Ten Years
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WizenedEye.com photo
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Ten years: forever in a child’s mind, a fraction of an augenblick in Time's continuum. Sometimes these past ten years feel like both extremes.

My mother died ten years ago today.

She was an amazing woman, the best mother any child could have been blessed with, and trying to encapsulate all that was remarkable about her in this post is more than I am capable of, so I refer you to the Heavens on the evening of Sunday, March 23, 1997...
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Each night after helping my mother into bed, I would kiss her forehead, smile and say goodnight, then slip into my parka and step out into the cold night. Sometimes I would cry. Other times I would just take in a slow deep breath of the clear winter air, exhaling the sigh of a weary daughter.

The comet had been gracing the evening sky for weeks. Our canopy is dark and star-lit on a cloudless night, and as I'd walk through the snow on the quiet road home, Hale-Bopp would come into view above the outline of the trees to the northwest.

On that night in March when I kissed her cooling forehead and made my final walk home, there was something else happening in the heavens, something not as rare as the spectacular comet, but extraordinary in combination with it: to the south, juxtaposed with Hale-Bopp, the full moon was in total eclipse, the sky bearing witness in a double tribute to the amazing woman whose soul was leaving this earth. She deserved no less.
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In memory of Evelyn Grace Andrus, 12/9/12 - 3/23/97
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Lost

The afternoon was gray and getting grayer as I stepped into my skis. The wind was blowing up a gentle roar in the tree-tops, spitting a few tiny snowflakes and bumping at me from first one side and then the other as a hyperactive child might do. I had intended to get out earlier, but one thing and another had kept me indoors until Time screamed “now or never” and shook me loose from my keyboard. I put a piece of beech in the woodstove, slipped my cell-phone into a jacket pocket, decided to leave the weight of the camera behind for a change, and stepped outdoors.

Skiing was easy. A week ago it had taken a strenuous effort to break trail, but following two balmy days, this snow was only about eight inches deep and fairly compressed, allowing me to glide across it rather than high-step. I went up the trail to the small meadow, crossed it, and entered the woods via “the main road.” I was pushing myself, deciding to get the most bang for my cardio buck, when I saw the tracks.

There are several members of the weasel family, the largest one in our neck of the woods being Pekquam, the fisher. Picture a big otter or a huge mink with very dark brown beautiful fur, and a ferocity that makes him the only successful predator of old Unk Wunk, the porcupine.

Pekquam’s paw prints were beautifully clear, and I could easily see which way his three-foot leaps were taking him. These were very fresh tracks, and without a second’s hesitation I veered west off the trail and followed them into the woods.

He led me up hill and down dale through low-lying hemlock woods, circling and back-tracking on a couple of occasions, and although I felt that at any moment I might crest a small rise and see him, the tracks remained empty of feet.

From the beginning I had noted that this isn’t a part of our woods I have spent time in, and as the thrill of the chase began to lessen I realized that none of my surroundings looked in any way familiar. I looked up, but the sky was such a dark gray that it gave no hint of the sun’s location. On a quiet day, you occasionally hear the hum of a truck off to the north on the main road and can take your direction from it, but today the roar of the wind was doing a deft – and deafening – imitation of ocean surf. I could hear nothing else, and aside from being a wild and wonderful soundtrack, it was blowing snow over my ski tracks. It would soon be impossible to follow them back to the woods road. It would also soon be dark.

Bringing the cell phone instead of the camera now seemed like a stroke of brilliance... assuming it might get reception. I imagined the call: “Hi Bob, it’s me. Say, if I don’t greet you at the door tonight wrapped in cellophane and offering wine, you might want to go looking for me in the woods west of ‘Raymond’s Road’.”

No, I wouldn’t call yet. My old phone might only give me one chance before its battery died, and so I’d better save it. Anyway, why cause a commotion when in fact I wasn’t HOPELESSLY lost. Next I considered that the snow was of a good consistency for building a shelter if I had to spend the night outside. I looked around me and marveled that we have so many hemlock trees.

There was comfort in knowing that I was surrounded by a familiar network of woods roads. Going in a straight line in any direction would cause me to intersect with one of them, and from there I could find my way home even on the darkest of nights (which this one was promising to be).

For reasons not known, a person lost in the woods circles. They don’t mean to, but they do, and I was well aware of that. Continuing west would probably be the shortest route, so I struck out in what my best educated guess told me was that direction, trying to go "straight," but ten minutes later there was no road in sight. I climbed to a high spot, hoping to perhaps see some daylight in the distance that would indicate an open area such as a road or maybe the big beaver pond, and from this slight rise I could in fact make out a strip of snow in the distance. I headed for it.

As I approached the white area, I knew I was “found.” It was in fact a road, and to my astonishment, it was the road I had veered off when I began following Pekquam’s tracks in the first place. I re-entered it only about thirty feet from where I had left it an hour earlier - I had made a complete circle!

I resumed my original route, stopping several times to rest as I got closer to home. Pekquam had led me on a merry chase, an adventure in solitude and something few people in this world are fortunate enough to enjoy. I have only one regret: that I never did see the dark, furry rascal who took me there. Well, that and the fact that I’d left my compass back with my camera.
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Note: The animal names used here were taken from a "Glossary of Indian Names" found in William J. Long's book, School of the Woods, Ginn and Company, 1902. They are credited to the Milicete Indians of eastern Canada. Long was my father's hero and mentor, and after perusing his well-worn copy of School of the Woods, I am delighted to discover it on line. (This may take some time to load).

The Importance of a Positive Attitude...

Oh shucks. Here it comes again.

Some days it's just hard to put on a happy face.



Let's talk over our options...


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Hey, I've got an idea! Let's catch snowflakes on our tongues!



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Got one!

See? Winter isn't so bad! And if you click on my picture, you can see the wizard in my eye...

This post is inspired by Carmon at Star's Rest. Go visit her and bring her rain.
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The Haircut (another little episode of life in a small town)

It was 8:10 AM and the Curl & Swirl should have been open ten minutes earlier. That is to say that by now the two sisters who make their living in this tiny clip-joint (formerly liquor store) tucked in the back side of the local mini-mart should have been half finished with the two men waiting. The door was unlocked, so they’d gone in. They just didn’t find anybody else there.

“I’ll give you a hair cut if you give me one,” suggested one of the patrons, but before they finished chuckling about that idea, the girls appeared.

Him: Where the hell ‘ya been?

Hairdresser #1: My car wouldn’t start.

Him: Well where the hell is Jake?

Hairdresser #1: He went to work.

Him: So what the hell’s wrong with the car?

Hairdresser #1: I think it’s the fuel pump. We replaced the fuel filter.

Hairdresser #2: Well does it run once you get it started?

Hairdresser #1: Yeah.

Hairdresser #2: (sarcastically) Well then it obviously can’t be the fuel pump.

Him: Where’d ya get gas?

Hairdresser #1: From Bruce’s.

Him: (Nods. Apparently Bruce is a trusted source.) Does Jake’s truck run?

Hairdresser #1: Yeah.

Him: Okay, so tomorrow tell him you’re gonna take the truck and he can drive your goddam car.

Hair cut, problem solved, he shuffles off to straighten out the rest of the world.

Math

I drive to Burlington buoyed by the wisdom, the well-wishes and the positive energy of my husband and friends, sharing the long road with the usual sparse traffic of pick-up trucks, business travelers and the occasional semi on a long haul or Amish buggy. I note that I’m not as calm as I’d like to be, wonder why that surprises me, and take comfort in the scheduler’s words: 80% of the time these things turn out to be nothing.
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When you get a screening mammogram, the “yearly” thing a woman of my age is supposed to do, you go to the older, original hospital building just down from the UVM campus, give your registration information and then proceed to MAMMOGRAPHY. There you’re escorted to a cubicle where you’re give instructions to take off everything from the waist up, don a hospital gown and proceed to a small waiting room. There are usually a few other women similarly clad sitting there, and there’s the usual friendly camaraderie of female strangers sharing an unpopular duty.

Today my destination was someplace called THE BREAST CLINIC, on campus in the new medical center building. I find it adjacent to ONCOLOGY, am greeted and escorted to a changing cubicle, and then directed to the waiting room. Unlike the familiar MAMMOGRAPHY waiting room, this one is silent. I note the age range of the other women: the youngest is probably in her early thirties; one woman must be approaching seventy-five or eighty. There are seven of us seriously reading last summer’s People or Good Housekeeping. One wise soul has a book.

A pleasant but serious technician calls my name, and we proceed to a room with the familiar tit-squisher machine. Modern technology presents the breast images on a computer screen that you – the patient – can see within seconds of the x-ray. ‘Funny to see that piece of my anatomy flattened into something resembling a half-moon, but there, in what I assume is “the lower inside quadrant” I can see something resembling a small cloud against the darker sky that is apparently normal breast tissue.

Filming concludes, and the technician tells me I will need to have sonography on the left side. I had been told that this would happen if today’s mammography confirmed the suspicion raised by last week’s pictures. By now I have a sinking feeling in my gut, but I smile and thank her and return to the waiting room. New women have replaced three of the previous waiters.

My wait is short, and the next technician is perky. She explains that the doctor may want to come in to observe while she’s doing the sonogram, and I assume this would probably not be an encouraging situation. “Lefty” gets smeared with warm gel and the tech and I make small-talk as she moves the sensor over and around the area in question, ever watching her computer screen and clicking her keyboard. And then she’s finished.

She asks if I’m comfortable and tells me she will return in about five minutes. They’re a surprisingly short five minutes during which I have a closer look at the horse photos on the shelf above her desk and try to make some sense out of the image on her computer monitor. And then she’s back: “It’s a fluid-filled cyst,” she says with a smile, “and absolutely nothing to worry about. You’re back on regular screening mammography. You’re free to go; come back in a year.”
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And with that, my tension and fears melt away and the woman I see in the cubicle mirror looks markedly happier than the one I saw an hour ago. Maybe I should be joyous, but I’m not. There were ten women in the waiting room this morning, "eighty percent of the time these things turn out to be nothing," and even I don’t need a calculator to do the math.
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Image from Breast Friends, whose Antigua webpage says: Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting women worldwide, with there being a 1 in 8 chance throughout a woman’s lifetime that she will be affected. Yet this cancer is 90% curable when caught early, and if caught early 95% of women live more than 5 years following diagnosis.
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Thank you Crabby, Katy, Whim, Karan, Becky, DNR, Robin, Barb, Em, Foam, Carmon, C-Dell and Sling for being "with me" yesterday. I'd like to believe that if each of us is diligent in getting the recommended screenings, even those of us who cry will be shedding unnecessary tears.
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And thank you sweet Bob for the beautiful roses, the shot of Bailey's and the warm hug when I got home. I am one lucky wizard.

Good News/Bad News

I just received this wonderful thought from an old friend, someone who knew me back when I first discovered the camera. In fact, he had a pretty big role in helping me get started in photography. Here's what he wrote:

I chanced upon this quote from Emerson the other day, and I thought it described you (and, by extension, your blog articles) very nicely:

"To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same field, it beholds every hour a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again."

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Shine on!

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A wonderful and touching tribute, sweeter still because it arrived as I was hanging up the phone from a call informing me that the mammogram I had last week in Burlington showed "something new." It's probably nothing to worry about, but tomorrow I'll make the 3 1/2 hour drive back to Vermont to find out.

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I hope I don't have to rush my shining on.

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Ice Fishing

Ice fishing... ice fishing... Sitting in a small hut on top of a lake, minding a hole in the frozen surface, waiting for a fish to bite. I have to admit this is something I don’t see much excitement in.

Sometimes they stay too long, these hardy anglers. Maybe they’re trying to extend the season (catch one last fish, avoid the wife one last weekend) and the next thing they know, the minivan has gone through the ice.

Once I heard about a guy who built too big a fire inside his shanty. Nope, not what you think. He didn’t melt his way into the lake - or at least not initially. He stoked the stove and then went to visit a “neighbor” and when he looked back, his shanty was going up in flames! (Then it went into the lake). He was really broken-hearted.

I can’t think of any women who ice fish, but I know several guys who love it, and there are a few others I suspect of having the affliction: this time of year their clothes give off a faint fishy odor when you bump into them in town.

Come to think of it, maybe ice fishing is like blogging. There’s a virtual neighborhood, friends you don’t really know, and everybody’s interested in what’s going on in the others’ places.

Hey, City Mouse or Em or Whim, toss me a beer. Huh? Oh, right. ‘Guess that’s the difference... that and the smell...
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..........Ice fishing shanties on Lake Champlain near South Hero Island
.......................March 6, 2007 ~ © copyright Wizened Eye 2007
.............................................................................(Click to enlarge)

Do You Think it's -20 in Vermont Too?

I'm off to Burlington for a couple of days. While I'm gone, Robin has written something that echoes my heart's thoughts. You'll have to scroll down a bit when you get to her blog, but her piece is important to read.

Hasta la pasta!

Work: the Great Distraction...

(If you're in a hurry, please just go to the photos at the bottom of the post and skip the lengthy explanation. As always, I'd love to have you click on a photo for a closer look.)

My husband and I are starting a new business. It's primarily web-based and has to do with helping people find jobs. This is one of his passions, or as we are fond of calling this great interest, his sickness.

We've done a number of strange and varied things together over the years, and we're a great team. Like most good couples, we share pretty much the same world-view, not always agreeing on the details or the reasoning but valueing the same outcomes and state of things. Our individual skill sets are amazingly yin-yang.

Owing to the sub-clauses of the contract that began with "I do," enjoying the chance to work together on something, and desiring an income of some sort, I am a partner in the new business. He is the idea person; I am the "eye of the common folk" (meaning I interject the occasional note of reality...). I am also the photographer and editor for the website and for the newsprint pieces which lead readers to it. The website is database driven and complex, and part of my job is checking all the links and navigation. Together we do it all: substance, design, sales, delivery. If we're lucky, maybe we'll build it into a business that turns a meager profit.

So that, in a nutshell, is why I have not had the time to go visiting around Bloggerville lately.

But don't think I am not enjoying this venture! I won't bore you - yet - with any of the "work" photos, but I do want to share a couple of shots I took between business stops last Friday.
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The Lion in Spring
© copyright 2007 WizenedEye.com
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On the Dark Side of the Street
© copyright 2007 WizenedEye.com

And Good Night!

The storm has passed, leaving us with at least a foot of new fluffy powder. The horses are eating their hay outside under a full moon and a sky filled with stars.
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