Werge

So that is who I was...when we all wrote "Good luck in the future" in each other's yearbooks, not having much of an idea of how we would deal with life nor how life would deal with us.

We had our reunion this June, 50 years after we graduated. Of the 100 kids we could find, about 50 or 60 attended. We had had a few earlier reunions so had kept in touch to some extent...still the years do show. And the different roads we travelled down...or did the roads take us? The classmate now living in senior housing, the one with a manse in Florida, the one with 18 grandchildren, the ones with none, the ones who have struggled with drugs or cancer, the ones for whom life has been easy, the marriages and divorces, the lost loves....all in one room for a few hours.

Even the ones who did not come because they did not want to remember or their remembrances were painful or they had passed on, they were there. For we are our shared memories...and they are present in those stories of the past that we share.




Like sitting around the high school yearbook room...deciding upon a name for it (we went with "Prelude"...this year's yearbook has the same name...a shared memory except now the memory has become a tradition)...or discussing layout..Sue, me (always known as "werge"....did anyone know I had a first name?), Iris, Carol, and Leslie. This being together, laughing, for others playing sports or playing hooked,....ties we shared and share.




But we go back much further. We spent much time at the reunion identifying ourselves in our 1958 grammar school photo...we got about 80 percent. And our memories extended back not only to us, but to our brothers, sisters, cousins, moms, dads. And how many outside of older members of our families remember my Mom, my Dad? What a deep, quiet joy to be with these neighborhood friends who know me in the context of my childhood, my early youth.






But the past is only a prelude, no? On Sunday after the reunion and then a reunion party, we met in North Bergen for brunch, then took the ferry over to Manhattan to catch some part of the Gay Pride parade. Gail, Sheila, Sue, and Werge. Still living life forward...as far as it will go.



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Location:North Bergen, NJ

Kids

So why do we spend a week with kids, sharing songs, activities, time, ideas, experiences...I guess because they nurture our souls.


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At our Quaker gathering in northern New Mexico, Gretchen Baker-Smith said during a morning sing (she being the one with the big hand made song book) that we all nurture one another...that is true for me.

And what is nurtured in part is that part of our souls that still carries a child within. I realized that most fully the morning I spent with the toddlers and infants. Micah had woken from his nap but still wanted to be held. So I went into the nap room, picked him up, and sat down in the rocking chair to sooth him. Micah has this loving way of clinging to one's neck and shoulders...something so basically mammalian about that form of embrace. We rocked. I sang a little song I remember my father singing to me in Norwegian when he put my brother and I to bed. And,then, giving into the mood, the heat in the room, we both fell asleep. Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? Don't know how much time passed. Doesn't matter.

We woke at the same time. Drowsy, we joined the kids, Wally and Lilly, playing in the other room. And, then, I really woke up, felt some new, good energy and Micah looked around with new eyes. It was just that we both needed a good nap. And how would I have known if Micah hadn't lulled me to sleep in the rocker.

That's why we hang out with kids...at least on one morning of the Quaker gathering.




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Location:Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu New Mexico

High Park Fire

Whole forests dead from pine beetle...a winter without snow...high winds...3% humidity...hot temperatures...lightning.


The fire came within four miles of our town...but, with federal, state, local firefighters was kept confined to the foothills to the north and west and to those small mountain communities and more isolated homes built in the woods to enjoy the benefits of living surrounded by nature




Planes and helicopters fly overhead, dipping into Horsetooth Reservoir to suck up water and into federal stockpiles of chemical fire retardants. To this date about 60,000 acres have burnt. As the fire moves away from homes and structures, it will be left to burn. Perhaps all summer or until snow begins to fall again. If it does this winter.

What surprises me is how normal life is in town...except for the smoke chocked air in town when the wind blows in our direction.




Horses graze in the park. People picnic or perhaps drive up to see the flames and then drive back to eat a burger for lunch. But I guess that is what our species is so good at, adapting to new conditions and, if one is not directly affected, to carry on with life as it is or appears to be.

The long-range impacts will be substantial for the town. Water quality will be greatly affected and our local brewery industry, relying upon fresh, clear water, will be impacted as denuded hills wash soil and debris into the Poudre. Tourists don't like smoke. And the environment will be degraded though, at the same time, the fire provides an opportunity for regrowth from the earlier devastation of pine beetle infestation. That, however, will take decades.

I write this on a train traveling over the broad mouth of the Delaware River, traveling between Washington and New York. So much water. This is a country of regions...so different, so hard to comprehend.

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Location:Fort Collins

Landscape

As the sun goes down, evening spreads slowly across the valley. The mesas to the east still catch rays. They sit above the closer ridge lines and quietly blaze, showing their sandstone layers...those millions of years of seafloor sediments and volcanic ash deposits...in dramatic light. Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Ghost Ranch

A Hike

We went for a hike on Monday, to climb Pedernal, the mountain in the photo...the flat topped peak just above the purple cactus flowers.


About 20 of us went, mainly junior high students, some adults, alas only two maps and one person who knew the trail. So it turned out to be something of an adventure rather than a typical hike. The one person who knew the trail and had a map went ahead with a small group, the other map holder went back early with a group of young friends, our middle group lost its way below the final rock wall...but after all that is what an adventure is.




An adventure being an event that raises unexpected obstacles that must be overcome..as opposed to an event, a long if leisurely hike, that goes according to plan. In this case, it was a question of realizing our group had become lost...after searching in thick brush for 40 minutes for the final leg of the trail...and then taking out our lunches and dwindling water, resting and heading back down the four miles back to the cars.

Reminding us that life is an adventure, always turning up the unexpected, always asking us to make adjustments, be flexible, and not assuming that we are with someone who knows what he or she is doing.

Location:1709,Abiquiu,United States