Colouring my world

I’ve been thinking about color this week. It started out with an overdose of brown.

We’ve been camping close to Santa Fe in New Mexico. If that state has an official colour, I think it would be brown. The desert is brown. The dry stream beds are brown. If water does run in the stream, it’s brown, too. The unpaved roads – and there are many of them – are a sandy brown. And the architecture in downtown Santa Fe is brown, dictated through a  by-law that says all public buildings in the historic centre must be built in the old style adobe. When people buy a home here, I think that they’re told, “You can have any colour you like, as long as it is brown.” Sandstone, tan, beige, light ocher, cinnamon, copper, off white...you name it. It’s here.
And it’s brown.

I’m not saying brown is bad – after all, chocolate and coffee are brown, and they’re good, very good. The interior walls of our home are a warm shade of tan. Colour theory says that brown is the colour of security and protection. “It is sensual, sensitive and warm, engulfing one in a feeling of calmness and comfort,” proclaims one website. “It is quietly confident but never the life of the party! Brown does not seek attention - it prefers to stay in the background, allowing other colors around it to shine.”

Other colours ... yes, for sure. All of us need a healthy dose of colour in our lives. All brown is a yawn, but splashes of colour stimulate and arouse the senses, and make you feel like you’re alive. New Mexicans know it: I saw doors, window frames and eaves painted turquoise, purple, red, cobalt blue, orange. Sunny yellow marigolds, lavender Russian sage, red trumpet vine, and multicoloured gaillardias flourished in huge pottery planters. A turquoise coyote wearing a red bandana stands sentinel at our campground entrance. Mailboxes come in every colour except brown.

And so, we fell under New Mexico’s spell – its motto is “Land of Enchantment”. We’ve been here for 10 days, and haven’t grown tired of all that brown after all.

I decided to play with colour this week. We’d been on an art tour, following high desert roads through tiny villages where the locals had hung out their welcome flags and opened their studios. The art was wonderful and colourful, but what stopped us in our tracks when we got close to Taos was a field of purple asters.

The scene became the subject of another postcard. Three of them, actually, in three different colourways: the first is pretty close to the original photo, the second uses more intense and saturated shades in the sky, mountains, and trees, and the third goes a little wild. But not too wild, because it is me, after all, that’s making it.

I took one of those colour quizzes you find on the web. It turns out I am violet. Really? I am violet? I look into it a little further. Violet, says the pop-site empower-yourself-with-color.com, is the colour of imagination and spirituality. Well, okay then. Yes! I am violet.

How about you?

Two postcards and a prayer

We have arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We saw so much spectacular scenery the first week of travel, including Bryce Canyon and Arches National Park. Last week I sent you a postcard from Bryce. Here’s my version of Arches: it was amazing, fantastic, awesome...well, after a while you run out of superlatives and just gaze silently...which is maybe as it should be.

These two window arches were formed out of enormous rocks worn down by weathering. Arches National Park has more than 2,000 of these structures, big and small.

We also took a scenic drive along the Colorado River and were enchanted by the red cliffs, scrubby pines, and the lengendary river that supplies so much of the Southwest with water for crops, animals, recreation and so much more.

I had high hopes for Santa Fe, the city of “holy faith”, as the first missionaries named it  back in the 1500s. I’d  been  here years ago on my own, but the trip was a short one. I loved what I saw, and kept bugging the Resident Sweetie to go back there with me. Now, 13 years later, we’d finally made it.

But as we drove through Northern New Mexico, I realized it was not spectacular, awesome, amazing– all those superlatives I’d hoped for. It was dry, barren, desolate, grey and scrubby. Would the RS, who’d done all the driving to get here, be disappointed, or wish he were elsewhere?

Well, we’ve been here 4 days, have another 4 scheduled, and are considering an extension. This land is beautiful in its own way, but you have to look a little harder for the beauty. There are purple asters and sunny yellow shrubs in the ditches, and the scrub juniper and pinon pines dot the high desert. The sky is a brilliant blue, and we are falling under its fascinating spell.

But the land is in trouble. The sign on the bathroom door here at the campground tells it like it is. “Santa Fe gets 9.47 inches of rainfall per year. Please don’t waste water.” The newspapers print stories about an 11 year drought, and the fear that there’s not enough water in the reservoirs to service the farmers. The snow pack on the mountains is depleted. The Santa Fe River is one of the top ten endangered rivers in the US– its stream bed is dry and rocky. The Rio Grande (literally, Big River) often does not reach the ocean, its waters siphoned off by a thirsty world.

Climate change, most scientists agree, is happening. People -- you, me, everybody -- are not the whole problem, but we are part of it.

The world is a beautiful place. The world is in big trouble. Both true. We are all connected – this I feel strongly as we travel through this land and meet its people. Could it be that the more we feel connected to the land and to the people we meet, both while traveling and at home, the more we will be motivated to do our part to keep our world beautiful – to work for peace, for a healthy environment, for justice for the downtrodden, whatever it is that we are called to do?

A prayer printed in a local tourist paper caught my eye, and I wanted to share it with you. Although the prayer is for Santa Fe, with just a few word and image changes, it could be for your home town, too.

O Dios, El Senor, Great Spirit,
El Shaddai, Adonai, Creator God, creating still,
By whatever name we know you, hear our prayers this day.
We thank you for the courage and the the Holy Faith
of those who founded this city so many years ago.
And we thank you, too, for the native people
who prayed in this land for centuries before
and for all who have come in the centuries since.
For all, be they native or newcomers
whose prayers continue to bless this city,
we thank you this day.
Hear too our prayers for guidance and wisdom.
Help us to learn from this good land
and the beauty of creation all around us.
In this land of endless sky
teach us the boundlessness of your beauty and love.
In this land of little rain,
teach us to share and to bless what you have given us.
In this land of brilliant sunrise and golden sunset,
teach us to use each day to bless the lives of others.
In this land of many cultures and colors,
give us your infinite imagination and
teach us to respect and value all your children.
O God, our help in ages past,
be our hope and the hope of our home in all the years to come.
Help us all to build on the foundation of faith, hope and love
that others have laid here,
so that all your people in this city might do justice,
love mercy and walk humbly with You,
 now and always,
Amen.

Prayer by Rev. Talitha Arnold, pastor at United Church of Santa Fe.

The View from the Passenger Seat.

When we go on long trips, we have a rule of thumb : one day of travel, one day of staying put. But we were already behind schedule, so we spent four straight 10 hour days on the road.

Day one is always a shake-down day, when we adjust to how travelling works, and what our respective jobs are. For the resident sweetie, that's a given: he's the driver. End of story. I've never wanted to drive a big diesel truck pulling a 5th wheel, so he gets the job by default. My job is being the good supportive little wife, and I'll admit it is not my best role. After spending a second day in the passenger seat watching him compulsively check oil and fuel gages, furrow his brow, cock his ear to listen for any noises that shouldn’t be there,  purse his lips and spout raspberries to relieve his tension, I was just a mite titchy.

Clearly, I needed an attitude adjustment. I would find things to do that enhanced the journey, or we would become road warriors in the real sense. In a spirit of generosity, I hereby share my list of top 10 things to do when you’re the one in the passenger seat.

1. Listen to the radio. Except, in our beast of a diesel truck, the volume would have had to be so cranked, the RS wouldn’t have been able to hear any of those supposed noises he was listening for. Ditch that.

2. Read the newspaper. We often buy a newspaper on our first stop of the day so I can read it aloud to Al. The miles zoom by, and there are lots of conversation starters, ranging from the deep issues (“Will wars ever end?) to frothy stories about movie stars that make us shake our heads. After that, we work on the crossword. A good newspaper can give us about 150 miles worth of entertainment. But on day 3, when I walked into one of the big truck stops, it turned out that they don’t sell newspapers. Not even News of the World. You can buy 32 oz. Slurpees and corn dogs galore, but not a stitch of news. What is this world coming to? Hey, there’s a conversation starter!

3. Well, okay then. No newspapers? Read billboards. May the floss be with you (dental clinics); Buy Used Without Feeling that Way (car sales); Our Kool-aid is better than your Kool-aid (???); Fat City fireworks – bottle rockets and mortars, open 24 hours a day (yeah, I hate it when I run out of bottle rockets and mortars at 11 o’clock at night; so glad someone has that covered.) On the side of grain elevator: Desert Mill Grains and Pasta Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. In front of an abandoned church: Living Waters...For Sale. After passing an area with lots of wind turbines on rocky ridges, this one caught our eye: Caution – Red Light District. Wind Development, not the world’s oldest profession, but the results are the same.

4. Get Creative. “40 Miles to Boise,” said the RS, and I thought that sounded like the beginning of a good song or poem. So when I saw a sign that read “Stinker’s Truck Stop,” I couldn’t resist.

The Stinker’s Truck Stop close to Nampa,
Is just the ticket for gran and grampa.
They fuel up their bellies,
Get rid of their smellies,
Without setting foot in the campah. 

Al was tickled by a billboard that read Report Wildlife Crime. His poem: “If a bear steals bread, he’s dead.” Short, funny, gets the point across. Perhaps I should get him to guest for me on this blog.

5. Count Fed-Ex and UPS trucks. There were so many on the road, we were sad we hadn't bought stock in courier companies about 10 years ago.

6. Play word games. We decided to see how many words we could make out of the letters in  the word “frontage.” We got 110, including 5 six-letter words and 13 five-letter words. We welcome challenges to that.

7. Check the map. Check the GPS. Check the map again. No, we’re not there yet. Sigh.

8. Visit rest areas. Take pit stops. Did you know that in Canada, we call those biffies pit toilets, and in the US they seem to go by the name of vault toilets. Hmmm.

9. Do housecleaning. I took along a rag and some cleaners and wiped down all the vinyl surfaces I could reach. That took care of 10 minutes. But it made me feel better for a long time.

10. Engage in gas wars. Okay, not those kinds of gas wars, although the RS did have some good lines which he declared off the record. However, he said I could use “Well, I never have run out of gas yet.” (So true.) This was said in response to my expressed exasperation  that his idea of when to refuel is vastly different than mine. His is when the low fuel light comes on. Mine is when the gage says there’s 1/3 of a tank left. I don’t think there will be a winner in these gas wars, since we are both stubborn.

However, we have arrived here in Southern Utah, and we are still talking to each other. So far, the trip is a success!

Bryce Canyon was gorgeous. We were happy. What more can you want?

Yes, I did take my sewing machine and a small stash of fabrics along. Here's my attempt at a postcard-sized piece depicting Bryce Canyon, which goes to show that you really can't improve on nature. But it was fun trying. I hope to produce a few more "postcards" and send them to you on this blog in the next few weeks.

The View from the Nest

I thought I was pretty well done with writing about crows, but I was wrong. It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong, of course. Just last week, I wrote in my blog that I might install “I just called to say I love you” by Jim Croce on my cell phone as a ringtone for the RS. Oops! One of the first rules of writing is to check your facts. My dear cuz reminded me that Stevie Wonder sang that song. Jim Croce sang “Operator.” So please, don’t believe everything you read here. This is for you, RS: (deep breath) I am sometimes wrong.

Anyway, about my latest crowlogue – I’ve been thinking of nests. I don’t know about you, but the word “nest” to me feels warm and cozy and all about home. My friend Jennifer quilted this robin and nest, and the piece seems to embody that message.

Piece created by Jennifer Harrison.

 I’m not sure, however, that warm and cozy describe crow nests. When a crow couple decides to raise babies, old nests are rarely re-used.  Crows like their nests high up in fir or spruce trees – often 60 or more feet in the air, and close to the trunk of the tree. The nest is a big jumbled affair, often 2-3 feet in diameter, and roughly built with big sticks and twigs. Within that outer structure, however, it creates a much smaller nursery, lined with feathers, grasses and whatever it can find. Ah, warm and cozy after all.

photo by Bob Armstrong (naturebob.com)

By the way, some quilters think they’re doing birds a favour by leaving  nice soft scraps of cotton on fences and branches so the birds can use pick them up and use them to line the nest. But that’s not a good idea: cotton absorbs moisture, and is slow to dry, so the baby birds are being raised in a cold, wet, home. That’s equivalent to leaving your children in wet diapers all the time.

I tried to make a crow nest of my own. Believe me, it is not as easy as I thought it would be. I have more respect for those master builders now.

We often have an idyllic image in our minds of nests as bird bedrooms: the birds return to the nest at night to rest. Not so, especially with crows. A nest is a nursery for babies. Once the brood is raised and the nest empties out, that’s it! The world becomes the bird’s home. Once their job is done, adult crows are free to hang out with other crows, including their juvenile kids. This gives rise to the roosting phenomenon, which I wrote about in Meet You at the Roost, November, 2013.

Crow observers tell us the success of a crow’s nesting efforts relates, among other things, to the distance of the nest from the trunk. Young crows who are making their first nests may decide to be a little different from mom and dad – “Hey, the view’s so much better out here,” says would-be-papa crow to his lovebird as they move out on a limb. They build their nest there, then learn the hard way it is now much less stable, and more visible to predators. As a result, they loose more of their children to storms, hawks and owls. The parental units weren’t so dumb after all.

Sometimes, however, young crows also have something to teach old crows. One day, a crow, lured by bright city lights, must have decided to leave the old folks behind on the farm. I’m guessing it must have been a youngster. Now more crows live in town than in rural areas. Perhaps the old folks moved into the city, too, to be closer to the grandies. And it might have been a youngster, as well, who invented a new kind of nest when there was a shortage of twigs and branches in an urban area.

Tokyo crow nest (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

As you may have guessed, all these observations could be applied to us. Build your nest. Build it well, and make it as safe as you can. Do everything you can to raise a successful brood. And then let your babies fly away. The next generation will do things their own way, and they’ll make their own mistakes, and that’s the way it is. Often, they’ll return with a new appreciation for your efforts. Sometimes, they may teach you a thing or two. The bonus is that now you can begin to hang out with them and share in their lives. And you realize that an empty nest is not the only home you have: the world is out there, and with your job done, you can go ahead and move in new directions.

This week, we’re doing just that. The view from our empty nest is good, but there's more to see. We are taking the trailer for a 5-6 week trip down to the southern states to visit canyons and ruins and deserts. Thanks to our new cell phones, we’ll be able to caw-ll home and stay in touch, perhaps even with a blog or two. There’s much to be seen and I hope to share that here, so stay tuned: you may hear me squawking again soon.

I call this piece Leaving the Nest. I have entered it into a Comox Valley Art Gallery show of fibre art called Hanging by a Thread. The show begins September 27, so if you are live in the Comox Valley, I invite you to check it out.

Evolution of a dummy

See that photo of me illustrating this blog? That’s me before I got smart. As the sayings go: “We get too soon old and too late smart” and its corollary, “Better late than never,” I have seen the light, and I am dumb no more.  I have stepped into the world of smart – the world of smart phones, that is.

Yes, now I have joined the hordes of people who walk down crowded sidewalks with their eyes focused on their hands, rudely bumping into people because the message they’re getting from their friend who’s waiting for them in the coffee shop (“I C U!”) is more important than anything else in the universe. I could become one of those nasty folks who conduct business discussions on a park bench right next to you (“Well sir, we’ll match Joe’s price on that flooring, no problem.”) Worse, the RS and I could become one of those sad couples who sit across from each other in a lovely restaurant, texting each other about the menu offerings or checking our e-mail while we’re waiting for the prime rib.

Can you tell that I am not wholly convinced about how smart it was to get ourselves one of these phones? Culture watchers tell us that in every crowd there are early adopters (EAs) of technology – the ones who are first with all the newest doodads and gimcracks. I, on the other hand, am a late adopter (LA). Very late (VLA). I remember when the RS had received a windfall around Christmas time back in 1984, and he decided we needed a computer. I decided we did not. I had a typewriter to write with, and lots of board games to play with, so why did we need a computer? He bought the computer. I was mad. I bought a microwave in retaliation. Oh, let’s not get into that. He was right. I was right. (Actually, the Quasar microwave lasted way longer than the Commodore 64, but that’s another story.)

So with my mixed feelings about this technology, why do it? We already have cell phones. True, they don’t dance and sing, allow for texting, take pictures, or even flip open. They are what one patronizing salesman called  “mercy phones” – we bought them for distressing situations, such as calling home from the grocery store to find out if we need mushrooms (the RS) or (me) calling home to say I’ll be late – again, sighs the RS.

But we know that the times, they are a-changing. I remember the first phone our family had: a box on the wall with crank, which you turned when you wanted to make a call; you spoke into the receiver on the box, and held the ear piece to your ear. You told the operator who you wanted to talk to. And no, I am not 100 years old. We shared the phone with about 4 other families on our party line, who often knew more about us than we did, because they listened in on every conversation, and sometimes interrupted to give advice. Phones back then were often lifelines in isolated situations. They let people know they could reach out to others.

When we moved from the farm to an apartment in town, we had no phone for a few years, but in special situations we were allowed to use one that belonged to kindly old folks downstairs. Then, in 1956, we moved into our own home, and shortly thereafter we got our own phone, too. I can still remember the excitement of memorizing my phone number (Lennox 7-7778). The phone was a big deal because now we could call our family in Holland, but only for 3 minutes at a time, since it was so expensive. The date and time of the impending call was set up ahead of time through letters, and my two aunties and families came to share in the chat, which hardly gave anyone any time at all to say anything more than hello, but hey! For an hour afterwards my two aunts and mom would sit around deconstructing the conversation: – Moeke sounds tired. Vader says the weather is rainy. Didn’t the twins sound grown up? It was really about hearing their voices, and about staying in touch. Gathering around the phone was an opportunity to strengthen family and community bonds, and rightly used, it still is.

The precipitating cause of our buying smart phones is an upcoming trip to the southern states which will allow us to text or call our family more often. The RS and I are having fun: which ring tone will I install so I’ll know it’s the RS calling – how about Jim Croce’s tune  “I just called to say I love you”? Which photo of my dear man will I put into the address book –  a cartoon of Goofy? I ditched that idea quickly when he caught me in the buff scrubbing the toilet and ran for his cell phone/camera. We called a truce. Don't press, tap. Don't tap when the phone rings -- swipe. Sigh. I have so much to learn. But really, whether it’s letters, e-mail, facebook, Twitter, dumb phones or smart phones and even blogging, it’s all about keeping in touch with each other. It’s a brave new world out there, but to live is to learn. So I will raise a toast to life and move on.

Why not pick up the phone – smart or dumb, who cares? – talk to someone, and say, “I just called to say I love you”?

As usual, I turned to my fabric to help me make peace with my new phone, and this is the result. I dipped into my collection of buttons and fibres to connect the dots – buttons and fibres are used to hold things together, and as this art piece illustrates, when we all reach out to each other we create wonderful webs of relationships. We are not alone! 

 

 

 

In Praise of Back Sides

I’m sitting here in the trailer, looking out at the ocean on the last day of our camping sojourn at Seaview. It seems like yesterday that we were setting up camp. The view was to the future. Now, these four weeks belong to the past.

And so I’m thinking of back sides. Let me reassure you I’m not thinking of anatomical back sides, although we did do plenty of sitting on them – it’s one of the benefits of vacations. What I’m ruminating on is the fact that sometimes, when one is in the middle of a busy, eventful time, it is hard to really appreciate the good stuff as it is happening. That’s what back sides are for.

In the middle of the  hubbubzzlam of our recent family campout, I was carried along on a rushing current, moving from outing to outing, crisis to crisis, decision to decision, mealtime to mealtime. It was great, but phew! I was sad/happy when it was over: sad because I knew I’d miss the family, happy because this tumbling whirlpool of activity had finally spit me out the back side, and I was once again in calm water. In the quietness, I could say with heartfelt honesty, “That was good, very, very good.”

After everyone had left, and I’d gotten accustomed to the stillness, I pulled out my unfinished “Flowers of my Summer Garden” piece and puttered about with it, adding something called a flange (a narrow inner border) and a border. It was done!

The flowers are hanging on the design wall in my studio. The piece still needs to layered and quilted.

But it needed a back side. I joked to the resident sweetie that this might be an excuse for another fabric shopping trip. He sniffed but he knows enough by now to not say a whole lot about that. Then I realized I had a lot of leftovers from the front side –  perhaps I could create something with those bits and pieces: a designer back side. (Stop giggling and get that image out of your mind. I’m serious.) The picnic table became my work table once again, and off I went into creativity mode. Oh, it was fun! This was turning out to be another arty piece. When I was finished, this is what it looked like:

This experience has given me a new appreciation for back sides. Back sides come in many shapes (really – my tongue is not in my cheek): a back side could be the bookend to the main event, the reverse side of the coin or the quilt, the afterglow of a great get-together, the debriefing after a finished project, the memoir writing of a life. The back side can be as good and as interesting as the view from up front.

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when I wrote a piece about my dad for the writing group I belong to. My dad and I had long period in our lives when we did not see eye-to-eye. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to write about that. And besides, my dad had written his own memoir, giving his version of his life. But when I began writing about him, as I remembered him, it didn’t look a lot like his memoir at all. I had a different perspective. The pieces were there, but I rearranged them, and in so doing I caught a new glimpse of my dad. Looking through the back side of our relationship gave me a new appreciation of what a good father he’d been to us.

Back sides give us a new view – turn it over, turn it around,  look through the wrong end of the binoculars, and you will see something different than what you saw before.  And as I discovered with “Flowers of the Summer Garden”, you really don’t need new fabric to create a back side. What you have in your life already is great raw material for your needs. The back side has bits and pieces of the experience, rearranged for a new enriched viewing pleasure.

And there's one more thing about back sides: they are already present in the seeds and raw material of the here and now that you are living through. We were more than reminded of that when we got back home and saw the state of our garden. All those little seeds we planted in the bare earth last spring have grown up and are giving us a totally different view in the yard. We had to do a bunch of chopping, pruning, and harvesting before we could see the beauty, but it was there. It's something to think about as we live our lives, planting seeds of joy or anger, love or indifference, care or thoughtlessness in our daily relationships. When we reach the back side of our life, what picture will we see?

I’ve come to the back side of the blog. When I told the resident sweetie  I was writing about  “In praise of back sides,” he observed,  “Well, as we get older, there’s a lot more to praise.” (Okay, now you can laugh!)

View from the Back Seat

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we took camping vacations with the kids when they really were kids, not adults: Ma and Pa in the front seats, kids tumbling about in the back (this was in the dark ages, when mandatory car seats for children had not been invented, and seat belt laws were oh-so-lax.) I remember one memorable cross-country trip when the three boys lolled about on the bed in the back of the van, reading comics, while their baby sister slept on the floor under the bed with the dog so she was safe from her brothers’ trampling feet. Guardian angels must have been working overtime to ensure our safe travels.

Well, times have changed along with seat-belt laws. Earlier this week, we were spending a vacation day on the road with the kids, only this time ma and pa were in the back seat while son #2 was at the wheel and his sister was in the passenger seat. “Everybody buckled in?” asked the driver solicitously, glancing back before he pulled out. Oh, yes, times have marched on, and we are gradually finding ourselves more and more often traveling in the back seat, not only on the road, but also in life.

The resident sweetie and I have been commenting to each other that  we are in danger of  becoming the old people we used to joke about (gently, of course): the folks whose meal times are regulated by their meds schedule; the ones who enjoy giving “organ recitals” when asked how they’re doing; (“well, the gall bladder’s been acting up again, but the bowels are doing well, thanks for asking.”); the folks who enjoy a little naptime after their lunch, and pull on a jacket and toque as they’re sitting around the campfire with their shorts-clad barefooted grandkids.

Oh, yes, we’re guilty of some of these foibles – perhaps not all the time, but too often.  Where did the time go, and how did we get like this?

On the other hand, there are some wonderful things about being in the back seat, if only we can let go of the things we used to be responsible for. For me, that's a big if, but I'm learning. We’ve just finished ten days of camping and rumbling about with our children and grandchildren – at one point there were four tents and one trailer at the campsite, and often 14 diners were seated around the picnic table. I tried to think of a word that would describe the sometimes confusing, often funny , totally haphazard, mostly impromptu and unplanned time we had together, and came up with “hubbubzzlam” – a hybrid of hubub, buzz, and bedlam, but bathed in warmth and grace.

More and more, the RS and I let it all happen; trying to organize and plan our time is only an exercise in frustration with so many variables to include. We’re not driving this vehicle anymore; our adult kids are taking the wheel, and they are doing a great job. We won’t get to drink our morning coffee in peace, but we will have the pleasure of five granchildren straggling one by one into the trailer and having a little visit with Oma and Opa. They eat their “first breakfast” with us, perhaps play a board game, then head off for a beach ramble while the adults cook a bigger second breakfast (which they also are happy to consume.)

 And if we don’t get an after-lunch nap, it’s because we are standing by the river cheering on our youngest grandboy while he pulls in a nice-sized salmon.

We sit around the campfire for a while with everyone, then yawn and head for bed while plans are being made for a board game which will be played into the wee hours of the morning. We are tuckered out – but it is a good tuckered.

But you can be an active participant in life even if you are moving into the backseat, I’ve discovered. You don’t have to just sit and watch the world go by. When we take the children mini-golfing, we realize the outing is not about keeping score, but about the afterglow party at the end, where we sit together and joke and share stories. (When her daddy asks 4 year old Aerin whether she enjoyed golfing, she says, “Oh, yes, I just love the mint and chocolate chip ice cream. It is the best!”)

Later, eavesdropping on their conversation, we hear what they like about being with Oma and Opa:  Opa makes them laugh and Oma spoils them and snuggles with them. You can’t get much higher praise then that, in my opinion. We aren’t taking the business world by storm, nor writing an award-winning novel, but we have our own spot in the universe that is making a difference for someone, and isn’t that where we’d all like to be?

Letting go and accepting our new roles is a balancing act. Yes, we’re finding that more and more, we’re in the cheering section rather than on the stage, but we’re still finding new challenges. For years and years I have protested that I hate canoeing, that my balance is bad and I feel too wobbly. But, this past week, we both got into a kayak for the first time. True, it’s a granny-kayak with a wide bottom (sort of like me), and a big entry portal to accommodate stiff knees. But we did it! And we liked it!

We’re heading off in a new direction, and there’s a bonus: in our kayaks, we still get to be in the drivers’ seats.