Jaci Dawn

I have debated whether to write this morning and look back at the past year or to wait until tomorrow and start all over. 2018 was nothing short of a disaster for my personal goals, and – yet – it heralded a positive lifestyle change in the very last moments.

There were days when I felt I was in a black eddy, sucked into a whirlpool of mediocrity where all creativity, imagination, and desire was sucked out of me. I got up in the mornings, went through my paces, drank my coffee. The highlight of my weekdays was my ten o’clock and 3 o’clock breaks at work, when I’d wander down to a nearby duck pond and visit the semi-tame puddle ducks there. Occasionally, something interesting would happen on my walks (I did rescue some ducklings caught in a drain). More often than nought, those walks were times of prayer, meditation, and questioning.

The job was losing its luster. Good changes came in waves, but I felt no enthusiasm for them nor for the bright and shiny new tech tools that were dropped in front of our collective noses like carrots before the proverbial horse on a treadmill. I nibbled, but the taste seemed bland. The company offered carrots and I wanted apples and molasses-sweetened oats.

There were high points to the year, of course: my garden, the birds that fill our little 10,000 square feet haven of pesticide- and herbicide- free patch, the trip to South Dakota and home,  our exploration of the local brew pub culture. and our grandchildren and their parents coming for a long visit. The presence of our grandchildren pushed me toward being creative again: they begged to see and play with my little canvases of animals.

The ale caused me to gain weight.

The lowest point of the year was the loss of my father-in-law, a man so red-neck and boisterous that his loss sucked a hole in our universe. It’s hard to describe Sonny without describing all his shortcomings, but it was those very things that endeared him to us. Sonny’s life was construction, hunting, fishing, hunting, and fishing. Did I mention he loved to hunt and fish? One cannot think of Sonny without thinking of rifles, camo gear and fishing rods.

Emotionally, psychologically – the year was a cess-pool. I stepped carefully around my own illness, uninspired, tired, drained – it was as though I looked at my creative self and murmured, “Someday, I’ll rescue you, but for now, you stay locked in this tower room. I can’t help you, and you can’t help me.” I don’t even have the long hair to lower to a prince in disguise (nor did I sense there was a prince to come to my rescue).

I made the decision to jump out of the frying pan into ice cold water sometime before the fourth quarter of the year: I would retire at the end of 2018, putting to rest the anxiety of getting up every morning and doing work that didn’t benefit me in any other way except to put money in the coffers. It was a freeing decision. I applied for Social Security early and began counting down the days and hours. 2019 would be the first time in my life that I would have a little income coming in and a whole lot of time to myself (no small children) in which I could pursue my dreams. It wouldn’t be lot of money, but enough to help cover the bills and feed us.

The change came a tad bit earlier than I expected: my employer sent me home at 10AM on Friday with my last paycheck. I was retired.

So – what now? I’ve dinked around all weekend, itching to start my projects. My mind is aflutter with ideas. I’ve filled my Pinterest Boards with DIY projects. I’ve begun to reorganize the house (at least in my mind). I’m trying to take a four-day weekend before I jump in, but it’s very hard. That artist stuck in a tower seems to have discovered the secret entrance and a whole world is outside, beckoning that imprisoned creator into the open.

My next post will be the definition of the “what next?” – the hopes, dreams, and resolutions of a bird whose soul has been set free. I hope to start soaring.

Read Full Post »

Our daughter came to visit. She lives in Alaska these days, with her husband and their four children. They booked their trip for two weeks with one caveat: our son-in-law had to leave after one week (which was last Monday). The rest of the family leaves tomorrow. Therefor, we had our big dinner last Sunday.

I also had to work most of the time they were here, so we didn’t go on some of their Oregon Adventures (the zoo and Oregon Museum of Space and Industry -OMSI). Don did, however, teach the little ones how to play croquet – well, sort of. We don’t have a proper course in the backyard and some items are broken, so – well, you make do. Don taught htem how to use their opponent’s ball to help them win.

We hitched a ride in their rental van to the Oregon Aquarium in Newport on Sam’s last Saturday here.

The aquarium was a huge hit. Sharks, halibut, crabs, starfish, flounder, sting rays – too many fishes and creatures to list.

Sunday, the 18th, we broke out the fine china and the heirloom silver. We had a real sit-down dinner with no “Little kids” table: turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, black olives (Grandma always instigates a long session of children placing olives onto their fingers and popping them into their mouths), and cranberry sauce (jellied, of course!). There was a pumpkin pie chaser, topped with whipped cream (but not the real stuff because someone gifted us with the aerosol can type and we decided to use that).

Monday, the 19th, everything fell apart. My sister-in-law called me at work and advised me that her father – my husband’s father – had passed away. He simply did not put the oxygen tubes back into his nose, and he passed in his sleep somewhere between the evening of the 18th and the morning of the 19th. Life suddenly went sideways.

I closed the office and hurried home to tell my husband. We cried. We made phone calls, we made the painful decision to leave our daughter in Portland – in the middle of her vacation to see us – so we could travel to eastern Oregon to mourn with Don’s siblings. It.Was.Awful.

I worked part of the day Tuesday – long enough to tie up loose ends and make sure I was covered for Wednesday. Wednesday, we hit the road. We spent two nights with Don’s mother. Don’s brother was living with their father and found him on the morning of the 19th (“He looked so peaceful”). We had Thanksgiving dinner – impromptu – at the truck stop on the south end of La Grande (great food & service). Don and his older brother looked at their father’s collection of camouflage hunting clothing and tennis shoes. There’s nothing for women in Sonny’s estate, unless that woman is well-schooled in the art of fresh water fishing and deer/elk hunting. That was the sum of Sonny’s life: hunt. Fish.

Friday, we drove back to Portland in some of the worst weather I have ever had to drive in.

Let me take a moment here to tell you about driving. I’ve crossed over Cabbage Hill and Meacham in freezing fog and snow. It’s scary, even carrying chains. Semi truck drivers decide to pass just because one truck driver is going five miles an hour slower than the other – and they’re both going around 40mph, while you are going 70 or 80. You have to stomp on your brakes to allow some redneck trucker to pass the other trucker who is going five miles and hour slower (but you were going 20 to 30 miles an hour faster).

That’s not the scariest. The scariest is driving through the Columbia River Gorge on I-84 in the rain. The rain started when we passed the John Day Dam. It poured. Other drivers didn’t turn on their head lights nor their taillights. There were just blank spots in the rear-view mirror or in the headlights that meant there was a car – possibly -traveling there. From Hood River to Cascade Locks, the ruts in the freeway filled with rainwater. The water grips the tires and turns them sideways. The driver’s job is to keep the steering wheel straight. A car precedes you and the entire windshield is covered in water for 3 seconds. You just hang onto the wheel, steer straight and keep your foot off of the gas or brakes. It is terrifying, Anytime you hydroplane is terrifying: a trip down the Columbia River Gorge on I-84 is doubly that.

Add in the woman talking on her cell phone while navigating that section of road.

It is only by the grace of God that I don’t freeze up behind the wheel. I fall apart after I reach home and am safe. Damn. Headlights. Taillights. WTF is wrong with people that they don’t understand this simple rule: windshield wipers on = headlights and taillights on.

We’ve had two nights with grandkids since that wild excursion to reunite with family over loss. Croquet, soccer, fire, roasted marshmallows. Tomorrow is our last night together.

Tonight we ended with grilled salmon (courtesy of our daughter) and roasted marshmallows. Tomorrow, these wonderful little people and their mother fly out, destined to their Alaska home. We will miss them.

We will miss their Georgia counterparts.

We miss out children and our grandchildren.

We miss our fathers” John T. (Jack) Wilcox in 2011 and Garald C. (Sonny) Presley in 2018.

That’s a hard “G” as in “Gary”.

Read Full Post »

Thirty eight years ago, my husband was called up by the United States Forest Service. He was an experience wildland firefighter and had worked for Oregon State Forestry for several years, starting during his high school years. He was an employee (currently laid off) of a local logging company. We needed the money. The Santa Anas were blowing.

From Wikipedia:

“The Santa Ana winds are strong, extremely dry downslope winds that originate inland and affect coastal Southern California and northern Baja California. They originate from cool, dry high-pressure air masses in the Great Basin.

Santa Ana winds are known for the hot, dry weather that they bring in autumn (often the hottest of the year), but they can also arise at other times of the year. They often bring the lowest relative humidities of the year to coastal Southern California. These low humidities, combined with the warm, compressionally-heated air mass, plus high wind speeds, create critical fire weather conditions. Also sometimes called “devil winds” in conjunction with Northern California’s diablo wind,^[1][2] the Santa Anas are infamous for fanning regional wildfires.”

There were wildfires in Los Angeles in the autumn of 1980. Homes were built into the brush. There were no natural fire-lines. The hills were mountain mahogany, a plant that is pitch-filled and hot burning. There was poison oak, the smoke of which could poison lungs. The drought that has extended into 2018 had just begun.

Fire fighting is a scary and dangerous line of work. Fires can turn. Fires create their own weather and winds.  Fires jump boundaries.

One of my earliest memories as a child is of my mother sitting in the kitchen nook of a Forest Service house we lived in. She had the walkie-talkie turned on and was listening to the chatter about some fire my father was on. He was the Ranger, not the firefighter. She was clinging to the hope that he would walk away from the fire and return to us. I don’t remember whether she saw me or not, or whether she comforted me or not. I only remember the connection to her as she prayed Dad would come home.

1980. November. I wanted to have updates. I wanted to know he was OK. He was struggling with mountain mahogany and poison oak going up in flames. Men beside him failed when they inhaled the smoke from poison oak. He cursed the houses built into the brush.

I ate dinner with my father-in-law and my sister-in-law at some restaurant. He ate turkey sandwiches on the fireline.

1995. My mother died. My father, a veteran of 30+ years with the Forest Service, and my brother, took me on a ride up into the alpine levels of the Sierra Nevadas. We were struck by the California laws that didn’t allow home owners to cut trees or create a space where fire could be stopped. No: trees had to be left were they were. My father shook his head and predicted catastrophic results for this “environmental” strategy. He shook his head at the lack of salvage logging.

Agencies that fight fire are dependent on money from the Feds based on the previous fire year. If the year was light, the funds are light. A heavy year: more funds.

A fire fighter’s nightmare is having Federal funds cut off in the middle of a bad fire year. The safety of these fighters is on the line. My father. My husband. A friend who still fights fire. I get that people think there needs to be responsibility regarding how forests are managed out West. Sadly, they are from people who have no connection to the West or to firefighters.

I could give you a list of books to read. I could ask you to think about “what if my <insert relationship> was fighting fire, Or running from fire. Goddamit people. Animals. Livestock. Homes. People. #fuckpolitics

Read Full Post »

Yeah, I was all gung ho for the challenge this year, but as November 1st came and passed, I realized that there is no way I am going to attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days this year. Nope, not happening.

I retire in less than 8 weeks. There’s still a lot to do to prepare for this momentous occasion, like applying for insurance on the open market between the first of November and the 15th of December. Oy vey.

Our daughter and son-in-love are coming to visit for two weeks. They come with four small human beings aged 5-10. I have to work during those weeks (except for one weekend and the four-day holiday). No way am I devoting time to writing when I could be spending it warping young minds! Maybe I will convince the grands to let me read A Series of Unfortunate Events to them!

I’m working through my 2014 novel, editing and so on. I have years worth of NaNoWriMo novels to sift through, edit, and revise. I don’t need yet another one on my plate.

That pretty much sums up November 2018.

Read Full Post »