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Today, it has been nine years since I saw my dad take his last breath and head off into a very happy place, leaving me very sad. I happen to know for certain that it is a happy place. I came to this certainty during an experience with a dying friend many years before my dad died… but that’s another story.
Time is so weird and surreal in relation to death. I remember being in an altered state of time for several days, even weeks, after dad died. The time leading up to his death was uniquely blurry, fast, slow, and unmoving all at the same time. Nine years have passed since I’ve seen him and it seems like barely a minute has passed and like an unbelievable eternity.
Usually on this day, I’ve had a tradition of going sailing, scattering some of his ashes, and toasting him with a glass of fine scotch. This year, the day was busy and full with kidlets, laundry, visitors, and life. It’s ok if you’re horrified by the fact that I still have his ashes. I’ve been fairly diligently scattering them in meaningful places for nine years and holding onto them with grand plans of further scattering in Scotland, Glacier Bay, San Francisco Bay, Kansas, Nanaimo, Greece, and Transylvania. By the time I get to all those places, the ashes are likely to be outweighed by collected dust. Back to your horror.. and just to deepen it a little, I’ll confess also that the remaining ashes are in a bag on my desk behind a tangle of cell phone, computer, and ipod accessories. I treat them with reverent familiarity. Before your horror morphs into concern, know that I’ve decided it’s time to deliver the ashes to a resting place other than my desk. I’m officially giving up dreams of traveling to the meaningful places listed above in order to scatter non-living biological leftovers from my father. I no longer feel the need to do that, nor do I need to keep them, and therefore some weird version of my dad, close in this way.
I remember when I went to pick us his “ashes” at the funeral home. The powdered lady in spike heels and butt-hugging “suit” reminded me that I should be prepared; that the “ashes” were more accurately described as “cremains” due to the un-ashy (gravelly) texture of the substance. She sure was right. I also was reminded that they do their best to just gather the remains of your loved one but, given the nature of the process and the equipment, there often is some co-mingling with other people’s loved ones. Can’t fault them for full, and graphic, disclosure.
I do wish my dad had been able to meet blase, ossian, and nola. Blase feels that he does know my dad – through me and “talks” they’ve had. I see so much of dad in my little girls sometimes that he feels present in some translucent, abstract, and occasional way.
Ossian likes to go to work. Nearly every morning, she packs up a little bag, puts on her shoulder and says to me, “So, I’m going to work. I’ll see you later.” Then we have elaborate conversations about what her job is, what she’ll pick up at the store on her way home, and how she will be getting to her office. When I ask how long she’ll be working, she always uses some multiple of 4 – usually 4 minutes or 40 hours. Usually, she promises to be back from work in “about 4 minutes, I think”.
Tonight, she was making piles of shapes with her play-dough and she brough a little plate over to Nola. I asked what she had made and she explained, “bok shoy and meat for Nola”. “How did you make it?”, I asked. “I just put the ingredients in and cooked it about 40 hours,” she said.
Blase’s favorite number is 4… maybe it’s genetic.
This morning, while drawing a glorious picture of snakes, Ossian said, “I care about myself”.
Tonight, just before giving in to exhaustion at bedtime, Ossian said, ” I have a really good mama. I have a great daddy, too.”
Gheez, kid.
Nola rolled over. This major event almost went unnoticed. It’s a perfect example of the plight of the second born. With Ossian, we watched and waited and anticipated this event. When she finally did roll over, it was front page news in our little world- lots of fanfare, awe, and video were expended to mark the big moment and new era of mobility it unleashed. Sweet little sister Nola rolled over and I looked without registering the event and continued making play dough pasta with Ossian. Several bowls of red and purple noodles later, it was like I finally heard the announcement, “Nola has rolled over” and I said to Ossian, “Nola rolled over!”. Ossian’s big sister enthusiasm and squealing almost made up for my maternal blindness….
Nola has also been working on getting her feet into her mouth for some time now. This week, we are proud to report that she has succeeded. Go Nola!
Big daddy has a new clubhouse.. it’s our recently acquired 29 foot trailer. It’s mission is to become the Petrolia recording studio for Blase. After sitting for 20 years in a very nice man’s yard, we were nearly paid to take it away. Now it adds to the complex aesthetic we are working on up here… strewn baby toys, woodpiles, child carrying devices, garbage cans, lush forest, quail, and now a trailer with emerald green windows create a personalized moat of sorts around our house.
Not a bad guest tube for are more intrepid visitors…interested??? Bring your own bed.
We were visited by Claire and Josh from Connecticut and Alison from Sonora. Another hard week was spent with rigorous schedule of river swims, beach walks, barbeques, and ice cream making. Claire is in a family way; there’s nothing much cuter than seeing a close friend pregnant – especially one as gazelle-like as Claire. We kept waiting for her to get barfy, but she never did.
Alison came to Petrolia by way of the East Coast where she’d gone to collect a dog that her elderly relative was no longer able to care for. In order to spare Julie (her new charge) the trauma of traveling in the clanging underbelly of an airplane in August, Alison made her a service dog vest and proudly marched her onto the airplane. Julie, it is important to note, is not lap dog size. If there was like a “regular” size for dogs, she would be the spokesdog for that size. Alison also washed and then lugged Julie’s half eaten and unwieldy dog bed across the country, just to help her transition. Julie got in touch with her inner puppy while letting her hair down in Petrolia. She frolicked on the beach, galloped through the woods, investigated our orange cat, ate raw meat, and got her hair done. It was like a dog spa for her. Alison should open a dog spa/canine healing retreat and meditation center. She did everything but hot stone massage for Julie and that dog was psyched.
Every time another wave of visitors departs, we notice Ossian doing and/or saying something that we can’t claim to have planted in her. We always scratch our heads and wonder where she got “that” and then remember the wild card learning that happens when friends stay here for several days. Shortly after Claire, Joshy (as O calls him), Alison, and Julie left us, Ossian was riding her bike with one foot on the handlebars. She proclaimed, “I’m doing a parlor trick!” Who taught her that???
Here I am again, the blog of shame, trying to make up for inexcusably lost time. Perhaps “unblogged” is a more accurate descriptor than “lost”..as you’ll read, the months of July and August, though delinquently reported here, were actually quite full. Like Oz behind the curtain, I have the magical ability to am write this on September 16…but date it as though written on August 1st.
Where did I leave off? Well, we spent the remainder of July in Los Angeles frolicking with nana, papu, auntie colleen, uncle blase, cousin blase, and baby chiara. Ossian entered a church for the first time to attend her newest cousin Chiara’s baptism. Ten days were spent playing, eating amazing take out food, and catching up with beloved bonpanes. Our LA experience lived up to its name with gridlocked traffic at all hours, a day spent laying down some tracks in a recording studio, running on the beach, calling the cops to report some urban crimes, and visits to kid-filled attractions which left the little ones happily exhausted.
I rang in August by traveling solo with the girls to Washington to tromp on the Olympic Peninsula with Manama and Poppy. After gunkholing, hiking, seal pup defending, bird watching, sand building, and sailing, the girls and I headed to Seattle for a whirlwind fix of my sweet, sweet Seattle and to hug a few of our many missed friends. We zooed with Rosemary and her expectant bump, goodbye partied with dana and tim, brunched with fairy god mother, dined with baby xavie and his mommies, fountain splashed with auntie jen, walked with auntie keeley, and gorged on ethiopian food with baby theo, chloe, and aileen. While staying with Auntie Jen and Auntie Keeley and their menagerie, we put their 700 square foot house to the test and decided it was way more than enough for room for their impending brood.
Given my challenging experience flying with girls from Los Angeles to Seattle, I am not proud to admit that I desperately purchased a portable dvd player in seattle to help me with our flights home. I hoped that the novelty of watching her first video would distract a dangerously un-napped ossian from her frustration at being trapped in airports and airplanes for hours on end. We packed up , I got them dressed and fed in the wee hours of the morning and headed out to the car to go to the airport when the phone rang – it was Blase calling to report that our flight was cancelled and that we would not be able to fly back until the next day. I grumpily told him this wasn’t funny and wasn’t a good time for a prank call since I was trying to get his family wadded into luggage and a vehicle before facing a day of air travel. He convinced me that he was serious and I called the airline to confirm this brain teaser. After 30 minutes on the phone with an agent who calmly explained that there were no seats from seattle to anywhere in northern california that day. I rebutted that I would fly into san fran, oakland, arcata, or even redding and again was denied. In desperation I said I’ll drive to portland, just get me home. No luck. So we had a bonus day in Seattle with a feverish toddler, now sick from all the fun, and we headed to the aquarium for one last hurrah.
We managed to get out the next day. Faced multiple and lengthy delays everywhere, bought more kid dvd’s in the san fran airport, and did a lot of deep breathing. At one point in the packed san fran airport, Ossian reached such a point of fatigue that she crumpled up a paper bag and layed it down in the middle of the most trafficked pedestrian corridor and layed down on it take a nap. I suggested that she might want to move her garbage bag pillow over to the side so that she didn’t get stepped on and she wouldn’t budge. On our last flight leg in a puddle jumper to Arcata, the man sitting across the aisle ordered and bought me an unexpected drink. He had been waiting for hours in San fran, too and said he wanted to treat me because watching the joy between me and my girls for the past 5 hours had made his day. Not sure what was sweetest, the gesture, the drink, or the reflection he gave of my little my family.
life on the lost coast 