In The Midst of Storms

Life's been rough lately. I needed a writer's get-away. Truth is, I just needed to get-away. Escape. Change this rut of sadness I seem to be in. I packed a half of a peanut butter and jam sandwich, a cheese stick and a thermos of something to drink. I grabbed my notebook, pens and camera and off I went. Desperately seeking quenching for my soul, I headed to a river park fifteen minutes from my house.

I jumped on to the highway, accelerating to keep up with the speeds when a moving shape caught my eye. From out of the pasture along the side of the road, a young doe gingerly stepped out. I slowed the car down, hoping no one was following too closely behind. I know these gentle animals; they are skittish and nervous, and can without hesitation, fly right into an oncoming car. She started across. My windows were down and I could hear her hooves clipping along the road. As I watched, a van coming in the opposite direction headed straight towards her. I cringed. With a scratching of hooves on the road, she danced nervously, darting in random directions. Fortunately, the oncoming car slowed down in time to let our pretty lady cross, finally, in safety. I sighed with relief. She seemed to barely escape her disastrous fate. I was glad the outcome hadn't been inevitable.

Finally, I pulled in the drive to the park and got out to stroll along the path. All around the parameter of the sky dark clouds hovered, threatening, but above me it was still blue and the sun shone, warming my skin. I breathed deep trying to let my stress go and with my camera in hand, headed down the path. My senses were heightened to the sounds of robins and screeching magpies, to the buzz of the bees on white and purple thistles, and to the smells of rotting leaves and the pungent perfumes of plants. I let my eyes guide me and focused the camera and my vision on the wonders around me.

After a while, the path led me to a rocky ledge overlooking a pooled area in the river. I sat down, pulled out my notebook and lunch and stared into the slow currents of the water, gazing into the swirls and flow of its repeating patterns. As I ate, I noticed a few concentric circles forming on the water surface. I peered into the murky depths, trying to see their source. There had to be fish, probably trout of some kind, swimming beneath the surface. I stared so intently into the water, I was startled when a silvery form jumped out to snack on a bug, returning with a soft plop. I was watching for fish swimming and jumping, when I noticed an s-shaped disturbance across the water's surface. I sat still and mesmerized on my perch and spied a small nose sticking above the water, followed by an undulating rope-like body. A water snake of some kind! I watched until it disappeared into the grass on the opposite shore.

I was in awe. I had left the house so agitated and here, sitting quiet by the river, I felt opened up to miracles. I would have missed the bees and berries, smells and sounds, fish and snakes, had I not been still and quiet and watchful.

Soon, I noticed the heat was no longer on my shoulders. The dark clouds had finally grown together, choking out the sun. Sighing, I put away my wrappers and screwed the lid on my thermos. Somehow in this solitude, alone with nature, I felt cared for, a tender presence in my heart. I laughed a little at myself as I put a closing thought in my notebook: if only I had seen a deer walk out from the tall grasses of the shore to drink from the river! What a sign that would have been!

I lifted my small pack to my back and headed back towards my car. Again, for the third time that day, a movement caught my eye. On the opposite side of the river, a tawny shape walked out from the grasses--not just a deer, but a lovely buck. He stared at me as I raised my camera to snap his majestic image. Then, slowly, in no hurry, he made his way across the river. My heart felt truly felt gifted and hugged.

Later that same day, after I was home and still glowing from the beauty of my morning, my son's chemotherapy doctor called and we set up his first treatment appointment. When I turned on my computer shortly after, I received a rejection on a freelance job I had applied for. In short, life hit again.

Sometimes I feel like that sweet doe trying to skitter my way across life's highway, avoiding the onslaught of impending disaster, barely escaping collisions with fate or like my sun is being crowded out by an impending storm. But my time at the park reminded me there are gifts when we have given up hope for them and miracles in the ordinary if we are still enough to see them.

Who Was Jane Lea Nixon?

I'm quite sure it's the lighting, but check out the blur at the
top right of the picture. 

The area, like most the hills and open space in Pittsburgh, is lushly green. I walked quietly through the red doors of the old building feeling a need to be silent and reverent. There is little air circulating within the stone edifice. The walls are thick with hand-cut stone. Up front there is a stained glass window and to the left, an old pipe organ from 1823 that was said to be carried over the Allegheny hills by cart.

I am standing inside Old St. Luke’s Episcopal church, a building whose roots go back to 1765. The current building isn’t quite that old, probably rebuilt in the 1800s. The land surrounding the church originally belonged to Major William Lea, as a grant for his service in the King’s army during the French Indian War. Major Lea was born in 1749 and later served in various forts during the Revolutionary War. He was married to Jane Welch, but as is typical of that time period, there is little mention of Jane’s life.

In the male-dominated history of Old St Luke’s one person stands out, not for her unique contributions, but because of her unusual birth circumstances. At the back of the church is a steep set of narrow steps. I negotiate my way down the dark, stone cellar, wondering if I will be confronted by the ghosts of people who once piled coal into a furnace or a bride in the wedding room waiting for her signal to go upstairs. Indeed, as I turn the corner into a room carefully reconstructed with time-period pieces, I am confronted by a faceless ghost wearing a cloak and bonnet. I stare at the eerie mannequin dressed in its bleak costume and read the small plaque: Jane Lea Nixon, first white child born in the Chartiers Valley.

The startling apparition of Jane Lea Nixon.

Outside in the historic graveyard, bodies are said to have been buried sometimes four-layers deep. On the far side of the small cemetery sits an old stone that reads: Jane Lea Nixon, Born 1774, Died 1859, the first white child born in Chartiers Valley.

Some of these stones are so old a special laser
process was used on them to determine the names and dates.

Other than her cloak and bonnet and the apparent point of her unique birth, very little is known about Jane. We know she was 16 when the church was initially reconstructed in 1790.  Upon her father’s death in 1827, her three brothers were left equal division of the land surrounding the church and the two daughters received 25 pounds sterling. And we know the church was a part of her life, as evidenced by the Book of Common Prayer that is still part of the possession of her descendants who remain in Pittsburgh.

Most likely she lived the life that most women lived, participating in quilting bees, gardening, sewing, but one wonders if she was allowed the company of other little girls who didn’t share her skin color. Did she have a lonely existence or one that centered on her family and siblings? We can assume there was a sometimes peaceful and sometimes tenuous relationship with the indigenous people of the area. One story tells of an Indian raid that occurred during church services. Apparently guns were immediately drawn and poked out of portholes.

Jane Lea eventually married Thomas Nixon at an unknown date, and they had three children. Thomas died at the young age of 45 and Jane remained an unmarried widow until her death at age 85.

Who was Jane Lea Nixon? What contributions did her unique birth mean for the area? Her birth may have very well signified a change in the population that inhabited the rolling hills and rushing creeks in the area. The life of the Indians soon faded from Pittsburgh as more and more white children were born, no longer significant enough to make note of, staking claim in land for farms, townships and counties. In a dubious remembrance of history, a single female “the first white child in the Chartiers Valley” became a part of the history of Old St. Luke’s church.

When Tourists Descend

I love how the sun feels on my skin: hot, almost burning. I rub my shoulders; they will be red tomorrow. I forgot sun screen. But for now, I sit on the large, flat rock, hypnotized by the rushing water of the river. It runs, fast and smooth, over a ledge of rocks, tumbling a short distance down, before brewing into a bubbly foam. I close my eyes and listen to the roaring sound. I sniff the clean air. White water rivers have a smell, pleasant, but distinct. I try to give the scent words: fresh, green, like corn, clean.

I’m writing in my journal. I’ve needed the solitude and quiet—too much going on emotionally and with my time lately. This was a perfect plan. I had an hour between appointments and headed to the local white water park to hang out. It’s quiet except the occasional boat that drifts by with people casting their lines in a rhythmic dance on the water, hoping the lure will look like a bug skittering on the water, tempting a fish.

A couple walks along the shore also casting their line. It’s peaceful to watch— art imitating life, hoping a fish won’t know the difference. The man snags a Kokanee salmon; its orange, silvery scales glint in the sun. He proudly hauls it out while his wife snaps a picture, before he gently unhooks it and releases it back into the rushing, cold water.

I relax into the sun and nature. Suddenly, without warning, six, then ten people, all wearing orange, commercial life jackets, descend on the area in which I have peacefully settled. It is a four raft tour, filled with vacationers of all ages, enjoying the river and our little mountain town. At first I watch, amused, as they take turns body surfing down the small falls. But they keep coming, one dozen, then two. They stand, crowding around me, seemingly oblivious to my presence. And my peace starts to disintegrate and turns to annoyance at their rudeness. Not a single, “excuse us” or “we’re sorry” as they drip and intrude on me. I finally get up and move away, struggling to find my peace again.

After splashing, laughing and taking pictures, the guides call them back to their rafts to continue their float down the river.  I go back out to the rock and open my journal, but now the sun feels too hot and I am unsettled and disgruntled. I stare into the deep pools of water caught between the rocks, still and calm in the otherwise bubbling current.

Tourists. I sigh. In our little town, we can’t survive without them, but sometimes it feels overwhelming. My daughter used to work out at a marina on the big lake on the edge of town. She came home daily with stories of vacationers, some kind and tipping her well, others rude and haughty, demanding accommodation and satisfaction for their financial investment in their vacation. I try to think if I’ve ever been like that when I visit a tourist destination. Did I act like I had the right to expect to be catered to and a sense of ownership for my dollar?

On the other hand, it gives us locals a bonding experience to talk about how the tourists don’t know what the middle turning lane is for, or how they like to drive really slowly to take in the sights, or why is it all their hair is really big and they talk with twangs? This is the stuff that we can chat about as we meet up with friends at the local bistro and sip wine on an outdoor patio. “Boy, it’s crazy in town this summer,” we can lament together. And our friends and neighbors who own the shops and restaurants along Main Street remind us that these paying visitors help keep their businesses open and surviving. By summer’s end, if they’ve hung around long enough, we'll even get to know a few, howdy with them in our churches and feel sad when they leave.

So I guess, really, their fun and raucous visit to “my” rock was all right. I drop a small leaf into the pooled water and watch it make lazy swirls on the surface before it finds a slow current and rushes over the rocks. 

Even the leaf finds a new current to follow after a little respite. 

A Plaster of Guilt

Imagine opening your front door, stepping inside, and seeing your rug covered with a white powdery substance.You do a quick review of your habits and remind yourself that as far as you can recall, you haven’t started a drug business, and then you run through a list of what the foreign powder could possibly be.

This is precisely what happened to me two years ago. After being gone for several hours, I returned to find the area carpet in my living room covered in a fine, white powder in some places, a plaster of white sticky stuff in others. I ran through a list of possible causes, and that’s when I remembered the five pound bag of flour I left on the counter.

Weimaraners, the big, gray breed of German hunting dogs, are often referred to as “counter surfers”. They are known for leading with their gastro desires and are big enough to search out counter tops when the urge hits. My husband once owned a Weimar-lab mix named Kelly. Kelly was a delight to her family, until one afternoon when they returned home from a church service. This inventive dog had managed to open the refrigerator door and devour an entire ham—Sunday’s special supper. After expressions of dismay and scolding, the family started watching the poor, bloated dog carefully for distress in case an emergency Sunday vet visit was required. Fortunately for Kelly, Weimars are also known for their fantastic capacity to digest large amounts of food. Kelly survived. And my husband’s father rigged up the refrigerator with a bungee cord so no further furtive feasting could occur.

Bungee cords also make an appearance in my house. In fact, before leaving the dog alone, we often ask each other, “Did you dog-proof the house?” Dog-proofing is a process that requires an extra five minutes planning before we can go anywhere. 

Dog-Dog, despite his lack of opposable thumbs, has learned to open the kitchen cupboard door beneath the sink where the garbage is stored. On more than one occasion, before we mastered the dog-proofing routine, he managed to drag the garbage out from beneath the sink. Not only did he drag the garbage out, but he preferred to eat his feast of culinary crap out on the area carpet in the living room. Perhaps the softer setting was more comfortable for his coffee ground and orange peel noshing. In keeping with the family tradition, we started to bungee cord the cupboard. But that didn't completely deter our poor, starving dog. He also learned to push open the Lazy Suzy cupboard, which doesn’t have a  handle to secure, so we now push a chair in front of it so he can’t reach it. Dog-Dog has us trained very well.

But back to the Great Flour Incident where, what I had finally deduced was flour, covered my floors, including a fine trail of the white stuff leading to the back of the house where the family room is located. I sighed and followed the trail back. There, on Dog-Dog’s bed, was the opened and ripped bag of evidence.

He walked out to greet me, his tail wagging, and his long floppy ears slightly back on his head in a failed attempt to appear contrite. He cocked his head and looked at me as if, I swear, to say, “What? I didn’t do anything! Honest!”  Except that the guilt was written all over his muzzle, and chest in the form of a dried, white plaster. Dog-Dog was imitating a walking, breathing piñata. No court would have acquitted him, no matter how sympathetic the judge. And I was not very sympathetic.

When we adopted our Weimie over five years ago, we knew that adopting an older dog meant we didn’t get to start from scratch. We knew providing him a forever home came with accepting a few foibles and quirks. I just never suspected I’d be replacing bags of flour, picking up garbage or getting calls from neighbors.

But that’s another post for another time.

Long Live the Downtown

Want to get a feel and flavor of a new area? Seek out and visit their downtown...if it still exists.

There used to be an old restaurant on Main Street run by a local legend, Elsie Johnson. The sign for her establishment is still painted on the side of the building: Restaurant since 1900. During its heyday, she served up fine homemade food, including pie. She was famous for her stuffed crusts with enticing, sweet fillings. By the time I met Grandma, as she was called in the latter part of her life, she had long since given up the restaurant business but was still a well-known and beloved figure in town.

Johnson's Restaurant is now a lovely art gallery featuring local and regional talent.

Years later, I delivered dinners to Mrs. Douglas, another long-time local. Confined to a wheelchair because of  her MS, she was on the list for Meals on Wheels, and I was a volunteer. She was my favorite delivery stop. I always saved her for last, because I knew she’d ask me to sit and would tell me a new story about our small town “back in the day”.  She was the one who told me that back before the big reservoir was put in, the snow would reach to the second floor of a house. She swore the lake changed the climate. She also told me stories about the small movie theater where teens would go watch handsome actors and glamorous actresses on a big screen. After the movie, they might head to Johnson’s Restaurant for an ice cream soda or piece of pie and write letters to their favorite stars asking for autographs.

When we first moved to our little mountain enclave twenty years ago, there was still a local five and dime on Main Street named Blackstocks, after the local owners. It offered everything from baby bibs and jigsaw puzzles, to batteries, pens, notebooks, wrapping paper and antacids. It also offered a homey feel and a warm hello when you walked in. I think eventually it just couldn't compete with the prices of the big discount chain store that went in down the street, and it finally closed its doors. 

Several weeks ago while on our road trip, we drove through the area where I went to college. I'd looked forward to passing through the small downtown area, a street with old buildings, a theater with intricate architecture and what was once a big ornate sign and, down the street a bit, a little drugstore that once housed a soda counter. Even back when I was in college, downtown was struggling. The area was trying to stay vital in the wake of the big, new mall on the other side of the city. I was hoping it would have survived progress and become a cultural attraction for this small, Midwest city. Sadly, it still looked shut down, struggling and depressed. It had gone the way of many quaint Main Streets that can’t compete with the big chain stores. Losing our downtowns is a sad consequence of burgeoning box stores with unimaginative architecture.

This past Friday, though, I was reminded there is hope. My husband and I attended an event in our city known as the Gallery Crawl, offered the first Friday of every month. Up and down Main Street, galleries and the local Arts Center, open their doors, offer hors d’oeuvres, music from local bands and a wonderful display of local and regional art talents. It’s one of my favorite events and reminds me that small downtowns can survive if they're willing to take on a new life and purpose.

My friend Bill Folowell, deputy-turned-artist in front of his gorgeous and vibrant Colorado landscapes.

Wandering the streets during the Gallery Crawl is not for the introverted. The sidewalks are crowded and friends stop to chat, catching up on the news in front of a stores on a pleasant summer evening. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine people dressed in an era long gone, walking down the streets, greeting neighbors as wagons and horses passed by. This night, the street happily resonated with music, laughter and conversation, creating a cozy feeling that you're among neighbors and lucky enough to experience a tradition that is gasping for breath in towns and cities across America.

After meandering the sidewalks, my husband and I stopped by the locally owned brewery and grabbed a beer and split a fish n' chips. We howdied with acquaintances sitting on bar stools inside and a few young people from the local college. Sitting on the back patio soaking up the cool evening, we listened to the murmur of conversation and sipped a cold brew.

I’m glad to live in a town among such fine neighbors and talented artists and in a place where the downtown not only survives but thrives and competes with the big boxes. I'm thankful there's still a hub to greet folks and purchase a unique gift at a local shop. I hope we always manage to maintain our Main Streets in small towns and big cities across our country. They are the hub, history and personality of our culture.

The perfect evening: a local brewery, a patio and fine art .

You've Got Mail (But Not The Kind I Remember)

I didn't expect this to be the most nostalgic stop of the entire tour. But as I stood in front of the wall of hundreds of gleaming brass boxes, I felt the air suck out of me and was transported back in time, thirty years, to be exact.

I was nineteen and scanned the wall of boxes for my assigned number. I found it quickly after the other students moved aside. My fingers hastily worked the combination, and I peered through the little window in the box. I could see one, maybe two, envelopes, a couple fliers, and maybe... I swung the little door open and reached inside. Yessss! A pink slip!

The only picture I took of the entire tour-- the wall of mail boxes.

"When I was in college," I told my daughter, opening with that qualifier, not for the first time that day, "we got a pink slip in our box if we had a package. Your worse day could suddenly change if there was one of those in your box!" The tour guide continued in her perky tone as I wandered back in my memory.

No bigger than a memo slip, Pepto-Bismol pink, that piece of paper held the power to make an entire day. If I got one, I'd quickly rush to the mail window and hand the worker my slip. Why did she move so slowly? I watched her disappear behind the wall. Anxious students in the queue behind me shifted feet, impatiently waiting their turn, gripping their own amazing pink slips. Finally. She rounded the corner. I glued my eyes on the box in her hands. That was mine!

"Thank you," I said as I took the package, addressed to me in my mother's handwriting. I tucked it under my arm. Half the fun would be carrying it to my next class where I knew other students would stare at it with envy. A box from home meant cookies and goodies to share with dorm mates, maybe a new shirt or pair of earrings Mom had picked up on her last shopping trip, and probably a little cash tucked into a new pair of socks-- a little extra spending money treat. I couldn't wait to get back to my dorm room and rip into it, and yet waiting and wondering what was inside was delicious. In the meantime, there was a letter from a high school friend written on lined notebook paper to read and one from my grandpa written in his slightly shaky hand writing on sheets of white stationery. He and I had recently started exchanging shy letters with each other, and I relished the opportunity to get to know him a bit better.

"We don't do pink slips anymore." The tour guide must have overheard my comment, bringing me back to the present. "Now we will send you an email if you have a package." She smiled at the small group of students and parents.

No pink slip? Where was the fun in that? But then I thought over the four years my son was in college. I sent him packages, but I don't know if we ever exchanged a single, real, hand-written letter. He was more likely to respond to me in a quick text or email than ever sit down and write a real letter. In fact, I could hardly remember the last time I wrote a real letter to anyone. How sad.

I realized, as we walked away from the beloved mail room of my alma mater and on to the cafe, serving lattes and frappuccinos (that wasn't there when I attended this college, I hastily pointed out, yet again, to my daughter) that the art of letter writing was quickly dying. What will future biographers use to research the hearts and stories of people's lives? A transitory email that no longer exists? A text message lost in the cell phone universe? It's all so temporary and fleeting anymore. No longer will there be a box of letters hidden beneath the cedar-scented blankets of a hope chest, a written history of someone's life and relationships. My kids Skype with their long distance friends. We exchanged letters and carefully posed pictures (you didn't want to waste the film on your 110 cartridge by making a funny face).

The campus has changed in so many ways. Most of the changes, including a state-of-the-art music performance hall, and gorgeous new wellness center, are welcomed, a true enticement for future students. But, I thought as I glanced one final time at the mail room before we left the building, I'm not sure all changes are for the best.

Angels Among Us

Microsoft clipart

Have you ever spoken with a fireman, or someone who places their life on the line for the protection of others?  It might be tempting to assume they receive an adrenalin thrill or ego boost when they're out on the job, but if you dig a bit deeper, I suspect you'd find a more noble motivation is really in their hearts. 

Several months ago, I had a conversation with a volunteer fireman. Somehow in the midst of our random gab we fell into the topic of religion. He happened to mention he was "religious", without providing me a more specific definition. That was all right; I didn't feel compelled to probe. 

I told him that church and religion have always swirled all through my life, and yet sometimes I still struggled to find God, to make him real. 

He simply replied, "Get in a fire someday, you'll figure it out."

I wanted to hear more. "How so?" I asked.

"It's God in you," he replied. "Angels help you find your way out when you're in the fire."

I grew silent, thinking about his words. "How do you know it's angels and not just your wits and skills leading you out?" I finally asked.

He hedged. "You wouldn't believe me. I swear I have seen angels."

I'd like to believe there are angels among us. I want to believe that. I've seen goodness in people, certainly, but, honestly, never an angel. "What do they look like?" I wanted to know.

"All good things," he responded. "No face, you just feel the goodness in them. The love. It's amazing."

My doubt nagged at me, and I searched to find a logical explanation, but, really, who was I to question his experience? Perhaps when he was in the fear and inferno of a burning building, when the heat feels like hell itself, and smoke obscures up from down and right from left, he truly is guided by angels. I have no reason to doubt his experience. Maybe he sees them because he has to look for them. He needs them. 

Maybe I don't see angels because I don't look for them. I don't think I need to see an angel. I think I already know right from left and up from down. Or maybe it's just that my building hasn't burned hot enough. 

As we drifted off to other subjects, I kept thinking about his angels. Safe skepticism still nagged in my brain, but I didn't voice my questions. I hoped he'd continued to see his angels and that they'd keep on guiding and protecting him each time he was out being a hero fighting fires or rescuing people. 

And I hoped, someday, I would see one too. But his words carried a bit of a warning, or perhaps a challenge about finding that angel: Get in a fire someday; you'll figure it out.