Things About Broken Hearts

Let's be honest: none of us get out this unscathed. We've all had our hearts broken. From the first time that our mothers swatted our hands away from a hot stove and we didn't understand how the nurturer became the bearer of violence against us, we've experienced the pain of betrayal.

We've had our hearts broken as small children when your friends don't let you join them at the potato stamp table in kindergarten (this is me sharing my most vulnerable moments with you), and again as middle schoolers when your BFF tells the cute boy about that one time you picked your nose and ruins you FOREVER.

Your heart is broken again and again in high school when your One True Love turns out not to be and dumps you for the girl who snuck out of the house in the ultraminiskirt. Every disappointment grows in importance as you sense an ever closer approach to Destiny...

And then your heart break again when the Forever that was supposed to be Destiny end in abysmal disaster. Or even if you find some version of Happily Ever After, there are always the ups and downs and mini heart breaks, and the major ones. The days when some hurts feel like they are unbearable.

The more people you love, the greater your odds are, statistically speaking, to face more heartache in your life. Even the happiest of families have their dark moments. We unintentionally inflict pain on the ones we love the most because it's in those spaces that we are the most real, and the most insensitive sometimes. There is no love without hurt. It's the hurting that love causes that gives us art and music and poetry and philosophy.

Even Tim and Faith, with their decades of shining perfection in marriage, have broken each other’s hearts, I guarantee it. With an unkind word, a poor karaoke choice, or that mid 90s turtleneck trend. Even the perfect ones among us inflict a little heartache on each other now and then.

If you're not a sociopath, the question isn't IF you'll get a broken heart, the question is when, and your investment into the lives around you will be rewarded in equal amounts of heartache when those lives inevitably face hardship. 

I've wrestled a lot lately with the whole idea of parenthood as something that is anything more than perpetual heartache. Since my kids were babies it feels like it's been a non-stop freight train speeding, out of control, of things that can (and often do) go wrong. It picks up speed and momentum the older they get. The momentary glimpses of triumph and joy get overshadowed by the hard things. By rejections and  breakups and failures and dashed hopes. Happiness and success come at the high cost of hard work and stress and heartache. 

I watch other parents and I wonder ,when they proclaim the joy of parenting, what it is I am doing wrong as I lie awake night after night and worry whether one kid's firefighting career will be ended by a knee injury and whether there is any earthly way to pay for another kid's college tuition, and just exactly how many sporting events have to be attended and how many phone bills have to be paid to ensure that I am doing my parently duty. As they become adults and make adults decisions, there is little comfort in the knowledge that I am not legally responsible for the grown-up choices they make, because it doesn't exempt me from feeling the pain of the consequences they bear. Raising kids is just an ongoing evolution of breaking hearts. 

But it's worth it. Just like falling in love, knowing the life expectancy of any relationship these days is pretty pathetic, is still worth it. And you step up to bat again and again because those momentary highs are worth it, and even more, the people that you love, that you believe in, are worth it, even when they hurt you. Sure, there are limits. There's a time to pull the plug and walk away. There's even a time to disconnect the phone line and draw boundaries, but in this era of disposable everything, there are still people worth taking the hits for. There are bigger stories than the trauma of a moment. 

What parenting, and love, and being related to other human beings has taught me, is that heartbreak is survivable. It can be endured again and again and again. The real tell of a human being is whether they will get back up and love again after each break. The character of a person lives in their willingness to walk headfirst into the next round of heartbreaks for the people that they love. 

Even in the last few months I have felt the weight of heartache that I didn't think I could bear, and while I struggled to walk the steps of each day in the darkest moments, I knew it would not be my last time in that valley. I knew that I would run back into the fray, I would open up my barely healed heart and I would do it again, because there is no life without love. 

I know each time that I feel like I can't carry another burden for one of my loved ones, somehow there's a second wind and we pick up the pieces and move on. History has taught me that I am resilient, and hopefully that resilience is something that the people I love can learn with me, as we break each others hearts again and again with the mistakes we make. 

The only thing I can promise them is that I will never, ever, EVER, be caught up in a turtleneck craze, and they're always welcome at my potato stamp table. 

Things That ACTUALLY Help During Fire Season

Noisy Creek Fire, Washington State, 2017

It's officially fire season. If you want to know how you can ACTUALLY help out during a wildfire in your area, here are some ideas: 

If you want to do something to help out firefighters working on the lines, here are some tips to help keep the mayhem in fire camp at a minimum: 

- Firefighters are required as part of their job to come FULLY equipped for a two week assignment, with all of their personal gear, toiletries, socks, toothpaste etc. Everybody likes free stuff, but nobody in fire camp should be here unprepared.

- Most camps will turn away donations because they don't have the manpower to deal with distributing them and stuff will just get shuffled off to local food banks, shelters, etc. at the end of the incident. If you INSIST on donating stuff the most useful, most asked things are preventatives like Emergen-C, vitamins, or coffee (see below). 

- Firefighters are provided with over the counter medicines like Tylenol and DayQuil, Gold Bond Powder, foot care items, chapstick, sunscreen and insect repellent through the medical unit. 

- Homemade/baked goods can open Incident Management teams to health liabilities and will usually be turned away as well. They also violate the contract with food caterers in fire camp who provide everything necessary to meet the firefighter's 6000 calorie a day requirement, including snacks. This is for firefighter health and safety.

- Gatorade, water and ice are all provided. Don't buy this stuff for us.

- Contribute to local volunteer departments who have limited funding and face the toughest job during the first hours of initial attack. The volunteers often have to buy their own boots and supplies without any reimbursement, and they don't get paid like professional wildland firefighters who are on the clock, paid, for 14-16 hours a day.

- Fire camp coffee is brutal. If there is a fire camp near town, pay a few coffees forward at a local coffee stand for the firefighters that will be coming through. Or again, if you insist on bringing something to camp, instant coffee packets (like Starbucks Via) are like gold out here.

- Donate to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation (https://wffoundation.org/). They will be there for the firefighter when they, or their families, truly need it the most.

PLEASE SHARE!

P.S. - I know that everybody is an expert, so if you're wondering, I am speaking from 15 year of fire experience in both volunteer and paid positions as a Fireline EMT and a Public Information Officer. I have worked all over the U.S. (even Alaska) for every level of Incident Management Team, including running the medical unit for Type 3 firefighting organizations. 

Things About Appropriate Footwear

even breakfast laces don't make these more fun to wear

Here's the thing. I hate being told what to wear. It probably has something to do with denim jumpers and verses in Leviticus, but for whatever reason, biblical or otherwise, it's a trigger point for me. Stand to reason of course, that my life would be made up of a series of questionable wardrobe choices and violating societal mores that result in being told, more often than not, to go change what I am wearing. I even got sent home from school one year when I was teaching because a visiting parent didn't like a fire hoodie I was wearing.

When fire season rolls around, I have to brace myself for the inevitable wearing of the required uniform. The anti-airflow Nomex pants (there is a reason Gold Bond is so popular out here) and frumpy, scratchy shirts (unless you score an old school yellow off an aging DIVS who has outgrown his), and as a Public Information Officer, the dreaded POLO SHIRT.

Someday I will write a blog about polo shirts and how they fall into the same category as capri pants and visors. But footwear. Footwear is the greatest struggle for me. I prefer to live wild and free with as little confinement on my feet as possible, like flip flops. Fire boots do not fit this lifestyle preference. Nor do many other fire camp shoes I have tried.

Traveling doesn't count, Jim. 

I have discovered, through more than one helpful talking-to from people in logistics, safety, or occasionally the IC himself, that flip flops are not acceptable footwear in fire camp, even if I call them tactical (this designation helps the moccasin, however, see below). So, being the careful rule-follower that I am (ahem), I gave up trying to get away with wearing flip-flops in fire camp years ago (even though some of my direct supervisors may say otherwise [JIM]), but I will confess pushing the boundaries in my choice of fire-camp footwear in lieu of my go-to standard.

Coming off the line after 12 hours of sitting in my truck (ok, sometimes I hike too) in stuffy fire boots that stifle my creativity and inhibit my cross-legged sitting habit, I am eager to get into something more comfortable as soon as safely allowable, or sooner, if nobody in overhead notices. These are some of the fire-camp footwear frontrunners that I have either experienced or seen.

The Crocs

Lightweight, easy, ridiculous. Sure you can, but why? That's all I will say here.

The Outdoorsy Keen

I have several friends who can or will only wear Keen shoes. I get it, they are versatile, and they scream "I am an avid outdoorsperson who also values comfort and durability." What's not to love, right? Keens are OK, but I have tried over 20 pairs and haven't found a single style that fits my foot correctly, so these aren't a great option for me. 

The Running Shoe

This is the fire camp standard. This is anyone with an O number that wants to convey the message: "I am fire qualified (hence the nomex) but have advanced in years and/or experience to the level of daily comfort footwear. But I am also ready to run."

I have worn various iterations of running shoes which invariable make me feel like a poser (since I don't run unless it's to save my life) and although they're lighter than boots, they still require tying and all of the difficulty of putting on that every laced shoe demands. The payoff is in comfort and good pedal support for long days on concrete, wood chips or a folding chair.

The Chucks

I guess you could pretty much call me SOF

Over the years, I have worn baldies (Chuck Taylor's, for the uniformed), which are ok until late season wet fire camp grass or soggy sawdust penetrates the canvas and they never dry out. This year I bit the cost bullet and got a pair of Altama Low Tide Raid Shoes from Grunt Style because they looked really rad. Like baldies on steriods. Like I am actually a badass, and not just a wannabe. These are pricey (I can get you 20% off if you're interested), but they are water resistant (kept my feet dry in a torrential downpour) and if they do get wet, which they're designed to do, it drains out these cool little spots that double as breathable vents (making them cooler than your run-of-the-mill Gortex footwear), and they dry STAT, which I think means really fast in emergency-room-tv-show lingo. Also they are worn by actual badasses, so there is that.

The Tactical Moccasin

This is my absolute favorite, when I can get away with it. Depending on the fire assignment, the management team, and how many effs I give, these will pass muster. For about the last four years, I have been wearing Minnetonka Cally Moccasins. The first couple of years, I wore one pair into tattered little pieces of unrecognizable leather. Now I bite the bullet and get a new pair at the beginning of every season because they get trashed around camp all summer, and because when they're brand new they're SO SOFT AND SQUISHY inside that it's like wrapping your feet in baby bunnies. If I have to explain why this is a good thing then there isn't much point in continuing this conversation with you. In the medical unit, these have been a lifesaver. Or a footsaver, at least. I have been asked to refrain from wearing them in some camps, but I will keep trying until Tactical Moccasins are universally accepted as camp-appropriate footwear. Maybe I can work in a diversity argument and my Native American roots... except I haven't got any.

So there it is. Everything you never wanted to know about what to put on your feet in fire camp, or any camp for that matter. And lots of pictures of my feet, which are fairly important feet as far as feet go. The have a lot of traveling to do.

Things About Wannabes

We're all wannabes. 

I was told a long time ago that I was a wannabe. I was told again and again by insecure men and women. The ones who were wannabes themselves. Wannabe religious icons. Wannabe conduits of the Holy Spirit. Wannabe idols. Wannabe controllers. They told me how I was a wannabe wife. A wannabe mother. A wannabe Christian and firefighter and EMT and everything else I’d ever imagine being. They kept me in submission with the constant reminder that I’d never quite arrive. 

It took me years to realize that none of us ever will. 

You show me somebody who’s the shining star of confidence in his chosen field and I’ll show you somebody who’s lying awake at night wondering if anybody else noticed the glaring flaws that are keeping him up all night. Dollars to donuts even Donald Trump returned from Helsinki wondering if the whole world was actually right, and how he can convince them otherwise, even if he secretly agrees that he fucked up. 

It’s the over-confident ones that are the most wannabe of all. The ones who really have something to prove. The blow-hard name droppers who can’t let their actions speak for themselves. The ones who claim to have God’s own corner on truth. Those are the real wannabes. 

Either that or they’re just straight narcissists. But that’s a whole different blog post. 

It’s the perfect wife and mother who struggles the most with her inadequacy. It’s the most successful businessman who can never make the ultimate power play. It’s the most pious priest who hides the most depravity. 

We’re all wannabes. From Donald Trump to Mother Theresa. We all know there’s a next level that we haven’t hit. But the ones with the most power are the ones with the humility to own it. To wear it proudly like a key to adventure slung heavily around our necks. When there’s always something to learn, there’s always somewhere to go, and life is movement. Life is nothing without growth and exploration to see whats around the corners we haven’t turned yet. 

Hell yeah, I’m a wannabe. And it’s wanting to be that has led me through a thousand new doorways into places I never would’ve imagined. I’m happy to have arrived on the neverending path of curiosity and unfinished business. 

I have definitely arrived when it comes to beer. Beer level = EXPERT. 

Things About Manifesting (And Me Being Always Right)

I recently had an argument with a friend about the whole idea of manifesting goodness in your life. You know, that hinky, feel-good contrivance about imagining how you want things to be in your life and making them magically unfold through boundless optimism and faith? Like what that silly book The Secret was pushing.

Anyway, my friend was insistent that it was working for him, because he had some good things fall into place once he decided that they were going to happen. The argument basically went down like two one-sided discussions where I told him he was wrong because what REALLY made things happen was his hard work and focus, and he ignored me and continued heralding the praises of manifesting things out of thin air through nothing more than optimistic thinking. Whatever. If it works, it works, I guess, although I still maintain that he passed an important test because he actually studied and worked hard, and not because the Cosmic Powers decided he was joyful enough to grant him an Advance to Go card.

I don't think manifesting is the thing. I think what really helps is the DECIDING part, where you completely settle on what it is you want, and then start moving forward to make it happen. It's the waffling indecision that holds us back from plunging head and heart first into the Really Important Things. I mean, you don't get a job by sitting on the couch and imagining how great it's going to be. You get a job by convincing an interview board that you're the BOMB, because you've decided that you want. that. job. But you still have to go through the hellish interview process and iron a suit or decide which eye shadow is the least whoreish.

You don't build a strong relationship by hoping things work out and waiting to see. It takes risk and hard work and pain and digging in your heels.

Just like you don't pass a test by believing that the answers will mystically emerge from your noggin, you pass a test by studying hard and removing distractions that block you from accessing the information that you've put in there. Or by taking Ritalin. Either way, you've decided it's important, and you make it happen but going there and doing the thing and feeling the stress and overcoming.

no easy button

Last year I read some self-help book that I can't remember now that changed my way of thinking about how I went after things that I want. I've always been trapped in this learned helplessness of predestination and The Will of The Lord for my life that is completely ensconced in happily-ever-after fairy tales and meant-to-be bullshit. It's only in the fortieth year of my existence that I am really coming to terms with the ownership of my own "destiny" and the importance of my decisions and choices - not necessarily on what happens in my life, although as much as possible I am learning to exercise control where I can, but more on how I respond to the things that happen around me.

I'm slowly evolving from the intimidated position of choking down the sludge that I am dished out in belief that it's what I deserve based on what I have been told by the outside world, to knowing and believing that I am the one who gets to decide what I deserve and can digest the consequences of my actions accordingly, along with the rewards of the fearless taking of what is mine without remorse. Crappy things happen in life. Sometimes we don't deserve them. Thinking I can avoid them by imagining good things is just a setup for major disappointment.

But good things happen too. Not because I imagine them, but because I have decided to move forward one (sometimes painful) step at a time in the direction that I know is right and that opens doors. Sometimes, occasionally, or, if I am honest, often, The direction that "I knew" was right ends up being slightly off course, but I have learned from experience that there is something down every path for me, even if it's the wrong one. Because no wrong turns. Because sometimes the wrong way ends up being the adventure you didn't expect that changes your life. Sometimes it seems like a lucky break, but most of the times I've been lucky it's because a step that I took somewhere along the way put me in the position to run into an opportunity. Seneca says that "Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity," and I want to be prepared for the opportunities, not just wishing for them.

If manifesting works for my friend (who is still wrong), then that's great, but I see the hard work that he's doing, the steps he's taking, to "manifest" the good things and open doors in his life. If he wants to give credit to some higher mystical powers for his wins, that's his choice, but I plan on taking credit for the shit that I have to slog through to get where I want to be.

I believe in good things alright, I can see them in my mind's eye, but imagining and hoping isn't the thing. It's the getting back up and dusting off your ass when life kicks you square in the gut and tells you to stay down - that's what wins the day. It's the courage to ask for what you know you deserve, and not apologize, which I am still learning. It's the balls to keep going, step by step, down a path that sometimes seems bleak and endless and lonely, knowing that right around one of those corners all the trudging will pay off for a little while. But it's the trudging, not the dreaming, that gets you around the corner.

So what he calls manifesting I call manual labor, or hard work, and we can agree to disagree. (But I am still right.)

Things About Chasing Tail(s)

I've figured out that life is a never ending game of tail chasing. Either you're chasing someone else's tail or you're chasing your own tail of self-identity. If you're lucky, the game of chasing tail that does not belong to you will be short lived and the victory will remain for ages. Or, if you're like me, it's an endless game of both. Many of us find ourselves in the confusing world of perpetual self-tail chasing along with the constantly frustrating and disillusioning chase of tail that isn't our own.

I've got no advice to offer on the subject of chasing the tails of others since I have little success from which to draw, but I am gradually learning a thing or two about chasing my own tail. 

Lately (loosely translated: all the time in my whole life), I find myself in the midst of an identity crisis. When I was 19.5 years old it was the teenager fresh from the bunkbeds of a shared room with a little sister to the bumperpad-to-bumperbad cribs of two small infants in a studio apartment with a husband I barely knew. When I was 26 it was the almost-certified wildland firefighter banished from the practice controlled burn because it was "unsafe" for me at 6 months pregnant with child number four. At 32 it was the untapped teenage angst in the body of a single mom with four kids, three jobs and a full credit load of online college classes and a penchant for microbrews. I've always been seeking "myself," but it isn't until I got to be 41 that I realized that my "self" might be just as enigmatic to me as it was when I was three years old and climbing to the top of my Dad's Oak etageres to see if I could fly. But my "self" is also as familiar to me as the pillow I keep tucked between my arms every night. I know who I am. Sometimes, I just can't see the forest for the trees. 

Mark Manson talks about the diversification of identity, and I guess that's what I've always struggled with. I know how many things I am, and I know that a lot of those things don't fit the prescribed mold, or at least, not in the moment. Three year olds don't generally fly, even from a six-foot etagere. 19 year olds aren't the best mothers, unless they're a saint, like my younger sister might have been, or maybe even my Second Daughter given the chance (but thank you for waiting). Pregnant ladies aren't the best suited for wildland firefighters and 32 year olds should just stay away from microbrews, I've learned. 

But through it all I keep pushing, keep seeking"myself." And now I am 41. I am older and wiser and doing 41-year-old things. Going to my kid's ball games and graduation ceremonies. Paying my bills and having a savings account and learning the correct pronunciation for Roth IRA, etc. I wear jeans without holes (occasionally)(unwillingly) and craft lofty and condescending justifications for my tattoos. Deep inside though, I am still chasing my own tail. Trying to figure out just who I am, and the difference between what I WANT and what I NEED and who I AM. Those lines get blurry. But the definitive moment is always just barely out of reach. Like my tail.  

I always imagined that grown ups had no question about who they "are." They are just THEM. Doctors, teachers, mothers, transportation planners, rocket scientists. It seemed so simple. I thought maybe if I decided What to Be, that I would suddenly find this serenity and zen about self-identity that would once-and-for-all end my need to climb etageres. (By the way, if you haven't Googled etagere yet, you can click on the link.) But I've decided at least 23 times what to be when I grow up and I am still not completely sure that I can't fly. Because what IF?

So the tail-chase has continued. Sometimes I thought that if I caught the tail of someone else that I was chasing, I would suddenly KNOW. The epiphany of why I exist would descend upon me in an opaque and irrefutable destiny and all of my seeking would come to an end in the person that I belonged to. I'll admit, it seems to work for a year or two, maybe even close to a decade, especially if you bury your soul in the fabric of another person and/or community who Clearly Know What's Best For You and Don't Mind Telling You. But at the end of the day, or the decade, it's really up to you, or, in this case, up to me, to know who and what I am, and what's best for me, and if I know ANYTHING, it's that nobody can tell me What's Best for Me but my very own self. (I have at least 6 for-real psychologists who will back me up on this in their less-than-helpful-self-help-techniques. For a fee. )

But anyway, here I am, 41 and still chasing tail. Still slightly insecure about what I know about myself, but knowing, deep-down and just-the-same that I KNOW who I am. I am Liv. Not Liv the mom, Liv the firefighter, Liv the Writer, Liv the EMT, Liv the girlfriend, Liv the NOT girlfriend, Liv the former wife, Liv the messy, Liv the teacher, Liv the Cashier's Assistant, Liv the student, Liv the Avett Fanatic, Liv the emotionally unstable, Liv the self-aware (The psychologists told me that. For a fee.), Liv the beer girl, Liv the wannabe... I mean, yes, I AM all of those things... but I am not just one, I am every one, all of the time. And if Liv the writer is feeling angsty at Liv the mom's basketball game, then Liv the self-aware can take the steps to do what she needs to do and get the words out. And if Liv the former wife (please review my stern disapproval of "ex" terminology") is making a mess of Liv the girlfriend, or even Liv the NOT girlfriend, then Liv the self-reliant can make the adjustments she needs to make because ALL of those things in me have given me the tools to adapt. 

Chasing tail makes the world go 'round, as it happens, both biologically and psychologically. It's the ones of us that keep seeking and keep asking questions, like "Why am I cooking french fries at 41 years old?" that make life bigger than a single wide mobile home and a 1992 Ford Escort. Not that there's any shame in starting there, Daughter with said vehicle. 

Mark Manson, whom I clearly revere and tend to overcite, says that the idea of seeking your passion is bunk, because we're already putting our time into the things we're passionate about. For some of us, that's a 9-5 job that gets us where we need to be financially, a legitimate passion to pursue. For some of us, that's hours of journaling hopeless love letters that will be burned, unread at a later date. I know people in both camps - some more intimately than others, and I believe it's true that we put our money (read:time/energy) where our real passion lies. For me, when I get writer's cramp from journaling, it seems to be at the local brewery. I am not ashamed. I am me. And I've got some fine tail to keep chasing. Plus I MIGHT be able to fly. Who knows? 

Did I mention Liv the Whisky Drinker?

Things About Beer, and Words

Today, it happened. Today, as I sat cozied up to the bar at my favorite brewery, some guy came up next to me and started talking beer. It wasn't ten minutes into the conversation that he asked me if I was the "one who writes the stories in the paper." I answered in the affirmative and he said he recognized me from the headshot with my beer column. This means I am famous. This makes me a celebrity. I have arrived. I will be selling autographs later.

It's not really that I am famous. It's really just that beer is the great equalizer. It brings people together and levels the playing field across generations, fashion sensibilities, mood swings... Beer is love. Beer makes every conversation bearable, every task (almost) enjoyable, and any company endurable. Beer is the best.

Lately I've been having a hard time writing. I mean, I can do the stuff I have to for work, but I have certainly been feeling less than inspired to spew original ideas that have any real merit. Running into somebody who reads, and actually digests, and maybe even enjoys, the words that I write, helps me feel like I am not always screaming my words into an echoless void, which might be a writer's worst nightmare - it's definitely mine.

When I left my post as the writer at the Silverado, it was more of a release of the THING that offered me a pathway into the community than it was quitting a job.  Much like beer lubricates a conversation, or a relationship, or a bad decision, writing for a local paper gave me an in. I let it go because I knew my heart was headed in a different direction, which it always it, the direction with less commitment and more insecurity, because I like adventures. And suffering. And I like having an "in," but I've found that I also like to sit back and observe in anonymous ambiguity, watching and waiting for inspiration.

I love writing about things I love. Like beer. Or history. Or psychoanalytical bullshit that I make up randomly. I don't love writing about things that I don't care about and then having to have conversations about those things with people who read my stories and expect me to be interested and/or have expertise, when in reality, I did what I was told. And doing what I am told has never been my favorite.

So back to the beer I go. For drinking and writing and making friends. And back to the writing, for thinking and understanding and being famous. Or not. Either way, as long as there's beer.

Things About Feathers and Angels and Heroes

In 2015, my life was forever changed during a very short visit to the shores of the Normandy region of Northern France. My fascination with the history of the World War II battles that transpired there had made it one of the most compelling places in the world for me to visit, and I finally got to, with my mom and Dad (who is also a war history buff) and sister. What I experienced in the brief time I spent there in the surf, on the once blood-soaked sands where the fate of the world changed forever on that June day so long ago, in the villages that still wore the battle scars from days and weeks and months of onslaught, and in the American Cemetery at Normandy - what I felt, I don’t know that I’ll ever have words for.

We stayed the night in an old bed and breakfast overlooking the town square of Sainte-Mère-Église. my bedroom window looked directly out on the bell tower of the old churchyard where American paratroopers had dropped, miles off course from their intended target, and many had met a quick end, falling into German guns like gifts from above. I stood in the moonlight by my window that warm June night in 2015, some 71 years later, and could see it all happening.

But the most surprising revelation on my trip to Normandy wasn’t on the beaches where the boats landed, or the cliffs that the Rangers scaled, or the cobblestones where thousands of American boots marched, although those places left a deep mark on me.

 The most peculiar and unexpected awakening happened for me at a castle. The most ironic part was that I wasn’t very happy to leave the battlefields and war museums to visit a castle, but my family was keen on it, so I went along grudgingly. The castle had once functioned monastery, and a prison, and many other things throughout the centuries.

The dramatic spires of the place jut up out of the ocean from the giant rock perch where Mont St Michel sits against the backdrop of the English Channel. The ancient church is an island when the tide comes in, and somewhat inconvenient to reach even when the tide is out. Surrounded by sea water or bog-like sand, the old monastery and it’s supporting village were built in and ever climbing spiral upward, as the rock allowed no more outward growth.

Toward the top of the man-made mountain is a Great Hall, where perhaps once Kings and nobles dined. Where once monks chanted in echoing reverence and solemn glory.  The ceiling of the great hall, arching nearly 30 feet overhead, was filled with floating white feathers. Suspended magically in the air by some invisible force.

I asked several people what the feathers meant. I went home and googled it, and found no cohesive answer.

While I was there, I sat in a courtyard and wrestled with my own soul over some of the never-ending personal battles I was facing. I was staring up at a golden statue of St. Michael, the patron saint of soldiers, law enforcement, fire fighters and EMTs. The monastery was dedicated to him, and emblems and depictions of the arch angel were everywhere.

I sat there, while my family milled about the passageways and halls of the ages old stone buildings, and I had a talk with St. Mike. I made him some promises, about keeping my faith for as long as he would keep my brothers and sisters safe. The cops I love and the soldiers. My firefighter daughter and all of my friends on the line. I promised I would hold fast to believing in the protection he offered and the reasons that so many people run bravely into the fray for the freedom and safety of others.

St. Mike answered me, in a way, with the feathers, which, three years later, I learned were part of an artists display for an evening event. But for me, they were the floating remnants of a battle between good and evil. Pieces of an angel's wings left suspended throughout the ages as he wrestled the dragon. I saw the fight between right and wrong, between freedom and tyranny, between danger and security being waged in a timeless space that continues every day that brave men and women engage in the battle.

Francesco Maffei, The Archangel Michael overthrowing Lucifer, ca. 1656

Shortly afterward, I had the feather of a Red Tailed Hawk tattooed on my arm, because those are the feathers of my homeland (now you know why!), and because I wanted a constant reminder of the war being waged and the pledge between me and St. Mike for my loved ones. Most days I wear his medal too, right next to my heart, where I hold the faith that good will always triumph, as it did on that fateful June day so long ago in Normandy, when thousands of heroes ran up against the dragon of evil and remain buried on that shore.

Normandy will always hold a very special place in my heart, and I can't wait to go back and have another chat with St. Mike about our deal and all the ones we are proud of.

Things About Crying in the Sink

I used to joke that all of my exes*, rather than being from Texas, were from Wisconsin. Back then I took some pride in the fact that other than the mere fact that I had more than one "ex*" to claim, there wasn't much else about my life that resembled a country song. The fact that they were from (as I think it should be called) the Middle East of the U.S.A., just meant that there was less deep-south heartbreak to correlate with my breakups, plus, my dogs were still alive and my kids were all smart and attractive, and nobody in my family had been thrown in jail in a couple of generations.

Lately, my bragging rights to a relatively melodrama free life have been circling the drain. Both my big dogs died, leaving me bereft and without a hound dog to ride shotgun in my pickup. My employment situation wavers perilously on the brink of the down-and-out blues, and my love life went tits up, relegating me to a life that is the smack dab epitome of a cry-in-the-sink country song.

Most of these things, with the exception of two dead dogs, I can boil down to matters of choice. My career path has been, to say the least, a meandering one, for which I make no apologies and generally thrive in the flexibility and enjoyment that I usually get out of it, however much stability is lacking. That's a choice I've made and I own it.

 In love, I can only blame my choices for the broken hearts I have borne. Either I chose the wrong guy, or I chose the wrong behavior. And maybe sometimes, like my recent past, I chose both.

I'd like to say that my choosing has gotten better over the years. Albeit much too gradual for my impatient taste - but I know that I have been choosing better and better in the men department and I know that as far as behavior goes, well, I wouldn't hardly recognize the girl I was ten years ago if I bumped into her today. I am getting better, no matter what they say.

But still, no matter how real those increments of improvement might be, they haven't arrived me at blissful perfection yet, and while the number and geographic diversity of my "exes*" have grown a little, so has my ability to be the kind of person that someday, when I choose the perfect guy, will make me nigh unto perfect myself, and I'll be singing the B side of that heartbreak album about heaven and having everything I ever wanted. Someday.


*Authors note: I am strongly adverse to the terminology of "exes" - I tell my girls that once a relationship ends, you aren't their anything, and they aren't yours. I don't like the ownership idea that it conveys. I have former husbands and past boyfriends (don't really like that word either...)... but they aren't "MY exes."

Things Lately

It's been a rough couple of months. I feel like I keep saying that over and over and the months get rougher rather than better. The sun is out now so that helps - it almost looks like we might have a spring after all, now that it's summer.

A few weeks ago I said goodbye to one of my all-time besties, my old hounder Truck. Truckles. Trucker. Truckladite. Even now, sitting in a conference room on the last few minutes of a lunch break at some sort of fire training, listening to my classmates talk about sales on RVs, I find myself choking back tears. Even now it's still too soon to talk about it. Maybe it always will be.

Since then it has been a marathon of work hours, training hours, writing deadlines, softball games, track meets, doctor appointments, surgeries, conference calls, multi-hour drives, etc, etc, etc, and never less than two of those at once, all day, every day.

And then there was the day that my romantic entanglement became disentangled. One day I have a boyfriend and Big Plans, and the next day I am single and not a plan on the horizon. I swing wildly back and forth between feeling the most lost I have ever felt and feeling wide open to new adventures, what ever they may be. Something big is coming. Something good is coming. Life is never what you expect.

In all of that, I am still learning. Or maybe I am learning more. I am learning that it's ok to not be ok. I am discovering that no matter how important and necessary you feel a person is in your life, the power they have is really your choice. I am finding out that absolutely NOTHING is so important that it should keep you from being true to yourself, proud of the path you've carved and honest to the people around you.

I am learning that I have a herd of badass kids that are more awesome than even I know, and I am truly grateful. I am learning that you can't underestimate the power of the love of Good People. And there are lots of Good People.

Things About Good People

I am not a Luke Bryan fan. Ima just get that out there right off the bat. But he's got this new song out and with some of the stuff that's been happening in my life lately, it fits the bill, and I can't avoid it.

I started a blog post about the things in my life that have been hard lately. I said goodbye to my old hound Trucker a few weeks ago. My kids are all growing up and facing Real Life struggles that I can't (and shouldn't) help bail them out of. My little pod of security that is my kids and dogs and small town life is unraveling in every direction, and the transition is hard. My life plays a little bit like a country song right now. But the bigger thing than all of that is the GOOD. The AMAZING things that have been happening. HUGE things and teeny things, but AWESOME things.

Because most people are good.

Some friends came and mowed my lawn, raking up piles of thick, wet grass with their bare hands after I asked just to borrow their lawnmower. They refused to let me help. Then a few days later, they showed up and dropped off a brand new lawnmower on my front porch. Not because I deserve it. Not because they're looking for credit... because they're good, kind people with big hearts in the middle of their own adversity. They're the kind of people I want to be.

Somebody else donated enough money to sponsor FIVE local Veterans to participate in the Catch 22 Memorial Day Shootout. I can't even tell you how big that is in my heart. For every business that I have marched in to, and every email I have sent, and phone call I have made (and I HATE talking on the phone) - this one donation made every step worth it. Because the donor (who asked to remain anonymous) is Good People. Like all of the local businesses who pitched in, big and small, to help out local vets. Good People.

I wrote about my friend awhile back, and her lifetime love that was slowly slipping away from her. An optimistic note from her and the love she has for him, in the hardest of hard times, give me faith that it's out there. Deep and abiding love. She's Good People.

When I am having a hard day, my kids, the ones I never give enough credit to, rally around me like my own little Secret Service Detail. Somehow even I raised some Good People. They're amazing.

I don't even have enough thank yous for all these Good People. But I love you all.

Things About 104

The other day I got to visit somebody who will be 104 in a few days. 104 years old - in human years, even - and she's got a quick tongue and a sharp wit and sometimes gets those two things confused, which, at 104 is Exactly All Right.

She told me that perhaps it was time for me to consider a new profession because what I do and the means of doing it can be rough on a body. She's not wrong. At 104, you aren't often wrong. She wasn't quite feeling herself, a little disoriented, as so she was in the hospital. She told us that if anything she said made sense that somebody should take note of it. If you're 104 and aware that you might be saying things that don't make sense, I think you're probably doing pretty well.

She said that she never planned on being 104 and wasn't quite sure how it happened. It just flew by, she said, and the closer she got to 104, the faster it seemed to come. Here I stand at 40, thinking it took me positively forever of doing All the Wrong Things to get here, and she says that 2.6 times my years happened so fast she can't account for it.

She said that she wasn't sure why God wanted her to be 104. That she wasn't sure what she was supposed to be doing. As if taking some time to visit the Critical Care Unit at the local hospital wasn't preoccupying her, or even important in the slightest.

At 104, she has plenty of advice to give, and absolutely no reason to not give it. She recommended thinking hard about my future, and how I want it to be, which is something that I tend to avoid because it's Scary. She said that I can do whatever I want. At 104, I guess she would be an expert. Maybe she became an expert from doing things other than what she wanted, or maybe she always did exactly what she wanted. Either way, it's good advice, because I CAN do anything I want.

She thinks being 104 isn't a big deal. It's just something that happens. Granted, it happens to less than .02% of the population in the U.S., but still... I don't think I have ever belonged to a demographic so elite. Other than percentage of Homeschooled U.S. Residents with the Last Name Stecker and Multiple Pet Dachshunds, or something ridiculous like that. Actually, there's probably a lot of us like that, so never mind. 104 is special. It's rare. Although researchers say that by the year 2050, that percentage will have grown nearly tenfold, so in another three decades, our odds of making it to that age improve greatly.

In the meantime, my 104 year old friend is a long term anomaly in a world with a shrinking attention span. She's pragmatic and practical, still sporting a sense of humor and an analytical eye for success and efficiency. She was born in 1914. She's seen this country through a half dozen wars, technological progression, economic depression, recession, and cultural revolution. When she was born, most homes didn't have electricity. Now most INDIVIDUALS have hand held devices that connect them instantly with The Whole World. When she was born, automobiles had only been commercially available in the U.S. for six years. In 1914, planes had barely gotten off the ground. When she was born, white males were the only legal voters.

Compared to the changes that she has witnessed, our own societal and cultural changes seem to be crawling at a snail's pace. It's hard to imagine, but it's easy to understand the black and white worldview that more than a century has given her. Of course I can do anything I want. Look at the last 100 years. Anything is possible. Who knows? I might live to be 104, and I can only hope, still possess a quick tongue and a sharp wit - only occasionally confusing the two.

The view from a 104 year old's home. She's got it figured out. 

Things About That Time of the Year

Call it Spring Fever. Call it Cabin Fever. Call it discontent. It's that time of year again. The time when it's too warm for boots and too cold for flip flops and everything I try to wear is Exactly the Wrong Thing. The weather is having an identity crisis just like I am. The house is too stuffy and the yard is too mucky and the only thing that feels good is being in the car and cruising down the road to anywhere, slightly over the speed limit with loud music and somebody that doesn't annoy me. Or a dog.

Unfortunately it's also that time of year when it seems more important than ever that I remain gainfully employed and so I find myself cruising up the road to places I'd rather not go, slightly under the speed limit behind a chip truck (if you have to ask, then you've never been on HWY 25 to the Canadian border) that has just thrown a rock the size of a golf ball into my already cracked windshield. It's ok, I didn't like that windshield anyway.

Seems like of All the Years that I've been complaining, this one should be the least complain-worthy. I've got a brand new-to-me house, living in the "Big City," and all-in-all, thing are looking mighty upwards for me. And yet, here I am, with complaints to register in spite of it.

I was reminded the other day, while talking to Someone Amazing, that this is part of my cycle, something I go through every. single. year. Like in 2017, and in 2016  and again in 2016 , and in 2014, and a lot of other times in between and before and probably ever afterward. It's just part of my year. Part of appreciating the other seasons when I am happy to be home and snuggled in, waiting anxiously for the first snowfall of the year and getting Christmas Trees. Or escaping the sweltering heat with a cold beer in a shady hammock. Spring is a restless season for me. And that's ok. It makes me re-examine and re-evaluate where I am at and what I am doing. Sometimes I come out knowing I am on the right path, and sometimes I get to re-adjust. Discontent isn't bad if it moves us to the next step, or the next phase, or the next level of commitment to the thing that we have been dragging our feet about, like a retirement plan, or a book to write, or Someone Amazing.

The good news is I get to bust out soon. In a few days I will be on my way to sunshiney and oceany things in Mexico with people that don't annoy me. And then it will be time to get to work. Time to travel and be busy and be homesick and discontent that I don't have endless hour to kill in my stuffy house and mucky yard with somebodies that do annoy me. And dogs.