The art teacher tells us about negative space. “Draw what is not there”, he instructs and we all follow suit, Conte crayons in hand. A big part of art we learn, is capturing light and shadows, using the contrasts of light and dark to define shapes. I start to see this everywhere.

I see the light and dark while I cross the bridge over the lake, headed back to my dorm room. It is the dead of winter in Minnesota. The cold defines things here. Everything is a gray scale. I could paint this picture using titanium white, payne’s gray, and a touch of cobalt blue, I think.

My day starts cold and early with thick sock-clad feet hitting the floor. I bundle up and head down the hall to the restroom where cold porcelain insults my skin. I head back and bundle up some more. Hat scarf, gloves, boots, parka. Time for practice.

Heading outside it is still dark. The snow squeaks reassuringly as I trudge back across the bridge and up the hill. I breathe out and a cloud of mist freezes mid air. I breathe in and ice crystals form in my nostrils. I look up at a sky that is still night. It is full of stars that appear so close I cannot tell where they end and the hoar frost begins. I feel very alive and alone walking up the hill.

I get to the rec center and head down the stairs to the locker room. I remove the bundles and don the cold and slightly damp swim suit hanging outside my locker. My legs are dry and covered in goose bumps. I head through the showers for the cobalt blue pool. Its cool but the steam meets the air and it will feel warm. We don’t talk much at first. Three or four of us in a lane. I sit on the edge with legs immersed and put on my cap and goggles, stretching my arms,  my morning ritual.

The first 50, I jump in and swim fast, my arms moving, legs kicking, breathe right, one two three, breathe left. Warming up. At the cross I give a dolphin kick into the turn, tuck and push off to the left. I make sure my arm is not too hooked as my teammate goes into her turn behind me. We swim in circles and I follow the six beat kick in front of me. Practice begins.

The workout is posted – it’s 3000 yards and we had better get going. Near the end, The coach tells us to try for negative splits and then we do sprints. We cool down, stretching for the wall. Practice started at 6:00 am. My first class begins at 8:30 am. We all shower, dress, gossip, complain, laugh, and try to dry our hair using ineffective wall units. There’s a tunnel to the breakfast place so our outer bundles can be carried and not worn. We carry backpacks with a day full of books. There’s a test today and a swim meet in Bemidji tomorrow. The temperature outside is in single digits. If we venture outside our hair turns to icicles and we joke that we look like Minnesota Medusas.

We swim every morning. Two days a week, we’ll return to the pool at 4pm for a second workout. Our classes are hard. I am studying Geology, Math, Physics, and Art. I swim, eat, attend classes, eat, attend labs, study, swim, eat, study, draw, sleep. I dream in negative space, looking for missing strata, gazing at imaginary numbers while swimming negative splits.

Art class has taught me a new and interesting way to look at the world. Everything is light and dark or somewhere in between. On long van rides across Minnesota I gaze out the window, holding my index finger on front of one eye, squaring off a picture to draw: a rust red barn against a white back drop with light brown stalks in the foreground. The hills are flowing and the swim team van bounces along. Idle chatter mixes with quiet discussions and some people are studying, always studying. I go back to my flashcards – memorizing mineral formulas.

Our suits are dark blue with yellow stripes on the sides.  The other team arrives and they are wearing red suits with white stripes. We are swimming the Saint Circuit. Most of the teams are from Catholic or Lutheran colleges named after Saints.  They have God on their side, and we have our Books.  The National Anthem plays and bounces incoherently around the natatorium. There are windows along one side. Outside the wind is howling and the snow drifts are piled up.  The pool lanes  start less than ten feet from the frosty scene. We all wear our sweats until our race. The first one off the blocks usually wins. The space we occupy in the pool fills quickly behind us. We kick harder into the turn and fight our own wake. The shouts from our teammates echo off the ceiling and plop into the water, their encouragment time-delayed. Don’t watch the other lane our coach says, you will lose the race if you are not staring straight ahead. Swim your race.

At night the van makes its way home. We pick up radio stations from as far away as Arkansas. We are followed by snow drifts. We see the northern lights. Outside there are trucks driving on the lake headed to fishing shacks. We sleep with our hats on over wet hair. My teammates will be doctors and lawyers and accountants and psychologists and teachers and mothers. We are first generation Title IX female student athletes. We are learning to get up early and stay up late and fill each day with ambition and energy and goals. We have icicles in our hair. Our shirts say “I swim therfore I. M.”

Tomorrow we will study and swim again. Tomorrow I will stare at beautiful minerals in a microscope. I will flip the switch to see the mineral structure in polarized light. Negative birefringence. It reminds me of the light dancing off the frosty trees. The light defines the structure. I am acutely aware of what is not there, of the space and light that provide hints about objects. Tomorrow I will stretch my way through blue water reaching for a negative split. I will be alive and alone walking up the frozen hill in the early morning. It is winter in Minnesota, and I am on my way to practice for the race ahead.

(🏊‍♀️  lwr 10/22/2017)

A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. (http://esv.to/Eccles1.4)

After all, I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood. Anne Morrow Lindbergh  (https://www.brainyquote.com)

I was four. The preschool I attended was connected to our church. It was my second year there, and it felt familiar, like home. There was a big room where we met and a nice playground.

The preschool had a swing set and we would love to swing higher and higher. I recall a competition to make the swing go full circle around the swing set. But we really weren’t “allowed to” swing that high. That of course made it even more fun. We could certainly make the swing set legs come of of the ground when we got the swings going really fast. The set was rusty and had one broken seat and a wobbly leg but it worked and we loved playing on the swings more than anything.

It was on one particular spring day, we all sat across from the swings under a beautiful flowering dogwood tree. The clouds were shaped like dragons and a cardinal was flitting around the tree. The teacher was telling us about God and nature and all things created by God. I still remember looking around and thinking: Yes, I understand that God made the pretty tree, the birds, the sky, the clouds, and yes, God made me. Did God make the swing set with the broken seat and rusty leg? Did God make the rules, the “not allowed tos”?

Singing “Jesus Loves Me” was next. The song made me happy but the “Jesus is the Son of God whom He loved so much He let Him die” story was far more perplexing than the “God who made Heaven and Nature sing” story. I do not remember if they told us the “Legend of the Dogwood” (appleseeds.org) which is an old tale about the dogwood tree being related to the tree they used for the cross, and the flowers representative of the thorns for Jesus’s crown. What I remember the most is how I felt.  I felt like I understood and didn’t understand at the same time. It was a scary and interesting place to be, in the churchyard with the dogwood tree and the broken swing . This is when I started to believe in God and question just about everything else.

My beliefs were formed early, but not in a “I’ve been saved by the grace of God and will never question anything ever again” sort of way. In third or fourth grade Sunday school, I remember the teacher talking to us again about how God made the heavens and the earth, how He made everything. I was shy, but not when it came to asking questions. I immediately raised my hand. She didn’t call on me at first, but finally I had the chance to ask: “If God made everything then who made God?”. A silence followed and the teacher looked a little stern. She said something to the effect of: “It’s not really our place to ask questions like that”. I guess the “not allowed tos” had caught up with me.

As I grew up and studied the earth and the Bible both, it was not always easy to reconcile my understanding of the physical world with that of the spiritual world. There are people who think science and religion are mutually exclusive, that we are “not allowed to” question things. I have never understood the science vs. religion arguments. To me it’s more like science is a part of my religion.

Because I studied earth science, the Book of Ecclesiastes resonates with me. It talks of humans toiling under the sun, of the seasons coming and going, of the earth outlasting most human endeavors. It reminds us there is a lot of futility in our efforts, or as it says “vanity”, or “striving after wind”. There is a vanity to many things we do, this post included. Studying earth science is humbling. Time is vast, the scale alone is overwhelming, and there are a lot of things that probably happened that were never preserved in the rock record.

Some things last longer. Some things will become a part of the earth and soil. Some things, like a planted tree will grow to impact future generations. Some things end up in the rock record. Other human made things like the swing set perhaps, are fun but fleeting. On a swing set you can spend a lot of energy but not really accomplish anything.

The dogwood tree could be hit by lightening or topple in a storm and die but it will have made lasting changes on the earth, in the soil and a difference to the grass, the birds, the air. I’d maintain that the dogwood tree had a bigger impact. It improved the richness of the earth. It even had the power to change me. The existence of something so lovely and perfect made me believe in something bigger than the churchyard – it helped me believe in God.

(Lwr, 10/20/2017)

I am an audiophile.  I love music of all genres. My dream job would be: a DeeJay.  I have quite a collection of LPs, CD’s and Playlists spanning three generations and could hit the ground running with all sorts of selections, from one-hit-wonders to the man I listened to religiously for five decades: the talented, effusive, and irrepressible, Sir Elton John.

Like me, my love of music was born in 1960. The song “Theme from a Summer Place” by Percy Faith and his Orchestra was popular that year. This hopelessly optimistic melody provides a perfect soundtrack for my early years. When I was small, my parents had a nice collection of albums, including Harry Bellafonte, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass, Petula Clark, and Andy Willliams’ famous “Born Free”.  I loved the early sixties soundtrack and how it catapulted our country from the sock hops of the fifties into decades so rich with musical splendor and inventiveness  I cannot begin to scratch the surface of that LP.

We also had numerous 45’s by the Beatles, the Monkees, and Herman’s Hermits. “I’m Hen-ary the Eighth, I am” and “I’m a Believer” were popular tunes. We all had to pick a favorite Beatle. John was the most popular. My sister would be Paul or John. My brother was George or John. That usually left me playing Ringo which was okay by me. Our parents gave us drumsticks, but no drums. We played drums using the old basement couch cushions. it was a brilliantly quiet idea! It was if they knew what music lay ahead.

Enter hippies and the music that defined them from Pete Seger and Arlo Guthrie, to Joanie Mitchell, Jimmie Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass Elliott, and the Byrds. Their music stood the test of time. For some, their lifestyles did not.  In the late 60’s we moved to Detroit and had a great selection of both Motown and Top forty tunes from of all places, the Windsor radio station, CKLW. I liked that station because  it sort of matched my initials and my fledgling musical tastes. We listened to the radio and immitated the DeeJays. We had small reel-to-reel tape decks and could overprint our young voices onto the iconic songs of 60’s.  We would dance with the  Jackson 5 and drift to sleep listening to tunes like “Riders on the Storm”, “Light my Fire”, and “The Boxer”  Many songs had double meanings. but we were way too young to care.  We just liked he way they sounded.

The 70’s roared in with amplifiers and Moog synthesizers and a tide of classic Rock legends. The stereo moved down to the basement and the volume cranked up. Elton John paid beautiful tribute to Marilyn Monroe with “Candle in the Wind”. The Beatles broke up shortly after “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” had us all scratching our heads looking for deeper meanings in lyrics and in life. But none of the Fab four would let us down. We listened to songs  and copied the art on the album covers. There were many classic British hits by bands like Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, The Who, and The Rolling Stones. There were singer-songwriters like Cat Stevens, Elton John, Carole King, Carly Simon,  James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and Chicago. In Detroit, we had local rock stars like The J Geils band and Bob Seger. The Supremes inspired us to rise up and John Lennon said “don’t let me down” while he taught  us to imagine a better world.

We would roller skate to tunes from the Commodores and Earth Wind and Fire at indoor skate rinks. Disco was just taking off and the venues quickly became gleaming spectacles of lights and Beegees tunes. There were always talented skaters zipping around the dance floor, combining skating and disco moves.  There was an early fusion of disco in Motown leaving imprints on the ones to follow: Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince.

The 80’s brought in Punk Rock, Devo, Men Without Hats, and their hit “The Safety Dance” at college parties. Stereos were our most expensive possession. “Dream On” and Don’t Fear the Reaper” blared from open windows and the speakers barely fit in our fuel efficient cars. And then we lost John Lennon to a crazed fan. Giant speakers were replaced by giant boomboxes with cassette tapes. We all had that one Bruce Springsteen album. Fleetwood Mac inspired independence. We listened to legends like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Aerosmith, Journey, U2, REM, and once-again, Elton John. Music videos took dance to the next level. We tried to Moonwalk. It was a decade full of light hearted one-hit-wonders with catchy tunes like “Friday, I’m in Love” It described our escapist lives well.  “We are the World”  saved us from our self-indulgence and we looked up to see poverty at home and far away.  Farm Aid venues popped up; Willie, Waylon and the Boys showed up. CDs replaced Tapes, and we learned how to burn our own mix CDs.

Country Western had a resurgence then too. We escaped to simpler times with retro classics from Patsy Cline and Hank Williams Sr. Willie Nelson brought back the classics with “Stardust”.  That coincided well with our move to Texas where there were lots of jobs and country music, both.  We learned country-western dancing. We settled down and had children who knew every verse of “Deep in the Heart of Texas”. We waltzed across the state listening to tunes like “Amarillo by Morning” and “Lone Star State of Mind”.

The 90’s were dominated by Disney soundtracks: Aladin, The Jungle Book, Tarzan, and the Lion King by the now very mainstream Elton John.  There were boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and NSync. The songs “Hero”, “From a Distance”, and “I Believe I can Fly” lulled us and our young children to sleep. The music was quietly optimistic and so were we.  The Cranberries and U2 tried to get us to pay attention to the world, while Celine reminded us that Love is what matters most. We all stood on the bow of the boat, our eyes upon the next century. Then Elton John had to resurrect “Candle in the Wind” for the  loss of another iconic and beautiful soul, Diana. We were pulled back into a somewhat harsher reality.

We all rang in the Millenium  listening to Sting’s “Brand New Day”. Bruce made a resurgence and “Born in the USA” rallied us during the terrifying  losses of 9/11. U2 attempted to heal our pain with “It’s a beautiful day, don’t let it slip away”, reminding us to stop every once in awhile in our fast-paced and unpredictable lives, and turn up the volume on our Walkmans. Then the  Ipod arrived, and we would spend the decade digitally loading songs from our vast CD and LP collections. We were so busy keeping up with technology we hadn’t noticed the world and the music getting angier.

These were the  “Songs by Green Day or Blue October and bands with colorful names” years.  My kids rolled their eyes and put on their headsets.  The phones followed the IPod, and streaming gave us ready soundtracks where we all were the DeeJays for the day. We stopped listening to each other and listened instead to our custom playlists, comforted by the memories singing back to us.  Ear buds and noise canceling headsets protected us from the horrors on the news. The Dixie Chicks came in with attitude, and exited stage left with sass and a swish. They were clearly ahead of their time. Our children listened to a strong-willed Toby Keith, to the friendlier Rascal Flatts, to “Garage Bands” and angsty songs by “Linkin’ Park”. We could relate to “Numb” in a way they would not yet understand.  I shouted over the headsets: “that’s a hate your mother song! I don’t like it!”. Eminem brought a new level of anger to the scene but I liked 8-Mile because, well, east Detroit. I understood, he was Detroit. Flint was getting ready to implode. Even country music, that age-old safe haven was no longer safe, but edgy with Patriotism and poised to defend Old Glory.  Watching sons and daughters returning  from Afghanistan, we could relate to that too.

Recently the songs have mellowed. Our son now likes all kinds of music, including Frank Sinatra. Our daughter still prefers All Country, All the time. The aging rockers are facing their Encores. There are fusion restaurants with fusion music genres like Irish-Celtic-Ska, Czech-Christian, or Asian-Bolivian. We have awoken to a new era where the world is smaller, and the musical selections bigger. The next generation is more accepting, Lady Gaga and Pink talk about inclusion and motherhood and empowerment in a way Madonna never did.  Adele and grand-daddy Elton remind us that it’s still about talent and singing from your heart. Crazed gunmen still steal our joy and peace, but they cannot take our music.

The next generation is walking a different path of sustainability and caring, with a different soundtrack, but if you listen closely the lyrics are the same.  They carried their double meaning across the decades.  Their soundtrack is rich and rugged and streaming into our lives. Like the technology delivering the tunes, the message is immediate, not about the future or the past but about now. I like this new music scene, says the faceless DeeJay, converting decades of music to digital streams. I hope they remember to make backups of the most amazing last half century of tunes.

Now, Stream on fellow listeners!  🎶 (lwr 10/16/2017)

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? http://esv.to/Ps27.1

A good topic for Friday the 13th is fear. I try not to live my life afraid, and when it comes to traveling to new places, I have an adventurous spirit. But there are still a few things I have no desire to try: like zip-lining or jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. I admit to having irrational but compelling fears about flying, snakes, and the worst fear of all, spiders. I try to avoid putting myself in these situations, but fears sometimes follow us and more importantly limit our experiences. In those times I tell myself, “Do not be afraid”, God made that spider, snake, or rat. “Do not be afraid”.

Some people, knowing I’m a little jumpy and nervous by nature try to get a rise out of me and delight in making it worse. I categorize them at the very least, as “nice people being mean”. My  husband points out, “you react so beautifully”. So I try to keep a lid on it, but never quite succeed. I am usually much happier without these experiences. Making a jumpy person jump usually ends up with a grumpy jumpy person. When I was a kid my favorite expression to the teasers of the world was “Just leave me alone!”. My siblings thought it was great fun to tease me about that too, calling me “Ruby Red Dress”, that very sketchy character from the ” Leave me Alone” song. I learned that while running away from truly mean people is a good idea, running away from everyone is not. Some teasing is an expression of love.

One time my husband talked me into parasailing. I told him I’d do it but he had to promise not to tease me about ropes failing and shark infested waters. He behaved and we had a great time flying over crystal blue waters together. I am not fond of heights and was glad he was by my side.

I like to have my feet on Terra Firma. I don’t like climbing up sheer cliffs, but do enjoy hiking trails in the mountains. When I was young, I went hiking with some friends in Utah. We hiked up to the top of a 13,700 ft peak, and it was awesome. We signed our names in the log book and headed back down. On the way back, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a steep and rocky scree slope. All I could think of was the angle of repose, the angle at which rocks of a certain size start to slide. The scree was loose and I thought we might trigger a rock slide. As we clambored across the slope, the large boulders shifted under our feet. I instinctively knew it was a bad idea. Adrenaline told us all to retrace our steps and find a better route.

When I was little I was easily frightened at night when my fears lurked in the darkness. My father would gather me in his arms and we’d read from this little accordian Lord’s Prayer book. I still have that book on a shelf near my room. My Dad had a soothing voice and it usually helped. Then we’d chant “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”. The little sobering prayer seemed to help.

When my children were small they would also try to prolong bedtime with stories and requesting lights on. One night I was rearranging the toys on my son’s shelf and he said ” Mom, don’t move the cowboy, he’s guarding the room!” My son is grown and moved out and the little plastic cowboy is still standing on the shelf, six shooter in hand, a sentinel, guarding his room.

One night I put everyone to bed and went downstairs. An hour or so later I distinctly heard Buzz Lightyear from my son’s room saying “To infinity and beyond!”. I was sure he was asleep but went ahead and checked. Sure enough, Buzz had just spontaneously started talking in the toy chest, I took the batteries out and thought, “if Buzz starts talking again, we’re moving!”

There was a time in my life when I didn’t like to fly. A trick I found with flying is to recite in my head the nifty-fifty United States song during takeoff. When I finish, we’re usually at 10,000 ft. There are many stories of musicians who died in plane crashes. So I started another rule, I’m ok with flying as long as there are no musicians on the plane. One flight I took seemed like it had an entire orchestra boarding. I told myself “Get over it”, but secretly I was chanting, “🎶 Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California …”

Once I had a great seat in a “pod” in business class. I was flying from Calgary to London overnight and just over Nova Scotia we hit some rather unsettling turbulence. I thought, but I’m so happy and comfortable in this little pod! I decided if the plane went down they’d find me on the ocean floor in my pod with a glass of wine in one hand and the channel changer in the other, noise canceling headsets on, unfazed, and still watching my movie.

I was being asked to fly a lot for work and I simply had to get over my fear. Using soothing music, prayer, and little rituals on take-off helped. Then I flew to Nigeria. A scary scene next to the runway was an old burned out plane that had apparently crashed. I told myself that it was there for training purposes, like a sentinel, to protect me.

My siblings used to tease me about the show called “Perry Mason”. I would shudder in fear when the opening song played. I have always been hyper-sensitive to jarring soundtracks, but that one was particularly “fingernails on the chalkboard” bad. Growing up my sister loved the show “Dark Shadows”. Even the title scared me. We also watched Rod Serling’s, “The Twilight Zone”. My siblings had learned by then to reassure me, saying the episodes were fake and the props made of plastic. A scene that made a lasting impression on me was the one with the spiders that would crawl out of the sink and the guy kept washing them back down the drain, only to find them crawling back up, doubling in numbers each time. Plastic or not, this fed my fear of spiders.

My husband and son enjoy movies like that. My daughter and I watch chick-flicks. My husband is not really afraid of anything, except maybe crowds. He is a true introvert and is more comfortable in the country than the city. He says things like “that’s a good snake”.  In my suburban chick-flick world there is no such thing. Once he saw a small rat in the garage and put out a trap. He forgot to tell me about it and was on a fishing trip when I walked into the garage to dead rat smell. I found the culprit, and spent some time thinking ” should I call someone?” Then I got mad at myself, “You chicken, I thought! For God’s sake, be Brave!”. I donned the closest thing I had to an EPA hazmat suit to take care of the matter. I was so proud that I handled it on my own. When my husband returned he was proud of me too, but a little dismayed that I had thrown out the trap along with the rat.

I have worked hard to get past my fears and trust more in God in all things, those outside of my control, like flying, and those within my control, like creepy-crawly critters. But the eight-legged critters still scare the bejeebers out of me. Small spiders are okay, but poisonous ones and tarantula-sized still give me horrible nightmares. I am not afraid of being bitten, I’m afraid they will appear in my dreams when I least expect them too, leap onto me, and give me a heart attack. It’s a very irrational fear. One Halloween I bought a wire-mesh spider, to guard the house. It’s obviously a fake spider but still makes me jump every time I encounter it.

When my parents passed away, I had to face my fears about dying and at least try to be brave. It was very sad, but I told myself it was in God’s hands not mine. My Mom died of cancer. In my Dad’s case it was a series of strokes caused by diabetes. In fact, my Dad almost lost his foot to a spider bite. These times were unsettling, sad, and fearful. We all tried to be there for them, to recite the 23rd Psalm, to say the Lord’s prayer. I recited “Now I lay me down to sleep” in my head. Both of my parents had peace at the end, and then, in time, so did I. Like a sentinel with a six- shooter, God held me in His arms, heard my sobering prayers, and granted me at least some temporary peace. Now I am less afraid of dying and flying, of rats and snakes, but still, very much afraid of spiders.

Biblically, the concept of fear is closely associated with the word awe. Awe is closely associated with humility. I do not understand the scary situations in the world, but I try not to let them keep me from enjoying life and having adventures. Some people need an adrenaline rush and are invigorated by it. They are wired differently than I am. I have a built-in lifetime supply of adrenaline that is easily triggered. I’m not sure why I am this way, I just am. I have a lower angle of repose. It makes me cry at movies, get goose bumps when I hear a song, and have vivid nightmares. It sometimes makes me the target of teasing. But this is who I am. My overly-sensitive nature also helps me trust in a God I cannot see, have awe for a world I cannot understand, and have humility when facing my fears and limitations. “Do not be afraid”, the Sentinel says. “I am guarding the room”. God checks the corners of my room for spiders and I go back to sleep. (lwr 10/2017)

My mother was a substitute school teacher and avid reader. As soon as we could walk and talk, she took us to the library to get our first books. She had us reading early and she taught a generation of school kids to read. One of those books was “Mr. Popper’s Penguins”, about a rather hapless but adventurous main character who finds himself with too many penguins.

Our family has a running joke about penguins. it started when my husband looked at me across the kitchen one day early in our marriage and said “Penguins”. ” Huh?” I replied, holding the refrigerator door open. “Penguins” he said again, a little more emphatically. My husband does not say a lot unless he has to. “I don’t understand”, I said, rearranging the items in the fridge so I could see better. Finally he explained, “By Penguins I mean you are letting all the cold air out of the refrigerator, holding the door open too long. Our kitchen will become a rookery”.

Enter two energetic kids into our lives. The kitchen starts to really look and sometimes smell, like a rookery. Their friends come over, and the scout troop, and the triplets from down the street. Every one of them walks into the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, and stands there. “Penguins!” shouts my husband. Over the next twenty years “Penguins” was like a mantra, a true reflection of our parenting style. Recently our daughter and her husband bought their first refrigerator. She was so excited and group texted all of us with pictures. “Penguins”, “penguins”, “❄️❄️🐧🐧”, said the group texts back.

Unlike the children’s book, most penguins reside not in iceboxes but in Antacrtica. The “Crystal Continent” however, is a little like the refrigerator after you close the door. Like a freezer, the ice accumulates and settles, and breaks off and no one really thinks about it until they hear the sound of the ice chunks falling from the other room. We were all watching the Larson Ice Shelf as it was supposed to break off sometime soon. That was when the pamphlet arrived.

It was a hot and humid day and my internal cooling system was running at a more frenetic pace than the AC. The pamphlet was long and folded in triplicate with an aquamarine cover. There were pictures of ice and a sleek boat in the foreground. Just looking at it made me stop sweating. I opened it and the pictures got better. There were penguins, whales, fine dining, naturalist lectures, and a celebration commemorating the Byrd expedition, and the first geologist to map Antarctica. I felt called. “Let’s Go”, I said.

The first things you need to go to Antarctica are an expedition to join, and money. The second thing you need is time. One can either have Money or Time, but its hard to have both. I had come to appreciate that Time is more valuable than Money, and was ready to retire. Over the twenty plus years we’d been working, my husband and I had become experts at scrimping and saving, and stretching our limited supply of vacation days. For me, it was easy – the trip would coincide with my retirement, allowing me to use vacation days I had earned. It was a unique situation and for a short while, I would have both Time and Money. My husband saved an extra week of vacation from the previous year and we had our two weeks required for the trip.

Next we needed equipment: boots, long underwear, waterproof camera bags, collapsable walking sticks and lots of socks were recommended. “My muck boots arrived!” I phoned my husband to tell him. “I love them!” Walking sticks in hand, I waddled awkwardly around the house. I even felt like a penguin.

I was very excited about the trip. Then I started getting nervous. Then I started to panic. What had I done? Antarctica is a long way from home. First there’s a ten hour flight to Buenos Aires, then a four hour flight to Ushuaia, Then a two day boat ride across the treacherous Drake Passage, followed by daily treks in zodiaks alongside killer whales. You cannot get home easily. We were empty nesters but I could still envision several scenarios where I would want to get home in a hurry. Getting airlifted home in an emergency costs thousands of dollars. We bought the overpriced insurance and it bought me peace of mind.

Approaching retirement, I was wound a little tight already. I had been going through a lot of emotional and financial transition planning. The ledge I was on felt more like a precipice. I was looking at leaving a career I had worked my tail off for, sacrificed for, and fought very hard to build. I had guilt over the times I had made this demanding lifestyle a priority over my now grown and launched family. My little penguin nest was empty and I missed having them as my inspiration, my reason to be the best I could be. Work hours were creeping up and I was parked in my last assignment, in a rather crowded and boisterous workroom. “What’s your spirit animal?” a typical conversation from a day in the workrooms where banter, teamwork, and comaradery rule. People shouted out things like eagles, and gazelles. I said “mine must be a seal or a dolphin, I love swimming”. I went back to my task, leaving the dolphin behind and a geologic problem staring at me instead.

Landing a job as a geologist is not at all easy. Keeping that job is even harder. It had taken me six years in college and graduate school and more than twenty years of proving myself to land and keep my job. The competitive industry and tight economy means you have to fit your life around the job and not the other way around. The motto is “as long as the work gets done” you can have all the flexibility you need to “manage” your life outside of work. Over the years we had worked out how to juggle the demands. The reality is, if you can’t do that well or quickly, someone else gets to be the geologist, making maps and flying around the world, being wined and dined at business events. Its a heady lifestyle and everyone wants it, but it comes at a cost. The highs are high – cool technology, travel, field trips in the mountains, meeting dynamic people, and contributing to the world economy. But the lows can be very low. If I stayed too long I knew it could take a toll on my health and wellness and more importantly, my self esteem. I liked my job, and had made it to a pinacle in my career a couple of years prior to this. I was proud of my accomplishments. As a senior advisor I was no dummy, but the system and the snarky comments that come with being in a competitive work place were suddenly making me feel like one. Like a penguin on an ice flow approaching the Drake Passage, I was watching the crack in the Larson Ice shelf get bigger and bigger. It was time for me to hop aboard a different boat, one with my husband and fellow sojourners, all gingerly sipping Gluwein after our excursion to Penguin land. I was ready to leave the safety of the dynamic nest I’d been a part of for so long.

The expedition to Antarctica was the trip of a lifetime. We’d awake in the morning and look out at the icebergs floating by. We’d meet great people, hear wonderful lectures, and take fantastic treks on the zodiaks. Best of all, for the first time in a long time, I had stopped sweating. I was no longer sweating physically and no longer sweating the next deadline or review. Like Mr. Popper, I saw my dream come true and saw so many penguins, up close and personal, watching them walk in their funny, uncoordinated way, back to their pushy, boisterous, and sometimes smelly, rookeries. I stood one day donned in my parka and muck boots, walking sticks in hand, and watched one brave little penguin as it left the nest, running awkwardly down the hill. It stopped at the shore and looked back, once, before making a beautiful little swan dive into the icy cold water. It dove under and swam gracefully away, a pure picture of happiness. I decided then and there that brave little Penguin would be my spirit animal from now on.

(lwr 10/12/2017)

Two of my favorite movies are “The Sound of Music” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. Of course I forced my family to watch these every Christmas. And then one year, much to my delight, my children started a new tradition: surprising me, while trying to one-up each other, with wonderful and thoughtful gifts related to these movies. An added challenge was to make their sensitive mother cry tears of joy when she opened the gift. Now those gifts are my favorites things!

Which brings me to my topic today: My real favorite things. My favorite things are not things. They are the people I love so much it hurts my heart to think about it. Amidst the great stack of advice I am often doling out, I don’t always remember to tell them, though I think my (now grown) kids know, I am their NUMBER ONE FAN.  I am richly blessed to have a great family. I have a favorite picture of my husband and kids on a train trip we took in Alaska. Stuck in the frame I left a fortune cookie saying: “Your family is young, gifted, and attractive.” To me, they are all of these things and so much more.

First about my husband. Let’s call him the Rock of Gibraltar, as he is very stoic.  We met in graduate school on a canoe trip. “In a canoe, the brawn is up front and the brains are in the back”,  I joked with him. So I was brawn and he was brains on the canoe trip, which meant we didn’t move very fast, but we did end up headed in the right direction. My husband grew up on a farm, and is very pragmatic. He is a guy of few words, and he can fix anything, with or without the manual, which he never seems to need. From hunting and fishing, to programming a computer, to problem solving, to leading teams of people, he is just the guy you want running the show.

Last year, my husband and our son cut down two trees. Really tall ones! A few years ago they built a shed. In their spare time. On a weekend! I have no idea how my husband knows all of the things he knows, I just know I admire it. And I admire that he’s taught our kids to be competent, self-sufficient, and good problem solvers too. My daughter and I coined a phrase to describe him: “annoyingly competent”. This is because he is just plain good at everything he endeavors to do. And sometimes just a little bit smug about it, although he is pleasant and handsome in his smugness, which is another annoyingly good quality. Now I know Jesus is my rock and salvation saving me from myself on most days, but in addition to that, God gave me a husband who is a rock to shelter us in the storms.

So on to our kids. In my office at work, I used to have a picture of my two standing on an iced-over pond. I sheepishly called the picture “my kids walk on water”. A co-worker walked in my office and noticed it, saying, “that’s so great – I feel the same way about my kids!”. I think we all do. Parenting is a humbling and at times overwhelming responsibility. Even more than that, it is a source of great pride and joy. I am not ashamed to brag about my “kids”, who are no longer kids, but young adults,  and they still tell me I do it too much. This is something I am working on, but as you can see, have some trouble moderating. My husband’s aunt once remarked on this saying, “maybe you should call them your hobbies, people have a passion for their hobbies”. And the label stuck, so I lovingly do.

About my “hobbies”. Our daughter is beautiful, clever, gifted, and a great friend. She is also a math whiz and should be proud of her accomplishments. She has a good head on her shoulders and a heart of gold. In high school she lived and breathed math and basketball and we had great adventures, traveling with the team, me playing Sudoko in the stands, trying to tell her things from up there using sign language, like how are you? are you hungry? are you ok? why did they call that foul? She encouraged me to accompany her on a mission trip to Peru where she graced me with great patience and her good Spanish skills – we were “Madre y Hija”. She had the kids all around her wanting to take their picture with the girl with the beautiful smile. Two little girls had saved the picture she took with them the last time she was there. She was a spark of brightness in their world. Our daughter is married now to a terrific young man whom she met in marching band. He is more hardworking than anyone I’ve ever met, and has a great big heart for our daughter and for his family. We are blessed to have him in ours.

We are also blessed with a strong and handsome son. His charm started the minute he was born, and his sister and her friends all doted on him as he grew up into a person who possesses great rapport with people from every walk of life, young and old. He has an earnest voice, a well tuned ear, a photographic memory, and an appreciation for quirky humor. He speaks German quite well and we used to have a game where we pretended to be German while sitting in the airport or at a restaurant. When his sister left for college and we both were missing her, he invited me out to Mother-Son dinners. That morphed into us trying new recipes, which morphed into him being an excellent cook. He loves movies and has inherited my eclectic taste in music. He has a beautiful, strong, and enigmatic young woman in his life and she has a two year old who has brightened and enriched all of our lives. They are kindred and adventurous spirits and although I am a natural worrier, I am nonetheless happy for them as they embark on their latest adventure out west in the mountains.

So this is a glimpse at my typical Christmas card. I brag about my “hobbies” and talk about what we did that year. Christmas is my favorite time because it reminds me of all the traditions, including the “Mom’s favorites” one. With this post I am giving my family some lead time to let them know, just in case, there are about 73 shopping days, 9 hours, and 35 minutes until Christmas. Also this is my way of returning the gift back to my family in the form of what I want for Christmas more  than anything. No, its not World Peace, although that would be nice.  I want them to have the best things in life, my favorite things: to cry more tears of joy than tears of pain, to listen to a good soundtrack, to travel and enjoy the outdoors, to be “annoyingly competent” at what they do, and to embrace Linus’s soliloquy on “what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown”.

In closing,    🎼 … (with arms outstretched) …🎶

Climb every mountain Search high and low  Follow every byway Every path you knowClimb every mountain  Ford every stream Follow every rainbow ‘Till you find your dreamA dream that will need All the love you can give Every day of your life For as long as you live 🎶(Lyrics by Jordan Smith)