Month: March 2016

The picture of me with my binoculars on the blog masthead is pretty typical of me. There’s everyone else facing forward waiting patiently for the Yellowstone geyser to go off. And then there’s me. I’m the one, as usual, going or doing the total opposite of most everyone else. I’m looking at the exquisitely beautiful and total enamoring Osprey circling overhead, looking for its next fish to eat.

As a kid, when dad would come home from drinking, my sister would run for the bedroom and close the door. Her motto: Get the heck outta there as quick as possible! Me? I’d run for the door and could absolutely tell if he’d been drinking. If he had been drinking, it was my main goal in life to literally pick a fight with him!

Of course, at that young age I had no clue I was doing that. It was only in my young adult years of groups, workshops and therapies of trying to understand the alcoholism in my family that I realized what I had been doing. As dad was getting closer to having to retire from the military, the way he dealt with his fear of how he’d take care of his family, including five kids, was to drink. All he’d ever known was the military way of life since he was a young man. His drinking became worse and the alcoholism increased the closer he got to retirement. Dad had also never talked about the atrocities he’d experienced in World War II as a young man of 18 years. It wasn’t until his senior years he shared with any of us the results of having never dealt with seeing all the killing and dying as a young man fresh off the farm. Luckily for all of us, dad quit drinking when I was only 18 myself.

So, somehow I grew up being the rebel—whether that was through angry outbursts or interminable depressions. I always seemed to go the opposite of others in my family or community.

I’ve shared how my usual MO was to be fearful, but I’d always eventually face the fear head on—whether that be meeting dad at the front door as he came home from drinking, or learning to rappel down off a high cliff or parasailing in Mexico . . .  I’d eventually do it.

So all these adventures I’ve led myself on over the years have led me back to Yellowstone once again. I leave in three weeks to live in and do tours working in Yellowstone National Park for five months this summer. I’ll be a tour guide driving those restored yellow touring cars or a “step-on” tour guide for large tour buses coming into the Park.

I was—as usual—fearful: Could I do this? Would I be good enough? Will I remember everything there is to share with everyone? But as I eventually do, I faced the fears of “What if?” with “Yes! Of course I can!” I’ve been doing tours at the Desert Botanical Garden since 2008 and have a national certification that says I’m qualified to do so. I enjoy people and love getting them excited and interested in nature. I think I’m up to the task—and everyday get more excited about my next “Big Adventure.”

Over the next number of months it’s my hope here to share with you pictures and stories about this new adventure. Who knows, maybe you’ll become encouraged to have your own next Big Adventure!

As a kid, my favorite little “trick” to get out of doing the dishes: I’d “have to go” to the bathroom. In those days we’d put all the leftovers out on to newspapers and toss it in the trash (why we didn’t save them to eat later is beyond me). One time I’d come back from my very-important bathroom run and my mom and sister, Marian, had already started cleaning the kitchen (which, of course, was the plan). I came in telling them of some oh-so-important discovery while in “The Throne Room” and sat right down on the chair holding the newspaper full of leftovers—that night being a batch of leftover mashed potatoes. I realized what I’d done as soon as I’d sat down and immediately stood up. There on the chair of mashed potato leftovers was this perfect impression of my butt! My sister was laughing so hard she was rolling on the floor! Mom and I looked at each other and the flabbergasted looks quickly turned to uproarious laughter.

 

 

 

 

 

My little get-out-of-work “trick” had backfired on me! I have absolutely no idea if I kept using my “trick” but I’m sure once I finally returned to the kitchen I’d now be paying much closer attention to where I sat!

What do I celebrate? That I made it!  Looking back, it’s hard to believe that this happy little girl

actually seriously contemplated doing herself in many times in her life! (Which way would be the easiest? Which way would bring the least pain?)

 

But what I celebrate today—and hopefully everyday of my life—is a trust in the God who helped me through some of the darkest times in my life. I celebrate me. And who I am today . . . so very far from those younger years when everything seemed so very overwhelming and endless.  I celebrate I kept going. I didn’t give in to those thoughts of self-doubt and -loathing.

I celebrate that my life today is about the joy and love of the life all around me.

 

I celebrate that I kept trusting God and myself that some day—eventually—it would be better. It seemed to take most of my life—but the important part is . . . I made it! Today I am a joyful and happy person.

I love to laugh and tease. I celebrate my partnership and I celebrate the person I’ve become. Through such darkness to such joy is truly something indeed worth celebrating. Good for me!

Life couldn’t be more perfect: I’m comfortably propped up on a bench—with a backrest no less—watching the hillside at “my” Desert Botanical Garden!

 

 

The bees are buzzing all around the Chuparosa beside me with its intense yellow-rather-than-red-flowers.

A Curve-billed Thrasher is calling from the top of a Saguaro.

A Gila Woodpecker is carrying on somewhere behind me.

When younger, I could rarely just sit quietly like this. To still my mind—the incessant chatter—long enough to actually hear the buzz of the bees. I used to “bee” so “buzzed” myself that I couldn’t just hang out and take it all in . . .  To notice the clouds passing overhead. To be so in tune with practically every little nook and cranny of the hillside that I’d notice immediately if there was something up there—a Red-Tailed Hawk, a Roadrunner preparing for the brood

or a Western Screech Owl peeking out of a Saguaro

or the Round-Tailed Ground Squirrel sounding an alarm,

and to know the sound I’m hearing is the Ladderback Woodpecker’s squeak.

It’s so pleasant not to hear my mind-chatter. I can hear and see and notice now activities going on around me.

I distinctly and fondly remember the first time I started learning to observe things around me. It was the early 70s and I was with my friend Bob. We’d flown in a sea plane over to Lake Kathleen on Admiralty Island in Alaska.

We hiked out into the forest near the cabin; he with his camera and telephoto lens and I with binoculars. We sat—like I am now—only propped up against a tree, back to back.  He said, “Let’s just sit here quietly, start noticing, and see what we see.”

At first I thought, “This is crazy. There’s nothing out here. It’s too quiet. Nothing’s happening!” But, then, after awhile—once that mind-chatter started to relax—I became aware of hearing this incessant sound, but only intermittently. Then I noticed, right about that same time, there was movement too. Soon I realized that movement was a bird flying to the same area in a regular, yet intermittent pattern. I had noticed my first bird! Then I noticed there was something in a tree. Oh, my goodness! Could that be a nest? It was a Cardinal I later learned and she was taking food to her little brood. And I found it!