, landing close to the other birds. The other dog, so close now to 5 eagles, seemed totally uninterested.

On a clear day, you can see Mt. Baker out my friend’s kitchen window. The next morning, however, it and the surrounding mountains were hidden by clouds. There was a steady, light rain. I didn’t care. Thrilled with anticipation, I gobbled oatmeal, threw on my slicker and offered to drive. We headed to Birch Bay first, stopping along the way to check out eagles and nests.

The rain was a fine mist when we got to the bay. We got our scopes out. Mine is old and inexpensive, perfect really: powerful enough to see birds in the distance, and old enough that I don’t mind if it gets a little wet. There were loons, scoters, and my favorite duck…well, one of my favorites…harlequin. Its blue, white and rust colors remind me of Northwest Native art. These ducks winter along the coast, going inland in late spring to nest inland on rivers and streams.

Next we went to Semiahmoo, a resort across from the Blaine. In past years, we’ve seen long-tailed ducks here, along with yellow-billed loons. On this day, there were rafts of pacific and common loons floating north toward Canada, a stone’s throw away. We walked down an old pier and saw a red-throated merganser.

The next morning the sun was shining on all the mountains, now revealed, sparkling against the blue sky. I moved out here almost 9 years ago, yet the mountains are still riveting. I could take the diagonal route to I-5, but instead, I drove due west to Blaine. The early morning sun glistened on evergreens and field after field of raspberry canes.

Once on I-5, it was all I could do to keep my eyes on the road. To east are the Cascades, to the west, the Olympic Mountains. Even the Seattle skyline is beautiful. I drove to a little over a hundred and fifty miles to Gig Harbor and had lunch with my friend Wendy. I’ve spent a lot of time hiking on the Olympic Peninsula, and I was tempted to stay a little longer. But the call toward home and family was stronger. The night before, my grandson had called me. “Where are you, Nonna?” he’d asked. “I’m in northern Washington, watching birds,” I replied.

“But Nonna, it’s dark outside. How can you see any birds?”

We’ll have to go owling some night.

Oregon springs from winter

Photo of back yard taken last fall, with granddog, Milo.

Before moving to the Northwest from Wisconsin in 1999, I talked to a former coworker who had moved to Portland several years earlier. “Don’t the winters get to you?” I asked. She replied, “It’s not as if you live in Arizona.”

Indeed, that first winter on the Olympic Peninsula was a pleasant surprise. The rain didn’t come until November, and then, for the most part, only on work days. Just about every weekend was sunny. Incredible. And, I now realize, very unusual.

Wisconsin has a few more days of sun than Oregon or Washington. The sunlight is scattered, however, throughout the year. In the Northwest, sun is concentrated in the summer. It can sometimes go for two months without rain, or even many clouds to speak of. But winter. Well, it does get cloudy. And rainy. There are compensations. Here in Oregon’s mild Willamette Valley, it seldom freezes. Ponds and lakes fill up with wintering waterfowl. I can drive a mile and see hundreds of swans. Or I can drive north of Seattle and see thousands of them. I can drive to the coast and see wintering loons.

I remember that first winter in Washington, 1999-2000. I was at work. It was February. My office faced woods. I heard a motor, like a snow blower or a lawnmower. It couldn’t be a snow blower. There wasn’t any snow. I got up and walked down the hall to look out another window. Someone was cutting the grass. In February. What brave new world had I landed in?

Today is February 12. I worked for a couple of hours in my very compact but lovely backyard. This year, we’ve had some pretty cold weather by our standards. Shallow ponds and flooded fields froze for a week. The geranium I always plant in honor of an old friend had green on it until the latest deep freeze. The petunias still have some green. But the snapdragons in the window box have buds. The heather is in bloom. And the daffodil and tulip bulbs popping through are hardly worth mentioning. But I will mention it because I spent so many years in Wisconsin. A beautiful place, to be sure, with cardinals and indigo buntings and scarlet tanagers—and lots of winter snow. Still, there I was, trimming roses and noting buds on evergreen clematis and rhododendrons and even the flowering dogwood.

This afternoon, I’ll look for a certain pair of bald eagles that have begun nesting in earnest Feb. 14 each winter, not far from where I live. Other eagles will nest later throughout the spring. The rain and clouds will keep coming for few more months. I can take it though. Seeing plants bud and birds nest is as good as a sunny day.

When spring came to Wisconsin

I grew up in Pennsylvania, and spent much of my adult life in Wisconsin. Winters in Wisconsin, though warmer today, were nothing like the moderate Pennsylvania winters I remembered. During one Wisconsin winter in the 70s, the high temperature didn’t get above 0 degrees F for one month. Yep. The HIGH. Then there was the winter, I think 78, when there was so much snow on the ground, the children couldn’t play. People were shoveling snow off their roofs. Roofs that had been built to hold Wisconsin snows. That winter, I took my two-year-old son to the local mall while his sister was in nursery school. We walked through Penney’s and then, at the opening to the mall itself, I said to him, “Run!” He looked up at me in disbelief. Had he heard correctly? “I can run?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “Run!” He took off, giggling all the way, and I smiled, taking big strides to keep up with him. When he got to Sears at the other end, I told him he could turn around and keep running. I don’t remember how many times he ran the length of the mall that day. I just remember one very tired and very happy boy.

We’d moved to Wisconsin in May of 1975, after 5 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where memories of shocking crimes stood out more than the weather. We made some wonderful friends there. But by graduation, most of us were moving to various parts of the country.

That first winter in Wisconsin, I took Reading the Landscape. It was taught by the Madison school district’s director of the school forest, Virginia Kline. For two hours every Monday night through most of January, February and March, I listened to Kline talk about Wisconsin’s birds, plants and geology. I was already a (very) casual birder, but Kline’s class opened up the world to me. During the entire time she was telling us about some aspect of Wisconsin’s natural history, she showed slides. I’ll always remember her saying bluebirds arrived in Wisconsin on March 1, like clockwork. How could I suffer from long winters, knowing bluebirds were about? Ben was born March 31, after the last class, but before the field trips. I missed the trips, so I did what anyone who’d ever heard Kline would do. I signed up again the following January. This time, my children’s father came with me, later remarking he could listen to Kline read the phone book. We took the field trips, and were introduced to some nearby sanctuaries.

Another harbinger of spring was when the ice went out of ponds and lakes. Ducks, swans and loons would drop out of the sky the very day the ice turned to liquid.

But while much of March brought snow, I always knew spring began March first, when I could drive in the country and see bluebirds.

Being Nonna

I picked my daughter up at the school where she teaches and then drove to her house where I would fetch Sweet Grandson (SG) for a weekend at my house. My daughter told me SG had been asking questions about college, wanting reassurance that she and his father wouldn't change their phone number or move while he was away at school. "He's only six! How can he be worrying about such things?" I asked.

She said the topic had come up when he'd asked how his parents had come to be married. They explained they'd met in college.

I walked into their house with my backpack so I could change out of the suit I had worn to an interview that day. SG asked, "Nonna, why do you look pretty?" His mother explained, "She had a job interview today." SG: "Do you have to look pretty when you have a job interview?" I expected more questions about job interviews once he was in the car and we were headed to my house. The first thing he asked, though, was if I had visited Mommy when she was in college. I said I had made the trip from Madison, Wisconsin, to a small town in Iowa regularly. "Were you so excited to see her, Nonna?" I said I was. "My mommy and daddy will visit me when I'm in college," he said. "Will you come, too, Nonna?" I said I would.

The topic changed to what we'd have for dinner. Periodically he'd ask, "Are we still in Beaverton?" or "Are we in Hillsboro yet? Mommy's school is in Hillsboro." Once we reached Forest Grove, he announced, "I'm going to go to college in Forest Grove."
"You can go to Pacific University," I said. He and I often take walks around the campus in search of acorn woodpeckers.
"Is Pacific University a college?" he asked.
"It is," I replied. "There are lots of colleges in Portland you can go to. You can go to Portland Community College. It's close to your house."
"I want to go to college at Pacific University," he said. "I can walk to your house when I'm at college, Nonna!" he said.

Having that major decision out of the way, he enjoyed dinner, played with trains and then got ready for bed. We woke up Saturday to snow. While he ate breakfast, I put my sheets in the washing machine. "Did you pee your bed, Nonna?" he asked. I explained I washed my sheets every Saturday morning even without pee.

We went outside and threw snowballs at each other. He giggled and threw until he announced he was cold. We went inside and made oatmeal cookies. "I'm glad I don't have a sister or a brother," he said. "I don't have to share the beaters."
I asked him if he shared the beaters when friends came over. He said he did. I asked him if he felt good when he shared. He said he did . But he was still glad he didn't have to share all the time.

After lunch, we went to my neighbor's house where he ate about 14 of her cookies, and made a city out of Legos. He pointed out where the parks and schools were. Then it was back to my place where we read some stories. I asked him what he wanted for dinner. "My stomach doesn't feel very good, Nonna." We had chicken soup and watched Babe. It was a new movie for him, with more questions than I have time to record here.

Sunday morning we took a walk around Pacific. He wants to be in plays when he's in college, and asked if Pacific had a theater with a stage. I told him there were at least two that I knew of. The buildings were locked, however. We looked for woodpeckers. I pointed out a large sequoia. "Wow. That's a big tree at my college."

Mommy and Daddy came to get him while he was eating lunch. "I'm going to college here, " he announced. My daughter took me aside. "Thank you so much. We slept 12 hours Friday night. It's such a gift when you take care of him."

After they left, I vacuumed cookies crumbs and loaded the dishwasher before answering some emails and going to a meeting. I knew he was the gift, and after I came home from the meeting, I'd miss him.