Change Is Hard

July 20, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

Yesterdays

It completely slipped my mind Saturday, when I was so busy with my list of things to do, that it was the fifth anniversary of the day Mom unexpectedly died. I knew earlier in the week that Saturday was the anniversary, and I remembered again on Sunday while watching a special about the life of Walter Cronkite. When they talked about his wife of 65 years I thought of Mom and Dad, married 52 years when she died. If they had lived another 13 years they’d have been 88 and married 65 years. I was doing the math when I realized that I had missed the anniversary.

I don’t think that not noticing the anniversary of Mom’s death, on the day itself, means I love her less, or mourn her loss less. I choose to think that some healing has occurred, a bit of the overwhelming sting has lessened, gotten a bit more fuzzy around the edges. Loosened it’s grip on me. This is such an interesting experiment, this walk through grief, if it weren’t that I had to lose two of the most important people in the world. It used to scare me when people whose parents had died many years ago told me they still missed their parents every day. I was depressed to imagine living with such an intense pain every single day. So it has been good to come to know that yes, you miss them every day, but it is a manageable pain, livable.

So today, as I’m baking bread I think of my Mom, and the last time she was in my kitchen. I don’t have that loud wailing going on inside of me anymore. It used to shriek “Moooooommmmmm!” constantly, interfering with thought and logic and every day tasks. That’s subsided and in it’s place is just a warm, slightly sad, quiet place. I can still conjure up the wailing, if I think about it too much and sometimes I do it just to prove to myself that I can, that she’s still right there so to speak. But it’s not interfering so much, and the pain is a little softer, and I can say for sure now to other people who are just at the beginning of their loss that someday, in their own time, it will get better.

Another lesson I’ve learned from my mother. It will get better.

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July 18, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

To do list

I have a whole day off, no work, no previous commitments. It’s been awhile so I have a few things I need to get done today. Here’s the list:

Go for a run. It’s been too long since my last attempt and if you don’t keep up you have to start over …again and again.
Make some bread. I have a cookbook from my library with some great bread receipes in it and a whole new concept about storing unbaked bread dough so that you can bake bread every evening if you wanted fresh for dinner. The book will be due before I ever get to this unless I put it on “THE LIST.”
Wrap a shower gift. The wedding shower is tomorrow. I purchased the gift weeks ago but it sits unwrapped. I need a card too. Darn. That means a trip to a store somewhere. What was I thinking when I got the gift? That I’d use a marker and just write her (and my) name on the box?
Vacuum. Have dog. And husband. Haven’t vacuumed in maybe three weeks. Enough said.
Laundry. See above.
Finish reading “Reliable Wife” by Robert Goolrick. It’s a very good book and it was due back to the library two days ago. I’m on page 169 of a 290 page book. Being a librarian means you have no time to read all the good books you see coming and going. It’s a job hazard.
Take the dog to the park. She’s already whining and it’s just barely 7:00 a.m. Obviously she hasn’t read “THE LIST” yet.
Help husband dig up the roots to a tree he removed so that we can plant something there that doesn’t have suckers that grow up through everything. I’m hoping it rains because I don’t have time.
Weed, especially the vegetable garden. My little stubby beans are being overrun by non-vegetable matter.
Update the resume and write a cover letter for a librarian position that is 59 miles away. It’s become apparent that I will be on lay off, maybe next week, maybe the end of summer, certainly prior to the end of the fiscal year this fall. So it’s time to start looking again. Maybe I should do this first. Well. Right after the run.

Katie girl, you better hang on tight, Mama’s going to be moving fast today!

July 16, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

Truck drivers can be heros too

On one of our busiest freeways last night a couple of truck drivers saved some lives, probably even their own. Apparently a car, speeding around a curve on I-75, drifted from it’s lane and crashed into a tanker truck which was hauling thousands of gallons of fuel. A semi truck driver, seeing what was unfolding, moved out of the way to give the tanker more room. If that driver hadn’t been paying attention and had collided with the tanker an explosion would have occurred immediately, probably killing both truck drivers and perhaps other people as well. As it was, the tanker rolled over, its driver was able to get out of the cab and scramble up the embankment, the semi driver was able to stop and run from the area, and all the other drivers of cars were able to run away from the area as well. The tanker exploded into a huge fire ball seconds later, flames shooting 100 feet into the air. The heat from the fire caused a major overpass to collapse on top of the trucks.

Last night as I watched live footage of the flames everyone wondered how many fatalities there would be. Firemen could see multiple vehicles but the fire was so hot no one could check to see if any were occupied. I went to bed wondering how many families would get that awful telephone call. This morning a miracle shows its face. No one died. Only three minor injuries. It’s amazing, and yet it isn’t. People paying attention while they’re driving is the key, whether they’re truck or passenger vehicle drivers.

Last night a observant truck driver saved lives. As I’m quick to criticize truckers who make errors that cost lives, it’s only fair to acknowledge that truck drivers can be heros too.

Here’s a link to the story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/15/michigan.tanker.fire/index.html

July 14, 2009
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Another sweet picture book about a dog

Here’s another picture book that came across my desk this week. It’s called “Always” and it’s written by Alison McGhee and illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre. It’s the story of a little dog that is “the keeper of the castle.” The pup talks about the things he does to keep the castle safe, like taming squirrels, ambushing enemies and “protecting the blanket.” It’s a sweet book, and would be enjoyed by anyone that has a dog, because that’s exactly what our dogs do. They protect our castles.

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July 13, 2009
by dawnkinster 8 Comments

Tricky t-day

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Katie and I have to apologize to Ludo, the Sheltie from Down Under. I know I’m supposed to be teaching Katie some tricks, and exhibiting proof of such activities here on Tricky t-day. But my book still hasn’t arrived from the library (someone else is teaching their dog new tricks and won’t turn the book back in!!) and I find that I am useless at randomly trying to teach her things without knowing what I’m doing. Plus I can’t figure out how to be the obstacle (as in JUMP KATIE JUMP) as well as the trainer as well as the photographer! So I still don’t have any tricks to share. Sigh. I will try to be a better tricky t-day participant. I really will.

Katie and I DID go to the park this afternoon. This was the first park visit in a couple weeks, what with me being out of state and then working every day since I’ve been home. As soon as I got her long leash out she got excited. When I put on the treat bag she was ecstatic. So much so that I couldn’t get the rest of her stuff together because she was jumping on me and running in between my legs. HEY! That sort of sounds like a trick, jumping on me and running in between my legs. Does that count?! LOL! Anyway, I put her regular leash on her and took her out to put her in the back of the SUV. Our four door sedan was parked where the SUV usually is, and she insisted she wanted to get into the truck of that car! I couldn’t stop laughing, finally just picked her up (the benefits of owning a small dog!) and put her into the back of the SUV where she belonged. She was SOOOOO excited to be going to the park!

We walked around the whole perimiter of the park, she stopping to sniff or pee about every 10 feet.

It was a beautiful day, mid 70’s, low humidity, big white puffy clouds in the sky. She’d get antsy with me when I was taking pictures of the clouds. Come ON Mom! Geeze! I could tell she was impatient with me, she kept looking back to see what was taking me so long. katie-1675

Here’s a picture of her that I took as I was jogging up next to her, right as I fell into a hole. She’s laughing at me. katie-16781

About halfway around the park we stopped to rest on the observation deck. Katie found a little bit of shade. katie-1682

I thought she’d be tired, but once we got back to the parking lot she refused to head to the car. No! Not going to get in the car! Not going to! Na uh…not me. katie-1684

Oh. Did you say it was time for DINNER?! Well, why didn’t you SAY so? Let’s go Mom!

July 12, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

Definition of a runner…revised

dawn-068 I used to be a runner and though I was never very fast I did accomplish most of my running goals, met a lot of great people, had fun (mostly) and didn’t gain (much) weight. Used to be are the operative words here. Most of you know I was training for a half marathon last summer and early fall when I sustained a stress fracture to my foot. I haven’t really run since last October. It has begun to occur to me that it will soon be October again and if I don’t get moving I’ll have been a nonrunner for a whole year! So I’ve been going out sporadically, running a mile from my house using the “run a minute, walk a minute” method in an attempt to avoid injury.

The problem is that my one mile “runs” are slower than I used to walk a mile. This is disheartening. So much energy expended for so little distance covered in such a slow time. I know that running is all a mental game, and here I am beating myself up because I can’t immediately do the things I did five years ago when I was in marathon shape. I know I need to get over what I used to be able to do and just enjoy what I can do now. For instance here’s what I saw on my one mile run/walk:

A doe contentedly munching something along the side of the road. When I rounded the corner in my speedy, silent, efficient way…wait..oh yea, that was how I USED to run… ahem…when I slogged my way around the corner huffing and puffing, feet skidding on the gravel she glanced up and gracefully bounded away into the golden green woods.
The two yellow horses at the end of the road, my turn around point, looked up from their feeding to watch me as I sped by. Bored they went back to their breakfast as soon as I turned around.
I stopped (HEY! It was during one of my WALK breaks, OK?!) to pick a perfect wild black raspberry that had been growing along the side of the road. After eating it I wondered about the numerous dogs that are walked along this road and whether or not one of them might have…well…I distracted myself by the beginning of the next minute of running.

My mile was, for the first time since I began to run again this summer, 12 seconds faster than my fastest walked mile of years gone by! HEY! So OK, I’m not ever going to be speedy, but I never was speedy, and today I was speedier than I was last week. Accomplishment!

Then I took a 3 minute cool down walk and saw:

A little green heron sitting in the dead branches of a big cottonwood tree. I heard the familiar screeching behind me and saw two more flying. The one in the tree stretched out his neck to watch the two that were flying. I wonder if the one in the tree was the youngster of the other two, waiting for dinner. While I watched the flying ones never attempted to land in the tree, so who knows.
The family of Canadian geese, mom and dad and two little ones that are all grown up. This is the family that so defiantly defended their nest in the neighbor’s driveway last spring. Guess they made it!
A male bluebird swooping low over another neighbor’s yard in a search for tasty bugs, the sun glowing on his back.
A little rabbit hopping across the road in front of me. We haven’t seen many rabbits this year, and we’ve heard a red fox in the backyard at night. Correlation?
The usual jumble of jays, finches, woodpeckers, robins, cardinals all flying around and singing on this fine Sunday morning.

When I got home it was obvious Katie was mad at me by her sulky face when I walked in the door, and by the fact that my pajama bottoms were in the middle of the living room slightly the worse for being chewed on. I’m sure she meant to say “Welcome home Mom! Good job on getting out there and getting that mile done!”

Of course that’s what she meant.

July 10, 2009
by dawnkinster 3 Comments

Tales from the library

Today was another great day at work in a tiny rural library. It’s one of my favorite places to work because there is time to talk to patrons, to find out what they’re reading, to give suggestions and to receive some reading suggestions as well. This location is primarily a readers library as opposed to one that is used like a video store and that makes working it a pleasure. Here’s a few observations from the day:

A woman stopped by to drop off a book that was due. She was actually reading the book as she walked in the door. She slowed her walk as she approached the drop box, stalling until she had finished the last sentence. Then she slipped the book into the return slot and walked right back out the door. I’d never seen that before, and something about it seemed strange to me. I think I’d have finished the book in the car, or outside the library. On the other hand, it was fun to watch someone so engrossed in reading.

I had several kids stop by to record their reading for the summer reading program. They enjoyed using the stamp to mark off minutes of reading and they liked getting the half-way there prize and the completion prize as well. I like watching them get excited about reading.

Today I got to share a couple of authors with people who were looking for someone new to read. And I got to talk about the books of one of my favorite authors at length with one patron. Usually I don’t have time for that, so it was a real treat this morning.

One of my first patrons was about 5 or 6 years old. She walked in with her Mom and they immediately went into a huddle, whispering frantically about something. Eventually the little girl approached me, flopped a drawing down and said “HERE! This is for YOU!” I was somewhat surprised, as I’d never seen her before. But I was enthusiastic about the picture which really was lovely. I had her sign it and then I taped it up on the wall behind the desk. I think the little girl drew the picture for the regular librarian and was surprised when she saw me instead. I made a note to the librarian who generally works there so that she can make sure to say thank you when the little girl comes in next time. The little girl left all smiles. I was smiling too.

An older patron showed up about noon with a long list of specific authors. She needed the books RIGHT NOW because she was leaving on a vacation this afternoon! We only had one of the authors on the shelf at our location. Most of what she wanted happened to be at other locations or checked out. I kept looking, while simultaneously wondering if she hadn’t known she was going on vacation until today? With a little bit of advanced notice we could have provided her exactly what she wanted rather than ending up with the compromise of materials I found for her.

It was 12:30 before anyone checked a DVD out! Everything taken out prior (and we opened at 9) were books! How cool is that!

A young man came in and ended up checking out only one DVD; a story about the Holocaust. He also asked for information about prison systems. I wondered if there was a connection, but I didn’t ask. It seemed an odd combination, especially for July when it was unlikely he was writing a paper. I hoped he wasn’t needing to know how a prison system works for any personal reasons.

By the end of the day I recognized there are two types of readers. One type puts numerous books on reserve and those books often come in at the same time. They check out several, maybe up to a dozen at once, and then only have two weeks to get all these best sellers read. They lug their books in and out in large bags. I wonder if they are not isolated as much as the person who watches movies all day or spends too much time on the internet. How can they read this much material each week and get anything else done? Perhaps there is a down side to reading as there is to anything else. The other extreme was the woman who turned in one book that she had not enjoyed, and checked out one book that she hoped she would like better. I wondered why she might not check out more than one, say perhaps TWO, so that if she doesn’t like one she has another option? But as my husband often tells me; “You can’t manage EVERYTHING” so I guess I’ll just leave people to use their library as they see fit.

It was a great day; a great way to spend time and earn a living at the same time. I am so lucky!

July 8, 2009
by dawnkinster 11 Comments

Cramming a lifetime of memories into one long weekend

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Spending the July 4th holiday weekend with family in the south was a treat. Part of the weekend was spent at my brother’s home on a big lake, part of the weekend was spent at my parent’s home on another large lake. Both places played host to all four of us; siblings together again for a few days, goofing off like we did when we were kids. Of course not having Mom and Dad there to share it all with us lent a low grade melancholic feeling that persisted beneath the laughs, good food, great boat trips and crazy conversations.

Along the way were a few things that stood out:

Watching 4th of July fireworks from a boat, just like we used to do as kids. There were at least a thousand boats anchored at one end of the big lake, private fireworks going off along the shore, the official fireworks at the dam competing with the almost full moon, and Dad’s big dipper hanging high in the sky.
Photographing scores of patriotically decked out wave runners as they sped by our boat in a watery version of the traditional holiday parade.
Listening to a celebratory concert at “two tree island” while floating next to the boat, my toes turned up to the evening sky in a salute to Mom’s swimming style.
Eating a sweet ripe peach, the juice running down my chin, then eating another just because I could.
Running my fingers over small wooden figurines on Dad’s bedroom dresser that years ago had resided on our kitchen windowsill, bringing back memories of teenage years in another place and time.
Stopping for a moment during a boat ride in the warm summer air beside the mountain where we had spread their ashes to pay our respects.
Watching a storm come in across the lake, listening to the wind beat the roof and windows, the rain going sideways across the yard, being glad we were there so the house wasn’t facing the storm alone.
Playing Mom’s piano. It took both my sister and me to haltingly make it through some of the music left behind. Our four hands couldn’t play what her two hands had played so beautifully such a short time ago.
Looking around the cabin as we left, saying a silent goodbye to them. Telling them I loved them. Hurrying away before the pain overwhelmed. Seeing a marquee sign out front of the first little gas station a couple of miles away that said simply “Love You.” Knew it was a message that they loved us back.

July 4, 2009
by dawnkinster 3 Comments

Sitting fat and happy

I’m here in the deep south, sitting in the shade, sipping sweet tea, watching the crazy jet skis and boats out on the lake. Been swimming at least a couple times already today, will go again this evening before the fireworks. It’s a wonderful life.

Hope you are all enjoying your Fourth…more later…that sweet tea is calling my name…

July 2, 2009
by dawnkinster 3 Comments

Deer one, gardener two. So far.

Deer love day lilies. Of course we didn’t know that when we planted a whole lot of them on the south end of the house. Most years we don’t see many blooms. This year for reasons known only to the deer themselves, they didn’t eat many of the lily plants we’ve never seen bloom, and they DID eat those that in previous years they’ve left alone. Here’s what they didn’t eat:

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And an example of many that they did:

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Darn deer.

Tomorrow early I fly south for the weekend with my siblings. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend, if you’re in the States. If not, have a great weekend in general! See you when I get back. Everyone stay safe please!