The Secret!

Ok, no real secret here. We do not need the Hardy Boys to investigate why my legs are sore. My legs are sore because Jon and I took the tandem out today and logged in a little over 19 miles. Which for him is a little blip on the radar but for me, it's climbing K2.

Why not 20 miles? Well, because he is a good teacher and because uses the Disney Technique.

What, you ask, is the Disney Technique? The Disney Technique is that strategy by which you break a length of time over smaller installments and assure someone that they are Almost There and it's Just Around the Corner. It's how for over fifty years they've been able to get large groups of people to stand in line for an hour and a half for a ride that takes two minutes.

We went our usual route on Cedar River Trail, starting from our house and rolling down the residential street til we hit the gravel road, then walk across that to the trail, then a pretty-much-straight-shot for the next four miles or so.

Except this time, we did a little over 9 miles before turning back. Each time I thought we'd turn around, Jon would say, "Let's go to such-and-such, it's just a few hundred yards ahead." Which it was, more or less a mile. Then he'd do it again. And again.

And the best part was, I knew exactly what he was doing, and I was game. Yeah, I have discovered joints and muscles I have been unacquainted with, and yes, the undercarriage of my anatomy is a bit squeaky (which is why I will use the fabulously named "Butt Butter" next time) and yes, I will no doubt walk like an 80 year old tomorrow, but it was soooooooo totally worth it.

The Secret of the Sore Legs is this - they make your heart happy!

Miracle!

This is a tandem bicycle. The purpose of a tandem bike is for two or more people to ride together. It is a simple enough apparatus, and if both people actually know how to ride a bicycle, it's pretty easy.

When it's me and Jon, though, it's something else.

He rides a bike like its part of his body. I ride a bike like it's made of jello. He pedals and shifts gears with the efficiency of a swiss watch. I am tapdancing furiously, flappedyflappedy-ing my feet towards the pedals as they swirl by. His back is a perfect curvilineal bow, strong as a Roman arch. Mine is convex, then concave, then straight, then leaning to the left, then something like a trapezoid. His breathing is smooth and even. Mine is full of squeaks and grunts, sharp intakes and strangled gasps, stifled screams and the occasional death rattle. I'm practicing, just in case.

We take the driveway out, bumping along the ruts of the gravel, then pumping hard together up the tiny incline to reach the street. Then its a death-defying right turn at 1.2 mph, then a dash down the street - then another right omigod then we start going downhill whoopwhoopwhoop then a left, then we stop for a moment. I catch my breath, reacquaint myself with my rubbery legs, we walk the short way to the Cedar River Trail, then its back on the bike again to accomplish the utterly impossible.

I am learning to ride a tandem bike.

I am LEARNING TO RIDE A TANDEM BIKE.

The universe explodes out another galaxy, a scientist somewhere in the world discovers the Higgs Boson particle, a man falls twelve stories out of a high rise and walks away, but it is all nothing compared to the miracle unfolding as the trees go whizzing by. The breeze is caressing my face, the road is whirring beneath our wheels,I am laughing like an idiot and -- holy of holies -- I AM RIDING A BIKE.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Did you see this movie? The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a 2008 film with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a boy who is born as a 70 year old man, who gradually gets younger as the years pass. He lives in reverse, growing younger instead of older as the decades go by.

This is not the first time I have been interested in a story of someone growing younger, moving in reverse. In the 1958 novel bu T.H. White, "The Once and Future King", Merlin makes references to things that are hundreds of years in the future as though they happened "before" - when he was so much older than he is now. He complains about it, knowing that Arthur will never really understand why Merlin can remember World War II.

The Ho'chunk nation (we call them Winnebagos, and no, they are not RVs) is an entire nation that believes we live backwards. They say that the past is in front of you, which is why you can see it coming, and the future is behind you, which is why its invisible. Which, when you really stop and think it over, makes a lot of sense.

One of my favorite songwriters, David Wilcox, has a song called "Start With The Ending", which is about living your relationships as though they are about to end, and must be cherished because they have already faded away. I think I am living backwards myself. It's confusing, but not so bad. In fact, I rather like it.

I used to be very concerned about seeming childish; I greatly resented being thought of as immature. I didn't much like other kids my own age because of this very attribute. Now I teach children how to make fart noises with the crooks of their arms, and how to look like you are sticking your finger in your ear so that it pokes the cheek on the opposite side of your head. I used to care a lot more about my dignity, of being taken seriously, and understood. Now I pretty much assume I am out in left field and the ball is not going to get out here anytime soon. I used to want to accomplish things of importance, and leave something behind me that was impressive, mature, poignant and deep.

Now I think a lot about what will make my dog laugh. I used to be so much smarter and more sure of the right things to do. I had so many more answers, and I was certain of what was black and what was white. I was less forgiving of hits and misses, because I was so much more clear in my mind. Now, I only know simple things, like how to tease a smile out of a two year old, and get the same smile out of an 80 year old.

I used to have so much knowledge in my head. Now, it seems, I am voracious for more. I am a black hole, sucking up every scrap of light and information that comes across my path. I want to know what makes sun spots, why bees can fly, what it takes for sound waves in the air to become Beethoven in my ear, why cats purr, what happens after we die. I want to know why I can be such a jerk sometimes.

I have become positively ridiculous. I used to be in so much more control of my emotions. I used to laugh less, cry less, control my anger better. I used to wonder why adults weep when they are happy and laugh when they are bitterly disappointed. Fifty years later when I do these things myself, I still don't know. I think I am living backwards, getting less dignified than I was at ten. I do not think I can stop this process, any more than Merlin or Benjamin Button could. But I am different from them. I am enjoying it. Being five is AWESOME.

True Confessions: Things That Drive Me Really Really Nuts

Over-engineering.

Greens that rot ten minutes after you stick 'em in the fridge.

Blister packaging.

Spelling "love" with just a "u"

Hairstyles you are never, never gonna wear.

Loud and destructive entertainment.

Anything remotely resembling THIS.

Or THIS.

Romantic twee.

"Cool" people.

Fake eyelashes for men.

This program.

Pastors with bleached teeth.

The Official World Series of Beer Pong table. Apparently it meets the official specs of the WSOBP.

Little Miss Beauty Queen pageants.

24 year olds who think that Canada is an island and JFK is buried in Grant's tomb.

These mud flaps.

Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar Binks costumes.

Jar Jar Binks home decor. And lastly....

Candy shaped like Jar Jar Binks tongue.

Long Live The King

This is my dad, Joseph Richard Schmitt. He is ninety. We celebrated his birthday last Saturday and got the family together. He is standing with his great grandkids Joey, Chris and Zachary, who are the sons of his granddaughter Jenni who is the daughter of his second son, Geoff. I am pretty sure that at the moment this picture was taken, my dad might not have known why he was standing there. I think he knew these are his great grandkids, but I'm pretty sure that he would not know their names, or be able to tell them one from another. My dad has dementia. Not the kind that makes you crazy, running down the street with a butcher knife and not the kind that makes you wonder what a key is for, or forget how to turn the knob on a door. My dad has dementia of a gentler kind, the kind that takes away your past and in so doing, blurs the clarity of your present. My dad can dress himself, cut with a knife, brush his teeth, and use the restroom. But he can't remember what year it is, or what day, or why all these people have come out today. A few minutes after this picture was taken, he put his hand to his forehead and remarked, "I THOUGHT I felt something on my head!" My dad does not remember that he had a younger brother, who died two years ago. He doesn't remember that he proposed to my mother by tossing the box with the ring in it towards her and saying, "So do you want it or not?" He does not remember that it was when he was five years old that he found his father's keg of homemade elderberry wine in the cellar and drank so much of it, he fell asleep for two whole days. He has forgotten how he ran into a phone pole while playing touch football in the street and that is why he has that scar. He doesn't remember how he sauntered so confidently down the street in his white Chief Petty Officers uniform after returning from Guadalcanal and walked right up the steps to my mother's house, and how she took his ring off her right hand and put it on her left and said, "You're stuck with me now." He has forgotten that his nickname with his high school buddies was "Diaper Dukie Dick." He says the same things over and over a lot now. He puts his hand in his pocket and says, "I don't have the keys," even though he handed them to you to drive not two minutes ago. He'll do it at least five more times while you drive him to the doctor's office, and five more as you drive him back home. He walks behind my mom now as they go down the hall to their room, or down the aisle of the grocery, buying milk. He does this quite unconsciously but for a very good reason - he knows that, while he does not know how to get home, she does. He carefully arranges his fork and spoon beside his plate at exact right angles, over and over again. Sometimes he gets up in the middle of a gathering and walks into the darkened living room or bedroom, so he can sit quietly and stare into space for awhile. He is often not quite here. But on the other hand, he is here more than most of us. He is in the moment, even if he doesn't know what or why the moment is. He is standing here with a big smile amid these small boys, because its a good thing to do. They are smiling, wearing funny hats, therefore the day is a good one and all is well. I am grateful for his ease with his condition. I am glad that he is unaware of how much he is unaware. In the mists of lost memory, he still has the ability to really enjoy a chocolate bar, or the smile of his wife, or kids with shiny pointy hats. He takes what is and makes it work. He lives in the moment of now, which is really the only place a truly wise person lives anyway. It is all we have, when you really think about it long enough. Memories are keepsakes to pore over and enjoy, but the reality of the next breath is in the now. So he leaves what he can't remember to other minds to keep on his behalf. We will remember the uniform, all white in the sun. We will remember the arc of the ring in its box, landing in mom's soft lap. We will remember the nickname and laugh. We will hold the memories, and he will make more of them, which he will forget. Long live Diaper Dukie Dick. Long live the king.

A Short Story

Once there was a dog who was always hungry. Then he got the last piece of bread and lived happily ever after. Until the next time. The end.

The Face of Darkness

It's all over the news. I have read it in at least five websites, heard it on the radio three times now and TV twice. My friends are Facebooking it. It's big, big news.

American nuns are not talking enough against sexuality. Or women. Or health care. Or the superiority of canonic law over the bible. They are too busy serving.

Sigh.

The Vatican sees "serious doctrinal problems" with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (layman's speak "American nuns") not because they have stopped leading our children to Jesus (they haven't) or tending the sick in clinics and hospitals (they still do that) or because they won't work for ridiculously low wages far less than their lay counterparts would tolerate (they do) or because they have stopped going to Mass, or advocating for the poor, or caring for children that everyone else abandoned, or dedicating their daily lives to Jesus, or working in centers of poverty or trying to help stop human trafficking, or doing their best to be the face and hands of God in a hurting world.

The Vatican sees serious doctrinal problems because some nuns have advocated for public health care. Some of them, I suspect, voted for Obama. The Vatican sees serious doctrinal problems because nuns don't remember to verbally shame their AIDS patients by regularly reminding them of their sexual sinfulness. Sometimes these dangerous women have the radical notion that an AIDS patient might not have sinned at all.

Some nuns have openly questioned the possibility of women in priesthood. Some nuns wonder if women can be as filled with the Spirit as men, and maybe even with the same spiritual gifts.

Some nuns wonder why Catholic daughters can't use birth control pills, but Presbyterian daughters can. They wonder why a group of celibate men can tell a Catholic mother that it's acceptable to use the rhythm method for avoiding another pregnancy, but not a condom.

Some nuns embrace transgendered people. In public. With both arms, and not in that "A frame" hug that keeps your torsos separated. Some nuns pray with gays more often than they pray against them. Some of them teach our daughters that they might actually have a voice of leadership in a Catholic parish someday. Some nuns dare to suggest that the spirit of God may be expressed in ways other than male.

These women are the face of darkness in a dangerous, dangerous time.

Yet, despite its crackdown on these dangerous veiled women, these faces of darkness in our crumbling church, "The Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contribution of women Religious to the Church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by Religious over the years."

This, I suppose, is the lip service of comfort. We may crush you, but we appreciate you as you lay beneath our feet.

So, Catholic women, here is your truth. As long as you listen more than you speak, follow more than you think, and obey more than you love, you will be granted peace.

But not the peace that passes understanding.

And certainly, not the peace of God.

True Confessions

Ok, time to come clean. I'll tell my secrets if you tell yours...

I come from a long line of babushka wearers. This is my dad and granddad modeling the ones my mom just made for me. One is red and the other one is green, but now I forget which was which. I am in second grade in this picture. My mom used to make babushkas for me out of yarn and she'd crochet into them those 1" diameter sequins that you usually see on purses from the 1960s. So when you wore one, you could keep your hair tidy, your ears out of the wind, and you could signal in visual morse code from the tops of mountains by letting the sun reflect off the sequins, provided it was a sunny enough day.

This is a Milk Bone dog treat. When I was eight, my brothers dared me to eat one. I ate three. And no, it hasn't been forty-two years since I ate my last one. But I'm not ready to tell you how long ago -- or not so long ago -- it has been.

I never wash my hands for 20 seconds. Sometimes I don't even wash the backs of them either. And I have never, ever turned off the faucet with a paper towel. Unclean, unclean.

There's a lot of talk about bullying in schools. There are a lot of kids who suffer from being bullied, and the best advice is still to use words, tell an adult, walk away. But when I was in first grade, I beat up every boy in my class and told each of them that I'd humiliate them by telling the whole class they'd been beaten by a girl. I was smart, I was fat, and my mom cut my bangs too short, so I took a pre-emptive strike. I was the bully.

This is a Thomas Kinkaide painting. I hate it with the white hot intensity most people reserve for mass murderers, Satanic rituals, empty toilet paper rolls and static cling.

But I don't hate it as much as I always hated Pippi Longstocking. Kinda always wished that monkey would take a chunk outta her neck.

I LOVE Velveeta. I consider half a block as a serving.

To most people this is a dodgeball. To me, its a Post Traumatic Syndrome trigger. I can still hear the thunk of it against my head, all these years later. Sometimes I still dream about it, wake up with a headache. Damn elementary school recess!

Mom, even though I said I liked your lima bean soup, I never did. Sorry.

The World Gets Bigger

This is a happy man. This is a man who has just finished a five mile mountain bike race among rocks, trees, creeks, gravel, mud pits, and fallen logs. He is sweaty and smells pretty rank. He has cuts on the backs of his calves from his bike pedals and he has only had a banana for breakfast so he could do this race; otherwise, it would make him nauseated.

This is an obsessed man. This is a man who weighs his tires, his wheels, his pedals, his water bottle and his snack pack before he heads out on a ride. He pores over magazines endlessly trying to determine if his bike needs another brain, or a different stem, or if he should trade in an S-Works for a Stumpjumper, or if it's better to have twenty six inch wheels or twenty nine ones. He has strewn bike parts and tools all over the dining room floor, the bedroom, the basement, the stairs. There are two air pumps sitting in the living room right now, and each one looks exactly like the other.

This is a man with a mission. This man rides in the rain, so he can master that one hairpin turn that dumps him on his can whenever the ground is soaked. He washes off the oil on his bike chain, oils it, spins the wheels around, rubs the oil in, and carefully removes it again. He forgets to brush his teeth, but not his bike chain. He gets up at ungodly hours on the weekends to drive miles and miles to put on a helmet, pedal like a madman and then run over to a piece of paper taped to the side of a van to see his scores. He rhythmically jerks his legs in his sleep, and sometimes kicks me in the shins. Even now as I write, he pores over his computer reading the cumulative scores of the races he's been in, to see his "overalls." He is in second place.

This is a man who cares deeply, passionately about stuff that isn't even on my radar. This is a man who has cluttered up my life with gears and posts, spokes and tubes, sweat bands and forks you can't eat anything with. You can't walk two feet in any direction in any room of our home and not step over on or over a bike thing. We eat dinner among stems and grips. Pass me the bread dear, its right next to that saddle.

You would think it was a royal pain, having to deal with all the effluvia of a sport in which I have - had - virtually no knowledge and certainly no interest. But it's not.

It's amazing. It makes me look at things in a whole new way. If this is so important, why have I been missing it? Simply because I didn't see it. And I didn't see it because I needed to borrow another set of eyes - in this case, his.

I like to think of myself as someone who might be able to see and appreciate the viewpoints of others. But now I recognize myself as a rank amateur of the art.

Watching this guy salivate over a handle grip makes me smile, but it also makes me marvel at the joy he takes in it. It makes me want to experience that same feeling, if only for a minute, because it takes me a little further out on my boundaries. It makes the world get bigger for me.

I may never be a bike fiend. I may never get to the point where the words "Cannondale" or "Cervelo" will stop my in my tracks. But living with someone who does screech to a halt for a really beautiful two-wheeled contraption with some new gizmo on it, I realize a little of the vastness of pleasure there is to be had in putting on those glasses for a while and taking a peek at the world through those other eyes.

It's a little like turning the telescope the wrong way round. Things look far away, a bit confusing, but enticing. What exactly IS that thing I'm looking at? What happens if I get closer? If I stick my nose in there, and really really look, what will I see? What will happen?

I can tell you what happens. The world gets bigger. Messier, for sure, but bigger.

And as I step over yet another weird shiny thing with points and gauges on it, I can tell you - I rather like that.

You Never Know Who You'll Grow Up To Be

I found an online site where you can create your own "memes" - funny captioned pictures that are either weird or slightly disturbing. I made this meme. Why? you ask. Simple. Because I WAS this kid.



You never know who you'll grow up to be, doo dah, doo dah.

Twenty Futilities

1. Trying to watch yourself sneeze.
2. Milky Way Lite.
3. Universal remotes.
4. Dusting.
5. Giving your elderly parents a cell phone.
6. Sunglasses in Seattle from Jan.- July, then from Aug. 15 through Dec.31.
7. Control top pantyhose.
8. Hairspray on the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge.
9. Epilady.
10. Sorting socks.
11. Cat training tips.
12. Child rearing tips.
13. Husband training tips.
14. Beano.
15. Explaining Justin Bieber to anyone over twelve.
16. Explaining how to replace a roll of toilet paper to anyone under twelve.
17. Explaining item #1.
18. Pet hair rollers.
19. Windex on a touch screen.
20. The last word.

Rolling In Millions of Dollars

It's the day after Easter. I have had a wonderful weekend, full of family time and deep connection with my God and some pretty fantastic mind-blowing hot pink beets-and-horseradish sauce that blasted a completely whole new set of sinuses into my head. I have nibbled chocolate and laughed with my husband and played video games and ate way too many eggs (which I will regret later when I try to poop 'em back out) and mostly talked up a storm.

So I woke up this morning and impulsively decided that today was all about the dollars. Millions and millions of them, and all just for me. Me, me, me, greedy selfish me. Well, me and the dog, since he is easily distracted and can be bought off pretty easily with a tablespoon of peanut butter or a Ritz.


These are the dollars I am talking about. Sand dollars, at Sand Point Beach in Federal Way. This is a tiny segment of the giant expanse of sand dollar colonies that are exposed when the tide goes out. I had no idea. Every ripple, every little irregularity in the sand is the edge or the bottom or the top of a sand dollar. And for every one you see, there are fifteen under the sand. Each of them range in size from an inch to three inches in diameter. There are, without exaggeration, millions of them in a 1/4 mile stretch of the beach. Probably billions.



If you look closely at a living one it reveals itself to be a velvety purpled button. The part of the dollar we are used to seeing, the white with the incised flower pattern in the middle, is the skeleton, completely hidden from view when the dollar is alive. The living dollar has a thick softness to its appearance that you would expect to find on an expensive coat collar in a Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom's. It's positively luxurious in appearance, with a deep eggplant purple hue, sumptuous, touchable, begging to be caressed. Here is one resting in a small pool...



The photo doesn't begin to do it justice. It's a perfect little circle of beauty, shyly hiding itself with a wisp of seaweed.

Sand Point Beach is mostly known for its picnics and dog friendly areas. Teenage boys wearing ridiculously baggy shorts over their skinny boy-butts run with little boogie boards, jump on them and glide for ten seconds at a time on the glassy sands. Toddlers waddle along the low tide line, dipping chubby feet and hands in the water and giggling to their indulgent moms, walking slowly alongside, snapping photos for posterity. Tweener boys look for chunks of seaweed they can throw at their little sisters. Tweener girls in packs line up along the water's edge and take videos of themselves grinning and laughing as they cram their faces up close to their cell phones. One elderly woman in shorts and wearing a floppy hat slowly meanders out to the spot where the crows call to each other, sits on a chunk of driftwood and contemplates the horizon. A tattooed 30-something guy sprawls out in a lawn chair and drinks a beer or five. Nobody pays any attention to me or the dog, which suits me perfectly.

And for three leisurely hours, the dog and I wandered around like sandy Rockefellers among millions of dollars, safe in knowing that, even if in some weird universe I inherited all of them, my life would still be pretty ordinary, I'd still be driving my '95 Camry with the dents in the rear bumper and I'd still know exactly who my friends are.