fourteen thousand days

732

Today is Mother's day, but the weather was gorgeous yesterday so we took a little hike at Multnomah Falls. It was packed. We weren't sure we'd get a parking spot. And it was packed with tourists. We heard all kinds of different languages. People in every shade of cream to brown, and people of every kind. There were motorcycle gang members, a boy pulling himself up the trail in his four-wheeled walker, Muslim women in full body coverings, teenage girls dressed more for the mall than the trail, wearing slingback peeptoe 4 inch heels completely covered in glitter. I don't remember there being such diversity the last time we went a few years ago. Maybe we were there on a weekday, or something.

The last time we were there, everyone was very properly Northwestern, in their hiking gear and red cheeks, expensive backpacks and shoes, never ever stepping one toe off the path. We got fussed at by an angry bee of a park ranger for letting our kids take their shoes off and put their feet in the creek. He ranted about how they were killing baby fish. There were no signs, and this was a public area.  We were the only ones trying to touch the water. I remember thinking how unfriendly it all was. How can creek water be off limits to children?

We've been in a few situations here where the kids got reprimanded for "touching" nature. At the state park where we like to camp, a ranger tried to shoo them out of a tree one year.

Why?

They might get hurt.

I'm watching them.

But they might damage a tree.

I will make sure they won't. They've been in it all day. We are very respectful to trees.

But if everyone climbed the tree, it would be ruined.

He wasn't really worried about my kids' bones or the branches. He wanted the park to look perfect, like an RV commerical, and he wanted everyone to be quiet and calm and sit around their campfire in chairs. I eventually asked him if there was a specific rule against tree climbing in a state park. There isn't. I asked him if maybe state parks weren't created precisely so children could have a place to climb a tree or a rock if they didn't have those things in the city. He left us, but he was annoyed, and he drove past our camp in his little golf cart every half hour, giving me a look. I still feel uncomfortable whenever we are at that park. I keep looking around thinking someone is going to run over and tell us to get our kids off that log or that rock.  I don't feel like we are totally welcome. It's as if the nature areas are only for looking, not for touching.

This time at the falls, everything was different. The park rangers stood around watching people, but maybe just looking for problematic dogs or smokers, or waiting for some idiot to lean over the big bridge. The creek was full of kids and no one was complaining. The only new sign I could see asked people not to throw money or debris into the water.

So we let the kids get in. Rick took them upriver a little while I watched the pile of shoes and a big group of Korean teenagers in front of me. They were having a great time, whooping loudly and pushing each other in.

When we first moved to this town, I realized one day that I never saw any men with their shirts off. Nor did I see people without shoes. It does get hot here, but not very often. Yet it seems less like a weather thing and more like a pretense of class thing. The PacNW has a lot of pretense of class. It's in pockets, though. I bet most of the Keep Portland Weird thing is a direct affront to that. Yesterday at Multnomah Falls all pretense of class was gone. 

Family Portrait Project month 41, taken by a nice woman who had never operated an SLR before but was very gracious to accept my mini-lesson:

704

Ethiopia part 4:

You know, since it's been almost 10 months since I returned from my trip.

Since we knew we would be making the long road trip from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa, we looked on the map for things to see along the way. Awash National Park is right on the main road. Google maps tells you that the trip should take 7 hours. The distance from Addis to Awash is about the same as what we do to visit family in Spokane all the time. That takes us 7 hours. Because it's on pavement. And there are no goats. Or herds of donkeys sleeping in the road. Or kindergarteners running under our tires. Or throngs of people criss-crossing the dirt streets in complicated overlapping patterns as though they weren't people in traffic at all but travelers in a busy airport terminal. We were, in our van chugging along, most certainly the least important and least respected entity in any road. Even in between villages we had to come to a complete stop as much as you do in a big city, and our driver would commence honking. There was a lot of honking. The extra twist was that it was probably over 100 degrees, with no air conditioning and the windows rolled up most of the time to keep the dustclouds outside.

It was a loud, bumpy, dusty, hot, slow procession to our destination. Every mile felt like five. But it gave us so much time to see everything and we didn't have to wear seatbelts.  I loved the heat and jostling really, because it meant that I wasn't in suburbia. Instead of traveling over the road, we were IN the road.

The ride there was interrupted by an overnight stay at the lodges in Awash, so I couldn't measure the total time. But the trip back from Dire Dawa (or rather, Harar, but that's another story) to our guest house in Addis was a brutal endurance run of about 12 hours. Again with the donkeys and all, and also the arbitrary security check points where we were stopped so that policemen could look over our windows into the cabin. We eventually decided they were looking for people. Not specific people, but refugees maybe. Or criminals, Somalis, Eritreans...not sure. Truthfully, our van was so obviously not carrying refugees, being that it was empty except for two American women and a lot of open air, that maybe most of those policemen were satisfying their curiosity about either just what two American women would be doing in the middle of nowhere, or what they brought with them.

I always hid my camera. I didn't want anyone to get too interested in it, but I was more worried that they would think I was taking pictures. Taking pictures in Ethiopia is not an inalienable right. Not at all. "No pictures" is a phrase we heard just about everywhere we went. Our driver about had a stroke when we passed the air force base and I raised my camera to get a shot of the fighter jet that was displayed right alongside the road. It was afterward that I noticed the armed guards in the tower, watching the traffic.

Our poor driver. We loved him so. Raguel, or Rag, came to us from our Addis driver. He was charged with spending a solid three nights and four days with us, away from his wife and baby, to get us around the loop. His English wasn't as fluent as Ephrim's, so we had a lot of fun working it all out. Rag speaks Amharic, but where we were going the people speak Oromo.

There was a palpable vulnerability to this road trip. We were going far away across the desert and deep into the mountainside. As soon as we left Addis, the only white and/or English speaking people we saw were our own sweaty moonfaces reflected back at us from each others' amazed eyeballs.

703

Brenna has completely mastered the paper crane, to an infinitessimal degree.

And he looks to be pretty angry about it.

702

Family portrait project month 39:

I said, "remember that shadow wall in Seattle?" and this is what we did.

The shadow wall is in the science museum. You pose in the dark, a bright light flashes (irradiating you presumably)...and you can step away to admire your own shadow stuck on the wall for a minute. It's all very Bikini Atoll.

Because I failed to add them here:

Months 37 and 38:

 

698

From a senior photo shoot for a friend. She wanted to do the shoot on the campus she will attend in the Fall. We went on a Sunday night and it was blissfully deserted. I think these pictures will be even more fun for her in four years when every single square inch of the campus has memories attached to it. She runs track, so I put her on the hurdles. Those things were insanely tall and I don't know how she does it, other than being a rock star. A very pretty and sweet rock star.

684

And since I am remiss and letting weeks and months flow by, 57 days ago, this one turned 6:

The weather was really cold and wet, and even though I was absolutely in love with the way her hair fell in her face, and could have taken a hundred pictures of it, she wasn't having it. She humored me for only a few minutes.

683

There is a little cemetery next to our elementary school. I have spent a lot of time in it over the last 5 1/2 years. When Ellery was a baby, I'd take her over there before picking the kids up from school. In the summer, I take the kids to picnic there. Brenna did a big project with some teachers to put names to unidentified plots, and Garrett worked with his class on clearing a little trail to the creek. It sits on an invisible demarcation line between suburb and countryside, so when I stand in the middle and look south, I feel like it might be a hundred and fifty years ago.

I've been prowling cemeteries forever. When I was about 15, I once spent the night in one, alone, with no blanket or anything. I don't remember why I did this, but it felt so safe. And dark, as no lights were allowed. I was thrilled by the idea that no one would be able to find me anywhere in town. It was as though I had disappeared completely, a feeling I intentionally revisited many times in those years. In the days before cell phones, this was incredibly stupid. Though I don't know if the addition of technology would make it any less so.

The feeling of being connected to the world is tempting. Being on the internet and checking out my friends' blogs, or facebook, or my email, or my instagram...I can share my day and share your days. But that pull of the far away has eradicated a specific feeling of Oneness, as well as a fullness and quietness that I can't quite articulate. I can't be only Here if I am also out There. It's like sitting in the living room with the front door wide open.

Visiting cemeteries brings me some peace in places we have lived but I've never felt settled in. Oregon is beautiful, but it's not really mine. My place is a summer night on white Gulf Coast sand with whispering waves, moonlit surf and phosphorescent footsteps, stepping into the water that is warmer than the air and putting my head under for the dark quiet that is nonetheless charged with a possibility of a surprise attack from stingrays or jellyfish or small sharks. Or big sharks, when the tides are right. It's been 18 years since I buried my hands in that sand. I think I need to go back soon.

Oregon can sometimes remind me of northern Florida: the tall pine tree woods with not much growing underneath, the obscene profusion of a thousand camelia blooms on one bush, the way something can and will grow on just about anything. There's too much sun in Florida for the kind of moss I see here, though. Oregonians tend to respect their moss and leave it alone. I hope no one ever spends one minute scraping it away from these headstones.

618

I didn't blog much in September. The main event in September is that my girl, Brenna, has her birthday. I have refrained from talking much about my kids here, especially my older kids, since adolescence brings with it enough tribulations without having their lives spewed all over the internet. But my adoration is there; I absolutely and forever adore these kids of mine.

This past September, she turned 13. I have to remind myself frequently that she is only 13. She is thoughtful, enough for it to be painful to her sometimes. She is patient. She thinks ahead. She worries. She is considerate.

She works hard. She has maintained a 4.0 so far in her middle school career, and is still going strong. Recently she applied for, and was accepted into, the National Junior Honor Society. I helped her with her application, reminding her of all the things she has done that are wonderful and awesome, even if she had a big blank space in the "what sports do you participate in" category (practically a crime in this town, unsportsed children running amok).  Sports are good, but volunteering at the cat shelter is something else entirely and I knew the NJHS people would see a glimpse of the way I see her.

I asked her if she wanted me to avoid gushing about her on my blog. I can mention it, but not gush. So I'm mentioning it, and gushing on the inside. So, so proud of her! I love being her mom, and I hope to always be the mom she deserves.

The gushing is hard to contain.

617

This evening, my youngest-soon to be 6 year old-girl had herself quite a fit at bathtime. She didn't want to get out. Much screaming ensued, full of accusations and condemnation.

(screaming): "Dad, you're getting soap in my eyes!"

"No, I'm not."

"WELL YOU'RE TRYING TO!!!"

Eventually she calmed down and was able to laugh at herself for this one. While I was snuggling with her I explained to her that even when we are angry or upset, the Screaming is never okay. I said, "We don't scream like that, do we?"

"You're parents. It's easier for you."

Oh, baby girl.

608

When I came back from Ethiopia, I was compelled to do something. Anything. We flew across the world with suitcases full of fleece blankets I had made, around 900 diapers, 200 (200!!) beaded bracelets my sister made for the women at the Hamlin Fistula Hospital, some money to spend on other necessities, and an overwhelming feeling of dropping a single grain of sand into the ocean.

The beautiful bracelets...

...are now around the wrists of 200 beautiful, brave women. Here is the entrance of the hospital. The palm tree on the left is a peek at how amazing the gardens are inside. No pictures allowed there, of course.

The blankets...

...are hopefully snuggled around some kids at this orphanage in Dire Dawa (I'm intentionally showing you the picture with the babies' faces blurred because I know there are rules I don't want to disrespect):

I do hope so. While the vast majority of Ethiopians we met were so lovely and welcoming, I also know that 19 nice, clean, new blankets from America can bring a decent amount of money at the markets.

When we were there, we met with some NGO people who Sarri had met through friends and asked: what do you need? Cases of formula? Okay. 30 forks? Okay. It was easy enough, and gratifying, to be able to relieve some burden from the shoulders of the people doing the real work.

My life is not set up in such a way that I can be in Ethiopia, running a daycare for babies whose mamas haul wood on their backs all day, doing the real work. Frankly I don't think I'd be good at that kind of life. But I didn't want to just slip back into my own privileged life of Target and grocery stores and my car and hot water, forgetting the feeling I had that day we stood in the village of people living their every day lives in the city dump. Every day. In the dump.

Sarri took this picture while we were dropping off cases of formula and more diapers:

The giant piles of garbage have, over time, been flattened into open areas and alleyways, then shacks were built out of construction garbage and people live in them. It definitely smells exactly like a dump. We saw a lot of children. They were all smiling. When we got out of the van at the designated drop off shack, children swarmed us and a teeny tiny girl grabbed my hand. She held my hand the whole time. She was barefoot and there were nails everywhere since a group was building real structures in place of the shack. I was worried for her feet. I concentrated on worrying for her feet because anything more was too much.

I've heard the whole Nestle controversy before; it's old news. I have to say, I didn't feel one bit of guilt purchasing every can of Nestle infant and toddler formula we could get our hands on and giving it to those babies. Would you? Some things stop mattering in certain circumstances.

Soon after we returned I joined World Vision and chose three children for our family to sponsor. Other than the old horrific commercials on tv I've never known much about sponsoring. I chose World Vision for a few reasons, including their easy website, the ease of communicating with our sponsored kids, and that they were one of the first big supporters of the Hamlin Fistula Hospital. I chose the kids based on their birthdays: each of the three shares a birthday with one of my own. I thought it would help our children identify with our sponsored kids better. And it would help me remember them more often, to be completely honest. The money comes out automatically every month. We are not obligated to communicate with them, but of course I want to.

And that is the work, for this situation. Writing letters, sending little appropriate trinkets, remembering. Not getting caught up in our own incredibly fortunate lives so much that I don't reach out. 

One is a boy in Zimbabwe. He shares Garrett's birthday but is two years younger. One is a girl in Sri Lanka who shares Brenna's birthday and year. She has beautiful handwriting, and was so personable in her letter. Her favorite color is green, and she seems so excited to have pen pals.

And one is a little girl in Zambia about to turn 6 on the same day as Ellery in a few weeks. We did not have the older two sponsorships when those children had their last birthday, so this is my first double-birthday experience.

I made up an envelope (sized small to world vision's specifications) for the little girl. I spent a few hours picking tiny toys that she would enjoy, that were not too American, that would be self-explanatory, that would fit in the envelope, that would seem special and adorable, that would be something she could easily carry. I found a card that doubles as a crown she can wear. I wrote a letter. Ellery wrote a letter and attached a picture of herself.

Meanwhile, I am planning Ellery's birthday. She will get more presents than what will fit in a 9x6 envelope. She will put them in the room that is all her own, that she doesn't have to share with anyone. On her birthday I'll take pictures of her. I'll kiss her and hug her, give her a slice of cake, be thankful for her, tell her I love her, hug and kiss her daddy and siblings, and I will also think of the other newly-6 year old little girl we are connected to.

Perhaps it's not so much like throwing a grain of sand into the ocean to be swept away and drowned to the bottom, but rather a pebble dropped into a lake, where the ripples would go on forever, were it not for the shore. I have to hope that these three kids, two in Africa and one in Sri Lanka, will at least get the knowledge that the world is bigger than their situations, that someone across the globe is thinking of them, and that life can have possibilities, if we help each other out.

If you are so inclined, you could check out World Vision's website, or any other lauded similar organization, and challenge yourself to act, even if in tiny ways. I can't do big work but I can do a little. Tiny ripples inevitably change to big ripples with time. We have to hope.