Oh, Help, Another New Year

It’s New Year’s Day, a chance to start fresh, throw off not-so-helpful habits, do those things we always meant to do, but somehow life and inertia get in the way. I try not to make serious resolutions, but I do reset my intentions knowing that I will sometimes slip up. By the end of January, if not by the end of the first day of January, I have found some way to be less than perfect—i.e. human. Today I had the square of chocolate I planned to allow myself after dinner, and then, before I could shove the temptation out of sight in the cupboard, I had a square of a different chocolate bar, since I knew that a side-by-side comparison would prove to be highly useful—to someone, somewhere, sometime.

Fortunately there’s another New Year that begins in February, which I can celebrate by eating healthy vegetarian Chinese food.

Lent is the next opportunity for self-reformation. I don’t bother with diet and exercise for this one; Lent is meant for heavy duty reformation of the soul. Last year I gave up unnecessary worry so that I could worry every time I caught myself worrying.

In March I can adopt the Persian New Year, Nowruz, which falls on the first day of spring. In Chaucer’s time that was considered the beginning of the year, which is why his pilgrims started out for Canterbury in “that aprill with his shoures soote.” April is an excellent time for a spring retreat or a pilgrimage.

June begins a new season with new priorities and schedules. Many of my regular commitments end, so of course I should have time to concentrate on things shoved aside. Every summer I usually plan a few weeks at the cabin so that I can hike every day and finish that novel I keep meaning to write. Unfortunately the best things to do at the cabin are reading, sleeping, and zoning out by the creek.

September is the start of the academic year, a new beginning for many activities, and another change in routine. One year I adopted the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, since the last 12 months had been pretty shitty and I couldn’t wait for January.

The Roman Catholic liturgical year begins with the first day of Advent, usually at the end of November.

If all those opportunities for a fresh start aren’t enough, consider that the Romans designated the first day of every month as the Kalends; once a month people got a special day to celebrate a new beginning.

But even wiser than the Romans is Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, who marveled: “Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

Happy New Year—today, tomorrow, and every day.

De-Nesting

For the record, I don’t collect Hummels.

Oddly enough I spent a few moments in an antique store recently with my family, probably because it was next to an ice cream store and I was virtuously shunning the calories. My son called me over to a display cabinet full of the cherub-cheeked figurines, thinking that I must love Hummels since I have  six of them. My emphatic “No! I don’t want any more Hummels!” startled at least a few other customers lusting after nearby TTD’s (Things To Dust).  I inherited mine and treasure the memories they bring of my grandmother and aunt, but I truly hope they don’t reproduce.  

Lately, in fact, I have been gleefully shedding clutter. I call it my de-nesting phase, since my youngest child is going away to college soon, but I’ve noticed it’s a trend with many people these days, especially those around my magical age. I’ve spent thirty years accumulating, the house is full, and I don’t use 80% of what I own. Beyond Hummels, here’s a quick rundown of the worst offenses:

Media: Three bags of books went to the library last week–a mere subcategory in the Dewey decimal system of my life. My Kindle can hold 3200 books and display any recipe on the Internet. Any movie old enough to be on VHS is old enough to be on Netflix. Four years ago I bought a device to transfer my LP’s to CD and haven’t used it yet–nor have I played any of the LP’s. My nearest Goodwill is a frequent haunt, since I have finally acknowledged I won’t lose THAT many pounds before those clothes become vintage.

Lotions: I like to get my money’s worth out of a hotel, and it is fun to have a collection of scents to fit any mood.  My go-to scent, however,  is that delicious cherry almond of Jergen’s Lotion, and one bottle of it lasts me several years.

Candles: The flaming chalice is the symbol of my Unitarian-Universalist church, and in lieu of grace (which brings back terrifying childhood memories of having to sing grace for my family so they could chuckle over my sweet little voice) I light a candle before dinner. That means I need one candle in the house, not two hundred.

Photos: This one’s tough; I’m not going to throw away any family photos. I have a slide scanner to scan the best and make them into nice multimedia slideshows and store them in the Cloud so that I won’t lose them in a fire. Cf the LP to CD paragraph above.

Sheet music: If I picked up one part of a double choir motet at a music workshop, I can’t play it with my ensemble.  If I managed to acquire a score for a quartet and haven’t made three more copies, I still can’t play it with my ensemble. My first recorder workshop was twenty years ago in February. I have a lot of worthless sheet music.

Financial records: April 16 should be a national holiday day dedicated to throwing out records more than three years old–or is it seven–except for stock purchase records, and improvements made to the house that affect its value and…well they publish articles about what to keep every spring, but I don’t know where I put the latest. It’s probably filed somewhere.

The Attic, otherwise known as the Black Hole: Toys, books, baby clothes, and handmade baby blankets for the mythical grandchildren whose parents probably have completely different taste. Those may go onto E-Bay, though–I just found out what a vintage copy of Dr. Goat is worth. Christmas decorations–no, I don’t collect snowmen or antique Santas either, and no one is willing to climb on the roof to hang lights anymore. Luggage–might as well get rid of the suitcases without wheels that don’t fit in overhead bins. And wait–is that a spare roll of the ugly grey carpet we pulled out ten years ago?

This is all just the tip of the iceberg, of course, and I’m not even a candidate for Hoarders. I’m making progress, though. I sent my son’s collection of shot glasses home with him and got permission to throw out the baseball trophies.

Paintball, anyone?

What-Iffing

Giving up worrying for Lent is going pretty well. Either the things I was worrying about unnecessarily have turned out well (my son found not one but two subletters who will feed his cats and pay his rent) or I have caught myself “sweating the small stuff” and realized how ridiculous I was being.  Even better, this past weekend I managed to stop myself in the midst of a major session of What-Iffing.

What-Iffing  is a close cousin of worrying which wastes just as much time–I can’t make a decision until I have more information, so instead of waiting patiently for that information I go into some strange cloud of being and wander for hours amid imaginary flowchart boxes, sliding up and down arrows and rearranging the boxes. I’m not imagining dire outcomes, but I’m coming up with so many possible responses to various scenarios that I’m running out of alphabet letters. 

The situation is simply that I’m waiting to hear the date of a memorial service that I truly want to attend in southern California. I was planning a trip to Sedona to visit my mother this weekend and may need to postpone it or change my return flight to Burbank. If the memorial service isn’t until the following week, I will have to adjust plans to visit colleges with my daughter, which may or may not bump other activities as well as the music lessons I teach.  My whole highly organized calendar for April depends on one decision over which I have no control.

Control is of course the issue here. We humans have an outsized need to be in control of our lives and to be able to come up with alternate plans when needed.  Plan A: we store up enough food for the winter to stay in this nice cozy cave. Plan B: we move where the game is more plentiful and find or make shelter when we get there.  Plan C: we attack another tribe and steal their winter stash. Somehow the brain circuitry stayed the same despite grocery stores that sell avocados from Chile.

So I will wait patiently, make my plans when I can, and pinch myself every time I wander into the flowchart minefield.

Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines is cancelling hundreds of flights after a plane from Phoenix back to Sacramento developed a hole in the roof.  Should I worry?

Fireworks

This is an essay I wrote in response to the prompt “Cheap Thrills”–does anyone else remember Uncle Wiggily?

The one drawback to spending summers at our family cabin in Custer National Forest in Montana was the ban on fireworks on the Fourth of July. The few times I did get to celebrate the holiday in town, I loved dancing with sparklers all over the backyard and hearing them sizzle when the hot, spent metal rods hit the water in the tin pail. The fountains were an even greater treat, showering flowers of fire into the night sky. Neighborhood boys found endlessly creative things to do with firecrackers; I hung shyly back and as a result never had to go to the emergency room. Most years, however, even those simple thrills were denied to me when my parents decided to avoid the noise and head up to our peaceful mountain refuge.

My unlikely savior was, in fact, that long-eared gentleman rabbit with a red, white and blue striped rheumatism cane: Uncle Wiggily. My father read me Howard R. Garis’s Uncle Wiggily stories religiously at bedtime for several years, and the story that still resonates with me is “Uncle Wiggily’s Fourth of July.” The animals in Uncle Wiggily’s forest could not have real fireworks either, but they celebrated the holiday with dry sticks, painted red, white, and blue, which they broke with a loud crack. Uncle Wiggily also taught a sick boy to burst green puff balls with a loud pop and inspired ten thousand fireflies to give a light show.

I, too, gathered dry sticks to crack and found seed pods to pop, satisfied that I was having a real Uncle Wiggily Fourth of July. There are no fireflies in the Beartooth Mountains, but summer thunderstorms nearly always provided a spectacular sky show in late afternoon. We roasted hot dogs in the old stone fireplace and listened for that moment when they began to whistle, while sparks wafted harmlessly up the chimney, bright against the soot-blackened stones.

Once inspired, I found many treasures in my forest. Horsetails were natural puzzles. The sparkly sand next to the creek was the pixie dust from Neverland; with that and my happy thoughts I could fly to the highest peaks of the canyon and chase the mountain sheep. Logs across the streams were balance beams, where I could pretend to be competing in the Olympics. Rock gnomes lived in glittering cavities inside granite boulders, and I made miniature tipis with sticks and leaves for the elves to use when they thought I wasn’t looking.

Two years ago a spark did enter my forest wonderland, despite the ban on fireworks, and for a short time the Shire became Mordor. Thousands of acres around our cabin were blackened; even the rocks peeled and crumbled. The early lessons I learned in finding joy and beauty in simple, small things have helped me heal along with the forest. I stop short in awe when I round a corner of a trail and see a mass of bright yellow balsamroot against the stark background of black bark. I trace the green ribbons lining the streams as they wind down the bare hillside. I wait inside the outhouse, hardly daring to breathe, until the mother and baby moose have wandered away after nibbling the new leaves on unburned trees near the cabin.

Uncle Wiggily would have gathered ashes to make soap for Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Let it Be

I’m not a Catholic, but I frequently choose to observe Lent. Unitarian-Universalists draw on the wisdom of all world religions, plus science, reason, and humanism to form our own personal credos, and I find the practice of abstaining from something I normally enjoy for a defined period each year to be spiritually nourishing.

In the past I’ve become a vegetarian for the duration, or I’ve given up wine or sugar (but never chocolate). This year as I contemplated my choices, I couldn’t get motivated to skip the corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day or the lamb stew on Persian New Year. I’d already bought a bottle of Dom Perignon for a family celebration. Besides, I don’t really view any of those things as sinful or unhealthy, in moderation. Jesus provided wine for the wedding, after all, and he would have loved chocolate if the wise men had brought him some. 

Then a friend posted on Facebook that she was giving up disorganization for Lent. Suddenly a new vista opened up–I could give up unhealthy mind habits instead of food. Without thinking much about it, I replied that I would give up worry for Lent.  I wasn’t terribly serious about this, but forming that intention suddenly made me aware of just how much time I spend in unnecessary worry. This led immediately to worrying about how much I worry, so I turned to the meditation technique of labeling the thought without judgment and flicking it away like a bothersome fly.

I haven’t yet come upon a necessary worry. As many of the world’s wisest have reminded us, the past is gone, the future is still fantasy, and as long as we’re still breathing the present is nothing to worry about.  And yet a veritable swarm of those bothersome flies plagues me at all hours of the day and night.

First, there are the typical parental worries. I calculate when my teenage daughter should be home with the car, then have to imagine reasons why she isn’t home at that time.  I have a good imagination. I also worry about dreaded diseases caused by nutritional deficiency because she still hates green vegetables, although I know that George Bush Senior managed to become President of the United States and live a long and healthy life despite a hatred of broccoli. I even worry when she swims in the rain.

We’re also waiting for those Big Envelopes for her. It’s actually a bit less dramatic now, as the verdicts are all posted on the Web and she finds out via her friends on Facebook when to log in to look.  The college admissions committees are not going to respond to the frantic vibes I keep sending them, and the truth is that all the schools to which she applied are excellent schools where she will be happy.  And in fact, so far they’ve all said yes. 

I even found myself worrying what my son would do with his cats if he was assigned a residency away from Los Angeles and had to pack up his apartment before he goes to Europe next month. He hadn’t yet made plans for that possibility. As it turns out, he will stay at UCLA for his residency and keep his apartment. I’m sure if he made it through medical school he’s intelligent enough to find a neighbor to feed his cats.

When the first digit of my age changed, the health worries intensified. Is my husband showing early signs of dementia because he wrote the wrong amounts on two checks on the same day? Am I, since I can remember who wrote “The Death of a Moth” (which I have never read) but not the name of the book I finished reading yesterday?  Should I worry about all of the spots on my skin, or did I just inherit my once red-headed mother’s propensity for freckles?

Should I throw out food that is past its expiration date? Should I keep eating shellfish even though my eyes itch when I indulge in crab or lobster? Am I feeding my family pesticides and growth hormones, and is there E. coli on the organic vegetables fertilized naturally?  Does the gas used by the CSA delivery van offset the environmental advantages of supporting a local farmer?

I put off doing our taxes till last weekend, because I was afraid we would owe thousands of dollars and have to sell stock to pay it and then owe more taxes next year on the stock we sold, and so on in a never-ending cycle until we end up in bankruptcy. We’re actually getting a large enough refund to pay off the credit card balance, which is also a perpetual worry.

As a performing musician, I worry about the stage floor cracking open when I make a mistake; as lightening strikes me I will sink down into a special purgatory for musicians, accompanied by jeers and rotten tomatoes from the audience and looks of utter disgust from the conductor who hired me. It hasn’t happened yet.

I could go on, but I’ll end with the other element from Catholicism that attracts me–the worship of Mary. At Chartres Cathedral in 2006 I lit a candle to Mary and asked simply for peace. She hasn’t delivered for the world yet, but I’m making progress on the inner variety.

When I find myself in times of darkness, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom:
“Let it Be.”

Simplicity

I’m taking a class on voluntary simplicity at my Unitarian Universalist church. I have to drive for forty-five minutes in rush hour traffic to get there, cram down some dinner first or go hungry till long after my family has eaten, and find time to read and reflect on the week’s assignments before attending the class. I also have to fight my eternal shyness to speak up in the group about matters close to my heart.  I realized when I signed up for this class that I would miss two of the five meetings due to other church committments. Simple it is not, but I’m finding the class well worth the time.  

The first week we all reflected on what areas in our lives need simplifying. As it happened, I was out every night that week with music rehearsals or other meetings, so my chaotic schedule was foremost in my mind.  I’ve been writing a good deal in this blog about returning to simplicity in solo retreats; it’s important to shed all of the chains tugging on us for a short time and find moments of silence and peace. This doesn’t have to be done in a wilderness cabin, although lack of electronic gadgets and Internet access certainly helps. Nor does it require solid blocks of time–five minutes gazing at a candle with soft music playing can do wonders. Simplicity.

Week two of the class concerned dealing with too much stuff. We all have our obsessions. I’ve been organizing a concert with my early music ensemble, and I need to enlist the services of the professional  librarian in the group to help me organize my mountainous mass of music so that I can easily find the pieces I want. Right now it’s all in randomly located piles depending on what concert I recently used it for (recent meaning within the last five years) or from what workshop I obtained the music. My other area of excess is books, although the librarian confessed to having four tons at one point in his life, which he had to pare down when he moved.  Maybe I should consider moving.

I was enjoying the discussions so much that I excused myself from one of those conflicting meetings. Everyone understood, because they are all overcommitted too–they encouraged me to go learn to live simply and report back. In our third class we considered the place of work, paid or unpaid, in our lives. My varied activities are  mostly unpaid, but I realized that I already have many of the rewards of a good career: intellectual and creative challenges,  excitement, the satisfaction of helping others, friends with similar interests, recognition for my skills, travel, and even the luxury of staying in castles in Europe.  I’ve figured out everything but how to earn money, but that should be the easy part.

I’ll miss the session on time management because I’m double-booked that night. (All I can do is try.)  If I can find the time, I’ll write more about simplicity in my next entry.

Sanity

Sometimes doing something insane is totally sane.

When comedian Jon Stewart announced his “Rally to Restore Sanity” on the National Mall on October 30, my husband said, “That would be so cool. I wish I could go.” I said, “Go. And take Robin.” Our daughter is a senior in high school, taking both government and video production, so that impulsive decision turned into the memory of a lifetime for her. She has already used her experiences at the rally for college application essays and a school arts contest, and she has begun to solidify her liberal political and religious views, softened with a healthy dose of tolerance for other points of view. Her interest in film is growing into a passion.  

And speaking of college application essays, I’m quite sure that her choice to illustrate her personality with a mouth-watering description of her quest for the perfect recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese will gain her a few scholarships. It’s too bad she can’t send samples to the admissions committees.

I’ve had my share of off-the-wall decisions that turned out to be life-changing moments. When a musician from Maui that I barely knew came to California to play harp for the Play of Daniel and invited everyone who had participated to come do the thirteenth century liturgical drama in Hawaii, only two of us took her up on the offer. My gut feeling response led to several performances on Maui and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and wonderful friendships with a group of talented people who like to travel to Europe the cheap way–by renting castles for lodging. 

Playing music at Renaissance faires is truly insane. Four recorders compete for attention with jousting and ale gardens; we really only win when we pull out the crumhorns, which went extinct for a reason. The costumes were made for England at a time of global cooling, not the Central Valley of California in summer. No one should play a wind instrument wearing a corset and hoop skirt.  I share this insanity, however, with talented musicians, dancers, and improvisational actors–not to mention the woman who prepares the noon banquet for the court and saves leftovers for those of us at the end of the precedence line.  

I wanted for a long time to go on to graduate school after marriage and kids made that difficult when I was in my twenties. When my youngest child was in middle school and I could afford the time and tuition, I looked at several “practical” programs in counseling and education. I chose instead a liberal arts masters program which allowed me to study literature, theology, arts, languages, and history all at once, and I had great fun pursuing my passions. The first class I took was “Magic, Alchemy, and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages,” and I wrote my thesis on Anglo-Saxon medicine. That may never translate into a career, unless I can write the next bestseller in the Harry Potter genre, but I’ve never enjoyed classes more. What I spent on tuition I saved on mental health therapy.

Some crazy decisions are hard to cast as sane. I’m still wrestling with my son’s decision to run with the bulls at Pamplona when we sent him to Spain for a month to work on his fluency in Spanish. The best I can do is conclude that whatever we survive makes a good story afterward.

Next up–a trip to Iceland?

Diving In

The swimming pool at Rose Park was not heated when I was a child. I could see the mountains from whence the water came–Rock Creek joined the Yellowstone River as it flowed past Billings, and I knew from many hikes that snow lingered in the Beartooth Mountains throughout the summer. I never wanted to dive into that pool, but eventually something–or someone–made me take the plunge. I think perhaps I really feared that moment of being in the air, when it’s too late to change my mind.

Then, of course, once I was in and my body had adjusted to the temperature, I never wanted to get out.

I still approach tasks this way. If I were a sensible human being, I would exercise for an hour every day, practice music for two hours, write for two hours, do thirty minutes of Latin, and clean one or two rooms of the house. I would stretch a novel over a period of several days instead of devouring it in one four hour stretch. I would even see the wisdom of working on Christmas gifts in July.

I haven’t posted to this blog since August, so here I am at a writing retreat dedicating a full weekend to nothing but writing. I forgot to pack the Aspercreme, but I did remember Advil.

Last Monday I picked up my baroque flute to relearn an aria from Bach’s Coffee Cantata. Three hours later the frustrating passages were not much better, since I could barely move my fingers. The music, however, continued to play incessantly in my brain and came much more easily the next day. This would also happen if I practiced each passage for a few minutes each day and ran the CD in my car, which would all be much less painful. I know my cats would prefer it that way.  

I love to walk, once I get started. I have no problem with a full 10 mile hike on a Saturday; the routine 30 minutes a day in the park by my house recommended by anyone who knows anything about weight loss almost never happens. Neither does the weight loss, because after all a 10 mile hike earns a milkshake on the way home from the mountains.

I did in fact begin work on a cross-stitch Christmas stocking at the cabin last summer. I stopped when I could no longer see across the room. Three months and several binge sessions later I finally finished Santa’s puppy. I’ll probably have to pin the unfinished work to a store-bought stocking this year.

As for housecleaning, I tried to really clean the bottom of the shower recently. After four hours of incessant scrubbing with many toxic chemicals, I gave up, squirted some toilet bowl cleaner on it, and went to bed. The next morning, halfway through my shower, I remembered. The shower was actually clean. My shoulders hurt for two weeks.

Peer pressure got me into that swimming pool, and it’s still what keeps me going. I joined a walking club, the Fair Oaks Sole Mates. Music is always with friends, and I can’t let them down by not learning my part. I come repeatedly to the Write by the Lake Retreat  because I sign a vow to accomplish a task and have to report my progress to my host, Jennifer Sander. I have to keep up with my most advanced Latin student, and I participate in online study groups. The house gets cleaned when guests are imminent. And I don’t want to let down my son, since the stocking is meant to welcome his new wife into our family.

For better or worse, I think I have accepted the fact that I need both support from friends and uninterrupted time for concentration to really accomplish my goals. I’m just not a Daytimers sort of person. Just make sure I come out of the water before my skin turns purple.

Confessions of a Coffee Drinker

Tea is not for the absent minded.

The perfect cup of tea must be treated as a meditation. One must eliminate all distractions, focus on the present, accomplish each step in the process mindfully, and savor the results.

First, think of the water.  At our mountain cabin we used to use water from a mountain stream with its source in high wilderness peaks, cold as only recent snowmelt can be. Then we learned (the hard way) that  our “pure” water must be filtered for giardia. Two years after a forest fire, word has trickled out from the Forest Service that our water has increased levels of arsenic. Distilled water , with a pretty picture on the front label, is probably best for peace of mind.

 It does not do to leave the teakettle on the stove until the bottom of the teakettle melds with the burner.  For those who prefer not to watch the kettle, a whistle is essential; it serves the function of a meditation bell that returns focus to center. Electric kettles cater to impatient tea drinkers and are much cheaper than a new stovetop.

If the water must be heated in a cup in a microwave, it is fruitless to press ”Start” and then abandon the kitchen to start something else. Unlike the teakettle on the stove, the microwave does turn itself off, and the water in the cup returns to room temperature.

Choosing the right tea for the occasion is a delightful exercise in mindfulness. There are the medicinal or soothing teas: lemon ginger, chamomile, peppermint. Morning may call for a bracing breakfast tea, late afternoon for Constant Comment.  A delicate herbal brew is perfect at bedtime. Some teas may recall memories: a grandmother who insisted on gunpowder tea purchased at Marshall Fields, a sister who loves vanilla tea, new in-laws serving Earl Grey Persian style in clear glass cups. The choices are nearly infinite, and each kind of tea has purpose and meaning.     

Once the tea is in contact with the hot water, whether by dunking a teabag or immersing loose leaves, it is usually suggested to brew the tea for five minutes, or according to taste. Thirty minutes is not advisable, unless strong, lukewarm tea is the desired result.  

Names of teas strung together, repeated like a mantra, can calm the mind while passing the time. As soon as the tea drinker tires of saying “Darjeeling, Oohlong, Jasmine, Rooibos, Earl Grey” over and over and the mind begins to Constantly Comment, the tea is very likely ready.

It is indeed possible to recover from glitches in the tea-making process. Milk dilutes strong tea, microwaves can reheat it. Perfectionists can still enjoy tea.

 Tea must be savored at once.  Dispel any cozy notions of lingering over tea while snuggling up in bed with a good mystery novel. Evil is conquered, but so is the tea. It is best to make a full pot and keep it warm with a tea cozy, so that the perfect temperature can be maintained.

Tea is best pure. Milk and the smallest drop of honey may be added, but sugar pollutes the delicate flavor extracted from the leaves.

Tea demands to be served in cups inherited from aunts and grandmothers, given as gifts, or purchased as remembrances. Teapots can be quirky expressions of personality; cozies should be handmade. The one remaining spoon from a great-grandmother’s set can be dedicated to the tea ritual. Tablecloths, napkins, and coasters should all be carefully chosen to create a peaceful atmosphere.

The British and the Japanese understand tea. Each cup contains memories of sacred rituals, of comfort in hard times, and of friendship.   

Tea is peace.

Renewal

The moose have returned to Camp Senia again this summer, although we no longer have the only bit of green for miles around. Grass, huckleberries, fireweed, harebells, and other flowers are spreading across the mountain slopes which were horrendously blackened just two years ago.Although we no longer put out salt licks,  two stumps behind our cabin are saturated with forty years’ worth of salt and will keep the moose and deer visiting us for years to come. They don’t just wander in for a few licks and leave; they lie down on beds of kinnick-kinnick just behind the cabin, or on the meadow where my sister and I are building a labyrinth, to take their daily naps. They don’t seem to be bothered by people. I do keep an eye out for them, so that I don’t accidentally antagonize any of them. Last year I stayed for a long time in the bathhouse to avoid coming between a mother and baby. Healthy respect on both sides is wise in any relationship.

The people in camp have become closer, sharing experiences of the fire, grieving together, and rejoicing over the new beauty of our forest. Our neighbor Roger installed a new curved post on our porch to replace the one cracked in the 2007 windstorm. Our woodpile has continued to grow, with contributions from several guardian angels. We visit more, enjoy cocktail hours and shared dinners. A shared walkie-talkie system among the cabins has increased communication: “Heading to town, anyone need anything?” sometimes cuts through the stillness in our cabin.

Last summer many of us repaired our cabins and our shared bathhouse. I put a new roof on our ancient outhouse and fixed the hinges on the door. We’re using it more this year, since ashes clog the plumbing every time we have a hard rain. Fortunately we have enough amateur plumbers and carpenters among us, and I intend to learn from them.

The forest is repairing itself. The burned trees are not as black this year; the burned bark is beginning to peel, and eventually the trunks will fade to silver, as some of the branches already have. The flakes that chipped off the rocks in the intense heat are becoming part of the soil, and lichen will soon return. All the wildlife, along with the ashes and decaying wood, are fertilizing the soil. Invisible under the ground for now, lodgepole pine cones burst open by the heat of the fire are preparing to repopulate the forest.

Grieving the devastation of a forest fire is a unique experience. Most people can’t relate to the loss. “Your cabin is ok, right? Well, the forest will grow back.” True, the forest hasn’t died—indeed fire is part of its natural life cycle–but specific spots with unique memories are gone, and change is hard to accept. We are conditioned to think of green trees as beautiful, black trees as ugly results of “destruction.” The mudslides reshaping the slopes and wreaking havoc with our hiking trails and roads are disconcerting reminders that we’re a long way from serenity as yet.

We’re all making progress, though. Like the new meadows, the people in camp are more open and bursting with optimism. We’ve lived through an historic event, and when my grandchildren gather around the fireplace to roast marshmallows in the old stone fireplace, I can tell them how I was nearly trapped by fire at Timberline Lake and had to run down the mountain. After all, whatever you survive makes a great story later.