Why Does the Sun Spit on the Ground?

I just came in from the garden. I graveled potatoes.

That’s what my grandmother always called it when we prodded the dirt around the plants, looking for baby potatoes, but left the plants intact so they could make big spuds, too.

“C’ mon” she’d say, “Let’s pick a mess of greens to boil these with.”

She never stepped outside without a bonnet. Never. Her arms were leathery and spotted, but her face was white and smooth like baby’s skin.

Since it was a hardscrabble farm, the only lawn she had was a patch fronting the dirt road that went by the house. The rest was trails through weeds, feedlots, and pasture. We’d wander around gathering a few leaves of dock, and as much Lamb’s Quarter as we could find. We never could find a lot.

“I guess we’ll have to use dandelion greens for the rest,” she’d say. No matter how dry it was—even when there were cracks in the earth—there were dandelions.  We’d only pick the small ones.  The big ones were too bitter.

I suppose they were medicinal. I have no idea what they were supposed to do, except remind me that in hard times, you make do with what you’ve got.

So now my taters are boiling along with a few sprigs of chives. (I figured Grandma wouldn’t mind if I spruced it up a bit.) I’m sitting back, staring at my lawn, dotted with golden flowers, and wondering how many dandelions I’d need to make wine?  As Grandma always said….

“Make do with what you’ve got.”

Hope is a Long Road

The Long Road by WVS

I was on a walk a couple days ago when I met up with The Scoutmaster. About five years ago, this seasoned outdoors man taught my family how to do a 50-mile hike through the mountains and make it fun.

We’ve been hiking ever since.

He showed us how to pack our backpacks and trained along with us so we could endure.

Even though he tried to prepare us,  one of the things that we had to discover for ourselves was that a hike is as much a  mental task as it is physical.

My pack weighs about 40 pounds. I remember being about halfway up a mountain slope, when I stopped, cursed and yelled, “I quit!”

Of course, I felt pretty stupid when the echo of my voice came back to me because the only way to get off the mountainside was to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Even though I’ve done lots of short and long hikes since then, I’m still amazed at how far a person can  go when they  simply keep walking.  Our progress shouldn’t be surprising because there are so many examples around us. A jagged rock will smooth into a boulder under the constant drip of water.  A solid stone wall will become an arch with the drilling of unending gusts of wind.   To keep moving forward will allow us to finally reach our destination.

It seems that the same truth applies to life. If you keep pounding away at problems, you’ll get past them. Sure there’s blisters, and dry spells, and maybe even some yelling, but the biggest battle is the mental stamina to keep pushing on.

Hope is a long road. It’s not always straight, but thank the Lord, He put folks in our path to help along the way.

Thanks to all of you who’ve helped me along the path. And thank  you wise Scoutmaster for showing that the journey can be fun.

Cutting the Cord on Cleanliness

I went to the beach with a friend.  I tried to only listen to her stories and not throw in a bunch of my own, but it was hard. It makes me realize how much I talk about myself, so I’m still working on cutting that cord.

The picture above was taken at a tomato festival in Chile, and made me think of an intereresting event at the beach.  With the morning low tides, folks would wade out in the shallows in green muck up to their knees to go clamming.  Some dug on exposed sandbars, but even that was pretty squishy. I just couldn’t do it.

“It’s fun,” my friend proclaimed.  “You’ll forget about the goo and the get busy raking clams out of the rocks and seaweed.”

“Now I know why I don’t care for clams,” I said. “I wondered why they had that chewy texture.”

I confess. I like a good bath or shower. Even on a backbacking trip, I plunge myself into a cool pool of water each evening.

There have been a few  times along the trail that the water has dried up. The only puddles left were foamed with bloated algae. Even after filtering and boiling the water (for drinking and cooking), it had a green tint to it.

Sometimes you have to make do with what you have.  Now that I think about it…I bet I can wade in tidal goop and rake out some clams.

Perhaps HOPE is discovering that with necessity— we can change priorities.

Hope in the Mist

Photo by ToniVC

We’ve had our first full days of real sunshine here in the Northwest. The thermometer actually pegged 85 today.

I disregarded my Daddy’s old advice to wait until the oak leaves were as big as a squirrel’s ears and I planted corn. Actually, I planted everything. I put in a big garden as a hedge against the economy.

While I’m writing this in the thin hours of the morning, a familiar whisper makes me pause and listen.

Rain.

My friend from the Osage Nation would call this steady patter a “female” rain. It’s comforting in its scent and sound.  I can recall many nights outdoors and drifting to sleep with the rhythm of raindrops tapping my tent.

I’m sure I can hear the seeds I just planted, awakening and stretching roots into the earth.

There’s something about  a gentle rain.

It’s what hope sounds like.

The Art of Lashing…Now We Be Ready To Sail

I know I promised  you all the adventure of driving somewhere unfamiliar and shopping in a store that had labels in another language. It still sounds like a good exercise to fight Brain Drain and help me sleep.  (By the way, I’m not having those work-all-night dreams anymore,  but I still wake long before sunrise.)

I began my groggy day by building a stupendous Powerpoint presentation using only my left hand on the mouse (like I promised).  Well….maybe it’s not so fantastic-looking because  I’m convinced there is no connection between my brain and the fingers on my left hand. It was taking  ten to twenty minutes to custom build each slide when it should have only taken 3-5 minutes. I believe those new synapses must have been trying to drill through cement in in my gray matter.

So you can understand that when Scout stuck his head in the door and shouted, “We need your help hauling  poles!”  I ran away from the computer like a woman escaping a diet farm.

That’s how I ended up learning how to build a 30 foot flag pole this afternoon. I learned clove hitches and how lash a tripod.  I’m a bit insulted that Scout declared my frapping too loose.  (Think of rows of rope woven and coiled around the tops of 3 logs. I was supposed to haul on each wrap with my full body weight–but I was a slacker).  Scout made me take it apart and do it again along with the  Tenderfoots.

I grumbled. The rope had already abraded my fingertips until they were smooth and grooveless.  I threw my body into the next attempt. Feet against the poles, I heaved until the wood screamed. They tested my couplings by having a Chuck-Norris-type-guy  thump, kick and hang off my tripod.  I passed.

I’m not sure if learning to frap and lash stimulated my brain as much as the wicked left-handed mouse, but I figure that if I’m ever a cast away with Tom Hanks on an island, I’ll be able to do my share.  And if the mast on your sailing vessel breaks…give me a call;  I can lash it, if you can hold it together.

The guys proclaimed my skills were sufficient enough to work on their trebuchet next, but I can’t…I’ve got a free Salsa class tomorrow.

Hope is Chuck Norris

Okay,

It’s time for a smile or two. I recently conducted a survey among my Scout Troop, asking the boys the following question:

In a fight between Jack Bauer and Walker, Texas Ranger who would win?

99% went with Chuck.

Impressive that the younger generation thinks a good roundhouse kick will beat all of Jack’s  techno widgety-whatchits.

Since this blog is about HOPE, My hope is that Chuck will return to Oklahoma, his birthplace, and forget all that Texas flapdoodle.

Until then, here’s a few things to make you smile during the dark hours of the night.

• Chuck Norris does not sleep; he waits.
• When the Boogey man goes to sleep everynight, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris
• China once bordered the U.S. until Chuck Norris rounhouse kicked it through the earth
• When Chuck Norris had surgery, the anesthesia was applied to the doctors
• Chuck Norris got a perfect score on his SAT by writing “Chuck Norris” for every answer.
• Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light, not because he’s afraid of the dark; because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris
• If Chuck Norris had carried the RING to Mordor, then instead of saying “friend” to open the door to the Mines or Moria, Gandalf could have just said, “Chuck Norris.”

Why You Should Look for Lights

One adventursome day, my son and I packed our backpacks and decided that we’d hike the 40 miles around Mt. Hood. We pitched our tents the first night at a beautiful place, Paradise Park, on the shin of the mountain,

The Starseed Lure

When night fell it was even more astounding.  Absolute blackness except for the stars.

We hiked up an adjoining hill and from the peak, we could see the lights of small towns in the distance.  The problem came when we tried to hike back down. We’d bushwhacked our way to the top; there weren’t any trails, and as we worked our way down, the camp wasn’t where we thought it should be.

Fortunately we’d left one small alpine candle lit and hanging at camp. That tiny pinprick of light (which seemed like a beacon to us) guided us back to our tents.

Since then, I always look for lights, and I always try to leave a light burning.

So You Can’t Sleep?

In the thin hours of the morning some things keep us awake:

A friend just lost his job. As we talked about it, I watched him scrub his hand through his hair, hollow-eyed, staring at his dim future flashing through his mind.

In addition to unemployment, I knew that he’d contracted the dangerous word going around. Like a virus, this word chews away at the brain, then attacks the body.

Like Dr. House searching for a cure, I’ve studied the word’s etymology. It’s akin to the Old High German: wurgen meaning to strangle.

That seems about right. Worry strangles its victims.

Worry: to harass by tearing, biting or snapping, especially at the throat (Merriam-Webster)

Webster’s secondary definition is to touch or disturb something repeatedly.

Yeah, that’s the way worry works. It pecks or hammers away at thoughts. If you’re like me, you scold yourself, “Stop it!” Then five minutes later, you’re staring at nothing, throat tight, drifting in the land of worst-case-scenarios.

It’s unfair. Anxious, lip-biting worries seep in effortlessly while heaving them back and putting up barricades require such effort. There are different battle plans (and future blogs). My first strategy (when I wake up out of my fog) is:

Action

Dale Carnegie said, “If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.”

I heard a similar mantra at an outdoor survival class: “Try to keep making your situation a little better.” Unfortunately, I experienced what that meant on an extended backpacking trip with my young son.

After 10 miles, we’d reached the trail to a mountaintop camp, only to find that it was overgrown and blocked with trees. There wasn’t time to bushwhack because nightfall and a storm were bearing down on us. That’s when my son announced that he was out of water and feeling sick. After the rain started, I also found out that he was out of dry clothes. Everything he’d brought was cotton. I mentally kicked myself. I should have checked with the Forest Service. I should’ve checked my son’s gear. I had a lot of “shoulda’s” until some spark of preservation goaded me.

We built a tarp shelter. Hope grew when we were able to start a fire; a tiny one, but it threw out a circle of light in the pouring rain. We built a water collector; an ugly jury-rigged contraption that the Boy Scout manual would laugh at. Never mind. Each action, even the ones that failed (like the collector collapsing) gave us a grip on a world we didn’t control. It kept us focused on the present.

I wish I could say that I’ve conquered worry. I usually stew for a while before I remember that “anxiety will not add any time to my life.” So the wee hours of worrisome mornings find me kicking off the bedcovers to write, pray, or look for phone numbers that I can call as soon as the clock strikes 8 a.m. (Those lucky people)

I have a friend who cleans the house or exercises when she can’t sleep. My unemployed friend tells me he’s stopped staring at the dark and instead tweaks his resume, circles potential jobs in the newspaper, or irons clothes for a possible interview.

We work on what we have at the present.

Morning will come. Hope comes with it.