The Trees, Part 1

I was informed aspens don't do well here, they need more altitude.  I planted four anyway. They did very well. The one nearest the house grew absolutely huge, sent its roots everywhere, all the way into the neighbor's yard--to the west--which troubled me. I like to be a good neighbor. I also thought the roots might break my porch, upend my house, so I cut the tree down.

The tree experts killed my other three aspens and three of my Rose Hill ash trees, an accident they neglected to tell me about until I questioned them on it. Their dormant oil machine malfunctioned, spraying oil all over my front yard and walk in addition to the trees. The walkway I could clean up, but the heavy coating of oil choked the life out of the trees. They had to be cut down. No more quaking leaves, that delightful business aspens carry out. No more red autumn leaves on my ash trees.

I replaced the ash, but not the aspens. And wouldn't you know it? The tree experts said they couldn't find Rose Hill ash (I wonder how hard they looked), so I now have those three plain ash trees. I try to love them, with their yellow fall color, but they are not quite mine, even though it has been more than ten years. 

The one Rose Hill ash remaining in the front yard will have to come down before long. I've had its limbs cut back more than a few times, because they threaten my roof or hang down over the walkway. Still it insists on growing. And it's just too big. It impedes the balance and growth of the nearby dawn redwood. That struggle has been going on for the twenty-two years of their existence in my yard, the ash being the pushier of the two trees.

"Like the sky"

Here's what is on my mind lately. No surprise. It's about death. Sorry.

Over Everything

Carol Schiess

The dead do not leave us alone.

They trouble our waters,

speak their strange words

into our sleeping ears, urge us

to look back, stay back.

They appear, mirages, on our horizons,

stand in the way of forgetting,

of moving.  Oh yes, 
this is how it was, remember?

as if to say nothing can be good again

now they are gone, as if to say

we are lost without them.

Are we to blame? You may say so.

Perhaps they wouldn't come at all

if we did not call them,

bring them.  It's all in the mind,

you say.  But I know

they also come unbidden.

It would be different, of course,

if they really came, in the flesh.

That is all we want.

*     *     *

And this, from my husband's missionary journal, September 20, 1961, when he had just been made Montevideo district president. 

His underlining.

Our knowledge is worth no more than the good it does in the lives of those with whom we share it.

This was his thought as he prepared to teach 6 new elders and 2 new sisters who had just arrived in Montevideo. I like it. I like him.

What do you think?

I think we forget--well, maybe it's just me--that we didn't always know what we know now.

I say it because I am often surprised as I transcribe Wayne's journal. He didn't know this or understand that, and they are things, whatever they might be, I think he should have known or understood. I see him figuring things out, in particular, relationships, and I think he should already know about that. But he didn't. Probably I didn't either, even though I think I must have known. Like, always. Funny, huh.

And something else. He often writes that he is unworthy or ill-prepared or just not good enough. And I say back to him, although he isn't here, you know, "Don't keep telling yourself those things. Do you write it for your own benefit? And does it benefit you?" I think my own journals from 50-some years ago would be painful reading. I threw most of them out, which is what I plan to do with my current ones. Get someone to come in here and chuck them.

Oh well, there's no going back, as we know. No fixing it. No helping. There's only reading and responding, which is what I'm doing.

Well, of all the . . .

My husband spent 2 1/2 years as a missionary in Uruguay, South America. He went in the Fall of 1959 and came home Spring 1962.  We weren't married then, you know.

He kept a journal during that time, written, of course, in his own hand. I have been transcribing the journal.

Just this week I have come upon the part where he has written--and sent this time--a "Dear Jane" to his girl friend. That would be me. I didn't like it when it happened in 1961, and I don't like it now as I type it in 2013. Makes me feel bad again. Makes me mad at him.

And get this. He says he hopes he doesn't lose me. Well, I say it was a dumb thing to do if he didn't want to lose me. Turns out, though, he didn't lose me, but, hey.


More revealed later.

Would you?

Alyce and I took the Inside Passage Alaska cruise in 2009. We sailed with Holland America. It was fun to do, and it was fine. Not great. Just fine. Our land excursions could have been better, but that may have been my fault. Maybe.

Since then, since that cruise, I have thought about taking another cruise. You know, I like the thought of going places. But mostly I have thought about it because I get brochures in the mail and emails from Princess and Holland America every week telling about offers that "won't last" so I'd better hurry and book my passage. I said I have thought about taking another cruise. I didn't say what I have thought. It's no.

I think it's more trouble than it 's worth. For one thing.

Then there's this week's Carnival Triumph mess. It's in the news. I don't have to tell you about it. And a years or so ago Carnival's Costa Cruises' mess on the other side of the world. The ship problems--whether a fire in the engine room or a Captain who is apparently on drugs and runs the ship aground
--always affects the passengers adversely. Always.

The crew may be good or even wonderful. But that just isn't quite enough.

As is also in the news, the contract the passenger signs--and probably doesn't read--gives all the advantages to the cruise company. No surprise there. Read any contract you've signed. So go ahead, try to sue Carnival because you were five days on a huge boat in the middle of an ocean drifting and listing and didn't have a room or a toilet or clean water to drink. I doubt you'll win.

Anyway, no cruises for me.

It's just a little salsa

Last week I made salsa. First time in many years, those days when I would pick or buy bushels of tomatoes in season and can them or make salsa. Always good in homemade chili. Always good with tortilla chips or scrambled eggs.

I'm not sure what got into me--Linda's salsa, I guess. I used her recipe, with a change or two, and came away with three small jars. It was tasty, and the jars--none of them new--all sealed. Neat, I thought. And so I made some more.

Of course, I didn't have fresh tomatoes as I used to years ago, so I used canned, diced tomatoes. Still it's good salsa. Now I have seven jars of it. All sealed.

Seven small jars is not so many. In theory they could be gone soon. But in actuality they may last quite a while, because I don't just sit down with a bowl of chips and a bowl of salsa, and I don't make chili every week, you know. Or even every month. So I may have a year's supply of salsa here.

It's a difficult thing, even after more than ten years, to understand at the tissue level that I don't need anything in quantity anymore. No more getting bushels of apples and pressing them for juice. My kids could drink a gallon or more with dinner. And they did. So I would get a lot of apples.

No more picking peaches or apricots or cherries for canning or grapes for steaming. No more drying pears or making pear butter. No need to put up jam at all anymore, and no need to try to make it all last through a winter. I know we brought cherries and peaches with us when we moved here from Caldwell. My kids were grown and leaving home, you know, so those home-canned goods lasted through more than a few winters.

And I have jars of jam in my basement that are nearly as old as this house. Silly to keep them. I'll get rid of them one of these days. But it's a hard thing to do--give up all those provident ways of living. It's like becoming a different person. Those practices of living get into the mind and the muscles. Hard to root them out. Hard to believe in the changes.