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

Word Blind

They say learning language is to use the same brain function as learning music.

We listen to a song, without knowing the words. Then we sing the words without really hearing the meaning. Then we begin to understand the meaning, but are unable to sing the song unless it is playing along on the radio.

Eventually, the song comes to us and we are able to sing it aloud, on our own, when the music isn't playing.

That's the theory.

The problem is the entire process of being "word blind," whether learning a language through immersion or struggling with learning disabilities has an overwhelming feeling of isolation. While admittedly the emotional separation can sometimes be self-imposed, there are moments enough when the isolation is real.

The language barrier can be an actual barrier. Any anthropologist will tell you that language defines our world view. It also defines our social mores, boundaries, cultural conversation, and general interaction between human beings who share knowledge of a given language.

One of my favorite observations about communication is from author Kevin Powers (The Yellow Birds). To paraphrase, what is thought is never quite what is said, and what is said is never quite what is heard. Even more so when two or more language barriers are involved.

The person who doesn't speak the dominant language is suddenly dependent on others to relate, interpret, and define a process that typically belongs to the individual alone. It's frustrating for all involved because our thoughts should be our own. Independent.

Even in the most committed relationship, the level of trust is challenged when we are forced to give over those processes for the sake of someone else's understanding.

So how do we break through? How to come to a place of understanding? Obviously, people do it every day. My son, and countless adopted children, transitioned from his birth language to English. My partner is fluent in seven languages. His son struggles with dyslexia, but is verbally fluent in three languages. These are just the people close to me. Life throughout this world is a constant journey of words and language, in myriad variations.

Yet, the process can be a bit like looking through a darkened window, trying to glean bits of starlight in the form of recognizable words. It's an unusual sensation for the independent minded, this listening too much. Constantly assessing conversations as puzzles to be decoded.

Casual conversation is a distant memory. Either I am all in, or completely disengaged. Finding the rhythm of a conversation is a constant act of contrition.

Sorry, I didn't catch that.
Sorry, what did she say?
Sorry, I don't know what that means.
Sorry, I am not understanding.
Sorry. Just sorry. Because I suddenly feel like I am drowning in words I don't understand, may never understand, want more than anything else to understand.

Until a moment comes, and suddenly there it is.

I catch one. Like a snowflake drifting into the palm of my hand; a butterfly landing upon the tip of my finger. An instant of clarity occurs, and I understand what was said.

Then I feel renewed, and filled with hope that maybe, just maybe, learning Danish is not beyond me.

My son, Georgie,
transitioned from Mandarin to English at age 4.

My bonus son, William,
struggles with dyslexia but is verbally fluent in 3 languages. 

Animal Magnetism

I am a horrible mother.

I was told this recently by someone I have considered a friend.

Maybe it wasn't said directly. But the meaning was obvious in the layered questions directed at my recent life choices, and in the individual's exaggerated concern about my children's well-being suddenly having great personal importance to them.

It's something I've heard implied several times since I ended my 16 year marriage.

While being married to a narcissist taught me to deal (reluctantly) with the push of criticism directed at the most vulnerable parts of my psyche, it doesn't lessen the sting. 

For me, I am most vulnerable about my kids, and whether or not I am doing a good job raising them. Am I giving them what they need to grow and thrive? Am I finding the balance between protecting their tender souls and letting them explore a world of ideas and adventures without fear? Am I helping them to understand that the world may be cold, but we find warmth in each other: in family, in friendships, in real love. Am I helping them to become who they want to be, are meant to be, deserve to be?

In young adulthood, I did not want children of my own. Dogs were enough. Books and travel were enough. Life was enough. But nearing my thirtieth birthday, I became aware that I carried a hole in my heart that could only be filled through motherhood.

My ache was not to become pregnant. As the poet Kahlil Gibran eloquently states, a child does not come from us, but through us. My children were somewhere else on the planet, and it became my all-consuming quest to find them. The invisible red thread drawing me ever closer.

From then until now, I have never stopped being a mom fully committed to the well-being of my kids. My current circumstance is no exception. Days or weeks apart does not lessen our bond. At worst, it is an annoying change in routines. At best, it is the process necessary to build a wonderful and amazing life together in a new place.

I do not leave them vulnerable and afraid. They are strong and capable, and joyous and smart. They have their father, and friends and family to take up where needed. 

A marriage ending is not always a tragedy. A mother bringing her children into a different life filled with emotional positives, cultural opportunities, and amazing adventures is not something to be disdained. Especially when the foundation of that life is a loving home, filled with shared respect, understanding, and mutual emotional support. 

In the end, there are only two people whose opinions truly matters. So far, they're good with all of it. 

Maybe their ease with my decision speaks to the strength of our bond. Maybe it speaks to the willingness of their hearts to choose love over fear. Maybe it's simply because my kids are remarkable, and the lives they have lived have never been typical or small.

Sun N' Fun Lakeland, FL- April 2008

Gracie, 5yrs - Georgie, 4yrs

Before birth they knew scarcity. At birth they knew abandonment, followed by raw hope when they were rescued. As toddlers, they learned the meaning of salvation.

So did I.

When I held each of them for the first time, I understood my purpose on this earth. They have me unconditionally.

My kids learned young that for every misery, there is equal part joy if we are willing to accept it or sometimes seek it out. Gaining something new does not necessarily mean we lose what came before. We carry all we are and ever have been within us. 

Circumstance changes. Real love remains.

This is what we three have taught each other.

All I Have

Life is not random. 

With clarity, we become aware that the threads of destiny have been woven through every moment leading to our current circumstance. We look back over the sometimes tumultuous, sometimes pristine landscape of our lives, and it is poignantly evident that every choice, every circumstance, for better or for worse, has led to this moment.

Purpose is subjective yet eternal.

It is an unremarkable conclusion, until we consider that if this is the case, within every circumstance we believed to be making a decision of our own volition, we were actually acting less on cogent thought and more on instinct. Like the salmon returning to their spawning grounds, we too are seeking the elusive yet tangible completion to our purpose. There will be many casualties in our quest, and if we survive to see it to completion, we will arrive bruised and exhausted.

The risks may outweigh the advantages, but taking the risk often holds the sweetest reward. It is a walk of faith to hear the purpose of our lives, a purpose that others may or may not understand. But our happiness should never be based on the expectations of others, To live fully, we must find our own meaning, our own life's rhythm. Most importantly, we must find our own joy.

There is always hope.

To live someone else's version of our life, at the expense of our own contentment, is no life at all. Love is not a prison. It is the ultimate freedom to be the best version of ourselves.

There is a time to fear and a time to ignore the uncertainty that creeps into our minds uninvited. Each of us must learn to decipher our own internal language, particularly when it is in conflict with the world around us, or with those in closest proximity to our lives.

When we are overjoyed with the possibility of life, that is often when others challenge us most heavily on the reasonableness of our decision. That's when we begin to doubt. We ask ourselves: why didn't I leave sooner, choose better, give less, wait longer?

But the answer is unknowable except in one regard. If we had done any of those things, hesitated a little longer or moved forward just a little quicker, explored a side road a moment deeper, lingered in a tomorrow that could only become an empty yesterday, then this perfectly serendipitous here and now would have been missed entirely.

Destiny is fluid, but meaning is constant.

Life is not random, but it is baffling in its complexity. 

More so that even in our most unseeing moments, we were actually listening to that still, small voice that led us to this moment. We never lost hope, even when we told ourselves we had.

Kronborg Castle, October 2016

Burning Witches

There are no winners in divorce.

I am not saying that divorce is never the right decision. Quite often, it's the healthiest decision a person can make. It certainly was in my case. But the process itself has no inherent reward. Every turn, every agreement, whether good or bad, right or wrong, reasonable or unfair, someone is getting hurt.

Divorce is a crucible. It is a trial by fire, and most who have weathered the process have the scars to prove it.

A midsummer tradition in Denmark dates back to the Viking era. Bonfires are burned near water to ward off evil spirits. As the Catholic church strengthened its foothold throughout Northern Europe, the festivities were appropriated by the church leaders and re-branded as the feast of St. John the Baptist.

From 1540 to 1693, the hysteria of witch hunting took hold of communities and congregations across Europe, and the bonfires were utilized to "cleanse" the community spiritually by burning persons accused of witchcraft, mostly women.

It is likely these individuals were burned because they displayed behaviors considered unseemly by others in the community. Personal vendettas, unrequited love, jealousy, all became basis for accusations.

I had never considered what those women must have felt, accepting that excessive judgment of wrongdoing. The day I received documents from my husband's divorce attorney, I understood precisely.

I did not recognize the woman described on the pages I held in my hands. Just as the women of long ago would not have recognized themselves in the descriptions of their accusers.

I was being led to the fire, and I instinctively knew that my kids were as well.

The only way to spare them, was to kneel down and put myself between them and the flames. Because nothing else I could do would be enough to protect them from the fires of accusations and misplaced derision if things were left unchecked in this mounting battle between me and my husband.

The last woman burned as a witch was in 1693.

I think about her now, about all of them.

She must have been terrified as the fire was lit. I imagine she also felt a great deal of sorrow, possibly as much for her accusers as for those she loved. Perhaps she felt a bit of amazement at the sheer lunacy of it all.

I like to believe some part of her was relieved. Not because she had won in any real sense, and not because she had been judged fairly, but because, despite their best efforts, her accusers could not take away the one thing they wanted.

Her soul was hers alone. It belonged to her and God, and to those with whom she chose to share it.

Nothing the others did or said would ever change that. Nothing ever could.

Sankt Hans Aften - Gentofte Lake, Denmark

Løve is Lion

My world has been changing in recent months. What began as a subtle crumbling of the earth beneath my feet, became an outright maelstrom of seismic activity toward the end of June.

Timing was strange to be sure.

After months of carefully transitioning and reworking an outwardly attractive life into a life that could also prove inwardly rewarding, the pragmatism of my thoughts and actions were suddenly infused with one superfluous yet overwhelming need...

I had to learn Danish.

No one was more surprised by this than me. Having only mastered travel Spanish and a smattering of Italian phrases up to this point in my life, I would not have envisioned learning one of the world's most difficult languages as top of my bucket list.

The first time I heard it, I was listening to a man speak to his son. As I listened to the rich tones and throaty expression, something shifted in my brain. I wanted to feel those words in my thoughts. I wanted to hear them issue from my own mouth.

Like all languages, Danish is unique in its nuances. The way words look does not necessarily resemble the way they sound. The way they are said does not necessarily reveal their true meaning. And because it is also a tonal language, the meaning can make subtle shifts depending on context.

Simultaneously forthright and subtle in its expression, the efficiency of the language belies its poetic center. There is a certain humor in its constructs, in the way the words come together: sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards, mirroring thought and action, word and deed.

But like most things that come with great difficulty, there is great reward in the process of learning.

Such as the moment I discovered the English word lion is spelled løve in Danish.

The intersection of these two words was more than happy coincidence in my mind. It signified the moment wherein the past and future I had been trying to reconcile for months successfully merged. That moment was not just about learning Danish; it was about my life overall.

The lion is regal and majestic, yet wild and untamed, and the lion's image symbolically empowers and edifies. The Danish word løve looks like the English word that describes the deepest and most intractable human emotion.

So if a lion is løve, then true love could also be a lion...an intimate protection against the pain of the world; a warrior-brother to stand side by side through everything; but mostly a friend and equal with whom to embrace what life is waiting to offer.

If such a connection between two languages could exist, then such a love might certainly exist.

Suddenly, the possibilities seem endless.

Orlando 2016

I left Orlando the day before the shooting.

My family and I had been trolling the usual tourist haunts for the week: the Disneyworld theme parks and Universal Studios. We took a ride in the Orlando Eye, and I made acquaintance with wax figure Tom Hanks at Madame Tussaud's.

It was a typical Orlando vacation, bittersweet only in the fact that prior to leaving we had declared it would be our last to the theme park capital before the kids are fully grown.

We arrived at the start of Gay Days, the annual LGBTQ community gathering across Disneyworld parks. It was a scheduling coincidence that was an anticipated curiosity, but a curiosity that faded quickly with more pressing concerns of the weather.

In between getting drenched by tropical rain storms, only to be steamed dry as the heavy clouds traded skies for blistering heat, we had the chance to interact with individuals, couples, and families of the LGBTQ community from across the globe.

As I look at the photos of the men and women who were ruthlessly murdered, I do not pretend to fully understand what members of the LGBTQ community might face in openly living the truth of who they are as individuals. I also do not pretend to understand the courage it takes to simply be in such contrast to the majority of society, and what it takes to live daily knowing that many, far too many in this supposedly enlightened age, still condemn who they are both collectively and individually.

What I do understand is this: every one of those men and women was a human being. Each one is someone's son or daughter, a brother or sister, husband or wife, a friend.

Every one of them had dreams and plans and aspirations that carried them through their days.

The twist of evil that frayed the murderer's mind into believing he had the right to do what he did is inexplicable to those of us going about the business of our lives. Whether it was religious dogma or political radicalization, or the decaying compost of hubris, arrogance, and latent hatred, the result was the same.

Innocents died.

Human beings going about their lives were murdered simply because someone didn't believe they had a right to exist. The zealotry that allowed this follower of Islam to commit murder is only the loudest repeat in the ammunition fired at a group of individuals desiring nothing more than to honestly live their lives.

So...Will you raise your voice in opposition? Or will you stand in silence?

Fear of Flying

Some say the emotional aberration is not the fear of flying, but rather the acceptance of flying as a sensible condition for the human body. They say that fear of flying is actually the primal voice of reason.

I disagree.

It is human nature to reach beyond what we are. Flying is just one example. 

Having been married to a pilot for some years, I am well aware of the fact that a fair number of pilots are scared of heights. These pilots train and learn to control not only their aircraft but also their own responses to precarious situations. They do this not because they are unaffected by the sensation of heights, but because they refuse to be enfeebled by it. They choose to act rather than react.

These men and women understand, through practice and tactile experience, that fear is a learned response, and it can only be unlearned by deliberate action.

It is a lesson that applies to all of us. Because we all fear something.

Every person will at some point or another hold back instead of moving forward; make an easier choice when a difficult one would have been better; turn away from a destiny.

Fear is the worst form of doubt, it extinguishes hope, trust, loyalty, honor. It destroys our potential for greatness, both collectively and individually. Fear keeps us standing still instead of moving toward our goals and aspirations, both big and small.

When this happens to me, I take a moment to remember that I have had the privilege

...of hearing thunder while it was snowing.

...of seeing rain fall through the fog.

...of hearing old men tell tales of fish falling from the desert sky.

I have had the privilege

...of glancing up into the jungle canopy, to find myself staring face to face with a spider monkey, our fingertips mere inches from touching.

...of witnessing flocks of grackles swarming the skies over my home, flocks of Red-breasted Robins scouring a field for worms after a rainstorm, flocks of green parrots flying higher than the rising sun. 

Fear does not dwell in these moments. Serenity dwells in these moments, and serenity is the exact opposite of fear. 

My Love of Travel

For a writer, reading and writing are two halves of the same breath cycle. Reading is breathing in; writing is breathing out. 

Yet, all the reading and research I can muster is, for me, a mere pittance when compared to the insight gained by travel. The experience of doing, of seeing firsthand how things work, how people live and thrive in other countries and cultures, how a certain road feels beneath your feet, how a certain fragrance wafts through a city at a certain time of day; it's irreplaceable.

Travel is both my hobby and constant aspiration. The process of preparation, the planning, the weighing of individual interests, the consideration of time and cost variables are equally satisfying. I love nothing more than thinking about our next great adventure.

My office bookshelf holds a variety of travel books. My favorite magazines are AFAR and National Geographic Travel. I have paper files crammed with articles ranging from quirky roadside statues, to enticing bistros on other continents, to historically obscure ruins, to contemporary technological wonders. My Google Favorites menu has a 'travel' file with subcategories divided by interest and country. 

Travel suits me. I am, by nature, a restless spirit.

But I am a restless spirit whose love of family has weighted the flightier aspects of my personality.

The idea of travel, as well as travel itself keeps me both enriched emotionally and grounded in my own life. While the fantasy of travel could be called escapism, for me it provides motivation to appreciate my daily life just that much more. Because the travel I envision, and most often experience, is a bridge into the unknown, but it's one shared with the people I love most in the world.

Travel opens us. It bonds us to greater humanity. It makes us better versions of ourselves.

Because of travel, I become a better writer.

When I am locked in my own head working on a project, I am far more likely to fret over the results than when I step outside my routine.The more I learn about the world, the more I learn about myself, the more relevant my writing is to those who might one day read it. 

And while my travel fantasies may find me hopping a flight to Paris or Mumbai, the reality of a busy household with two young teenagers, combined with the usual time and financial constraints, often keep my adventures much closer to home.

Still, the right attitude can turn the simplest adventure into a sparkling moment of serendipitous return. Art museums and libraries fill the gap between elaborate holidays. As do untried cuisines, new artisan shops, or simply meeting friends for tea. Spending active time outdoors never fails as a balm for this restless spirit. 

Travel, whether local or abroad, reminds me that my thoughts and stories are both my own and part of some greater conversation.

Travel is a window into the world. But more importantly, it is also a doorway that leads us straight into the heart of who we are as individuals. Stepping through that doorway, we learn what is most significant to each of us, and to those we love. 

                                                                                                        Bacalar, Mexico 2015
Be strong, and travel well. 

Friendship is Strange

I'm going home this summer.

I have visited my family every other year, more or less, since moving away from my hometown fifteen years ago, but this will be the first time in more years than I care to count that I will be seeing friends that I haven't spent quality time with since high school.

It feels strange. A good strange, but strange nevertheless.

Sixteen was a bad year. My parents divorced, and I lost my first real love, only to fall immediately into an unhealthy relationship that lasted nearly three years. By the time it ended, I had retreated into a tangle of self-doubt that took a long while to shake.

In my misdirected attempts at self-healing, I became an emotional nomad. I denied who I was at my center in favor of creating a version of who I wanted to be.

Along the way, I pushed some pretty amazing friends out of my life. Friends I'd had since I was in grade school. Friends I should have rightfully had well into adulthood, middle age, and beyond. Try as they might to stay with me, I became practiced at side-stepping, avoidance, being really busy or occupied with other interests, and generally moving in a direction away from where I had come from and everyone I had known.

Not an easy task in what was basically a large logging town in southwest Washington state.

Having lost my grounding, I gathered new friends, who hadn't known me early on. I married my college professor. I pretended that I was better than where I came from. I pretended I was worldly, and disinclined to acknowledge I was from working class beginnings. I espoused varied, sometimes conflicting, worldviews.

Insecurity wracked me as I made my way in the world; I felt like a fraud, because I was a fraud.

Eventually, I got it together. I finished my degree. I began really working at my career. I divorced my first husband, and remarried. I became a mom. I moved to Alabama, and became a stay-at-home mom. I'm working at being a writer, and best of all, I'm raising my kids.

I teach them: be authentic.

Don't be a chameleon. Pretending can't last, and no matter where or in what circumstance you find yourself, you are still the same person, and you are accountable for your choices.

In a world filled with chimerical personalities that shift and comply with whoever happens to be sharing their immediate space, I teach my kids to be true to themselves.

I teach them: don't shut out the people who really care about you.

The friends they've had since kindergarten, or first grade, or fifth grade: they matter. Even if they grow apart, those friends will always matter, because they matter now. The people they need someday, as they grow up and grow old, could very well be the people who knew them best when they were young.

So, this summer, you can bet I'll be celebrating the chance to reconnect with the friends of my youth. They're still here. Truly, they never left, even though I tried very hard to ignore their importance for a time.

Still apart, but always a part of me.

It's a Dog's Life

There are few moments that bring me more joy than watching our three Pembroke Welsh Corgis running to greet me. Those familiar with these short-legged, rabbit-rumped, big-eared wonders will attest that the Pembroke swaggering waddle (or swaggle as I like to call it) is its own flavor of exhilaration.

Whether I am gone for fifteen minutes or fifteen days, Riley, his half-brother Andrew, and the little one, Oliver, are the purveyors of a riotous frenzy of adulation generously bestowed upon this human object of their affection. The display may vary in its duration, but never in its exuberance.

While I know for a fact that being so highly esteemed has little to do with my own merit, and everything to do with the nature of these lovely four-legged companions, I willingly accept the gift and everything it represents.

Loyalty. Trust. Faithfulness. Unconditional love. Relentless optimism. Categorical forgiveness. Irrepressible happiness.

Recently, a neighbor shared the story that as a younger man getting ready for deployment overseas, he was faced with the dilemma of leaving behind his two dogs. Unable to find them homes, time ran out and it became necessary to turn them over to a shelter already overrun with animals waiting for adoption or death.

Rather than bringing his dogs to strangers to be euthanized, he made the heartbreaking decision to do it himself. He resigned to shoot them with his own gun and bury them in the woods near his property.

When it came time, he was able to put down one dog with little effort, but the second dog was rightfully spooked and reacted too quickly at the essential moment. When he fired his gun, the dog was injured, but not killed.

Instinctively, he called her back to him.

And the most incredible thing happened. She came.

Bleeding and broken, she willingly returned to his arms, wherein he immediately finished the horrific task.

It haunts him to this day because when his wounded dog responded to his call, this man was shown the truest meaning of trust. 

Children know this instinctively. When mine were little, they would practice spelling words by arranging plastic letters on the refrigerator door. One afternoon, my daughter announced, "Mama, dog is God spelled backwards!"

I shared the Native American legend of the Kato tribe wherein God did not simply create dogs; God Himself had a dog. So important have dogs been to the humans through the ages; they are both companion and counterpart to the human heart. 

My son, barely four at the time and still transitioning his primary language from Mandarin to English, listened intently to my words. He then reached down to pet our aging Corgi, Raleigh, who rested at his feet. As my son stroked Raleigh's fur, I could see him carefully forming his words as he leaned in close to Raleigh's ear. 

"Good dog," he whispered. "My dog. Your boy."

In those six words my son successfully described the intricate and complex relationship that has existed between human and canine for thousands of years. Six simple words to sum up the emotional interdependence of two very different species that has lasted across the millennium.

Raleigh on South Padre Island, Texas 2002

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