Taking Flight

Nothing to fear in the present

2010-06-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-02-06T14:36:00.001-08:00

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

2008-04-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Migration

2008-03-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

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

2008-02-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-12T13:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-04T19:47:00.000-08:00

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.

McGovern and me

2008-01-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

I posted the picture below, thinking of the days I campaigned for George McGovern in the Massachusetts presidential primary in 1972. So many of us supporting McGovern were idealistic and full of hope, after opposing a senseless war. Sen. Obama's candidacy brought those memories back.
My daughter just called and said, "Mom, who's going to know who that is?" Good point. George McGovern, then Senator from South Dakota and running for president, is the man on the left. I'm standing next to him. I was the area coordinator for the campaign in a town north of Boston. I don't know who the guy behind me is.

1972

2008-01-27T08:11:00.001-08:00

Naming birds

2008-01-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Fernhill, the local wetland, for a walk . I was curious to see if there was any open water for birds. One of the best things about rainy Oregon winters, I've found, is that it seldom freezes, creating flooded fields and shelter for waterfowl.
These last few days, however, it's been cold by our standards: nights in the teens, days in the high 30s. That's partly because we've had a string of days with no clouds, nothing to hold the heat of the day in.
There are 3 main ponds at Fernhill (really a sewage treatment plant) and some wetlands to the east. The first pond was frozen, but had a hundred or more gulls and at least that many cackling geese huddled on the ice. I walked south to the next pond, where there was a bit of open water. There were a few common mergansers, some coots, double-crested cormorants, several gadwalls and a pied-billed grebe. A few great blue herons hung out along the shore.
I turned east and saw sparrows on the path, mostly golden-crowned and song. A little further a hermit thrush flitted in a tree, but I had to take a second look. I'm still surprised when I see birds that would never show up in Wisconsin in January.
Eventually I made it to the wetland east of the first pond. There was plenty of open water. Pintails were in the majority, followed by mallards and green-winged teal--and cackling geese. I love seeing gw teal in the sun. Stunning. I kept my binocs on the ducks. Soon, a canvasback came into view, and then a lesser scaup. I turned toward the north and saw a ring-necked duck with some pintails and a shoveler. Turning back, I saw more ring-neckeds.
Getting back in the car, I drove along a road that borders the wetland and found 5 egrets hanging out in a field, looking for voles. A red-tail hawk flew overhead, while a kestrel perched on a wire.
My soul fed by birds and sun, I went home. This morning I posted what I saw on OBOL, Oregon Birders On Line. I noticed someone else had been at Fernhill earlier in the day. He listed 6 or 7 kinds of gulls. I sighed.
I took ornithology when I lived in Wisconsin. I learned the main gulls, though I never came close to mastering shorebirds. When I moved out here, I thought, I'm not learning gulls again. Too hard. What is it that makes us want to name things? I decided years ago I would no longer keep a life list. I watched birds for the sheer joy of it. For the gift of being totally present. For the awe of seeing such feathered beauty.
Yet when I read the list of gulls, I thought, "I should probably learn them."
I'll keep you posted.

Walking with a Zen master

2007-10-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

I found my mother in the living room with several other residents. She jumped up out of her chair when she saw me.

“There’s my sister,” she said, happy to see me. A few minutes later we were in the car, driving west into the lush hills of Vermont township. Lucky, my golden retriever, stuck his head into the front seat and licked Mom’s face.

“Quit pestering your grandmother,” I told Lucky.

“He can kiss his grandma as much as he wants,” cooed Mother.

Lucky gave me a quick look of disdain and then turned his attention once again to my mother.

“Isn’t the color glorious?” I said. We were surrounded by red and orange oaks and maples. “Doesn’t it remind you of West Virginia?”

“Oh yes,” my mother replied.

I’m not sure if she really did remember her childhood home, but the hills touch something deep inside her.

“We had a good time,” she said. “They had several of them. He did a good job. But that’s the way it goes.”

Most of Mom’s speech is now made up of short sentences strung together, making no sense. She can’t carry on a conversation. If you ask her if she has children, she’ll say no. She has no recollection of me as daughter or my two sisters or my brother. She can’t remember my father, who died in 1978.

Alzheimer’s disease has taken so many memories away. Yet on that lovely day on Lakeview Road, just north of Barneveld, I was thankful Mom’s sunny disposition was still with her. Although she no longer recognized me as her daughter, she was still very recognizable to me as Mom.

When she was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago in Texas, I was gripped by fear. I knew very little about what kind of care she would need. I didn’t know how to judge the various assisted-living homes in the area.

I did know enough, however, to call the Alzheimer’s Association. I talked to Mary Anderson, the director, at least once a day for the first couple of weeks. She cared for her husband’s parents when they had the disease. She has extraordinary patience and compassion.

Thanks to the information I got from Mary and the Alzheimer’s Association, I found a wonderful assisted-care home for my mother, who gets loving care there. And I am free to simply enjoy her, savoring each meeting.

On that day in the country, we got out of the car and walked up and down the hills of a friend’s land. I stood and watched for minute as Lucky bounded the hill and Mom sauntered along after him, smiling, calling to him, enjoying the beauty and the sunshine of the day.

At the bottom of the hill, Mom kneeled down and embraced Lucky, laughing as he lavished her with dog kisses. She was still my mother in essential, telling ways.

Published in the Wisconsin State Journal 1993

Debby Thompson de Carlo

Life's a Teach

2007-09-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Life’s a Teach

I used to work in the public information department at a large community college in the Midwest. I wrote about students, faculty, and staff. One of the great things about the work was how it blew my preconceived notions about people out of the water.

One day I was visiting a satellite campus about 40 miles from the main campus. It was relatively new, and had a heating and cooling system that used the sun…and ice. The custodian gave me a tour of the system, explaining details in ways I could understand. I asked if there had been any problems with it. He said there had, but he’d been able to fix them. In fact, the manufacturer of the system had sent their engineers to the school to learn from Clint. It didn’t take me long to realize the story was Clint, not the heating and cooling system. I asked him what he did in his spare time. “I build airplanes,” he replied. I envisioned the small, toy-sized models I’d seen people flying at a local park. I asked if he ever flew his planes at that park. He smiled. “I fly my planes at the Experimental Aircraft Association show at Oshkosh each year. I have an airstrip on my property.”

A few weeks later, I interviewed a woman who, after she’d gotten a PhD in environmental toxicology, complained to a friend that her work wasn’t what she expected. She didn’t really like it. Her friend, a machinist, suggested she try machining. He was joking, but she asked him to describe what he did. As he explained how he designed parts on a computer and then programmed a machine to manufacture the parts, she wanted to know more. A few weeks later she enrolled in the machining program at the community college. When I interviewed her, she’d just become a machining instructor at the college after working seven years in the field.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was the day I sat down in the cafeteria and asked the student at the table what program he was in. “Auto mechanics,” he replied. I asked him what his favorite course was, expecting him to talk about engines or transmissions. “Ms. Kenney’s World Literature class,” he said. “I love reading Shakespeare. He’s really writing about archetypes, much like Carl Jung.”

The students, faculty and staff at the college were my teachers. I’m still learning.

Eagles Soar!

2007-08-31T13:37:00.000-07:00

June 28 the majestic bald eagle spread its wings and flew off the endangered species list. The eagle population in the lower 48 states went from a paltry 417 pairs in 1963, to over 10,000 pairs today. How do we know there are that many? Well, a dedicated band of volunteers keep track of them all over the United States. In parts of Washington County, OR, Dennis Manzer of Beaverton has been watching and counting the birds since 2000.

On a hot day in May, Manzer has his scope set up, pointed toward a bald eagle nest in a fir tree near Hagg Lake in western Washington County. The female is in full view, shielding 3 chicks from the hot sun. An hour goes by. Occasionally Manzer takes the binoculars around his neck and focuses them on other birds. A female Western tanager, her yellow feathers particularly beautiful in the sun, perches on a nearby tree. A red-bellied sapsucker makes two appearances. They’re pleasant diversions, but always Manzer returns his attention to the eagle nest. As early evening comes and the temperature cools, the female takes off, exposing triplet eagle chicks to view. They are 5 weeks old now, about the size of very fat crows, and a rich brown in color. One stands, revealing large yellow talons. About 10 minutes later, the female returns with a fish and lands in the nest. The male follows immediately, landing in the nest too. Manzer lets out a whoop as the male flies to a nearby tree, watching his brood as the female shreds the fish and feeds the chicks. “How many times have you seen five bald eagles in a nest at one time?” he asks.

About 8 miles away as the eagle flies is another nest in Jackson Bottom. That nest also has triplet chicks, and the adults are busy. It takes about 35 days for each egg to hatch. By 11 weeks, they’ll be nearly adult size, and taking flight. Finding food to sustain that kind of growth is a challenge for the adult eagles who usually have one or two chicks. Add a third and the work load increases significantly. The adults will continue to feed the youngsters for several more weeks. Then they’re on their own.

It’s several weeks later, June 22, and Manzer is observing the Jackson Bottom nest. On June 19, at just nine weeks of age, one of the chicks was found on the deck of a nearby house. It appeared unhurt, and after 5 hours disappeared. Manzer theorized if the bird was on the ground, the parents would perch in close proximity, and bring prey to the chick. It did appear that occurred several times. He’s been to the area frequently, but after a month, there are still just two chicks in evidence. One fledged July 11, the other July 12. Manzer still holds out some hope that one day he’ll see three juvenile bald eagles in flight. So far, though, it’s not looking good. Possible predators include bobcat, coyote, fox, mink and or a large raccoon. Still, the day is not without its pleasures.

At 8 a.m., Manzer has spotted the two adults and both chicks. Keep in mind these “chicks” are the same size now as their parents. They’re dark brown all over, lacking the white tail and head feathers they’ll sport in 4 or 5 years. The adults are in trees equal distant—about 1,000 feet from the nest. One juvenile is in the nest, the other in a dead tee, a snag about 500 feet away from the nest. Suddenly the female dives toward the water and then heads to the nest. She’s got a small prey item in her talons and the young eagle in the nest is calling to her. Not to be left out, the other fledgling flies to the nest to share in the bounty.

The female disappears, flying out of sight, while the male continues to watch from his sentinel tree. The adventuresome chick flies to a snag, and lands on the top of it, next to and about 12 feet above some open water at Jackson Bottom. Suddenly the juvenile flies into the water, just a few feet from shore. Whether it was going after a fish or a bird is anyone’s guess. Once in the water, the young eagle is motionless for a few seconds. Then it paddles and walks a few inches to shore, shaking its wings. After about 5 minutes, it flies to a large branch in the water, about 5 feet from the surface. It’s all part of the eagle’s task of learning to fend for itself eventually, says Manzer. He adds the bird is doing an admirable job. He’s been watching this particular bird since the egg was laid back in early March. He’s watched nests in several spots around the county. While it’s great to have triplets, not every pair is so lucky.

A nest just outside of Banks was abandoned while the adults were incubating the eggs. Again, it’s speculation but Manzer thinks there’s a good chance the nest failed because of people stopping to look at the nest along Highway 6. “I liken that kind of gawking to a strong-arm home invasion,” he says. “I always watch from a distance. Not only is it better for the eagles, it’s also better for me. I can see more. Just think about it. If you stand next to tall building downtown and look up, you don’t see the top floors. If you cross the street, you can see more. The further away you get, the more you can see,” he adds. When it comes to eagles, each pair is different, he says, and it’s not always clear how much disturbance the eagles will tolerate. And that brings him to the topic of the bald eagle’s removal from the endangered species list.

Bald and golden eagles, along with other migrating birds, were first protected in 1918 by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Despite that act, eagles were hunted and killed. Congress responded in 1940 by passing the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. By 1963, however, bald eagles were in even greater decline, down to 417 pairs in the lower 48 states. An insecticide, DDT, had thinned egg shells, leading to failed reproduction. DDT was banned, but drastic action was needed. The Endangered Species Act was adopted in 1973 and the bald eagle added to it. Among other things, people were prohibited from viewing an eagle’s nest no closer than ¼ mile with a visual screen, and ½ mile without a visual screen. Now it’s 100 and 200 meters. Under the Endangered Species Act, nest trees were protected up to five years after being used. Other trees used by the eagles have never been protected. Manzer points out 4 trees in use at the moment by 4 eagles, including the nest tree. Those usage trees, he says, deserve the same protection as the nest tree. As noted earlier, the eagle listing was successful, with over 10,000 pairs of bald eagles reported last year. “It’s far short of the ½ million thought to exist 300 years ago,” says Manzer, “but we’ll never see those kind of numbers again because we’ve paved and roofed and fragmented so much of their habitat. We need a clear definition of what habitat means,” he says. “I’m afraid the current administration’s attitude is that endangered species aren’t going to encroach on economics.” Indeed, the current administration has added far fewer species to the protected list than were added under the previous two administrations, and in most cases under court order.

Manzer and his counterparts across the country will continue monitoring and counting eagles. If the numbers start to drop again, the bird can be put on the endangered list again, as long as the Endangered Species Act continues to exist.

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Sidebar

Eagle facts

Adult females weigh about 13 pounds, and adult males weigh about 10 pounds.

Eagles form a life-long pair bond and use the same nest for years. One nest in Florida has been in use for 25 years.

A month after leaving the nest, the adults take the young as far as British Columbia and Alaska, teaching them to hunt. When the chicks are 6 months old, the adults return to the nest site, leaving the chicks who will stay until freeze up.

The chicks will wander for 4 or 5 years, finally settling on a nest site often within a hundred miles of where they were hatched.

Oregon has about 470 nesting pairs.

Bridges

2007-08-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

I was driving back from a couple of hours of watching 13-week-old eagles when I heard about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. My first thought as a former Midwesterner was the wellbeing of my friends and their children who live there. My next thought was we are neglecting our country’s infrastructure while we bomb and then rebuild a country elsewhere. And then I thought of something I wouldn’t have thought of just a few months ago.

I thought of a section of Bill Gates’ 2007 commencement address at Harvard. He said in part, “I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair… It took me decades to find out…

When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say, ‘Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent.’

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.”

I realized that in a very real sense, the bridge of life collapses every day for people all over the world dying of hunger, dying of preventable diseases, dying of war.

Gates goes on to give hope: “We don’t read much about these [millions of preventable] deaths. The media covers what’s new—and millions of people dying is nothing new…It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution…Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new—they can help us make the most of our caring—and that’s why the future can be different from the past.”

I thought of people in my community who are helping other people every day. There are those people I know and many more I don’t know. One friend is working to help homeless families. Another friend visits women in prison and cares for grandchildren while their mother undergoes cancer treatment. Still another loans money to people through a program call Kiva. Many contribute time and money to Habitat for Humanity, Doctors Without Borders, The Nature Conservancy, and other charities. Still others help neighbors in need. Gates emphasized we simply see a need and focus on it, even if it’s just a few hours a week.

So how do I help? What can I do? The bridge of life is collapsing all over the world. I can join people who are part of the solution. It’s one way to work on my own spiritual infrastructure.

©August 2007

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If you’d like to read the entire commencement address, go to:

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/06.14/99-gates.html

Gratitude for Ordinary Days

2007-07-25T17:12:00.001-07:00

Gratitude for Ordinary Days

By Debby de Carlo

Every Monday and Wednesday after my class ends at noon, I enter an enchanted world. I arrive at my daughter and son-in-law’s house just as Chris gets home from work and with my grandson in tow. “Nonna!” my 5-year-old grandson yells, running to me.

Inside the kitchen, my son-in-law makes lunch for his son, while I am bombarded with news and questions. “Look at my art projects, Nonna! Nonna, what is that red spot on your neck? Nonna, what are those silver things in your teeth? Nonna, how does the tooth fairy get in the house?” By the time I’ve answered the questions, Chris has prepared lunch for my grandson. While he eats, his father continues preparing food, now getting all the prep work done for the evening’s dinner. By the time my grandson is finished with lunch, his father has chopped two onions, grated 3 cups of soy cheese and made bread dough to rise. He’s efficient, and patient, too, fielding some of the rapid-fire questions from his son.

I am reminded of the last scene from Thorton Wilder’s Our Town. Emily, who has died in childbirth, relives her twelfth birthday. Then she rejoins the dead. As she looks back, she says, “Goodbye world! Goodbye Grovers Corners…Mama, Papa. Goodbye to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.” Sobbing, she asks, “Do any human beings every realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?”

Of course, life isn’t just about clocks ticking, Mama’s sunflowers and a visit from Nonna. Just ask anyone in Iraq, citizen or soldier. Or my friend whose grandson is gravely ill. Jimmy Stewart, playing George Bailey in the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” becomes so depressed by financial reverses that he almost takes his life. A second-class angel, Clarence, helps Bailey see the rich blessings in his life by showing him what his town would be like if he had never lived. Bailey finds his mother runs a boarding house, his brother dead at 11, his wife a spinster, his children unborn. The experience leaves him praying for his life, problems and all. His prayers are answered, his changed perception evident in his happiness.

My daughter, a teacher, sees children every day in her classroom: children whose parents are loving and present; children whose parents are in jail or too strung out on drugs or alcohol to offer any kind of stability to their children. Around the world, children are dying of hunger, dying of preventable diseases, dying from contaminated water.

My son-in-law puts dinner in the refrigerator. “OK,” he says to my grandson. “Time for a tooth brush and a story. Do you want Nona to read or Daddy?”

“Nona!” my grandson exclaims. He knows I’m not available every day for story time. He is secure in the knowledge stories from Daddy can be counted on every day.

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Blue Collar White/Collar

2007-07-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

“Wouldn’t you know she’d fall in love with a farmer,” my father lamented when he learned I was marrying a college classmate who had grown up in Iowa. Dad was a native New Yorker and assumed everyone in Iowa was farmer. I explained my fiance’s father was a milkman.

That was worse than the farmer scare. My father was an executive in a major corporation. He had firmly held beliefs about people paid an hourly wage or labor union members. Those beliefs were based on vague fears and prejudices, surprising given my father’s own humble beginnings.

My father-in-law had similar views about executives. He was sure they sat in comfy chairs with feet propped on desks, drank three martini lunches and padded their expense accounts.

The only time the two met was at the wedding of their children. I thought of their silly prejudices years later when my father died. By then, I knew my father-in-law well. He’d delivered milk when people still had it brought to boxes kept near the door. His day started at 2 a.m. when he went to the dairy to load his truck. Then he’d start the route, running out of the truck with milk or cream, running back for extras or changed orders, collecting payment from customers, trying to stay warm during cold winter mornings. He worked most holidays, including Christmas. He took his son with him during summers, stressing the importance of hard work and honesty. Later, when people bought milk at the store instead of from milk trucks, he got a job in a factory. He missed the opportunity to be outside, but he was happy to have a job.

My father had grown up penniless in New York during the Depression. He spent every spare minute in the public library, reading all he could. His first employer, a Wall Street brokerage firm president, saw my father’s quick mind, knowledge and hard work. He was steadily promoted, eventually working for a large corporation. He worked 60 hours a week routinely and brought home work every night. His loyalty to the company was fierce and his commitment to honesty unquestioned. When the company considered making an illegal campaign contribution in the early 1970s, my father steadfastly refused to go along with the deal, almost losing his job. Later, just weeks before he died of cancer, he read about an acquaintance being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “You know,” he said, “it nice to die knowing your professional life has been above reproach.”

It’s too bad he died without knowing his son-in-law’s father had very similar values. They had a lot more in common than their grandchildren.

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The Day Fredrick Spoke

2007-04-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Fredrick had lived on this hill in Wisconsin’s Baraboo Range all of his 80 years. His home had no plumbing, although there was a pump next to the kitchen sink, an improvement he’d added years ago. There was an outhouse out back, not far from the house. His home wasn’t much different from the settlement cabin on our farm down the road. We lived there on summer weekends, coming from the city to cut firewood for winter, glimpse a scarlet tanager, hike through the woods to the pond, and do a little farming. Dean liked growing organic wheat, just enough to sell to the local co-op. We joked our main crop was rocks. Wisconsin’s freezing and thawing pushed them through the soil each spring. I’d walk behind the tractor and throw them in the wagon behind the John Deere as Dean rode it up and down the field. When the wagon was full, we’d unload the rocks, extending walls built by all the people who lived here since 1850. At night, we’d bring buckets of water from the spring and bathe beside the cabin, pouring the cold water over ourselves after soaping up. Then we’d go to bed, exhausted. I’d hear bats flying over our heads, but I was too tired to care. We’d sleep like stones until morning when bird song woke us.

Fredrick remembered when bobolinks nested all over the meadows in these hills. Fredrick knew when the barred owl called during a summer day, it meant rain would come within 12 hours. Fredrick had seen oven bird nests. Fredrick could fix just about any kind of farm machinery, often fashioning a repair with tools and wires he had around in his barn.

I knew this from talking to Dean. Although I saw Fredrick often, he was silent in my presence, even when I greeted him with a friendly hello and a smile. “He’s shy,” Dean explained. “He’s a classic bachelor farmer.” I was content to learn about Fredrick’s wisdom through Dean. Sometimes we’d lie in the meadow at night, looking up at the Milky Way, and Dean would tell me how Fredrick had fixed a combine or one of the tractors without going to the hardware store. I loved watching the two of them working in the field. Fredrick helped Dean with repairs. Dean helped Fredrick with heavy work.

It was our second summer there, early July. The rock walls were laced with wild raspberries. I picked all morning, driving into town to get flour and other ingredients we didn’t keep at the cabin. While we had no pump in the kitchen, we did have a stove fueled by propane.

I rolled out the crust between two pieces of wax paper on the table in the kitchen, lining the pie tin and filling it with berries, a little sugar, flour and butter before covering it with the top crust. I put it in the oven, and walked down to the pond, finding a place along the creek just above the pool where the sound of the water was especially melodious. I thought of Fredrick growing up here, being in these woods every day. A wood thrush sang its fluted song, a perfect accompaniment to the sound of the creek moving over rocks. A barred owl called. “Who cooks for you?” it asked. “Who cooks for you?” I started back up the hill, through the oaks, hickories and a few maples. The smell of berry pie wafted from the cabin.

I took the pie from the oven, letting it cool on the table on the porch while I covered the picnic table outside with a flowered cloth. A jug of lemonade from the cooler under the porch was still ice cold. Dean and Frederick were already heading toward the cabin.

“Would you like some pie, Fredrick?” I asked. He nodded, taking a seat on a bench, wiping sweat from his forehead with a frayed bandana. Dean sat across from him, pouring lemonade for each of us. I cut 3 slices of pie and sat next to Dean. The owl’s call meant rain was coming, but there was no sign of it just then. The sky was blue, with a few fluffy white clouds. Sun bathed the meadow, the trees, everything, with radiance.

Fredrick looked at me for just a moment before he bent his head again toward the pie. “I like pumpkin, too,” he said.

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Giving

2007-04-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

I was fourteen when I begged my parents to let me go to Selma and march with the civil rights workers there. The next summer, I read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch was my hero, along with Martin Luther King, Jr.

My parents didn’t let me go to Selma, so I stayed home and read books about the Holocaust, how the Danes smuggled Jews to Sweden, and how other courageous people fought against the Nazis.

Young and naïve, I yearned for some sort of crisis where I could prove my mettle and be true to my ideals. Of course I would help save the world, but I needed cases where good and evil were clearly defined. Instead, there seemed to be a lot of gray in the world.

As the years went by, I began to realize that a lot of injustice was fairly subtle stuff, and true heroes and heroines didn’t wait for situations of historic proportions. Instead, they did what they could in small, incremental ways. The people I admired most were those who treated all people with respect in their everyday dealings at work and at home. My daughter’s father refused membership in the Rotary Club when invited to join because they did not accept women members at that time. “How can I join a club,” he asked the Rotarians, “that would not invite my daughter to join if she had the same professional status I have?” One Rotarian later told me those words had shaken him. “He didn’t condemn us. He just stated why he couldn’t be a Rotarian. I went home that evening and looked at my daughter, and I felt lousy. I think everyone did.” By the time the Supreme Court ruled against Rotary’s discrimination, at least one Wisconsin Rotary group jumped at the chance to include women members.

The people I admired most also gave to charities I had once looked upon with disdain. While I was boycotting lettuce, the Salvation Army was providing shelter to homeless families. While I was buying politically correct tomato sauce, The Red Cross was helping families who had lost everything in disasters of one kind or another.

At about the time I realized I couldn’t save the world, I also realized I didn’t have to. There were plenty of people doing their part to make the world whole. I learned that love and forgiveness are transforming, so I forgave myself for not doing more and started doing what I could. I could affirm each person I came into contact with each day. I could give time and money to causes I believed in, lending my support to all the people already at work doing the right thing.