Oooh, I Thought You Said “Take a Nap”

It happened again – I got bamboozled into signing up for another race.  “It’ll be fun!” Rob said.  I was not convinced.  “It’s even longer than a half marathon – it’s over 14 miles!” Rob exclaimed cheerfully. This was not a selling point.  “It’s FREE!!” cried Rob persuasively.  “Where do I sign?” I asked – resignedly.

The SP Crater race is held about 20 miles in some direction from Flagstaff on private and state range land.  Picture a sea of land that stretches farther than the horizon, awash in waves of cinder hills.  The whales in this oceanic scene are the cows, while the antelope are the playful dolphins. Prairie grass serves as our metaphorical seaweed.  It is an area with an immense and unending view of land and sky. 

Training here in Flagstaff was going according to plan and was starting to show results.  My times were surprising me.  My recovery times were quick.  My eating was not going off the charts.  I was feeling unexpectedly like I could run.  Rob and I decided it was time to get serious and spend some time on the race course during our training runs.

The race course during the actual race is marked with tapes and flags and staffed with wonderful volunteers.  There are aid stations and EMTs and all manner of support for the runners.  This was not the case for us as we loaded up our 1988 Bigfoot camper for an outing to the Land of Never Ending, without telling anyone our plans or whereabouts.

That’s not to say we don’t plan, prepare and understand what we were doing.  We’re old hands at this.  We often load up our “mobile locker room” and head out for a run.  We don’t run together. We are life partners — not running partners.   We like being married and want to stay that way.  We generally run by time.  We wear our GPS watches and agree on the amount of time we will be running, and we have always made it back within minutes of our agreed upon time.  We have found the joy of our timing synchronicity enhances our love for each other, as opposed to having my human gazelle chat me up while I am constantly breathless and growing increasingly furious trying to keep pace, when all the time he is a half step ahead of me, maintaining that we are ‘running together.’

In learning what works best for us on our running outings, Rob is still devising systems to keep me from getting lost. He doesn’t understand it — but has come to almost accept it — that the truth of the matter is I was born without a compass. I have no magnet.  It’s not that I don’t have any sense of direction.  But my sense always advises me to turn the wrong way or to go either the shorter or longer distance – whichever is erroneous.  It’s genetic.  My sisters are plagued with the same flaw.  And while it’s comforting to have a familial support group, they’re no help.  One sister thinks Siri is nothing short of a miracle and has given her the freedom to go anywhere she wants without getting lost.  I’m a little skeptical.  To follow directions from anyone — or anything — assumes that when you are in foreign territory (that’s anywhere outside of a 500-yard distance from your driveway) — and distracted by everything around you, you will be able to distinguish your left from your right and do it with precise accuracy.  Don’t be fooled – you can drive around in circles listening to Siri.

Rob is the exact opposite.  It remains a mystery to me to see him pull out a map and pour over the hieroglyphics printed upon its pages and stay immersed in its wonders for hours on end — for the sheer enjoyment of it!  I have no ear for the language of maps.  I start to sweat when he folds down the massive sheet of paper, peers over the edge of it and tries to point out where we are and where we are going.  It makes me cry.  My brain does not translate tiny squiggly multi-colored dotted and dashed lines onto the ground whereupon I am to place my feet.  I believe it is for both our sakes that I escape to my happy place and start to hum whenever he ever pulls out a dreaded topo map.  To make matters worse, I have a very short term spatial memory.  To make matters even more interesting, I tend to slip into a day dreaming extravaganza just as I am slipping out of the range where my spatial memory is still intact, leaving me with mere dots and dashes of visual recall.  I am befuddled about my whereabouts often. 

Rob did his due diligence for this training run and explained where we were going and what we were going to do – several times.  Having done this race just last year, I was not very cooperative listening to the directions over and over and over, as he is apt to do.  I was to start at the start line and run for a total of 8 miles.  Rob was going to drop me off at the start line, drive 3 miles ahead, park there, and run the entire course, backwards, for a total of 14.3 miles.  He estimated we would see each other when I was about 2 miles into my run.

I stepped out of the truck at the start line.  It was cold!! And windy!  I did have the thought to bring a small water bottle with me to simulate what I would need to carry in the real race.  It was cold enough to wear a jacket, hat and gloves.  But I felt good and strong and able, and most of all — confident.  I ran past the cows (not one, but two rather huge herds) that can ordinarily send me into an admittedly irrational Level Six phase of panic, but I had assurances that cows are herbivores and really are more afraid of me.  “I am not cud” was my mantra for the cow episodes, and while I was still not obliviously comfortable running by them, trying not to make eye contact with their creepy red eyes and horns, I did survive.

Sure enough, about 2 miles in, there was Rob.  I hardly wanted to stop and talk because the run was feeling so right.  But he waved me down to tell me that the truck was parked at a very opportune spot, because there was a right hand turn I would have to take there.  He gazed deep into my eyes while telling me this, and it sparked a little something inside me that registered for the first time that there were turns I would be needing to make on this little jaunt.  I responded in all confidence that that was good to know, that everything was fine, and when he saw me next I would be in the camper having a cup of tea, waiting for him to finish his run.

I ran along, noting that this section of the course was uphill.  I started getting warm.  By the time I got to mile 3 – and at the camper just where Rob said it would be – I decided to leave my jacket, hat and gloves there. I knew that I had to run 2.5 more miles past the camper.  My turnaround point would be when my watch registered 5.5 miles.  It appeared to be uphill this whole way and I knew when I turned around I would only have to come back down 2.5 miles to reach the camper. I was the Little Engine That Could.

I reached my turn-around point, made an about-face and I was hit with an arctic blast that took me by complete surprise. It occurred to me I made a mistake.  I should never have left my hat, gloves, and mostly my jacket behind.  I wrapped my bandana around one hand and figured I would switch it to the other hand before icicles formed. I only had 2.5 miles to run to get back to the camper, and my years of practicing positive self-talk was paying off.  I had pretty much convinced myself that I would not get into any trouble.  Panic began to take a back seat.

And then I came to a heretofore unseen T in the road at the base of SP Crater. I had no idea which way to turn.  Nothing looked right. Neither side of the road looked like I had ever been there. The cinder hills all had different faces on them.  The sky was the same everywhere.  Infinity was calling, and I was petrified.  Fear did not set in – I was immediately and completely embraced by it. It was as if Poseidon of the Prairie plucked me up and suspended me in the middle of his toy sand globe, slowly rotated it in every direction and placed it down on its opposite axis.  I used to play a similar game as a child. I found it fascinating to watch what the ants would do when I placed a stick in the middle of their track as they traveled to and from their anthill.  Unlike my fascination with scurrying ants, he watched me with what felt like a rather dispassionate observation.

I did the math. Running the wrong way could incur more miles than I felt ready for.  I was doing this run to see if I could run 8 miles – and that was questionable.  I was not prepared for a yard more.   I had enough calories in me for 8 miles.  I had no extra food or water or clothes.  But, I did have my phone.  I ran a few stuttering couple of tenths of a mile to the right and then ran back to the T.  SP Crater had become my anthill.   The road towards the right stretched on seemingly endlessly and uphill.  I was convinced I had already run uphill getting here so I should be heading down, and every piece of magnetic dust that does float around in my body was yelling at me to turn to the left.  I hesitated a few more minutes around the T, in the howling wind, until I felt my best recourse was to see if I could get hold of Rob.  I willed myself to not let my voice quiver, dialed, and he answered!  We had reception long enough for him to hear me say “I have NO idea where I am.” And the call dropped.

If you have ever heard the sound of silence – true silence — it can be deafening.  There was that, until I heard Rob’s moustache hit the ground.  I glared at my phone, shook my fist and looked up to the sky.  That’s when I discovered the pain of other over-aroused senses.  The view of infinity stabbed through my eyes and reverberated into my aching brain.  What was not lost on me was that all my senses were hyper-titillated, with the exception of my sense of direction.   My mantra became “I’m not lost, I just don’t know where I am.”  I was alone.  I was scared.  And my mantras were starting to not make any sense.

Rob was able to call me back by the time I had decided to run to the left again.  I had gone out a little over a mile, convinced myself it was the wrong way and came back to the safety of the T.  We had reception long enough for him to suggest since I had my phone maybe I should pull up a map.  It was then that old Poseidon chortled out loud and revved up the wind gusts.  And it was my undoing.  I was relatively brave until that moment.  I just wept and said between sobs, “If I can’t read a map in the living room, how am I supposed to read one out here???”  And that call dropped.

A few more interrupted attempts at calling each other resulted in Rob hearing such things as: “If I’m facing SP Crater is there supposed to be another crater in front of it?”  “What was your intention for telling me to turn east? Which way is east?” “Should I be running into the wind?”  “I’m not lost.  You just don’t know where I am.”  “I’m frightened, and my tears are freezing.”  

Then we had a call where I finally understood where Rob was. He had run to the top of SP Crater.  He was winded from having to amp up his easy run to an all-out life and death mission run.  He was about a mile behind me!  We ran towards each other and I was found! 

I had a tiny glimmer of vindication when we ran back to the T together and Rob was momentarily confused himself, but he determined that if we turned right and ran into the wind, we would find the camper.  We ran together for the last mile and a half, and by some miracle, there was the camper.  If I had run .02 of a mile more on one of my dashes from the T, I would have seen the camper.  Two Tenths of a Mile.  Instead, I cranked out just over 12.5 miles on my 8-mile run. 

I will continue to train, and I will continue to race and cross earthly squiggly lines and, quite probably, continue to get my lines crossed.  I will continue to seek my way as I work and cook and read and play and dream. Our suspended existence on this globe presents itself as an exercise in training in every moment of every breathe. And, perhaps, when I cross the final finish line I will come to know the truth about where I am.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** A note of irony: SP Crater stands for Shit Pot Crater.

Thank you, Rob, who can be off on adventures anywhere and everywhere but mostly is by my side and always in my heart.

And to Barbara and Tara — wherever you are!

Baku

There was no real definitive moment when we said, “It’s Flagstaff and we’re here to stay.”  It just never seemed to be a question back in the late 1980’s that this wasn't where we would live.  We had an acre of land, we were living in horse country, and it just followed that that’s what we would do.  We would become horse owners.  The question of whether we had any experience in horsemanship also never aroused any meaningful consideration or hesitation.  Insightful decision making was still more than a decade away.

Baku was the one that came to us in our clumsy method of horse dealing.  He was a 3 year old Arabian gelding who was described to us as “green-broke.”  These were all new terms to us as we exchanged dollars for reins.  Sure, we understood three years old, in human terms anyway.  But Arabian? Gelding? Green-broke didn't sound too bad. This was before Google.  We did no research. 

 He was beautiful and that held enough sway for us.  He was tall (to this day I still don’t know how to measure in hands).  He was as sleek as satin.  His chestnut coat shone so bright in the sun that the image of the hills and meadows appeared to reflect off him.  He was perfectly proportioned.  His eyes were alert and intelligent.  There was a deep knowing in those eyes.  He held himself in high esteem and we knew who was boss.  Very quickly he became friend.

Very quickly Rob also learned what green-broke meant.  But it was a pretty equal relationship.  Baku had been around about as many people as Rob had been around horses.  To put it succinctly, neither one had a clue how to interact with the other.  Rob’s understanding was that horses were meant to be ridden.  Baku’s understanding was that that wasn't true.  Both of them were unequal in their attempts to prove themselves right.

Daily, Rob would go out to the corral and spend hours ‘catching’ Baku.  Baku would eventually take pity on Rob and let him get caught, as long as Rob could catch him on a run.  Once he allowed the bailing twine Rob was using as a dual purpose lasso and rein to loop over his head, he would let Rob jump on his un-saddled and un-blanketed back while Rob was running madly alongside him.  Then it was out of the corral at break-neck speed.  It is unclear to me how Rob would be able to keep his vice-gripped thighs clenched on Baku’s back, lace his fingers through his mane, and flip the corral latch open, all the while knowing he was about to be launched through the neighborhood and up into the forest with the wind chasing them the whole way.

Baku and I also had a special relationship.  One night there was an especially long and severe thunderstorm.  Lightening seems to hit closer up here in the mountains.  We had become accustomed to the fact that trees could get hit and split or limbs would fly off.  The morning after this particularly fierce storm I left the house for a walk in the forest to enjoy the cool wet day.  I was not far into the woods when I felt a presence.  I walked a bit farther and looked around feeling that feeling, but never seeing anything.  As I walked along I felt a gentle pressure on my shoulder.  Baku had come up behind me and put his chin on my shoulder and asked me to take him home.  He was wandering in the forest and the terror of the previous night was still in his eyes.  The lightening had struck a tree near his barn and he bolted out of the fence and into the woods.   This big, noble, devil-may-care creature could be subdued — but he trusted that I would never betray his secret.   His gift to me would be that he would always come to me.  

There were the days when I thought Rob had been riding for an inordinately long time and I would begin wondering when they would be coming back home.  Some days Baku was an endless tease and just wouldn't let Rob catch him.  For the hours that I thought they were off on some wild ride, they really had never left the corral.  Rob would very dejectedly come back into the house and ask me for help.  I would walk out to the corral, stand there, look right at Baku and he would come over to me, lower his head for the “rein” and stand still while Rob jumped aboard.  And off they would fly!

These jaunts were notoriously epic, always.  One day in early spring Rob came home, alone, looking like he was wearing a long skirt — a long, bloody skirt.  Seems man and horse were galloping through a field – a freshly pot-holed field created by a new community of prairie dogs.  Baku stumbled in a hole and Rob shot off him at full speed, flying Superman style through a barb wire fence.  The barbs cut a straight line down the length of his legs, splitting his pants open.  Baku was already home and having dinner by the time Rob limped back.  We deemed Rob's flesh wounds not serious enough for stitches. 

In the winter they would tear up the mountain to the gravel road that cut through the pass. Enough vehicles would have attempted to drive on the road, packing the snow down and creating icy patches.  They were going full tilt down the road when Baku hit an icy patch and flipped on his side.  Rob was able to maneuver himself enough during the fall to also land on his side — at Baku’s head, such that they were facing each other; staring at each other with the same look of astonishment that said, “Oh dear God, what have we done now?”  They were still traveling at about 20 mph on their sides, on the ice, and Rob with a 1,000 pound horse bearing down on him.  They stopped mere inches from the edge of the road that dropped off precipitously and before they hit the culvert that was jutting below them.  Slowly they took stock of their senses, stood together sharing a moment of mutual stunned silence before Baku turned and flew back home, sans Rob.

The glory days were in summertime.  The destination would be Schultz tank, a rare body of water in the mountains of Flagstaff.  On many of these rides, Rob would work all day in his appliance business and take Baku out without bothering to change out of his blue work uniform.  Baku was easy maintenance – Rob always rode bareback, so he was always at the ready.   Rob and Baku would climb the four mile mountain trail; shoot out of the woods to the edge of the tank and splash headlong into the tank with no indecision, and with much exuberance.  Baku would swim to his heart’s content with Rob on board.   When he was done with his swim he would take a few moments to shake himself dry with Rob holding on for dear life.  This always gave Rob the research opportunity to understand just how wrung out he should be if he ever found himself in the spin cycle of a washing machine.    And then with great abandon, they would sail back on down the trail.

These experiences created an ineffable bond between Rob and Baku.  Rob would often wake in the morning after spending a night in that alternate reality called sleep, and tell me of his dreams where he and Baku would be speaking to each other.  Baku had a loving effect on the dogs and cats and chickens of Lake Joybehere as well.  We adopted our most loved cat, Spot, who secretly lived with Baku for the winter before we noticed her.  Rob would sometimes see movement near the crisper drawer that Baku ate his cracked corn out of in the evening.  Turns out, Spot was eating right alongside Baku, and at that time Spot was about as big as one of Baku’s teeth. The chickens took total advantage of Baku’s philanthropy with corn too.  In a display of their love of their mighty steed, they would unabashedly dust bathe themselves at his feet with nary a care of being in harm’s way. 

Our black lab, Sally, was the best playmate.  They would chase each other all over the yard, making up the rules as they went.  When Sally came home from the vet after having been spayed, it was Baku she wanted most.  Barely alert from her anesthesia, she wobbled out to Baku’s yard.  He came over to her right away as she stood there lifting her leg to show him where she was hurting.  He sniffed her and nuzzled her; they agreed it was egregious and she came back in the house a bit more mollified knowing that someone finally understood her.

There was no mistaking that Baku helped set the tone of harmony at Lake Joybehere in its infancy.  We were all young then, full of health, happiness and hope.  But one summer Baku started having some minor bouts of colic.  One bout was particularly bad the same day I had had a minor surgery that required a local anesthesia.  Rob was out with Baku and distraught with worry.  Baku was clearly in a lot of pain.  He raced in and asked me to call the vet’s office.  It was after-hours and we reached the answering service that passed on the message.  The situation grew more severe and we didn't even know if we could get hold of the vet.  Rob just kept talking to Baku and pleading with him not to leave him.  Baku’s eyes were blank and distant.  Rob stayed with him and kept talking to him.  Baku turned his head towards Rob, still with little life in them and listened.  His pain eased and his eyes slowly filled with his spirit again.  He looked at Rob intently and gave his assurance he wouldn't go, just yet.

In the meantime, I was in the house recovering from my visit to the doctor’s office, when I was overcome with intense light-headedness and nausea the likes of which I – in my almost inhuman capacity to endure suffering – had never experienced before and was certain no one else dead or alive ever had either.  Lifting my head from the bucket I called my doctor’s office to insist I be treated immediately for this most unfathomable side effect.  My calls for help were answered by the same answering service that the vet used and who had taken our earlier call.  The woman actually asked me what was going on out there at our house.  I assured her it was all very legitimate and so she passed my message on to my doctor.  He called within minutes to comfort me by saying, “You are experiencing what we call pain.  Take a pill.”  I took my pill, Baku ate dinner and life settled down and was good.

A consequence of having a family of large, mostly outdoor-living members who are dependent on you for their very existence is the responsibility of at least two feedings a day for their bare means of survival.  Because we doted on them to extremes that went way beyond their bare essentials it was hard to leave Lake Joybehere for extended periods of time.  We were always on the lookout for someone who would house-sit for our menagerie. I wrote booklets of instructions for the care and feeding of our whole crew; no detail was spared in making our sitters know every minute detail of their eccentricities.  These were the days before cell phones were commonplace and we would sometimes be out of touch for days before we could reach home and see how everything was going.  

We pulled out of our driveway on the way to Montana to visit my sister one summer day.  We stayed an extra day on the road and pulled up to her house about 4 days after we left home.  The night we left Baku had a fatal bout of colic.  We were inconsolable with despair and helplessness.  But as the tragedy adjusted itself into our hearts as it must, we knew we had known greatness.  We had transcended a barrier across species and came to know a new level of love and to know that we were loved.

And in the parallel reality of dreams, Rob and Baku are still talking.

All Appliances Great and Small

Morning comes early at the base of the mountain at Dr. Rob’s Lake Joybehere Appliance Clinic.  The pastoral image of a good doctor tending to his morning chores before attending to his patients floats fleeting through Dr. Rob’s mind, but nothing is ever what it seems and Dr. Rob is all too aware of this.  Rabbits run through the yard as he heads out to feed the chickens, a common enough task, but there is nothing much common in Dr. Rob’s life, like the lack of a lake at Lake Joybehere, for starters. 

Humming his monotone drone deep in his chest, he shoos the rabbits out of his way as he meanders back to the office to meet with Nurse Watchit, wondering if she met the right side of the bed this morning.  He walks into the office and upon hearing her usual morning bluster, he sighs with relief.  So far, nothing problematic. 

“Crazy answering machines!  Why call yourselves answering machines, I ask you?  I call you, you don’t answer, and then you call me back and tell me I called you.  I’ll tell you what I called you, you dumb piece of…” rants Nurse Watchit. 

“So, what’s on the schedule today, Nurse Watchit?” asks Dr. Rob. 

“General Electric just called with his knickers in a knot.  He’s saying his dishwasher has been constipated for about a month.  He said he gave it the old army try and administered a Drano enema, but it’s still all backed up.  So I said to him, Oh really? A Drano enema?  Would you do that to your pipes?  Do you know that in actuality you are doing that to your pipes??  Do you think your dishwasher isn’t sharing the Drano with you every time you eat off anything that comes out of that dishwasher?  Excuse me sir, please explain your title of General?  You got that how?  I swear, he has an IQ of Sub Zero!” 

Dr. Rob’s moustache twitched. 

“So, he’s not an emergency.  He’s been ingesting Drano for a month.  He can go a little longer.  Thinning the herd is what I think.  We got poor Ken More with a dryer problem.  You remember Ken; he’s been mourning the loss of his beloved Roe Buck for years now.  Ken’s dryer has been having chills for the last week or so.   And the Gibson twins are both complaining about their racks.  I’m sure you’ll want to take a look at that.” 

“Let’s get a move on” said Dr. Rob.  “Sounds like there’s a few that need us right away.” 

Dr. Rob and Nurse Watchit load up the truck with the suction machines, spare organs, sutures, thermometers, stretchers, surgical instruments and duct tape needed for the day’s house calls.  Nurse Watchit climbs behind the wheel and down the highway they fly.  They arrive at Ken More’s just as the dryer is gasping its last.  Dr. Rob hooks it up to the meter and verifies that the dryer has indeed flat lined.   

“I don’t think I can take another loss,” cries Ken.  “I’ve kept it on a clean ventilator just like you told me, but I can’t keep it warm.” 

“Now Ken, don’t worry.  I’ve got the part you need right here with me.  A quick thermal fuse transplant and your dryer will be as good as new,” assures Dr. Rob.  He drones his guttural hum while Nurse Watchit swaps out surgical instrument with him with precision timing.  This is the best part of the day for Nurse Watchit, who loves being a step ahead. 

“Feels good to save one now and then, doesn’t it, Nurse Watchit?” asks Dr. Rob.  “Where to now?” 

“Old Mr. Kelvin A. Tor; his washer is incontinent.  I don’t know what he expects, that machine has got to be as old as the hills.  I don’t think there’s anything more to be done.”   

They dash over the Mr. Kelvin A. Tor’s ramshackle house.  The oldest dog in the world meets them at the door with a mouthful of ancient dirty underwear in his mouth.  Mr. Tor shuffles out of the way as Dr. Rob makes his way to the patient.   

“Well, Kelvin, we can put it on life support this one last time, but I really don’t know how much longer we’ve got,” says Dr. Rob. 

“Ain’t none of us know how much time we got,” replies Kelvin.  “Me and that old machine came into this world at the same time.  Let’s jest hope we go out at the same time.  I’m just as leaky and that ol’ boy’s kept my boxers clean this far.” 

“Oh really,” thinks Nurse Watchit, as she clamps a surgical mask on her face to keep from swooning from the stench of urine – dog, man, and washer. 

“Our next call has symptoms that are near and dear to me,” says Nurse Watchit.  “Jenn Aire called and her refrigerator is having hot flashes.  I’d like to see you try and cure that!” 

When Jenn Aire answered the door it was obvious she had been weeping.  “I don’t know what the matter is,” she sobbed.  “Sometimes it’s freezing and then without warning it’s just so hot I stand there and wave the doors open and close to try and cool it off.” 

“Been there, done that,” thought Nurse Watchit. 

“It’s probably just a cold control problem,” said Dr. Rob.  “We can try to replace it and see if that helps with the fluctuation problem.” 

“Damn straight it’s a cold control problem!  You’re going to TRY to replace it??  SEE if it helps??  What kind of quack ARE you!” screeched Jenn.  

Nurse Watchit started feeling warm. 

Dr. Rob’s moustache trembled. 

“Oh, forgive me,” sniffed Jenn.  “Of course you can fix it.  I’ve only ever heard the best about you, Dr. Rob.  It’s just that sometimes, oh, I don’t know, I just feel, well, I can’t explain it, I…” 

Jenn got busy cleaning up the eggs that smashed to the floor while she was flinging the refrigerator door open and shut during her tirade.  The Lake Joybehere team performed the procedure quickly and moved on. 

“Our last call is at your favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant,” said Nurse Watchit. 

“Oh, really?” replied Dr. Rob, moustache quivering in anticipation of a scone to go with his coffee.  “What seems to be the problem there?” 

"Magic Chef called and said his burners aren’t lighting anymore. " 

“His burners aren’t lighting? Why did you keep this call to the end of day?  This should have been attended to first thing!  What if there are no scones to be had!  Oh dear!  We must rush right over!” said the alarmed Dr. Rob. 

Fortunately, Dr. Rob most always has spare burners.  The parts were replaced and he happily wiped his moustache of scone crumbs as they headed back to the clinic. 

“This was a successful day,” said Dr. Rob cheerfully as Nurse Watchit maneuvered them wearily through traffic.   

“Well my day isn’t over yet,” complained Nurse Watchit.  “I still have to unload the truck, clean the equipment, pay the bills, enter the invoices, schedule appointments for tomorrow, and not to mention my all-time favorite part – listen to the phone messages.” 

“Don’t fret, Nurse Watchit.  You are most competent and I have complete confidence in your abilities.  You’ll get it all done, you’ll see,” assured Dr. Rob. 

As the sun drifted lazily down the mountain, Dr. Rob closed up the chicken coop and counted the new rabbits at the clinic.  He meandered back to the office in time to hear Nurse Watchit. 

“How can these fools not understand how to feed a coin op slot? Keeps swallowing her quarters the wrong way!  She’s all jammed up and choking again.  No wonder they call her the Speed Queen.”

 

Let Them Eat Petit Fours

My parents met while they were both patients in a tuberculosis sanatorium in upstate New York.  They also developed lasting friendships with some of the other patients while they were there, many of whom where Catholic priests and nuns.  One of my mother’s best friends was Sr. Leoni. 

My mother would take us to visit Sr. Leoni on Easter and to celebrate whenever one of us kids received a sacrament -- our first communion or our confirmation.  I was not a very devoted Catholic, even as a very young child, but I was devoted to Sr. Leoni and many of the other nuns who received us at their Maryknoll convent. 

Because we always visited during a very special occasion, and because my mother had a penchant for “putting on the Ritz,” she would spend hours on our outfits.  My sisters and I wore our prettiest dresses, poofed out around the hems with inflatable petticoats.  We had ruffles on our underwear, should our ballooned slips ever catch too much air and allow for such a sighting.  Our hats were stiff and the bands under our chins were scratchy, but our banana curls, cemented to our heads with Dippity-do, held our heads and hats in place.  My anklet socks would always keep slipping down into my black patent leather shoes.  But they were shiny shoes that could blind anyone within range.  It was my father’s task to spend the night before burnishing them with Vaseline.

It was a little bit of a drive from our house, but we had no need of dolls or books or other methods of entertainment to keep us occupied until we arrived at the convent.  We were in our mother’s service and it was our mission to stay in uniform and be able to pass inspection throughout the entire visit.  I was a toy unto myself.  My rogue socks needed constant adjustment – difficult to do wearing white cotton gloves.  I needed to check my purse frequently to be sure I had indeed placed my collection envelope in the collection basket during mass and that the quarter had not mysteriously slipped out and into the lining of my pocketbook.  Peering into my pocketbook would make my curls fall into my face and I had to keep my mouth closed to be sure I didn’t lose my appetite on pink hair gel. 

The convent was a mansion surrounded by incredibly landscaped gardens.  The drive alone up the gravel entranceway to the front door through the fields and flowers was enough to satisfy all the senses, but was dulled by the anticipation of the rest of the visit.  No squealing children freed from the confines of an hour long drive were we.  We were regimented and drilled in the conduct becoming Grace McGee’s offspring.   

But as soon as we were on the convent grounds it suddenly became OK.  It was the nuns who came squealing out to great us!  We were invited, desired and loved.  We were clustered about by these great beings garbed in heavy white linen.  We were ooh’d and aah’d over, admired and petted.  We could do no wrong.  We left our worldly childish bodies and were transformed into cherubs.  Our hostesses glided us indoors, inside the wide heavy doors and into the marble floored interior of the grange.  This is where my humanness would begin to slip back into my physical body, as my aforementioned Vaseline shined patent leather shoes proved to be their worthless selves in footwear.  It was impossible to stay vertical and ladylike once their velvet soft soles touched the polished marble.  My toes would perform heroic acts trying to cling to anything solid, but were only successful in furthering the balled up wad of anklet.  To be sure, I never felt the cold slap of marble against my ruffled bottom.  Somehow, a white linen being was ever present and stabilizing. 

We would be ushered into the drawing room for the adult part of the visit.  Generally a curious and sometimes clingy child, I would often hang back with the adults. Not here, however.  There was a bear rug in the room in front of the fireplace.  A white bear rug.  A beautiful soft white bear rug.  That’s it.  That’s all I remember about the adult part.  It is not necessary to have any more memories of that part.  I could roll to my heart’s content on the rug, and then with precision timing, I would be lifted off the white bear rug and escorted down the long marble hallway to the kitchen.   

To the unimaginative, it was simply an industrial kitchen with stainless steel shelves, tables, counter tops, and appliances.  In retrospect, I know there must have been a formal dining room to receive visitors older than us.  But to me, this was where God’s food and my convent-visit treats were created.  The nuns sat us down at the table and magic sandwiches appeared in front of us.  These sandwiches required nothing more of us than to place them in our mouths.  Somehow our bodies became one with them, no chewing was required.  They landed on your tongue, the taste was delicate, smooth, hinting at wholesomeness, exclaiming in deliciousness.  One would disappear in my mouth, another appeared on my plate.  Tiny white bread sandwiches, no crust. White tuna perfectly melded with a hint of celery and mayonnaise. A jam sandwich.  A raspberry jam sandwich cut into a perfect 2” x 2” square.   

The beverage of heaven was milk.  It was an offering only, no demand.  It was not the milk of my mother.  My mother’s milk was made from powdered skim milk mixed with warm tap water and poured from a tainted plastic pitcher that was salvaged from an antique junk sale.  This was ice cold milk, served in a glass thimble to be sipped at will, or not.  I saw the cow who bestowed her milk to us, up on her own cow cloud, udder wrapped in ice, as she smiled down upon us, there in God’s kitchen. 

And then the angels sang.  Lunch was not yet over.  The nuns were now levitating around the table, exchanging sandwich plates for dessert plates.  The choir was reaching the crescendo.  And then they appeared.  Petit fours.  Many, many, lovely, lovely petit fours.  Made in heaven. Served by the seraphim.  To me!!    

It is close to 50 years since I last saw Sr. Leoni.  I marvel at the sequence of events that intertwined her life with mine.  I wonder about interactions I’ve had with other people and the effect those interactions have had on their lives.  I wonder if anyone in the world loves petit fours as much as I do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Got the BlueCrossBlueShield Blues

The conversation started like this:

Me:  Hello.  I need to file an appeal for a claim that was denied.  Who do I send it to?

BCBS rep:  To the medical review board.

Me:  (Pausing long enough for the rep to give me a complete answer).  Ah, yes, but who do I send it to?

BCBS rep:  (Not pausing at all and in a much clipped voice): You asked who to send it to, you didn’t ask for the address.

 This conversation came at the point where I had rallied the troops, I was loaded and ready to fire.  Rob was seeking medical attention for what looked to us as a benign inflammation on his face.  We entered the system with expectations of professional service.  We were following the rules.  I pay our insurance premiums promptly.  We pay our co-pays.  We sit in the doctor’s offices as Rob gets poked and prodded and listen to them think aloud and mutter technical terms.  HA! I was raised Catholic.  I understand Latin (to an extent).  I ask questions only when I get completely flummoxed, but I want to make sure I understand the answer.  I don’t make a lot of friends on these appointments.

Four long months of bizarre and disturbing diagnoses later, we still have no answers to Rob’s issue with his tissue.  We survived the physical and emotional stress of experiencing some pretty dramatic side effects to medications various ones had prescribed for him.   We finally called a halt to further “treatment” until we had a conclusive answer to what indeed was being treated.  We are over $2,000 in the hole, and his condition is worse than when we started. We had hopes that the fifth doctor that we were seeing would be the one to put us on the right medical course.  This is the doctor whose claim was denied. 

I do wish I knew then what I know now about the logic of the medical insurance scheme.  I would have armed myself with more than my miserable grasp of Latin.

What I really want this to be about is the Power that is more formidable that our current system.  I experience emotions largely.  I go to great heights with love and joy and experience dark depths with sadness and injustices.  That makes me sound rather bi-polar, but truly I’m not – at least not until this all started!  I do have a firm grasp on my senses.  But after four months of this roller coaster existence there was more darkness than light shining in my life.  I crave a balance and this was putting me off kilter.  I was fighting off entering into the depths of despair.  I am concerned about Rob, but I was learning through this foray into the netherworld of insurance how this system is not there for our health benefits at all. 

So, there I was, little Davey ready to duke it out with Goliath.  I read the 14 page manual on how to appeal a claim.  I withstood the indignities of the call centers treating me like an idiot as I scrabbled to compile all the documentation necessary.  I “pestered” the doctor’s office for hours.  I got them to send me the secret notes they write about you when you’re in their office.  I put all the reasons for why this claim should not be denied into a letter.  I gathered my arsenal of papers and letters and claims, clamped them to my clipboard and went to town to talk to the doctor one more time and then pick up something for dinner.  I ran my errands and came home to try and make a semblance of a normal day and put this ugly mess aside for a while.

A few hours later Rob came home and asked me how my day went.  It was dinner time, so I told him to join me in the kitchen while I made dinner and I’d tell him all about it.  My clipboard that I took into town with me earlier also retains my shopping list and the week’s menus for our dinners.  It is as valuable to me as my wallet.  I never let it out of my sight.  It was gone.

I had no fight left.  I was officially in the depths of despair.  My shopping list, my menus, my username and password to a specific website, not to mention all the original-only-copy of my retaliation to the MAN was lost!   I had a solution though.  Shoot me between my eyes.   Quick thinking Rob thought that the first step should rather be that we look for the clipboard.

Like that was going to work.  I knew I left it at the grocery store.  I called – but nothing was turned in.  Rob grabbed me and the car keys and drove us, in stunned silence, to the store.  We searched the area where I had parked.  We searched a few lines of carts.  My brain is whimpering, “Futile.  This is futility.” We wandered into the store, peering at every cart we passed.  I went with Rob to the counter, summoning up the dregs of gumption I had left to ask the clerk, again, if my beloved clipboard had been found. 

And then it was all slow motion.  For some reason we turned to look behind us.  A clerk was handing my clipboard to a manager, saying, “A customer just gave this to me.  She didn’t know it was in her cart.”

 We drove back home.  Again, in stunned silence.

~~Dedicated to my brother George Breed.  He shows up suddenly when I need him, too!

Reforestation

In the spring of 1987 two good friends from New York (let’s call them Maureen and Rob) arrived in Flagstaff to seek, well, to seek nothing really.  We just were here for a visit.  We had no idea that Flagstaff would have such an impact on us as to have us form a mutual and immediate agreement to move across the country and settle here.   We camped in the forest as we sought jobs and housing.  Neither search was easy, but the accommodations in the trees were superb.  If it hadn’t been for the minor detail about needing money for food, we were perfectly content to continue our life in the forest indefinitely.  We had the luxury of traipsing all over the city in search of homes and jobs and all over the forest for contentment.  The area we finally decided to live in was in Timberline. 

Over the course of the next 25 years we lived in various homes, held various jobs, lived separately and together, but always we were in the Timberline area.  That was home to us.  We knew “our” side of the mountain intimately.  We knew individual trees.  We named our favorite hiking destinations.  We walked our dogs daily. We rode our horses up to Schultz Pass tank in the summer.  We had our own wonderland of cross country skiing in the winter.  We knew where to go when one of us said to the other, “I’ll meet you on: ‘Sally’s path,’ or ‘Mikey’s trail,’ or ‘Lover’s Lane.’”

We were not runners when we moved to Flagstaff, nor were we lovers.  The forest was a source of where these seeds of desire where planted in our beings and where they took root.  The deer hill trail and the Waterline road were only a couple of our favorite and easily accessible trails for running.    I was happy enjoying my Shrub Oak running status, while Rob was practicing his Ponderosa Pine endurance.  Our love for each other deepened and our veneration of the forest never waned.  We married and bought a house with a view spanning from Mt. Elden to Sugar Loaf, and we never took it for granted.

The view alone was inspiring, but the need to be outside and in the forest is almost a necessity.  Running fulfills this requirement beautifully.  We both were training for Team Run Flagstaff’s Snowbowl Hill Climb on the morning of June 20, 2010.  We were heading out the door to drive up to Schultz Pass tank and run the Waterline road, as we discussed the night before.  On a whim, I asked Rob if he minded if we changed trails and drive all the way across town and run up Elden Lookout road instead.  We did, and saw other TRF and NATRA runners on the road. It was the longest run I had done in quite some time and although I was ebullient about the distance I had just covered, I was also weary and looking forward to a nice rest once we got home.  Driving back through town we spotted the smoke and sped home.

A deserted campfire and relentless wind are a powerful combination in their destruction.  My pleas to the forces of the wind to take my house and leave the forest went unheeded.   A week later a torrential rain fell on the burn area and the mountain wept rivers of ashes and boulders through the surrounding neighborhood areas.  Countless millions of trees were destroyed.  Untold numbers of animals were killed, injured or displaced. At least one human life was claimed.  Our hearts were broken.

I vowed to the forest that I would protect and nurture its rebirth.  Now, almost 2 years later, a great opportunity by the Forest Service has opened up.  The Flagstaff Ranger District of the Coconino National Forest is inviting volunteers to help replant the Schultz burn area.  I would also like to invite anyone who would like to share in this opportunity to help plant these seedlings of hope.   I would like to give back to the forest the peace and love it germinated in us.  I will plant with the hope that this new generation of trees will take root and become strong so that future generations of people will love, cherish and abide harmoniously in their presence.

The Flagstaff Ranger District of the Coconino National is hosting a volunteer event each Saturday in April – 4/7, 4/14, 4/21 and 4/28. Volunteers interested in signing up for one of these events should contact Brienne Magee at the Flagstaff Ranger District by calling 928-527-8290 or emailing bmagee@fs.fed.us.