Rowing Rhinos

In some fantasy I made a pact with Time. Time agreed to extend my moments of delight and to shorten the difficult ones. 

Proof of the pact showed up Friday afternoon wending my way back from an errand in Berkeley. My preferred main drag from Oakland to Berkeley and back is by way of The Warren Freeway also called "13."  Part of 13 is called Ashby Avenue. On the part of Ashby between College Avenue, which is a main drag for exotic shops and a variety of ethnic restaurants, and the iconic Claremont Hotel - all white and crystalline doing its best to imitate a Swiss ski chalet, there it is a rather magical strip of road. Both sides for a bit sport houses; further south there are collision shops and the Transcen-Dental office with a Transcen-Dentist! (Gotta love that, right?) 

While chug-chug-chugging up hill Friday through afternoon traffic which begins, I think, at 12:01, I spied something new on the fence of one of my favorite Craftsman Style dark redwood houses. It was a framed photo about four feet wide by three feet high of a human rowing a row boat with one unusual occupant: a Regal Rhino looking straight ahead. The voluptuousness of the rhino's armored flesh indicated that it was well cared for and not wanting for food. Oddly, the boat wasn't tipped toward the prow.

Friday was a turning point weather wise. We'd been enjoying June Gloom to its fullest with lows in the 50s.  Friday was also Summer Solstice, so I was already inclined to lean into the light and enjoy as much as I possibly could enjoy of this longest day. It was a very warm afternoon, with just enough breeze billowing out of the deep shade of stately redwoods in back yards, front yards and side yards to make it tolerable with the windows down. 

I sat gawking at the photo as it was directly in my line of sight. The background depicted a gray bay with monochromatic ice-covered hills - maybe a fjord the duo were rowing across. I was mesmerized with my head turned toward the cool picture on my left - even as I attended to the car in front of me which kept slipping backward a bit every few moments during the elongated red light - extended on account of my pact with time to extend delight. I took in every detail I could and marveled at the oddity of this human and ancient being engaged together in crossing a fjord. What were the circumstances of this event? What prompted the quest? Where was the photographer standing? 

Gregory Colbert presented to the world a marvelous collection of photos and movies called Ashes and Snow. This rowing rhino pic reminded me of Mr. Colbert's photos - odd pairings of people swimming with elephants, women petting jaguars, a child reading to a kneeling elephant. 

Is the photo on Ashby inviting all of us to be personal escorts a là Noah? Are we meant to pause and consider being personal saviors to animals which may go extinct as sea levels and temperatures rise round the globe? Shall we all build an ark or at least get a boat to row? (It does feel as if I'm getting a little dinghy!) 

I want to know more about the story behind this display of beauty that unexpectedly presented itself to me on the ride home. 

*.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  

The other sure fire way I'm certain my pact with Time is being honored is that my daily meditation feels like an hour long deep and refreshing rest when I'm only sitting for about fifteen minutes! Such a deal! What does Time require of me? 

Well... She said I must be absolutely present in every moment - a skill I'm cultivating but certainly have not yet mastered. 

Time is a feminine feature of the world, did you know? You can tell by her elasticity and ability to contract graciously during - say childbirth's hardest contractions. She must know of the feminine experience intimately to do that. How many women do you know who have said of something unpleasant, "Oh, it's just like labor, you'll forget it as soon as it's over?"

So, Time and I made this agreement and I'm practicing presence. I still wanna know what the heck that photo of rowing rhinos is meant to signify and why someone posted it on the fence. Was it just so I could enjoy it in traffic on Solstice? 

Thank you, Universe for the catchy-eye-candy of rowing rhinos. It's a catchy phrase. Thanks for that, too. And thank you, Time, for the long cycle of red light so I could enjoy it!

*.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  

Summers are meant for languid enjoyment of light filled days. 

In 1989 I became godmother to an eight-year-old young woman from the Cree Nation. Reina and her mother Peggy were in town from outside Edmonton, Canada to see my teacher Rosalyn Bruyere, renown healer.   Reina and I hit it off splendidly in the waiting room / reception area of the Healing Light Center in Glendale California. Our friendship blossomed and lasted over decades and through letters and frequent packages I sent her in the far north. Her descriptions via phone calls allowed me to see in my mind's eye the midnight sun in summer and the darkness of winter and the toll it takes when you do not have a speck of light or warmth for an exteeeeeeeeended period of time. 

Perhaps Reina would relate to the photo of the ginormous regal rhino, horn to the skies, being rowed across a nearly frozen fjord. I wish I knew what became of Reina. The last package came back. No trace of her. No new number no forwarding address. I'd like to think it is she who rows the rhino. 

To happier shores! Good Soulstice!

Tummy Troubles

Izzy first came to work with me when she was eight.

Diagnosed with Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis, she and her mother showed up at my office full of energy and bubbling with joy. Izzy had recently spent nearly two months in hospital, right through Valentine's Day and her birthday, so they were particularly delighted to be out and about.  The family was referred to me by another of my clients whose child had made significant progress on a similar journey.

One of the diagnoses we serve at The Painted Turtle Camp in Lake Hughes, California is Crohn's disease. It can be debilitating and embarrassing for young ones especially during adolescent years if a colostomy bag is required when part of the intestine has had to be removed or it's just taking a rest so the colon can heal from a surgery.

Izzy's hospitalization was difficult for the whole family, as mother, father and younger sister spent many, many hours there with her, but still had to feed pets at home, run carpools, go to school, and work.

One of the therapeutic techniques of particular import for children, well for anyone who's had a life-impacting event, is to create a coherent narrative. In Izzy's case, she was eager to dictate her story of the hospital experience and to illustrate the days spent there with wonderful pencil and later colored-pencil-filled-in drawings.

Rabbits figured big in her drawings... as if every family member was a bunny with long ears. She showed the doctors, nurses, dietitians, family, and visiting friends all as bunnies. The birthday and Valentine's Day drawings were particularly colorful and poignant. She drew herself lying down with lots of people all around her, but looking very alone and tiny in the middle of the bed. The words to that part of the story included her love for the chocolate candy someone brought her, but of which she was allowed only a nibble - like a bunny.

Over the course of our work, we employed many different games and self-help techniques - some of which were for sensory awareness. When the body hurts so awful much, there's a wisdom that kicks in. We vacate the premises. Part of the hospital stay was to try different medications to ascertain which drugs helped the pain abate and which ones were too numbing or stupefying. 

Our smart bodies are good at something called "localized dissociation." When the pain is localized and just too much to be with all day long, the body cleverly retracts awareness from the site - sometimes. Other times it seems as if we'll never be rid of the pain. Localized dissociation can be a good thing. It can also need support when we want that part to come back on line, or back into the mainstream of our ordinary awareness of body. Any part where consciousness cannot reach cannot be fully alive. Pain and all, our most healthful state is to be aware of all sensations.

Some of the games we used included exercises from Brain Gym by Gail and Paul Dennison. Standing with feet crossed, crossing arms thumbs down, interacting fingers and bringing the knuckles up under the chin, rolling the eyes back and curling the tongue to touch the top of the inner upper front teeth where they meet the gum line, and inhaling and exhaling deeply three times can recalibrate the connection between our left / right brain hemispheres, giving us an upper edge in focus and attention out, and leave us feeling refreshed. There are other games in the delightful book which are useful to kids of all ages - nine-month-olds to nonagenarians. (Babies and toddlers may need outside help.)

Games to listen to the body's sounds was an essential one for Izzy. When gurgles hurt, we tense up automatically hearing hunger pangs announce it's time to eat. Differentiating the good sounds from the painful ones was one of the most important interventions we got to do. She learned to mimic the sounds of her tum tum (her words) with her mouth as if to sing along with that part of the symphony.

The name of the book she wrote is called, "Tummy Troubles." The set of games in a box I sent home with her was called "Tummy Troubles To Go."

She chose one every time she was feeling edgy, nervous, tense or upset and also one at bedtime, just to help her go to sleep. Her Book was also part of her bedtime routine.

Overtime, Izzy was able to feel comfortable in her body even under conditions where she used to have tension, like school. Her book helped her to reintegrate when she shared her funny bunny pictures with her classmates and teachers who had really missed her when she was away. 

Tummy Troubles may always be a part of her story, but they do not have to be the central focus of her life. 

Trance-Ended

Jim Kwik is one of those fast-paced and brilliant marketers who has a wonderful program to offer us: HOW to LEARN more QUICKLY. (Kwikly?)

Because I cannot resist a PUN, one of his word-play offerings caught my eye. 

He broke down Transcend into Trance and End. I love the idea of ending the trance in which I and many of us find ourselves living that makes us repeat ad nauseam the put-down mantras of our past: I'll never be smart. I'm too dumb to understand this (your subject here). Maybe next lifetime I'll be good at (your wish here).

My personal trance seems to be: Nah... visibility is not for me. Publishing a book is dangerous. 

I'd like to end this trance, but fear what will happen if I DO complete my nemesis of a chapter: Chapter EIGHT! Chapter Eight has got me stumped, so, if I don't finish it, I won't have to struggle and get this dang book OUT, right? Seems a cosmic joke that I'm struggling to give birth to a book about getting stuck during the birth process that left me with an imprint of hopeless helplessness!

It's a losing proposition. As someone I love says: You miss 100% of the shots you don't try. (Don't ask me about those Warriors, please! I was knitting while watching Saturday's basketball game between the Dubs and the Raptors. From willing them to MAKE those three-pointer and free-through baskets they were trying for, my tension got SO inTENSE, I had to undo some of the knitting so the hat I'm making wouldn't end up being a head-ache band!)

The shots I'm not trying are Chapters 9-12. What would happen if I did walk away from the not great eight? Nothing. Except...  the incentive to finish the book might return. What a concept! 

EMERGENCE is a unique perspective on how our coming into the world marks us. Emergence shares simple tools for undoing the Fight, Flight, and Freeze that may have been locked into our nervous system when they couldn't be expressed. The bound energy of those Three Graces, F, F, and F can persist well into our adult years. Unresolved birth trauma can make navigating life much more difficult than need be.

I'm ready to emerge into the world as an author, but for the fact I've not yet ended the Trance; I've not yet Trance-ended the messages of helplessness I took to the marrow way back when I came into the world. 

Who's gonna guide me out of the trance? Who's gonna help me find the way past Chapter eight, which maybe is too close to my own birth story to be able to see my way through it. 

So many modalities. So many great results over decades! Finishing touches make the day. Where's the glitter? Where's the bow on the package? Just a little further... wait! I can see the light at the end of the proctoscope... and am hoping it's not the light of an on-coming train!

If it isn't one thing, it's your mother. 

Mom and I were up there on the ceiling of The Stork's Nest Lying In Hospital for Women in Inglewood, California on October 6, 1948 - looking for each other. Both of us out of our bodies looking down on the inert woman who'd been given morphine and ether and the bluish looking baby as she came out of the woman. Maybe our spirit selves shrugged our etheric shoulders. Maybe we made a Bee-Line for the bodies that we wanted to live in. Gee,  wonder if we got mixed up? So many times, it felt to me as if I was the mom to my mother and that she was my child. Hmmmmmm.... Nah... meant to be. I was the baby. She was the mom (most of the time).

Oh, dear, I'm getting so sleepy. Is it the conjuring of ether? SO sleepy as I write. wow!

Nodding off. wishing I could talk with her, now that she's gained a much broader perspective of the world. I do believe, that when we die to this world, we find ourselves in a world of pure consciousness... where there is no up/down, Left/Right.. Only awareness of concepts and directions. When my eyes close, I'm inside the computer and keys from an old Underwood Typewriter are striking me with all their metal arms. They are springing up on me randomly, without pattern or predictability. 

Awake now.  Perhaps 5 hours sleep is not enough for a groaning girl.

Noise and Mama's Back

Okay, google. 

That's what Mark says to his phone or tablet.

OKAY, Mark... when are you going to google how to turn the sound down on your phone? It beebs and chirps and squeaks and farts at random times when you're getting messages, emails, notifications and just because it's willful and rude and it's very L - O - U - D. 

I keep mine in silent mode during the day and put it in another room when retiring to bed for the night. I cannot stand the light of the screen, or the buzzing, or any other noises it makes, so I just put it out of sight, out of range of hearing, and out of mind for a full six to eight hours. Aaahhhhh. Silence.

Yours on the other hand, darling is in squawk mode 24/7.

Unaccustomed as I am to anger, I will NOT be angry about the noises that disturb my sleep, but I will be proactive to remind you that your office is a far superior place to park the noise-maker for the night.

Blowers. I hate them. 

Are you plagued by blowers in your neighborhood? Mercifully, we are not, but have seen gardeners using the infernal and ridiculous  machines on city streets, in parks, on parkways, and in front yards of homes in the hood slightly removed from ours. (No one on our street has the kind of yard that warrants that kind of maintenance, so it's a drive to find blowers in use.) Did I mention that I hate blowers?

When we lived in Studio City, our gardener of twelve years died of liver cancer. He was not a drinker. His liver gave out because he wore an infernal gasoline powered blower on his back and daily breathed in tetrahydrozaline, the compound that makes gasoline smelly. When Mike  died, and I found out the cause, I banned the use of blowers on any property where we lived. Period. Blowers only scatter dust, leaves, grass clippings and NOISE. They do not clean up anything. A decent broom and pan would be embarrassed to do their job so poorly. 

Blowers don't care. They barge in and take over an afternoon just wreaking havoc on quietly napping babies and seniors. A siesta is  sacred time. Hanging a "Please do not disturb" sign on the front door does no good. Blowers don't read and their wielders don't care or don't get close enough to heed the plea.  Gas powered motors pollute. Give a hoot. Don't pollute!

Another source of irritating noise is the motorcycle. Have you been dozing by a warm spot in your cozy home only to have your cozy dozy time blown to smithereens by the testosterosa trick of revving the engine whose muffler is hooked up to a megaphone? The caterwauling of a Harley Motor could wake the dead. Here's what I propose:

Choose electric. Electric engines are quiet. True, they only defer the burning of fossil fuels upstream, instead of in your very own engine, but maybe solar or wind will wend its way into our energy stream soon. But for now, the electric motors or even hybrids are much kinder to our ears. 

Harley Davidson says they will be promoting electric engines on their 2020 models. Staunch supporters of the old-fashioned way of doing things relating to motorcycles may squawk, but being kind to the environment is not a wussy thing to do. Anymore, those who ignore the signs of climate crises do so at their own and everyone else's peril. No longer can we pretend that taking the blood of The Mother out of her veins and burning it to make clouds of carbon that change weather patterns is a good idea. 

It is NOT nice to fool Mother Nature... said the sellers of New, New Nucoa, The Margarine larger in Vitamin A; New, New, Nucoa in one, two, three pats a day! (or was it Parque? Parkay?) That was the 1960s. Any way, even today, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature! Watch out. She's trying to get us Vermin Beings (or are we really human?) off her back! She's becoming the big bad wolf. She's huffing and puffing and trying to blow our houses down with wind gales that spin and pour water and create floods and drown as many of us and our unsuspecting fellow creatures on the planet as she can. Eerily, she hasn't (recently) shaken her back to be rid of us. I suspect when she does, it will be chalked up as San Andreas' Fault. Mother Earth... it's not nice to try to fool us either! Your'e the one who's trying to get rid of large swathes of the population. Don't point fingers at fault lines. They might get angry and become quite shaken up about things. So Please, Mama Earth, If we promise to be good and promise to reduce our carbon footprints and promise to reclaim as much of the carbon that is being released by the frozen tundra thawing as we can, will you, please, pretty please with carbon-eaters on top stop trying to shake us off your back? We'll be the best children you ever had. We'll try to curb our hubris, greed, and ignorance. Really we will. 

Noise reduction is just a start.

Thank you, Mama!

Take a Hike

Take a hike she said. 

So, I did. 

She and I and six other gals at Point Reyes in the rain, hiked to

 the beach, dodging rain drops.

 I saw taller than I am Cow Parsnips.

 

Finally, up close, I was able to differentiate their bigger than a large-man-hand-five fingered fuzzy leaves from the feathery carrot top leaves of poison Hemlock. Both have convex white umbels. Both grow in dense wild areas. Apart from the leaves being very different, the Hemlock has distinguishing reddish purple blotches on its stalks. Knowing the difference could save a life. 

In my twenties, I heard about a boy on the beach where Malibu Creek let out onto the sand at the base of a cliff. His family watched from their picnic blanket with pride as their ten-year-old son fashioned a flute from a reed that grew along the creek and began to blow it, making a whistle like sound. They were horror struck when he keeled over. At the lifeguard’s directions, they rushed him to the closest medical facility. On the way, the boy died. The family were in shock, disbelief, and grief-struck. Autopsy showed concentrations of Poison Hemlock in his mouth and trachea. That stuck with me. Socrates’ mandatory “suicide” is chalked up to drinking Hemlock. Potent poison. Glad to know the difference!

The day after hiking to the beach from the Hostel in Point Reyes, we hiked at Abbot’s Lagoon and again all the way to a different beach along the less than peaceful Pacific. More Hemlock, more Cow Parsnip, purple Irises, 

orange Monkey Face Flowers, red Paintbrush, 

Coastal Poppies,

Thimble Berries,

and plentiful bird species greeted and delighted us.

Male Quail was keeping a watchful eye as chicks foraged in the underbrush.

Volunteering to help remove invasive species at Half Moon Bay a few years ago, gave me better perspective on just how invasive and persistent Hemlock is. Ditto Ox Tongue’s pretty yellow flowers on prickly prickly stalks springing from ouchy ouchy leaves. Gloves mandatory.

Tujunga wash is a tried and true favorite place to hike. Recently, friend Julie and I hiked, on another rainy day, and marveled at the sound of rushing, gushing Tujunga Wash. Everything was in bloom. Including human hubris.

This has been a Super Bloom year. Golden Poppies Purple Lupine. Bees are happy. No glyphosate in the wild. We hope.

Point Reyes Book Store had this in the window:

Celebrating Mothers!

Mothers allow life to flow through them. Whether a woman has consciously asked to become a vessel for life, or was unwittingly caught off guard, or violently entered and, and, due to varied circumstances, had to succumb to growing within her womb what may be a frightful reminder of rape, babies are born or found in want of a mother by a woman (usually) who wants to be one and scoops that babe to her breast. 

Babies are life's yearning for itself said Kahlil Gibran. Nurturing a life is the task offered. Women (and men) cannot help but want to support new life to thrive. Distractions, poverty, illness, whether mental or physical, get in the way, but I believe that children, for the most part, highlight our instincts to make sure the next generation thrives. We do the best we can.

Children grow and become adults who beget more children. Insidiously, we have been distracted from the all important task of truly nurturing life and find ourselves in an environmental crisis on Planet Earth. Here we are, trying not to destroy ourselves as we destroy everything around us with our super smart brains and ZERO spiritual intelligence. Our hubris is so big, it's as water is to fish. We are blind to the fact that we're steeping in stupidity, avarice, arrogance, and greed, but we are.

Friday, my cozy and privileged Nor Cal family and I took BART to San Francisco to see the musical "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The Roald Dahl classic children's book has been updated and rearranged to provide a timely message for us all. Scintillating singers and daring dancers bond to make this musical magical.

What DO we do with gluttony? Ask Augustus Gloop who falls into the Chocolate River he's trying to drink-up. What do we do about entitlement and acquisitiveness? Ask Veruca Salt who, in this version, is a Russian bad nut (Verushka!), who wants everything and she wants it NOW! Her father is a slippery-slope-soto-voce-deal-making sinister tycoon in furs, also accustomed to getting his way. How do we deal with those who take what they want and damn the consequences? Ask Violet Beauregard. In this case, poor Violet is not a shrinking violet, but rather a grab and go gal who despite Mr. Wonka's protestations grabs the gum that is not yet ready for consumption. She is 'Queen of Pop' and just HAS to keep chewing.... until she does pop, when the blueberry pie dessert portion of the great-tasting three-course dinner flavored-gum ball goes wrong, causing her to swell to the proportions and color of a gigantic blueberry until she  *pops*. Spectacularly, she pops, splattering her cheering-her-on-disregard-the-rules-father. She pops like one of her own bubblegum bubbles. The fourth child, Mike TV, is addicted to screens, hand held or big. His mother is also addicted, but to drink.

Little Charlie and his Grandpa Joe are the last men standing after all the other kids who've won golden tickets to tour the Chocolate Factory and their chaperones have been eliminated for cheating or not following Wonka's rules. There is magic afoot in the story. Wonka and Charlie Bucket are alike in their zeal to create new and wonderfully workable solutions to problems in the world. Love and Kindness prevail in their set of values. May it always be so. (Personally, my hope for our world is dimming.)

Not sure we're gonna survive ourselves in fifty or even twenty years. At the rate of species extinction, perhaps we have thirty years MAX to turn things around before the Luna Option* is tried as last resort.

Is our human nature to be greedy, like Augustus? Not sure about that. What is it we really want? Is our human nature to be self-important and entitled, like Veruka? Seems that way, doesn't it? Is our human nature to be altruistic, generous, and kind, like Charlie? Hah! Where did you get THAT notion? Not visible anywhere in our leaders 'round the world, is it? 

Charlie is kind. Charlie is self-deprecating and wants to share with his parents and grandparents whatever wee bit of joy he finds in the world. Where'd he come from? Where will he land, now that he's been made part-owner and collaborator on Wonka's factory and knows how to work the Great Glass Elevator? Will fame and fortune spoil Charlie Bucket?

One of the most thrilling scenes of the evening for me was looking sideways to witness nearly ten-year-old Grandie Devlyn as she devoured the eye candy of the musical's grandeur. Clearly, she enjoyed the spectacle.

Last October, for my birthday, Mark got primo tickets for the four of us in the center of the Orchestra row J! Spectacular seats! Not so close that we were drenched in flop sweat from the dancers, but not far away enough to warrant opera glasses. We could see the actors' facial expressions! 

Before the curtain swooped up with opening strains of the overture, Devlyn and I had a chance to visit with some of the musicians tuning up in the pit. We counted three Saxophones, two Clarinets, six Guitars, three Keyboards, one Violin, Cello and Bass, four Brass Horns, and a Drum Set. She knew by name quite a few of the instruments. Thrilling to see them up close and personal and have musicians light up as Miss D showed interest.

Glad to be a mama of two and Gra'Moose to Miss D! Glad I had a choice when I was nineteen not to become a mom, then choice-fully conscious when I was ready for Life to flow through me at twenty-eight. SO glad to have (finally) chosen the perfect mate for all this magic to happen! I am very very lucky and grateful.

For all of us humans, male and female, there is a creative womb space where creativity dwells. Whether we design and build musical instruments, clothing, mechanical tools, or write stories, sing, dance, creatively support friends, or become parents, necessity is the mother of invention. Each of us is mother to some idea, artifact or creation We're all artists fashioning our lives. Pure Imagination, sings Willy Wonka.

Happy Mother's Day.

* Luna is the name for Earth's colonized moon after Earth dies in a Sci-Fi short story I wrote.

Anniversary

April 30, my beloved and I celebrated forty-seven years of wedded bliss. When we tied the knot it was in a field adjacent the home where I grew up in Echo Park. Surrounded by our families and friends we followed the promptings of the "right on Rabbi" Alan Secher, as we recited our self-crafted vows to one another. It was a beautiful ceremony and party. We absented ourselves before dinner and drove to Santa Barbara just a couple of hours up the coast to a motel with waterbeds. We only had the weekend away from work, but enjoyed the mini-vacation tremendously - walking around the historic downtown and relaxing by the pool and walking on the breakwater.

For this 47th anniversary, we took ourselves to the mountains. We enjoyed three meals a day for the long weekend, also wonderful company, arts 'n' crafts, fishing, boating, archery and a talent show Saturday evening. We went to The Painted Turtle Camp to be volunteer counselors!

Such fun to interact with families and play with kids. I got to meet a young author I'd heard about for the past two years who wrote the book, "Campity Camp Camp Camp!" Fourteen- year-old E, wrote the book during another family camp when she was twelve and she only had one other sibling  This time, her two young brothers, E and E, Dad Joe, and Mom E were there along with twenty-eight other families for this weekend of PIDD (Primary Imuno-Deficiency Disorder), Liver Transplant, and Arthritis diagnoses. Mom E explained to me that all three kids also had middle names beginning with the letter "E." With a surname that begins with "P," that means all three have initials spelling EEP! Saves on monogramming, for sure! And perhaps serves as family cheer. Eep, Eep, Eeeeep Eeeep Eeeeeeep!

I observed that even with the incredibly long days as family camp pals, my honey and I were still able to complete our physical therapy routines each morning at camp. I had to get up at five a.m. in order to get through all my routines for whiplash and shoulder tears and still have time to bathe, dress, and eat a small pre-breakfast snack before meeting my family at the High Ropes Course by 6:50.

I was assigned to a wonderful veteran family. The B family is comprised of Mom G & Dad R, older sister A and younger sister S. Such a lovely and loving family, well-versed in the rules of camp and the joys and pleasures of family projects. We hung out a lot in the Arts and Crafts building. S and I made binoculars as part of this session's "WHO-DUNNIT?" A Mystery-Solving theme. The family also painted multiple Tee-Shirts supplied to camp by Abercrombie Fitch of the softest cotton EVER! S made one that proclaimed in bright green hand-painted letters: "TPT (The Painted Turtle) OR TPP (The Tinted Poodle).

Fifteen-year-old S missed her nineteen-year-old sister who was studying for law classes when I accompanied S to activities, but soon got into archery and the satisfying THWACK of arrow hitting target. We got to pet and groom miniature horse Carlitos, watch kids catching fish, which she decidedly did NOT want to do, and she FLEW down the zip line after climbing the high-ropes course that early Saturday morning. Among other things, S is an accomplished dancer and for stage night composed and performed an intricate dance to one of the currently popular rock songs. We had fun after each meal dancing to many songs choreographed and led by volunteer counselors at the front of the dining hall.

Saturday night, all the teens are invited to LNTC (Late Nite Turtle Crew) held in a room just off the main gymnasium. Pun, as my husband is known at camp is the facilitator of the ninety-minute program. Forty five years ago "Pun" nicknamed me "Moose," because he said I'm too big to call deer. It stuck, and at camps I've been Moose ever since.

This past Saturday night to celebrate our anniversary, we were both with the teens and several college-age counselors who adore hanging out with the teens and with Pun. He holds their attention while playing games utilizing the big TV screen. Our wonderfully talented friend John Ricci rigged up several templates for Pun to play Talk About, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and See-More Hints. Kids love shouting out the answers in these non-competitive games. 

We also got to play truth or fiction, responding to a written question that also contained the correct answer. Each team of about twenty campers and counselors could decide if we'd bluff or give the correct answer to the printed question. Our opposing team had to guess if we were telling the truth or bluffing an answer. 

The best part of the evening for me was watching my honey shine in the eyes of these young people and to watch their faces as he led them in a pretty fantastic closing where he teaches them that even when the going gets tough out there in the "real world," all they have to do to return to their happy place (camp) is to close their right eye, close their left eye, open their heart and they'll be back at TPT surrounded by love and permission to be who they are. Such wonderful advice.

Our happy place is camp too and it was perfectly magical to celebrate our love there.