We cannot see the source of this rushing water
Though we know it to be here
Somewhere upstream
The emancipation of rumblings below the surface
Tears of a glacier racing down to meet us
Clouds bursting open to pile on
In a day where everyone is allergic to something
This water: satisfying for all
Made for us
Yes to quench our thirst
Also to wash, splash and skinny dip
A little further downstream
This tributary grafted with others
Towards the even deeper ocean of love
My Grandmother had a blowout party for her 85th birthday and again for her 90th. For her 95th, she decided to skip the party in favor of staggered visits by her ten grandchildren. Being the furthest away by a long shot, I was the last of the grandkids to visit. It is with some shame that I confess her 96th birthday passed before I finally made the trip to Lawrence, Kansas last month. Guilt gets us places if not always in a timely manner.
Faye (right front), Diane (right back), Betty (left)
My Grandmother Faye still lives in the house of my childhood memories. Having outlived three husbands, she now lives alone. She’s slowly losing her eyesight due to macular degeneration, but otherwise is as healthy as a horse and sharper than our best Monday morning well-rested selves. She still cooks for herself, buys fresh flowers every week and checks her email every morning on her second iPad. (Her first iPad had an untimely death from the hood of a car.)
Soon after I arrived, she asked if I might help her read an email. It was the minutes from her last Investment Club meeting. Toward the end of the minutes, under “New Business” I read:
“Faye discussed Mankind Corp (MNKD) which was split off from Merck. Faye moved to buy 100 shares of MNKD for approximately $5.55 per share. Kitty seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. Kitty agreed to add this stock to her watch list.”
I knew my Grandmother was something of a stock junkie, but I had no idea she was still scouting stocks at the age of 96. With some college and a disposition towards numbers, my Grandmother learned how to analyze stocks in the mid 70s. She started a subscription to Value Line then (which she continues to receive and study to this day under a magnifying lamp), fired her broker in the 80s, and went on to amass a sizable portfolio from a modest amount of money left to her by her first two husbands. All on her own. Buying Intel early helped.
My Grandmother joined the S&P 20 Investment Group fifteen years. At the time it was mostly a social gathering of women thirty years her junior. She boldly suggested that instead of picking stocks based on “gut feel” that maybe they should consult Value Line. She taught them what she knew. Each woman is now responsible for tracking and providing monthly read outs on a handful of stocks. Today there’s still wine (and probably Bourbon for Faye) at their gatherings, but now official meeting minutes and more money in the bank. Trickle down teaching works.
Faye (middle red) with her Investment Club
While her finance gene might not have filtered down to me, her love for words did. My grandmother writes what she calls “Thoughts in Rhyme”, a poetic hobby that took flight in her 80s and just retired with a birthday rhyme to a friend on his 100th birthday and another friend on his 95nd birthday. I read several of them. They are witty and proof that growing old doesn’t mean you have to stop flirting.
I learned all this in the first couple of hours I was there. My travel companion named guilt quickly melted away as it became clear my Grandmother wasn’t keeping calendar score, only I was. My siblings and cousins had warmed up all her stories and since I was the closing act, I got a few extra ones. Two full days of stories. Her stock prowess and Thoughts in Rhyme was only the tip of her chutzpah iceberg.
The youngest of six children with an abusive and alcoholic father and without two nickels to rub together, Faye Jones Olmsted Bradshaw Jones made a life that defied the hand she was dealt. Understanding her helped me understand how my Dad - her son that she so wanted to be a girl they kept her in the hospital a couple of extra days to make sure she bonded - found the grit needed to make his way from Kansas to West Point. It was good to know that when I’m hugging the shore, I can remember I come from a line of people who ventured out of their depth.
As we talked I asked her what she thought was her best decade. She mulled that one over and responded the next morning with this: “There wasn’t a best. Aside from my childhood, it was mostly good all the time.” Not everyone gets sweeter as they age, but the resilient ones seem too. You can see it in the retell of their stories where they linger on the good parts and urge you to join them there. Not that they gloss over the bad parts (of which my Grandmother certainly had her fair share of), but they step over them with an easy nonchalance knowing they were all part of the critical path to a life worth living.
Living independently has helped my Grandmother stay young, but it’s also her chosen interdependence on younger friends like her 66 year old traveling companion and chauffeur Diane, her good-as-gold 50ish female neighbors Deb and Jo, and her equally vivacious 92 year old friend Betty (with younger looking hands than my own) that keep her there. Together they have viewing parties at my Grandma’s house to watch University of Kansas basketball games and drink 7 and 7s. It’s a motley crew of ladies who came from different parts of town now banded together in uproarious fun, companionship and love. Guardian angels in flesh and blood and Jayhawks attire.
Jawhawks Mantle
Early in the game, the Jahawks were losing and my Grandmother needed to pace. She went out to collect the mail and fell on her way back in the front door. Before any of us could run to her aid, she assured us: “I’m alright!” Jo, deferring to me as the granddaughter-in-charge, let me bandage the superficial wound on her arm while my Grandmother carried on cheering. By morning, she had redressed her bandages before I was even up.
In the NY Times article “The Liberation of Growing Old” Anne Karpf says, “The emerging age acceptance movement neither decries nor denies the aging process. It recognizes that one can remain vital and present, engaged and curious, indeed continue to grow, until one’s dying breath.”
She’s right. I have proof.
Another Christmas and New Years has passed without a Ballbach Christmas card. <sigh> Maybe next year. In lieu of a letter, here's the best of 2014 posts.
Wishing you reams of good stories in 2015.
With love, Kate Brett Quinn Colin and Lawton
These little stories keep falling into my lap and so excuse me while I overblog and share.
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I’ve worn contacts - abusively - for years. Out of necessity, I’ve recently been forced into taking them out at night. Turns out the buggers want some oxygen.
As a result of my new practice I’ve gotten reacquainted with my glasses in the morning. Because I’m not yet of Liz Lemon-wearing caliber, there is a lot of eyebrow rubbing and itching behind my ear that causes me momentary bouts of blindness as I pause to have a face-to-face with my spectacles.
This morning, with glasses in my lap, I looked round the room and challenged myself to a game of I Spy. I spied four chairs and a general feeling that the table was cleared. (It wasn’t.) That was good enough feedback to reach for my daily devotional and take a moment of quiet. With the book pressed to my nose, I flipped to January 14 passing through (without self-judgment) the first 13 days I had missed.
The title of the entry was: “14 January. Blurry Visions of God.” I kid you not. Now I’m not a believer in horoscopes or God intervening to insure the Seahawks win (best fans in the NFL will make that happen), but I do think all of our paths are sprinkled with signs and wonders and every once in a while one of them comes at you like a billboard. It’s best to sit up and pay attention when that happens.
That C.S. Lewis. He was such a wise theologian. “And it a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred – like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions; they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.”
My first thought was of the religious crazies we saw in Paris last week. I sat with that one for a while until my anger expanded into a general feeling that I needed to move on. My second thought was maybe this is why the Christian tradition has always taught confession before petition. That we can’t find or implore God until we are willing to examine ourselves. Or if you not religiously inclined, why we need to get our own sh** together before we have any possibility of seeing things right. That idea applies to the extremists and everyone in between.
I know it’s sappy to tell you that right after I had a little confessional moment, I put my glasses back on. Things were definitely less blurry … until I teared up. Because of course, confession is a release – a sending up of a helium balloon that has no way of coming back to you - and it doesn’t know how not to come through your tear ducts.
God/healing/inspiration isn’t reserved for the special few, but you do have to be willing to clean out your soul closets if you want to see the fully set table in front of you. Perhaps with enough cleaning you can even see far enough to your neighbor’s table, set differently but with crumbs under his too. As C.S. Lewis said so beautifully this morning to me and maybe now to you, “Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dirty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s been 13 days or 13 years since your last Windex. What matters is though we may wish it different, the only instrument we have to clean is ourselves.
I saw something yesterday. It was one of those things that didn’t just make me smile. It made my heart swell big enough that I could feel it in my throat.
Yesterday I went to watch my oldest son’s basketball game – a plan requiring that we be at the gym thirty minutes early. Taking a seat in the stands, I buried myself in my Kindle as I waited for the game in progress to finish. Normally this strategy of “ignoring the world around me while I wait” works. It is harder though to abide in a noisy gym.
Double checking there was not a French fire drill in progress, I looked up to register the unusual commotion. No one was moving toward the exit but everyone’s eyes were glued on the court. A peek at the scoreboard confirmed it was a close game. The fan appreciation told me there was something more worth watching.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary game of big bodied sixteen year old boys. One of the teams I recognized as being in my son’s club. The other team was new to me. Though a player on the other team had just gotten fouled on a very nice move to the hoop, I can say with 100% confidence we weren’t watching the next Lebron James.
It was the following beat when I understood why the audience was captivated. Rather than going to the foul line to take his free throws, the big guy positioned one of his teammates on the line. A highly unusual move to have an understudy take your shots, it did not take any powers of observation to notice that his teammate had down syndrome. It was also evident how happy he was to be there. Unskilled but with full-to-bursting effort, he threw up two prayers - both of which missed.
While the team hustled back on defense, I noticed a second player - not with down syndrome, but some form of intellectual disability. He was easy to spot as he was taking the mandate to “stay with his man” with an unyielding if not always effective determination. Rounding out the roster with the big guy and dynamic duo were two more able-bodied and skilled players who helped keep the tempo up and score close. Against a competitive club team.
This was not a charity game.
The dynamo duo kept on with the defensive pressure, passed the ball in and continued to stand-in (90% unsuccessfully) for free throws. Meanwhile the other three were finding the basket and crashing the boards. As the game play entered the last period, the dynamic duo subbed out for a new pair of players. Any assumption that the big guns were coming back was quickly dismissed when one of the guys hugged the scorekeeper to let him know he was coming in and both occasionally needed to be gently but bodily redirected when out of position. In the flow of the game, the three starters involved their rotating cast in small but meaningful ways. In return they received a steady stream of high fives and endless encouragement.
The game stayed close. The club team did not dial down their game. It was a beautiful thing to watch. This team of seemingly misfit, certainly unevenly yoked players playing hard and playing together. Able-bodied young men supported by whole-hearted young men playing a game they clearly all loved. They won by two points. Of course they did. Against a conventional team that wasn’t pandering. The coach of the club team laid into his team as soon as the buzzer sounded. As he should.
This was not a charity game.
This, I think, was a picture of what living with our differences can look like. When a group of seemingly misfit, certainly unevenly minded/skilled/believing people come together - not in a special summit to celebrate our differences - but when they come together in the real flow of life to accomplish something. There’s nothing conventional about that. Maybe even a winning formula?
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the dynamic quad did not wait for the post-game handshake. They bounded over to the opposing bench to congratulate the team on a game well played.
This morning I read this: “Let everything be human and flawed, and be completely taken and thankful when it is good.”
When our hearts are in our throat… That, I think, is what it feels like to be completely taken when we see something good. And many of those good things never make it on our camera roll.
Blowing in the Wind - Ecochic 75/25 by Rosanne on Etsy
I live 2 hours from Paris, but we all live in close proximity to unspeakable evil.
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Howling winds shake the windows
Like bandwagons begging for company
The myth that we can keep ourselves safe
Independent
Without enemies
To not be afraid, yes
In a broken, precarious world
Booming with wonder
Goodness still
Like a fire that must be constantly stoked
Fed by the confidence that justice will prevail
Some now
More later
Better together
The belief that God is in all things
Not just what I see
Or you know
Or what any of us says
Howling winds shake the windows
Rain and hail now too
Let us push our logs inward together
To increase the heat
Towards justice
Copenhagen is fabulous. Between my friend Fiona and her Danish husband Rasmus, my expat friend Liesl in Amsterdam, and the local woman who's apartment we rented in Norrebro (stay there!), we had great guidance and lists for places to see and eat. It's a city with a lot of happy, so rather than tell you about it -- here's some photos that try to capture it.
Ravenous from a 5 ½ hour drive from Luxembourg, food was the first order of business upon arriving in Munich early afternoon. Though a Hofbrauhaus would do, some of us wanted better which sent us on a trek for Spatenhaus – a well-known brewery with above average food overlooking the Opera House. Mingling with locals in their Sunday finest, we scored a prime table in a private nook provided we could finish in 90 minutes. AS IF that would be a problem with this American crew of boy. We devoured plates of typical Bavarian food: goulash, spaetzle, wiener schnitzel, and cucumber salad washed down with an-always-the-right-time pint of the restaurant’s own beer, Spaten-Franziskaner-Bier and a budding notion that we very much liked Munich.
Some people are lucky enough to win the lottery and some people land at the right place at the right time even when they have no idea what to make of it. On our first night, we walked into Munich’s main Christkindlmarkt just as a herd of costumed beasts – with polices escorts and a mob of camera carrying followers - came charging in our direction. Adorned in stinky animal hide and carrying a switch, one of the masked beasts gently patted my youngest on the head as he blazed past and the crowd swell continued down market. Too fast and too weird to make a lasting impression, we drowned our bewilderment in 150g of warm candied almonds. Later that night, thanks to a serendipitous NY Times article, the mystery of the old and recently revived Bavarian tradition of Krampus (the anti- St. Nicolas) was solved. The devilish goblins with masked costumes made exclusively from materials and animal hides in the Alps (hence the stink) only show up at the Christkindlmarkts on the second and third Sundays before Christmas. Lottery-like timing. [No photos of Krampus were snapped in time.]
We began our experience of the world of science and technology in a fantastic, not-as-claustrophobic-as-feared replica Mine in the basement of the Deutsches Museum, the world’s largest science museum. From there we barely skimmed the surface of 50 (!) exhibits covering 50,000 square meters in four hours. One of the children rightly surmised that we’d be wicked smart if could live there. Landing on the top floor unable to process another scientific fact, we dropped a 2 euro coin in a Motel 6 style massage chair and divvied up the ten minutes between us. As far as we can tell, no new brain cells resulted from the massage.
Inspired by the Deutsches Museum, we rolled the dice for a second museum the next day – the Munich City Museum (Munich Stadtmuseum.) We toured the “Typically Munich” permanent exhibit, a cultural history of Munich from the beginnings of the city to the present – understood best by those already living in Munich, who unfortunately weren’t there to offer us any explanation of what we were seeing. Disjointed and not very interesting, we redirected to the National Socialism Exhibit which was better. Either the excellent City Museum in Amsterdam has ruined us with unrealistic expectations or the much too quiet museum told us that we weren’t all together wrong.
Nothing says Christmas spirit like a chorus singing carols from the balcony the Neues Rathaus high above a gazillion wooden stalls selling Christmas wares and crepes with Nutella. Zigzagging through crowds of people balancing two gluhweins and a kinder punch, I came upon my waiting children just as a trio of party Santas were passing. More interested in Santa than kinder punch, my youngest shouted Santa’s name. Clearly in a hurry to a Christmas kid-free bash but obliged by their chosen attire, they stopped, straightened their beards, and offered the young lad a photo. [One Santa not photoed.]
On the U-Bahn (the old but superefficient, not oversubscribed subway) five stops north of Marienplatz, Munich’s central square, given away by voices that carry a youngish retired couple in tennis shoes inquires, “So where in the US are you from?” Without wanting to overcomplicate, we answer “Seattle, and you?” “Illinois. Joliet.” “Oh,” we politely respond, “We went to school in Illinois. Wheaton.” “Sure. Wheaton. We know it.” Not knowing where to go from there, they quicken their pace and we follow in silence, until they peel off for the Marriot and us for the Melia.
If ever you wondered how Germans are able to walk in any weather condition, happen upon a German Outdoor Store and be ready to have choice overload and a keyed up husband. Choosing a down jacket in Germany is like choosing a college in the US. Way too many options for anyone without a plan or decisive wife. Except of course when you ask for a snow boot in men, size 14. Then you have two choices. Both in black. (For non sports shopping, check out Reichenbachstrasse near the Deutsches Museum for some great boutiques.)
On a crowded sidewalk in the center of Munich four days before Christmas, as can happen on forced Christmas shopping marches, a brotherly spat broke out. A fist or two might have been involved. Obvious immediate parental action was taken diffusing any further altercation while a well-dressed German Grandma - not even in the fray – took it upon herself to shout her angriest German at my already scolded children. Too bad she wasn’t looking 50 meters later when brotherly love broke out. [Photo not available.]
Sausaged out by the month of December, we bee lined to the neighborhood of Maxvorstadt for lunch at a place called Burrito Company. With a total California vibe down to the ordering system, hot sauce in brown bags on the table, recycling bins, avocados for sale and surfboard in the corner we learned the place was opened by a couple of Germans who spent a few years surfing in California. They then came back to Munich with an idea to spread burrito goodness. It worked.
We made it out to the Allianz Arena for the last tour on the last day before the holiday. The last English tour was hours before so we settled for the German version, figuring that Football was universal and Dad and Colin’s limited bi/tri-lingualism might suffice. Dad’s German skills were enough to react to the “I assume everyone here speaks German” that afforded us a bonus, condensed English version at the end of each section of the tour. We saw the team shower rooms, the tunnel to the field, and learned lots of fun facts about Bayern Munich (team of Lawton's goalie hero.) We even scored 45 minutes before the start of the tour in an excellent, modern, and interactive team museum. The boys were in football heaven.
Our holiday tradition in Seattle is to go to the Pike's Place Market every Christmas Eve morning with our extended family to hunt and gather for the evening's meal. We brought that tradition to Munich by doing a similar thing in a fabulous outdoor and indoor market (Schrannenhalle) before driving back to Luxembourg loaded down with goodies for Christmas Eve. If only we could have transported the extended family.
I came to London to see a concert. If it sounds a touch extravagant or like a middle-aged reach for a missed groupie youth, you wouldn't be entirely wrong. My husband however was already going to be in London for work - lodging solved! – and among other things, age has a way of drawing out one’s desire to make more effort to rally around passionate people, especially those who have done the work of their craft. I know nothing about music really but I'm getting better at recognizing the scent of authenticity in whatever form it comes by. Having seen the Brooklyn-born, now Seattle-based Augustines leave a part of themselves in Heidelberg this spring, something told me the trek to London for their last show of their current European tour would be worth the investment. It was.
My favorite part of the concert was the encore when the band came out to the middle of the crowd to perform a couple songs unplugged. Made possible by the iconic and intimate venue of London's Roundhouse, it wasn't just a "let's change up the set" decision but a reflection of the band's relationship with their fans - even though the choice further exposed what little voice singer Billy had left after weeks of pummeling. A woman pastor I heard on a podcast recently talked about how their church is set up in the round as an intention of sharing in the accountability of presence. These guys were the doing the same thing - giving of their grief and longing and joy and then receiving it back as a sort of collective offering. In that way, we were treated not just to a memorable show but also gifted a two hour hall pass from whatever ailed us when we walked in.
Grade A experiences have this way of giving you temporary water wings that carry you into the next day. My next day was still in London, on my own, until the meet up with my husband for dinner. Though aching for the American pancakes staring back at me from the hotel breakfast menu, I made a last minute commitment to the veggie works filling me with enough omega3 to power past any temptation to cede my walking agenda to the Underground. Credit: water wings. Normally in the morning company of global news where missives of despair come flying off the page, I am easy target. However in my buoyed and now nourished state, nothing landed dangerously.
With ear buds in for a second encore, I set out for a long unhurried walk to a photography exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. I could have chosen a hundred different destinations in London, but somehow returning to place I’d once been and enjoyed seemed like as good as any way to spend the day. Engrossed in my playlist and not trusting myself to look the wrong way, I fastidiously obeyed pedestrian signals or stuck close to the shoulder of trailblazers in the know.
Indeed there are lots of suits and the best looking prams money can buy, but London is a place where everything goes and everyone is welcome, if not for reals at least at first blush. English language schools round many neighborhood corners and coupling norms are as unexpected as a young Arab hipster offering to share his table with you. (I said “yes, thanks!”) While the common urban denominator may be scarves, the rest is an opportunity to see the world in six city blocks.
The day was cold in a way the weather report misrepresented, wind causing chill beneath layers of thoughtful preparation. After a while, I joined the chorus of people taking cover in coffee shops and tea salons for a mid-morning shot of warmth. Behind the glass case of my chosen pit stop, gingerbread men squatted on pillows of whipped frosting and cinnamon buns swirled freely in pronouncement of their hand crafted care. Not obliged to order my joe to go, I marked the moment by cracking open (what’s the Kindle word for that?) a new book and eavesdropping on conversations I could finally understand. It was lovely and totally unrevealing.
Back on the street, I slackened whatever pace I had to follow herds of people on side streets (most, I learned, on their way to an office building not a secret sample sale) or catch slices of sunlight breaking through (causing an erratic number of street crossings.) Like a cyclist obliged “Do Not Overtake Buses,” I had not overtaken a single soul who set out for the National Portrait Gallery at roughly the same time I did. This was meandering at its finest. Although even with my head partway in the clouds and partway in people watching mode, marketing muscle made it impossible for me to ignore: “Night of the Museum 3” will be in theatres soon.
Finally ducking in to the exhibit, I was treated to sixty portraits selected from over 4,000 submissions by a wide range of contemporary photographers. As remarkable photos can, these portraits revealed not just an interesting face but a flash of a life story. In the permanent collection, one particular amplified oil on canvas caught my attention as I noticed the subject and I shared birth years. Like me, her face was at the beginning of new groves but her gaze was confident and her teeth excellent. She also happened to be an Olympic sprinter, a stitch of reassurance that no amount of training can stem the tide of growing older.
Building on the healthy start to the day, I stopped in Soho for a Peruvian lunch of ceviche and causa (cold potato cakes.) I made conversation with the affable waiter from my counter stool resulting in the purchase of signed copy of their best-selling Peruvian cookbook and shamelessly listened in on an interesting conversation among three young Americans who’d come to London for acting school.
Revived by the late lunch, I turned my attention toward a little must do Christmas shopping along the circus that is Oxford Street. Nothing pops you out of your good cheer like a futile search of a soccer kit (Liverpool) not endorsed (hated) in these boroughs. Draining faster than a phone battery working overtime on maps and music, I did manage a minor success at the Nike Store and a few others. With the morning marvelousness of humans dimming in a late afternoon queue for the loo and the consumption chatter that all of a sudden surrounds you like an unwanted red bow, I soon veered off in search of a pump for my deflating wings.
Meeting up for a before dinner drink near my husband’s office, my spirit inflated with a taste of home in a bottled Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and in the company of my most cherished. From a Peruvian lunch to a Pakistani dinner we hustled across town to Whitechapel to make our 9pm booking.
Arriving at the largest, most chaotic queue I’ve ever seen at a restaurant – on a Tuesday night no less – I was glad for the reinforcement. Not yet with the benefit of having tasted the ridiculously good food or seen the ridiculously low 24 pound tab, it was good humor – not necessarily a booking – you needed to secure a seat. Whatever the case, it quickly became clear we were once again rallying around passionate people working incredibly hard and turning out naan faster than a prolific tweeter . Once seated we couldn’t help but notice that even in the sea of hungry diners, several of the wait staff had this practice of gently tapping my husband on the shoulder to make sure everything was ok. It most definitely was.
Travel is wonderful, and should you need any specific details on the above – ping me – but there is another kind of travel that comes in the wake of another soul’s exuberance for life. Go there.
