Poem: How to Stay Married

Getting married is all about   

Finding that chocolate you like

More than all the others in the box.

But staying married is all about

Picking up that chocolate and brushing it off

Every time it falls on the floor and gets covered in crap. 

- Justine Frederiksen

I kept my mother's binoculars after the crash. Thirty years later, her friend still recognized them.

I kept my mother's binoculars after the crash, though at the time I was still a teenager who resented the passion I blamed for her death. And I was very glad to have them when I finally saw one of her birding pals again 30 years later and her binoculars brought him to tears.

That was cool.

Cool not because I like to make people sad. Cool because I knew how much he missed my mother, too. 

It was healing for me to learn what bird they were all looking for that day, a Spotted Redshank. And that he still agonized over how my mother had been riding with the newest and youngest member of their bird club because his car was full.

One of the few things that can truly ease the grief of losing someone is being with another person who feels their absence. They understand that no matter how long it has been, no matter how fine you look, you are still among the walking wounded.

Losing a loved one in a sudden event feels like someone ripped out your lungs and told you to breathe a different way.

You find a way to adapt, but you never forget how it felt to be whole. And the pain never really goes away, though you soon stop talking about it, because the only thing worse than feeling pain is having to explain it.

But you don’t have to say anything to someone with the same scar. You don’t have to paint your mother in their head: she already lives there.

As you both picture her, your pain feels lighter and her image grows brighter. Maybe it can even grow bright enough for her to see it, and know we still think of her.

Of course, it was even cooler that my grandfather saved the binoculars for me in the first place.

They were damaged in the crash that killed her, but my grandfather retrieved them and had them repaired before returning them to me.

I don’t keep them tucked under my driver’s seat as she did, so she could whip them out whenever she saw anything other than a turkey vulture flying overhead. They now sit on a shelf where I can look at them and smile, but sometimes I do take them out to look for birds. And when I see one, I like to think that she can see it, too. 

And maybe some day I will see a Spotted Redshank for her.

Sometimes you just want a cup of coffee. And to pretend that everything's normal.

A few days after the recent fires erupted in Mendocino County, three of us who work for the Ukiah newspaper were decompressing in Black Oak Coffee when one of the owners walked up to our table.

“I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ for all that you guys are doing,” he said. “You probably aren’t getting a lot of sleep right now, so I appreciate all the information you are providing.”

That was cool.

Photo by Chris Pugh - Ukiah Daily Journal

But what was even cooler was how much space in the coffee shop had been devoted to making sure that anyone who needed help would know where to find it.

Outside, a sign invited evacuees to enjoy a free cup of coffee. Inside, much of the free counter and wall space was devoted to signs explaining where to find food, clothing, toiletries, a place to sleep and even a place for kids to play indoors.

For those without a way to access the internet, an iPad was set up on the counter for anyone to get the latest information on the fires, since at the time they were nowhere near under control.

All of these were small gestures to be sure, but I find the small, unobtrusive gestures – ones that don’t require you to ask for or even accept them – to be the most comforting. I know one of the first things I’d look for a day or two after being chased from my home would be a calm place where I could sit and drink some good coffee while everyone went about their normal lives.

Seeing people eating, gossiping about their day and yes, even buried in their phones, would be a much-needed reminder that the world was still spinning and eventually my life would return to normal as well.

But in the meantime, I’d know exactly where to get some shampoo and toothpaste, all without anyone knowing I had needed anything more than a cup of coffee.

Why pick up litter? Because it's there. And I feel so much better when it's gone!

I pick up trash whenever I walk. And one day on my way up a trail I found some bottles and cans that I couldn't carry up the hill, so I put them in a spot I knew I’d see on the way down. But by the time I returned, someone else had picked them up.

That was cool.

What’s even cooler is that has happened more than once, so I know it wasn’t a fluke. I also know the man hired to pick up trash at the park isn’t doing it, because he only goes up as far as he can drive. So it’s up to us hikers to keep the trail up above clean, and I love knowing there are others on my trash-picking team.

Many people can't understand wanting to pick up other people’s trash, while I can’t understand how anyone can walk by litter without wanting to pick it up. I don’t care who left the litter or why. I just know that unless I pick it up, I’ll be looking at it again and again. And I don’t walk on trails to look at McDonald’s and Starbucks cups. I walk outside to look at trees and flowers.

Sometimes I wish I could just toss something on the ground and not give it another thought, like the person I saw get in their car after buying a fancy coffee drink and take one sip before tossing it out the window while driving away. But I can't throw away something I just spent money on, and I can’t litter.

And now, with so much that seemed stable now imploding in front of our eyes, I've found that picking up trash is one of the few things that gives me any control over the world around me. As long as I can still go outside and pick up trash, keeping the paths I walk every day clean, it makes me feel a bit better. And knowing there are others doing the same helps even more. Because feeling a bit of control, and a bit less alone, are things I really need right now.

Teen learns the hard way that his mom was right. (And is nice to reporter documenting his lesson!)

I got a report one day that a car had driven into a house and dashed over to find instead that a teen’s Honda had rolled down the hill and onto his neighbors’ lawn after knocking over their mailbox.

“I guess my mom was right about always leaving the car in gear,” the boy told me soon after I arrived.

That was cool.

Not only because he quickly admitted that his habit of leaving the car in neutral to save him from having to pop it out of gear before he could start the engine was bad, but because he was so calm about a reporter arriving to document his embarrassing afternoon.

“I was just in the paper last week,” he said, explaining that his sports accomplishments had earned him the earlier attention. Maybe that positive coverage helped him accept my presence; whatever the reason, I definitely appreciated his willingness to talk to me.

Understandably, that’s not always the case when people’s lives are disrupted, particularly during much more traumatic events.

Another time, I was taking pictures of a home engulfed in flames while the resident stood crying in a friend’s embrace. When I asked the friend if either of them wanted to talk to me she stiffly declined, then after a pause added, “You know, I never understood why you guys never have more details about stuff like this. But I get it now.”

I appreciated her realizing that while many of us feel entitled to as many details as possible when things happen to other people, when those events happen to us, we usually want them to remain as private as possible.

I also appreciated her calmly asking me to give them privacy, which I did.

And although the teen whose car had rolled onto the neighbor’s lawn gave me his name, I decided not to print it and instead let his sports achievement dominate his press coverage.

As I turned to leave, he steeled himself for a conversation with someone he wanted to talk to even less than a reporter: his mother.

“This should be a fun one,” he said with a sheepish grin as he sat down in the car to dial his cell phone.

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Some kids don't want to leave their hometown. And I think they might end up happier.

At a high school graduation one year, I was talking with a teacher about the kids who don't want to move away. While so many of their classmates can't wait to leave, some kids are happy to stay right where they are. “They’re minimalists,” he said.

That was cool. And it got me thinking that maybe the kids who stay will be happier than the kids like me who left their hometown as soon as they could. Why? Many reasons:

• They must be easygoing

Someone who wants to stay in their hometown likely gets along with their parents, and most everyone else. I figure they aren’t easily annoyed by people. And even if they are, they don’t hold grudges.

“Living in a small town taught me a lot about forgiveness,” a friend told me. “If someone pisses you off, but you know you’re going to keep running into them at the grocery store or your kids’ soccer games, it’s a lot easier to just let stuff go.”

It took a lot of time and effort for me to learn to let things go. I have to imagine that people who could always do that have had a lot more fun and gotten a lot more sleep in their lives.

• They likely have a built-in support system

One of the hardest things about moving to a new city is not having anyone else to call for help, even for the really small things. You wake up without creamer for your coffee or get halfway through a batch of cookies before you realize you don’t have enough flour. If you’re where you grew up, those things are likely just a couple of doors down.

And so is someone to help you bring home new furniture and take the old furniture away, take care of your animals when you go out of town and drive you home from a medical appointment.

And when you have a baby, you likely have a babysitter you already trust. You also don’t need to spend all your vacation time dragging a grumpy toddler along with its car seat and stroller onto a plane to see their grandparents. Or your child’s grandparents don’t have to spend their retirement fund flying to see you.

Starting over in a new city can be exhilarating. But when you get a cold and you pull the soup pot from the top cupboard and the thick ceramic plate you forgot was on top of it lands on your head, you realize that having someone nearby who could bring you soup is pretty great, too.

• They have a built-in sense of belonging

All humans want to feel understood and appreciated. Not feeling like they belong is a reason why many people leave their hometowns, especially those not wanting to suffer emotional or physical abuse for just being themselves.

So imagine how nice it would be to have that feeling from day one. To spend all stages of your life in a place with the same people, who know all the cool things and accept all the dumb things you’ve done. And later it’s really nice to have people around who remember what you were like before all the wrinkles and gray hair.

Every day would feel like how one young woman described returning home to work on a television set with her family, her childhood friends and her teachers.

“Growing up I was always focused on going elsewhere to work, but getting to come home and work in my hometown with the community that raised me was something really special. My second-grade teacher was there with us all week, girls I grew up doing ballet with were there, and my mom and brother were there.”

For kids who stayed in their hometown, days like that aren’t special events. They happen all the time.

If my family lived in my hometown after graduation, I might have stayed.

• They have simple needs

Wherever you go, there you are. And unless you’re experiencing torture or deprivation, if you can’t make yourself reasonably happy wherever you are right now, there’s a good chance you will never be happy.

And that’s not to say we don’t need people with the desire to explore and achieve, to invent and discover. We certainly do. But when it comes to being happy, I think the people who have always been content with who and where they are have the best odds.

How I learned to love Lucy, the cat with the baboon butt

A few weeks after we adopted her, our cat Lucy got locked outside and began screaming at the top of her lungs.

That was cool.

Cool because her panic melted my heart, and for the first time I thought I could love this creature I hadn’t wanted in our home since the day she arrived.

Lucy quickly learned to love the outdoors.

She used to belong to my husband’s friend, but he moved to a new place where he said he couldn’t bring her. To prevent her from going to a shelter, my husband agreed to take the cat.

I didn’t want another cat, and all I saw when he brought Lucy home was how inferior she was to our kitty Stella, whom I could not have been more in love with.

Stella was a sleek silver tabby who spent most of her time exploring outside. Lucy was a chunky indoor cat with dull black fur flecked with dandruff and a skinny tail that looked like a rat’s.

And it just got worse when she started losing that fur in big patches mostly around her rump until she looked like a bare-assed baboon.

It also didn’t help that she was clumsy and always getting her claws stuck on things. One time I emerged from the shower to frantic wailing from the bedroom and found her hanging upside down with all four paws wrapped up in the blinds. I tried to untie her but she bit and scratched me, so I finally had to cut up the blinds to free her.

Then we started finding piles of vomit everywhere. She’d yell to be fed, then promptly yak up everything she ate on anything that happened to be nearby. Before we found one pile she was yelling to be fed again so she could make the next one.

But the final straw was the anal squirts.

Few things are more pleasant than a warm, soft cat purring away, so I decided I could forget Lucy’s faults by inviting her onto my lap. It worked at first, with her gratefully purring and soon enthusiastically kneading away at my stomach.

But then I felt some drips on my bare leg and found a brown substance smelling like rotten fish which I realized dripped out of her behind – yes, poor Lucy has a tendency to expel from her anal glands when she gets excited.

I felt then there was no hope for us. A lifelong cat person, I had easily found things to love about every one I knew. Until Lucy.

And then she got locked outside. 

A strictly indoor cat before, Lucy seemed afraid of the outdoors so I never thought she would follow me when I took out the garbage one day and get herself trapped outside when I closed the garage door.

But soon I heard this strange yowling and looked out the window to see her in the driveway, totally consumed with panic and wailing like a car alarm that was getting louder and louder.

It reminded me of my grandmother’s stories about how terrified I was of getting lost as a kid, especially the time we were in a store and she merely stepped around the counter. Since I was too short to see over the counter, I thought I had been abandoned and began screaming in panic, humiliating her.

So I knew how Lucy felt, suddenly cut off from everything she knew and with no idea how to get back inside to the voices and smells that had barely become familiar. All my other feelings disappeared and I felt nothing but empathy and compassion for her.

Because everybody deserves a place where they feel safe. Even a cat with a baboon butt who squirts from her anal glands when she’s not throwing up.

So I brought her inside with a hug and talked to her sweetly for the first time. I started calling her Lucy Liu, her hair grew back when we got rid of the fleas and I eventually found a thing or two to love about her.

I especially love that not once in the six years since she got stuck in the blinds has she bitten or scratched me even a little bit, no matter how many times a day I pick her up without warning, squeeze her until she squeaks, then drape her over my shoulder for a quick dance around the house.

I guess she’s decided that’s a fair price to pay for feeling safe, and even loved.