Second Chances

January 2018 I flew to Seattle to spend some days with my 85 year old mother. Always healthy and youthful for her age, at every age, with no major illnesses or injuries throughout her life, 2017 had witnessed her dealing with severe health issues and a fall that left her with several cracked vertebrae that were still healing when I arrived.

She was fairly alone in Seattle by then. Her longtime partner had been suffering from dementia for several years. Her eight grown children had mostly left the state, and were scattered across the country and world. She had become disconnected and more reclusive in her cozy apartment amidst the bustling activities of the U district. She moved slowly, and seemed excruciatingly fragile.

I'm on the slippery slope, she said more than once during my visit. The last stage of my life. It's strange to think there will no longer be "a ME."

As I looked around her cozy apartment, filled with books and music and artwork, good food, and creative thought, I felt hopeful that she had surrounded herself with some of the best physical comforts life could offer at what seemed to be a last phase of life in this physical realm. Because in some ways, a lot of ways, it felt like she was preparing to move on.

I left the states that winter full of gratitude to have had the time with her, but acutely aware that her physical fragility was a harbinger of losing her beyond the veil. It was a bittersweet departure, to be certain.

But life is full of surprises with its serpentine twists and turns, ever folding back and forth upon itself. Repeating in some sense, but never exactly imitating what has happened before. Never one to stop moving, my mother kept on eating life's elephant one bite at a time.

Early in autumn this year, my eldest brother and his wife coordinated my mother's move from rainy Seattle to Boise, Idaho to be closer to them but also to save her from life's final years spent navigating an often rainy and gray city with never-ending road construction, horrible traffic congestion, and a human population that seems to grow exponentially every year.

She has sunshine now, a lot of it. But more importantly, she has hope. She has become lighter these months in Boise, which is a relief in no small way because I wasn't ready to receive a call I couldn't come back from.

When I speak to her from Denmark, she sounds content in a way I haven't heard before. She seems relaxed and decidedly not finished with this world and her time in it. She is reading voraciously and watching loads of movies on her new 50 inch television that she never wanted or felt like she needed but was thrilled to receive as a Christmas present from all of her kids. She is making plans for the spring when she can have an herb garden on her patio. Small things, but they matter.

2019 has been an exhausting year; a deep-down in the bones exhaustion filled with countless challenges, lessons, and changes that were wholly stressful even when for the better. But as we look toward 2020, I consider my mom's situation, and I am struck by the number of fresh starts life gives us: a seemingly endless array if we really pay attention.

Just when we think there is no renewal left, something unexpected happens and a we find another opportunity, another path, another dream, another happiness, another chance to begin again.

Happy New Year, 2020.

Dear Glenn

"It's hard to write with a broken heart. It's even harder to write when you are pretending that your heart isn't breaking, that things are good, that things are just as they should be. It's hard because a writer can't pretend very well when it is just between the writer and the what's needing to be written.

"Usually I wait. Usually I delay putting it all down until the feeling has passed, and I can morph my healing heart into lessons learned or challenges accepted. Not this time. Because the heartbreak I am feeling has created in me such a sense of self-doubt that I no longer trust I will come out of it. I can no longer trust that I will be better off after the heartbreak has subsided. I can no longer trust."


I wrote those words in early 2016, around the time I had made final decision to end my 15 year marriage to a volatile and controlling partner. I had already given an extra year and a half beyond my initial consultation with a divorce attorney in half-hearted hopes that things would improve.

Are you happy?

Three words.

The Facebook Messenger conversation about Brexit had abruptly derailed onto a very raw subject, but without hesitation, I answered truthfully about what I was undertaking. Other than my attorney, Glenn Eric Tornow was the first person to know I had filed for divorce.

At a time when I truly believed that I would never trust again, I instinctively trusted Glenn.

We always know what we must do, even if we are reluctant to begin. 

When I read the words that spilled out of me that afternoon, I recognize a woman who had finally broken. I felt crushed beyond repair. Because for too long, I had allowed another human being to dim the light inside of me and tell me that I wasn't good enough just being who I am. I had compromised too long, placated too long, numbed my mind and heart and soul for too long in service to a caustic, painful narrative created by someone else.

I vowed I would never allow it to happen again.

Having supper with lifelong friends that first summer, after many years apart, was reminder enough that I was reemerging. Kari made me look her in the eyes and repeated emphatically, with growing intensity, "You're back. YOU are back. YOU...are...BACK!" At which point, she made some sort of threatening gesture about what would happen if I ever "went away" from myself again. Stacy quietly nodded her approval of my potential garroting.

Are you happy?

So much has transpired since that conversation with Glenn. We fell in love almost immediately, and sprinted toward our life together. Along the way, there were those that warned we were doing it all wrong. Too much too soon would be the end of us. We should slow down and be more restrained.

True, it hasn't always been pretty.

In the year since I moved to Denmark, we have experienced business issues, financial issues, custody issues, kid issues, separation issues, and some heartbreaking disappointments. In spring, I miscarried. In summer, we postponed our wedding because "ex" issues prevented my daughter and son from joining us.  More than once, we pulled each other back from the brink of relationship failure, when stress and tempers got in the way of who we are to each other.

Are you happy?

Every day we live the challenges of building this life together: combining households, cultures, languages, finances, and families.

Am I happy?

Happy is just a mood. Moods can change based on external circumstances. 

Are you happy? Are you content? Do you love your life? Are you satisfied with your choices?

Soon comes Christmas again, followed by another New Year and the obligatory list of resolutions. The business of holiday celebrations is already overtaking these quiet moments of reflection.

But it is important for me to share these thoughts now before we embark upon another calendar year. Because this very personal, sometimes very public, journey has been as much about remembering who I once was as accepting who I have become. It is another way to honor my vow to never again let my inner light be stifled.

Yes, Glenn. I am happy.

So, thank you.

For reminding me to never give up. You are the very best example of resourcefulness and resilience in the face of adversity. You are my hero.

For sometimes stepping back when things have been difficult between us, but for never stepping away. You are my constant.

For loving me at my worst, but always believing in my best. You are my sweetest love.

For creating in your heart and in our life, a safe space in which I can heal and rediscover the person I am meant to be. You are my strength.

Above all, thank you for trusting in me. And for teaching me to trust again. You are my patience.

I go to sleep every night knowing who I am.

I wake up every morning knowing life is filled with possibility.

I live every day knowing I get to share my life with you.

Yes, Glenn. I am very happy. 

Celebrating USA Fourth of July, in Denmark 2017

Giving Thanks

Soap is cheap and water is free. 

My mother's refrain echoed throughout my childhood. It was her reminder to us that living in a state of physical chaos and personal dishevelment just because we were without immediate means was unacceptable. It was her not so subtle way of saying that things like class and self-respect should never be dependent on possessions or money. 

A child of the depression, she spent her growing years watching her parents scratch out a living. She and my father married, then spent many additional years struggling to feed and warm their growing brood. I was born into the tail end of their deep financial struggles. By the time I was a toddler, my dad was finally able to trade working three part time jobs for one full time with benefits. (My older siblings still admonish me for not having gone through the worst of it--living in a house with no finished walls and a stove that barely worked.)

Through all of it, my mother insisted that no matter our financial circumstance, we would always look our best, have a presentable home, and act like the "respectable brats" she knew us to be. 

It was something I took to heart as I made my way in the world.

My first apartment was a studio that I (barely) furnished with two cast off twin mattresses, a table from Goodwill, and a pet mouse that eventually got squished by the neighbor's broom when it escaped through a half-inch crack under the front door. The only window looked out onto a brick wall. Rent was $100 per month with heat and water included, and it was mine.

I walked to my college classes through a park near a local landmark hotel built in the 1920's. I lived on baked potatoes, and Ramen noodles, and had to carry my laundry several blocks to a coin laundromat. I had a radio but no television, and a land line phone for local calls only. Afternoons, I would sit on the mattress, eating my noodles, and write short stories longhand. I would make plans, envisioning my future.

It was my first tangible foothold on the long climb into a my life's journey.

My mother never accepted charity. It was a point of pride with her. She would rather starve, and sometimes it felt like we were. (Saltines not being such a hearty after school snack.)
I, however, cannot accurately count the number of times I have relied on the kindnesses of others to get me through. A home cooked meal here, some hand me down clothes there, an unused bus pass. Splitting rent between two paychecks because I couldn't afford to pay all of it on the first of the month. A formerly straight A student, I had skipped so much school my senior year of high school, the principal gave me special approval to graduate.

My high school principal, like so many others throughout my life, made an investment in my future, and he did it without spending a cent. It was a lesson I carried with me into my own career as a department and branch manager. Keep focused on the person; look at the whole picture. Don't be too quick to judge a person's potential; sometimes it gets trapped under mispent energy, and needs a kindly break to reemerge.

Those early adult years taught me the gift of resourcefulness. I learned to guard money as a last resort, sometimes ignoring it completely for long stretches of time, because it is too easily squandered if used in desperation or exuberance; I would hide money from myself and others. In later years, when I had gained some affluence, more than once I experienced the tone of a relationship change, where money was involved, to one of expectation instead of sharing. It is an unhappy place, to be loved in terms of what you can give, instead of who you are.

Today is Thanksgiving in North America. Traditionally, it is the start of excessive holiday spending. While it can be exciting to spoil each other with gifts, money and the things it buys is truly the least important thing we can give each other. At best it is a representation of life's meaning; at worst, it is a replacement.

In a society of rampant consumerism, we need to remember that money is merely another resource; it is a tool. Like a tool, it can be given, borrowed, or loaned, but it should never replace what is important. Because unlike what is truly important, money can be regained.

Money is not contentment. It is not happiness. It is not time together. It is not kindness. Money is not trust. It is not love. And for that part of me that hears my mother's voice echoing in my brain: it's not keeping a presentable house or acting like the respectable brat she knows me to be.

Baby Maria's Christening, August 1968

Happy Thanksgiving 2017!

Why Denmark?

It's a question I've been hearing a lot these days.

I'm not sure why it's repeated so often lately. Perhaps it's because some months have passed since I first made the decision to uproot my life and move to this faraway island nation. I had big dreams, big plans, a planned schedule for everything from learning the language to finding a job, marrying my fiance, and getting my kids here.

None of it has gone to plan. None of it.

So, after nearly a year of traveling back and forth between my life here and the remnants of my life in the states, I am also asking myself: why Denmark? Why this place instead of staying closer to the life I knew?

I have no simple answer.

It was the same question I heard when I decided to adopt my children from China those many years ago. Why China? Didn't I realize there were babies geographically closer that needed homes? Why? It's so far away, so different, so expensive, so not here, so not the same as what we know.

When people asked back then, I stated the only answer I knew. "My daughter (and three years later, my son), the child meant for me, is in China."

I can't say the same for why I came to Denmark. In fact, I left my kids in the U.S. with promises of getting them here as quickly as possible. A year later they are still waiting. Well, not really waiting. They have decided they will be finishing high school in the states, and visiting me on school breaks. It was an inevitable compromise given Alabama state laws, an uncooperative ex-husband, a lengthy settling-in process, and unproductive job search. It was inevitable; I just hadn't seen it at first.

So, why Denmark?

I moved to Denmark because I had fallen irretrievably in love with someone I believe is meant to be my forever companion. Yet, as beautiful and romantic as that statement is, such a decision comes at great cost. It is a cost measured in moments of deep frustration, terrible loneliness, and self recrimination that leave you questioning why such a risk could have been worth it. Why, when so many others live fulfilling, happy lives in roughly the same circumstances as I had before leaping into this far flung alternate reality. Why should I have taken such a chance?

It's not a simple answer. Especially when I alone must answer it, even when I have my own doubts.

Initially, I looked to my partner to provide reassurance that the decision would work out in the end, or at least made sense for me. But like jumping into a rushing river, life does not often stand still long enough to collect our thoughts about such a meaningful decisions after the fact. There is too much daily work to be done, meals to be made, projects to be completed, businesses to build, kids to be grown, trips to be planned, bills to be paid. Suddenly, this strange new alternate life just becomes...life.

My circumstance. My reality. My choice.

Becomes.

Our circumstance. Our reality. Our choices.

If we choose to see it that way.

What we set out to do is not always what happens. When I traveled to China fourteen years ago, I didn't envision the last high school years of my children would be spent living a split reality between the United States and Denmark. But I did know I would love my children forever, no matter our circumstances. That fact will never change.

Denmark feels like home now. But more than that, this life feels like home now. I long for my children daily, but even this sense of apart-ness has gained a sense of normal. When I consider the long term reality of who they are and who we all are together, I am reassured that we will all be okay. My partner, Glenn, and I just returned from a trip to spend Fall Break with them. Apart from my joy of just being around them for some uninterrupted days, I was able to observe my son and daughter as the incredible human beings they are, and will continue to be throughout their lives.

One evening, while playing a game of Monopoly, something set the four of us to laughing. I was laughing so hard, my son was getting exasperated, trying to get me back to the game. As George scolded me that I needed to focus, it felt like he had become the wizened adult and I was the vexing child.

I looked at Glenn, and said, "you know, this is what they'll be like when they visit us in the nursing home." We laughed at the comedic image. But it also gave me comfort, because it reminded me that we have many, many years ahead of us on this journey. To grieve too much for time apart only lessens the joy when we are together.

So, why Denmark? Because it is home, a home for not only our present but for our future, whatever form that takes. It was and still is worth every risk to be here. Things continue to settle, and we are still working our way toward the goals we have before us, but so is everybody in this life. We aren't there yet, but you never know what surprises might already be on their way.

Alabama, Fall Break 2017

The In Between

When I was in seventh grade, I read the series Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, and was instantly mesmerized by these fantasy novels that took place in a world where humans and dragons coexisted interdependently. As part of the fantastical world created by McCaffrey, humans and their dragon counterparts were inseparable, the dragon having imprinted upon their human shortly after hatching. The bond it formed with its human resulted in an emotionally conjoined duo, virtually inseparable until death.

McCaffrey's writing sparked my imagination, and resulted in writing my own series of fantasy adventures that (thankfully) were long ago discarded with other failed writing endeavors.

The element I found most intriguing about the Dragonriders of Pern and one that I have continued to ponder from time to time in the ensuing years, was the dragon's ability to take it's human in between. That is, the dragon, being a mystical creature, had the ability to move through time and space, traveling from one place to another instantaneously by blinking into the space in between the layers of visible physical existence.

To an observer, the dragon and rider would disappear momentarily, then reappear some distance away, or, if necessary, back into the same location. It would appear a fairly innocuous exit and entrance, happening in the blink of an eye. But to the dragon and rider, the experience was wholly different.

Once disappeared, they would suddenly be flying within a cold tear in space, determining reentry calculations and staving off intensely bitter cold.

It made for some glorious battle sequences.

It also provided me with an understanding that we, too, have our in between.

Ours may be absent of dragons, but it most definitely exists. It is the place between the sequence of our life events to which the world bears witness. It is the place where the strategy of life's battles is actually determined. It is the place where risk is weighed, where decisions are made, and where the calm mind can realistically discern want from need and false hopes from realistic expectations, difficult choices that too often aggravate the forefront of our consciousness relentlessly.

It is often a cold place. A place where we feel most alone.

The most fortunate among us have a partner to keep us warm against the driving cold, to help us in our strategic planning, and to help prepare our reentry into the raging battle.  Still, there is always the possibility our best strategy falls short. Or we are ill-prepared once we appear in the skies circling the battlefield. Or perhaps we arrive prepared, but the rules have changed and we no longer have the advantage.

So we retreat again. But not for long, because spend too much time in between and we freeze to death. We have to keep reemerging, not only for our own survival, but for those dependent upon us.

Yet, it is only the moments of appearing and disappearing which most people witness. Others often know nothing of our existence in between, where we are tired and unsure of what comes next, fearing what will be revealed as we make entry.

This is partly because we dragon riders have our pride, and want the world to witness only the best moments of our glorious battles. But from time to time, we falter in our resolve.

April 5 was one such day for me. It was the day I miscarried at nine weeks.

I had never been pregnant. I am at an age where most of my peers are either having grandchildren or are planning for them in the not so distant future. My beautiful kids, now 13 and 14, were adopted from China as infants.

To suddenly be pregnant was completely unexpected, and worrisome, and an idea that filled me with intense hope, and desire to have a baby again, regardless how impractical the idea. It helped that the man whose blueberry seed I was carrying is the love of my life, and he seemed to take it in stride. We're probably too old, but we will have a beautiful baby.

Knowing the odds were against making it through the first trimester, it shouldn't have been a surprise when we lost it. But that didn't stop my heart from fully breaking when it happened.

I felt myself slipping in between.

Glenn held me while I cried through that first night, and again when spontaneous bouts of tears and sadness would surface in the days that followed. His calm and strength never failed to reassure that we were in it together, and that I would never be alone.

His timing was also impeccable in knowing when the sadness needed airing. He took me for walks on the nearby castle grounds where we are to be married in an ancient chapel, made me laugh hard over ridiculous jokes, and always reminded me that there is too much good in this world to be sad over things that cannot be changed. He quelled my doubts that said I had failed.

He was my dragon determining my readiness for reentry into the battle.

Soon enough the pain became a soft memory completely overshadowed by my depth of good fortune. I came away knowing that having a partner so capable, and so fiercely protective of me in my sadness was worth any number of misfortunes. Equal parts of the same soul, we again faced life eternally bonded warrior-brothers, once again ready for battle.

It's a good feeling, knowing your partner always has your back. Because whatever comes our way, we will face it together.

Løvenborg Slot, April 2017

The Wrong Movie

The future of our world is changing. Or was already changed, and nobody noticed until now.

Perhaps we were all too busy staring at Facebook, or watching The Walking Dead, or generally sinking further and further into the social malaise that Neil Postman warned us about in Amusing Ourselves to Death which contrasts dystopian visions put forth by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley as dawning and intertwined realities in North American culture.

Inauguration Day 2017.

Time to wake up.

Suddenly the world was transforming into something...different. Our collective reality had suddenly shifted onto a trajectory that, until that moment was...unexpected.

The right words didn't come at first.

I found myself fumbling for appropriate description of the emotional impact the event had upon me. The victory was...strange. Somehow...counterfeit.

An alternate setting that should never have been realized.

Even Trump supporters seemed a bit dismayed when it actually happened. It was something from a reality TV show, a fictional Netflix series, a metaphorical advisory against the hubris of humankind. For the briefest of moments, even they hesitated to accept what had just been laid at their feet.

For my part, I had to sit with it for awhile. I had to consider what it might actually mean. It helps that I have the privilege of observing from a comfortable distance. Having moved to Denmark in mid-December provides breathing room to observe my beloved country as it struggles for traction within its self imposed asylum.

Truthfully, it pains me to watch, to listen, to be grilled with questions from outsiders about the status of the collective North American mindset that gave birth, either through complacency or overt approval, to this new era of xenophobic intolerance, sexism, and opportunistic malice. Whether or not this movement gains momentum beyond the boisterous few is irrelevant; what matters is that it can happen at all. In any country. In my country.

To assuage my misgivings about the state of affairs at home, I regularly seek those historical figures who best understood the dangers of politicians and government gaining too much control over our daily life.

I revisit the classic science fiction writers.

Listening to the discourse of every pundit, newscaster, and political affiliate railing for or against this new era does little to ease my mind. But give me an hour with 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, and suddenly things become quite clear.

These authors knew.

Either instinctively or through observation, Orwell and Huxley and Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke understood the way human groups interact. They understood how human groups consider each other. Layer on top of that the intent of government to control it's populations either through force or comfort or something in between, and the trajectory of our social construct was set. They simply noticed before anyone else.

Like the incarnate goddess Maat weighing the human heart upon the divine scale to determine its worth, these writers assessed the collective human pysche.

Sadly, they found it wanting.

They surmised that if humans could use social constructs and technology to observe and control under the auspice of protecting ourselves and each other, or protecting ourselves from each other, then we most certainly would. Fictional technologies written into their dystopian texts simply fulfilled that purpose.

The fact that we have since created similar technologies is no coincidence.

Because technologies may change, but humans never will.

The only thing that changes is which group takes their turn at creating havoc and imbalance within the human commune.

Who is the current conglomerate of humans to fracture the otherwise peaceful assemblage of individuals going about their daily lives? Who will be the next champions of terrorism, enslavement, genocide, brutal and vicious acts both collectively and individually? Why does the scale tip in favor of one or the other group, from time to time, historically?

The catalyst is simply... fear.

Because if we don't do it to them, they will surely do it to us.

Or not

But why take the chance?

Because the alternative means we have to stand in a constant state of passivity toward the transgressions that will surely be leveraged against us.

Or not.

It's best to seek balance. No one expects a person to not fight back when attacked physically, or threatened with harm, or when loved ones are in danger.

Evil walks; it finds its feet among humans.

But only if we allow it.

It's why World War II stands apart from other global conflicts. It was a noble fight. The center of that fight, the meaning of it was literally ordinary men and women standing against a very real onslaught of evil that had ensnared billions in its wake.

The smarmy political and government agendas that seek to exaggerate our differences and cast fear among us are merely wordplay.

For or against.

Us versus them.

Greatness is not achieved by demeaning others or through exclusion. Indeed, greatness diminishes in direct relation to the measure of our conceit.

After all, making mistakes might be the most consistent state of human existence, but accepting our failings, making amends, and seeking redemption is by far the most sacred.

Sunrise or sunset...January 2017

Careful What You Wish For

It is snowing today.

I am at the kitchen table staring out the window of our home in Løvenborg, Denmark. 

I am wondering why I am here.

Don't misunderstand. I made the right choice in coming here. I came here with a clear vision, a belief. I came here with faith in a person and situation that I had never before felt.

But reality is a hard taskmaster. What I thought was going to happen, or at least how it was going to happen, seems to be drifting further from my grasp. 

Where I felt hope, I now fear failure. Where I felt momentum, I feel only inertia. Where I felt a beautiful and amazing new adventure lifting my soul, I feel ill-equipped to do what is required of me to attain the very thing I came here to do: create a successful new life with my partner and our children.

It doesn't help that much of my old life is still packed in boxes, delivered in a crate from the US, and waiting patiently for me to again focus my energies.

Who knew that finalizing a divorce, moving to another country, being temporarily apart from my kids and permanently apart from family and friends, forfeiting all familiar domain over my life, all the while trying to adjust to a new culture, the rhythm of a new family life, learn a new language, and essentially start over in every true sense of the word, would result in feelings of depression, anxiety, and general disillusionment?

Okay, well some might have suspected.

Not me. I'm a romantic. I was too busy working the details of the transition, and taking care of everyone else to think much about the emotional ramifications on my own psyche. 

I know this struggle to gain traction is inevitable given the breadth of this life change. It is the logical backwash from the frantic push of effort that got me here within a relatively short period of time. Now the initial goal is achieved and the rush of  psychological adrenaline is dispersing, and I am left feeling what's next.

So, what is next?

I am once again standing quite clearly on the moment when before meets after. When the mountain I am about to climb is daunting enough to actually make retreating into the valley a consideration. Yet, as I look back over these months of effort that got me here, I think...perhaps I just needed a rest.

I haven't lost hope, and this might be my truest measure of success. Because if I haven't lost hope, then I haven't lost faith.

If we have faith in ourselves and in each other, then we can do anything.

So, maybe it's time to unpack more boxes.

Løvenborg Castle, February 2017