Let me try again

Did nobody like my post about hiking up Broken Top?

I labored over that thing, I'm telling you -- labored. I wrote about a dozen different versions & then decided to focus only on the quiet part, when I played with my kids in that beautiful, alien place.

Wrong choice?

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Blake hiked all the way to the snow by himself, did I mention that? Then he hiked one mile down by himself, and I carried him on my back the last mile. Forty lbs of wiggly boy on my back. A group of older women --in their 50s? 60s? -- charged past us, cooing with sympathy: "Aw, is the little guy tired?" I replied, "Is the boy tired?! The mama's tired!" But they had no sympathy for me.

By the time we returned to the trailhead, Blake and I and my mom lagged behind the others. I didn't know precisely how far behind we were, but we hadn't seen them since before Blake declared himself too tired to go further.

I wanted Blake to walk the last little way, so that he would finish the hike under his own power and also so that everyone would think, if only for a moment, that he had completed the four-mile journey on his own. On the other hand, I wanted to limp into the parking lot fully loaded so that everyone would cry, Jen! You're amazing!

In the event, Blake wanted to be carried until he saw our car -- and the family saw me carrying him -- and then he ran to them. (Yes, he ran, the little bugger.)

No one was particularly impressed by my, um, prowess. Because my husband carried Sasha the whole four miles, so he was a hero; and my dad carried the backpack that Blake displaced, so he was a hero, too. My mom has really bad knees, so even attempting the climb was heroic; and Artist Neice has run up and down Mt. Bachelor so many times that for her, a little hike to the glacier of Broken Top is blasé. I suppose it's a risk I took when I hiked up there with my kid -- that if he got tired, I'd have to carry him.

I would, however, like a small badge. A Girl Scout-type badge. You know?



Surfing Uncle, Blake and my husband with brave Sasha on his back scramble for a good view.

Stones, snow, sky

The ten of us stayed together, tramping happily through spare alpine meadows -- about two miles in distance and 1000 ft. up, up, up – until the second patch of snow. At that point Sasha determined that she could not ride in the backpack for another minute, and in truth I’d breached my tolerance, too. From the trailhead to the summit, the volcanic soil on Broken Top decreases in granularity; by the time we reached the second patch of snow we were traversing boulders as large as my daughter. Enough, I thought. It’s too dangerous for the children to hike any higher.

So my mother and I and the two children stayed to play in the snow while the other adults hiked further up the cirque. They wanted to see the stream which emerges from beneath the glacier. That stream eventually joins Tumalo Creek; water from Tumalo Creek comes out of the taps in my house.

Our patch of snow was not (according to the internet) a glacier; certainly "glacier" seems an overwrought term for the stuff my kids played on. It was just snow, wet and grainy, like the snow that stays in patches in the forest until late spring. We were hiking in the heat of Labor Day – but it was the same kind of snow. The kids slipped and slid on it like otters. Sasha threw some of it at her brother. Blake walked the edges, which are undercut by a runnel of water. I told him he’d get doused if he kept it up, but you know Blake: he stomped along the edge until he did in fact collapse it, soaking his socks and shoes.

The water from our melting snowpile ran around and under and through the rocks, so walking up there was more like criss-crossing a marsh than a stream – or maybe quicksand is a better analogy, because nothing grows in it. There are only rocks. The kids threw rocks into the water; they moved rocks aside to release a stream, then dammed it again; they stacked rocks into towers. My mom and I followed them anxiously, trying to corral the children in that wild place. Watch your aim – don’t hit your sister! Sasha, don’t hit your brother! Don’t climb that rock! Don’t walk so far up the snow! Blake, if you wet your shoes one more time…

Eventually we settled down. We sat with the hulk of the mountain at our backs, uncomfortable but comforting, and had a snack, some water. Stones and sky everywhere. The breeze hot on our skin. Crickets made a strange wapping sound; water whispered around and beneath us. A brief rockfall. Listen, kids! Just listen!

The other adults returned after awhile, appearing one by one over the ridge. My children shouted Daddy! Grandpa! Uncle! and scrambled to them – joyful as if it had been days since we’d seen them.

Then we started back down the mountain.



My parents: Dad in orange and Mom in blue.

Cross-posted at The Green House.

Tags: Nature+Parenting, Broken Top, Hiking

About that engaged couple

In my mtn. biking meme I wrote about a woman whose brakes went out on her bike and yet she finished the ride. On the bike. Two of my readers commented on the fact that her fiance wasn't more chivalrous.

Well. Why should the male half of the couple be required to ride the broken bike? You are assuming that he's a better rider. You are assuming that he can handle the pain & ignominy of the falls better. Wrong. She's the stronger rider.

Her husband was honoring her abilities. He didn't assume that she was beaten; he didn't assume that she was a poor helpless chick stranded on a trail. Instead, he gave her the impetus she needed to finish the ride under her own power, despite the odds.

If he'd sacrificially taken the broken bike, then he would have been the hero. Instead she was the hero.

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My four-year-old son sometimes rides through the vacant hillside lot across the street. The big kids have built jumps on dirt trails over there. He pushes his bike up but he rides down. Sometimes he gets scared, seeing as there's rocks and juniper trees, and rather than feather his footbrakes he tries to drag his feet to slow down. This is extremely precarious. Stay on your bike, we always say. You're safer on your bike.

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Do you remember that I said I'd cried, once, on a trail?

Three Corner Rock. Deepest darkest southern Washington, a trail covering a ridge or three through second-growth forest. We left one car at the bottom of the trail and parked the other near the summit, cutting the ride in half -- but it was still several miles over rough terrain.

I had broken my arm that winter. The doctor said that I couldn't hurt it, but it still hurt. I didn't have full range of mobility in my wrist yet. So: I was really afraid to fall. In mtn. biking, as in most sports, hesitation is not rewarded; fear of falling induces falling.

So I fell. On a set of about a dozen switchbacks leading through the forest on the side of a mountain, I fell. Over and over. My husband and brother-in-law were so far ahead I couldn't see them. I was so tired, I felt so abandoned, my wrist hurt and shit, I was still a couple miles from the car. I just plopped myself on the trail and cried. Poor me! Oh, poor me!

And then I got up. I was still a few miles from the car. How would I get there except under my own power? I ate a powerbar and I rode the rest of the way.

I'm proud of that ride. I get to be proud. Just like my sister is proud of finishing her run despite being lost in the rain. Just like Casey is proud of her birth experience. Just like you are proud of the hard thing you did most recently.

Mtn biking meme

We spent this weekend at my in-laws' place in Camp Sherman with some friends and their three-year-old son. It was relaxing. The boys picked mint for our mojitos.

But I don't want to write about that. I want to do a version of jo(e)'s meme which she got from the RevGalBlogPals. My kids are not school age yet, and it's been over a decade since I was in school myself; but I have been nostalgic, suddenly, for autumn mountain biking.


A woman asked me once if a person needs to learn to ride in order to live in Bend... I hope I don't sound like yet another poseur. I'm not saying I'm some superstar rider; I just like to spin.

First time I ever rode a mountain bike on a trail: In Lithuania, summer 1995. I borrowed my roommate's bike and rode along the Neris with the man who is now my husband. I skidded on a tree root and flipped over the handlebars, landing on my back on an embankment, one arm holding the tree and the other holding the bike. (The bike and I were fine.)
Last time: Autumn 2005. My husband rides some weekend mornings, waking early to do so, but I can't seem to get it together myself.
Smells that remind me of mtn biking: Hot dirt. Trail dust. Manzanita.
Things that remind me of mtn biking: The dozens of riders heading down my street toward Phil's Trail every day.
Scariest thing about mtn biking: Switchbacks with a cliff beyond. (I'm terrible at switchbacks.) Alternatively, being unable to unclip from my pedals when negotiating lava rocks. Ouch.
Things I don't like about mtn biking: When my husband and I used to ride together, he was always ahead. I never minded because I'd rather work through the hard parts without an audience; and he'd always wait for me at the end of the more exhilerating stretches. However, my lovely husband would also wait for me on the other side of bits that he knew would make me crash. And he'd be grinning.
Least favorite mtn biking clothes: Black lycra biking shorts.
Party tricks: At age 33 I learned to bunny-hop at last -- but I have yet to actually hop over a fallen tree, or any obstacle, on a trail.
Strangest thing: I fell in love with my husband while watching him ride. He's an elegant rider. Once in Lithuania he performed the most beautiful slow fall, tipping onto his front tire; and then, balanced on that one wheel, he unclipped and twisted over the handlebars, landing squarely on his feet. Also, once in Vilnius he bunny-hopped a dead cat.
Favorite ride: One might find this surprising, since on this trail I once flung my bike over a cliff, shouting with rage, and once I sat (on a switchback, matter of fact) and burst into tears; but my favorite ride is Three Corner Rock. The last time we drove out there logging equipment blocked the trail.
Best seasonal memory: Late summer on a trail east of Mt. Hood, where it's hot and dry but still densely forested: Dog River. My husband and his brother and me. We parked our car at the end of the trail and then rode toward its beginning, heading first up the highway -- a lonely state highway, not the freeway. From the highway we rode up a very steep, paved logging road, alongside which grew wild strawberries. My husband's brother threw his bike aside and crouched among the berries, looking exactly like a grizzled old bear.
Most inspirational memory: My husband and his brother and me, plus the engaged couple with whom my husband's brother lived: late summer on a trail that connects to and extends beyond Dog River: Surveyor's Ridge. This is a long, technical ride and at the moment I'm remembering, we started too late in the day. The female half of the engaged couple lost use of her brakes about half-way through the ride. She could only drag her feet to slow down, so of course she kept falling. At one point she landed in a heap and began to cry. Her fiance crouched beside her and said, quietly but sternly, "It's important to remain composed!" She got up and finished the ride. What choice did she have? (In fact she was a few weeks pregnant at the time. I have often thought that her fiance's advice is also good for new mothers.)

Weaving memories

So one day my dad appeared at my house and announced, “I’ve rented a houseboat at Lake Billy Chinook! Reserve the first week in August!” I could tell he was pleased. He remembered, I think, the houseboat we rented once on the St. Lawrence River.

I was twelve or so; we drove up from our home in northeast Pennsylvania and spent a week drifting from island to island. We criss-crossed the US/Canada border, which fascinated my sister Julie and I. (Julie kept saying Canada was colder. It’s Canada, she insisted. I scoffed.) Jill was still just a baby – five, I’d guess – but we included her as much as we could. In fact we three girls discovered and named a small island, Fafrika, begging my parents to moor there for an extra day of exploring. Some of our great family jokes originated on that trip. (“Black Beauty!” Ha ha! Stop, stop, I’ll fall out of my chair!) Oh, it was a fine time.

My family moved a lot as I was growing up. I never lived anywhere for more than five years. I don’t have a childhood home or friends I grew up with or a geography in which I feel rooted – but my parents have been married for 40 years and my sisters and I were always together, so we do have these shared memories. In the houseboat at Lake Billy Chinook I felt the texture of those memories. Layer over layer.

Twenty years ago my dad caught a fish off the edge of the houseboat and I ate it and was nearly sick, thinking of how the wriggly thing had been so recently alive; and then last weekend, my two brothers-in-law and my sister helped my son catch his first fish. (It was too small to eat.) Twenty years ago we played charades and all manner of games and we teased my mom relentlessly; and then last weekend we played a version of poker and teased my mom, who was just the tiniest, funniest bit drunk. Twenty years ago we were a family of five. Now we are ten – more, if you count our husbands' families -- and my parents are grandparents, and I’m a wife and a mom.

Now my husband: everything’s different for him. He is deeply rooted right here. He's fourth generation Oregonian on his father’s side, second generation Bendite on his mother’s side. He lived in Bend continuously until he left for college, and he has always considered Central Oregon to be the center of his universe. His memories show people changing over time, like mine – but they include changes in a place, too. It’s a richness I am only beginning to understand.

Before we left for the trip, he told me all kinds of stories about the LBC. Face shining in the telling. When he was a child, his parents kept a ski boat at Lake Billy Chinook. A lot of his friends’ parents had ski boats there, too. Someone had a little motorboat – not his parents, I don’t think – which he and his friends were allowed to pilot when they were just ten years old. He told me about waterskiing there, with family, with friends. He told me about the last time he ever waterskiied there: some asshole clearly out of control of his boat ran right over my husband’s line. He described the differences in the water and the terrain of the Metolius, Crooked River and Deschutes arms. He told me not to bring a towel because the sun is so powerful that a towel’s redundant; but definitely, he said, bring fleece. It’s always cold at night. He described the cast of the light down in that canyon and the feeling – a lightness, a particular kind of happiness, an exhausted euphoria – when driving up the canyon wall after a few days on the lake.

I have mentioned about a million times that I would like to give my children a strong sense of belonging and some historical continuity. In this culture we don’t have local gods or heroes, we don’t have legends from Long Ago. We can’t point to a pillar and say, That’s Lot’s wife. We can’t point to a crack in the earth and say, That is where humans emerged. We have only our own tales. We take the kids on a houseboat at Lake Billy Chinook and tell them stories about their father’s and uncle’s and aunts’ adventures there. We tell them stories about a houseboat rented on a different river, and their mother’s adventures there. This weaving tells the children who they are.

Fear, part three

One of the cutest things in the en-ti-re world is Sasha lying on her belly in the driveway talking to ants. If you ask what she's doing, she holds out her hand and says, "Ant - hand"; and often enough there is in fact an ant crawling on her hand. Or smooshed between her fingers.

Billions and billions of ants live in our yard. They like the ponderosa trees. Ours are all black ants, but biting red ants live in the park at the end of the street. I suspect red ants need the drier, dustier soil found there.

Anyway. You remember that my kids had a "pet" daddy long-leg in the bathroom, right? Well, the other day they found a spider outside and chased it around our neighbor's driveway. That spider was so large I could see it from 100 feet away. I don't know what kind it was but it sure scared me, and I told the kids to leave it alone.

That night, my husband and I explained that some spiders living in Central Oregon -- black widows for example -- are filled with poison, and if they bite you, they'll make you very, very sick. It was a one-way conversation, as conversations with Blake often are; but the next day I heard a loud STOMP, and Blake explained, "It's OK, Mom. That spider was filled with poison."

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A cartoon in the last New Yorker showed two people in a tree with a bear below it, staring up hungrily. One person says to the other, "You tell him how much money we donated!" This made me laugh so hard...

I'm not trying to teach the kids to "love" nature. Nature isn't some cute, cuddly creature that exists out there; it's not a fascinating weather event watched on TV. Climbing a mountain isn't a quick jaunt undertaken lightly. This world demands admiration and respect.

Fear, part two

In daycare the kids are doing a unit on safety. They are learning about strangers.

Before we hiked Pilot Butte the other day, Blake told me a long story about how when you climb into the center of the earth and meet a stranger, you should never talk to them. Don't talk to strangers! So I asked him: Blake, what's a stranger? He had no idea.

While hiking Pilot Butte, we passed dozens of strangers. And we said hello or nodded to every last one of them. Some of the strangers stopped to admire Sasha and to wonder whether she had hiked the whole way by herself. One stranger yelled after me to catch her, that a car was coming down. (We hiked up the road, since we had the baby jogger. It's a one-lane paved road with no guard rail.) One stranger picked my son up when he tripped.

So. I can't teach my children not to talk to strangers when I talk to strangers all the time -- when, in fact, I sometimes rely on strangers for help. But clearly they need to learn to be wary of certain people.

Yesterday I left the kids in the car while I ran into the cleaners. (Silent conversation with self: I parked in the spot immediately in front of the building. I can see them through the shop windows. If someone tries to take them, I can yell loudly enough to be heard. I can be out the door in an instant. If Blake tries to climb out... Etc.) Before I left, I asked Blake if he knew what to do if a person he didn't know tried to open his door. What, Mom? Scream as loud as you can, Blake! Scream as loud as Sasha.

In other words, for the moment I have decided to tell them not to go with a person they don't know. Not to take anything, even candy, from a person they don't know.

What do you think? My kids are just 4 and 2.

Fear

After I graduated from college, aged 22 years, I moved to Riga, Latvia. An English-language newspaper (really more of a newsletter to emigres) had offered me a job. It paid next to nothing but did offer housing, so off I went. I bought a plane ticket and I left the country *snap* just like that.

In Latvia I met the most interesting people. Everyone seemed so daring. One young man had travelled from Latvia to Istanbul by plane, then came back up by train and bus; I met him in a cafe and made him tell me all his stories. At the end of the evening he offered me his hand-drawn map of Istanbul and encouraged me to take the same trip. So I did. With a backpack, a passport and very little knowledge of Turkey, off I went *snap* just like that.

You might say that I was careless. That I was naive, unforgivably innocent, much too trusting. And you'd be right ... but nothing particularly horrifying happened to me. I had a wonderful time. I grew up.

I kept that sense of daring after returning to the US. I learned to mountain bike; I learned to snowboard; I married; I finagled my way into jobs that I was completely unqualified for. I talked to strangers. I had a wonderful time.

Then. Then I got pregnant, and everything changed. I grew fearful. When I was pregnant, I wouldn't stand beside a microwave. I wouldn't consume anything containing alcohol, caffeine, unpasteurized milk (eg soft cheeses), beef, pork or raw fish. I stopped riding my bike and I certainly stopped snowboarding. I drove less. And I wanted never, ever to be more than 10 miles from a hospital.

After my baby was born I was always anxious. I think I was just a little crazy. I tried never to turn my back on my baby, even when he was sleeping. Babies die in cribs, you know! I used to put him in the bouncy seat in the bathroom and shower with the curtain part-way open, so I could see him. Once I dropped the phone on his head (from a distance of about six inches) and I kept him awake for hours to be sure he didn't have a concussion. Eventually -- after about six, eight months -- I realized that my excessive carefulness was actually creating problems, especially sleep problems, and I tried to relax.

But I'm still filled with anxiety. I think some of the other parents in my neighborhood consider me too laissez faire because I give my kids a long leash; but every second that I am responsible for those children, they weigh on me. It's an endless conversation I have with myself. Blake climbed up that ladder. He's probably OK. It's stable. He's only on the third rung. If he goes higher, I'll... Blake played with that marble toy; did he leave marbles where Sasha can get them? Maybe she won't eat them. Oh of course she will, I'd better find them all... If I go to the bathroom while Sasha's in her highchair, will she try to climb out? She's entranced by that movie. Maybe if I leave the door open, I can hear what she's doing... All day long I think these thoughts. If I can't see the kids, you can be damn sure I can hear them, and have a good idea what they're doing. Even if Blake has ridden his bike down to the park. Even if Sasha has wandered onto the neighbor's porch. I know where they are and I'm silently calculating whether (or how badly) they can get hurt in that activity, and whether it's worth the risk.

Andrea from Beanie Baby questioned why we, as parents, feel that the world is less safe than it used to be, when clearly it is not. She concluded (if I read correctly) that we feel more responsible for our children's safety than parents did in the past -- we feel that every bump and bruise is our fault -- and so while the world is safer, our culpability is greater, and that's the main source of our anxiety.

Certainly I feel that way. I take responsibility for what goes wrong with them, but don't take credit for what goes right.

And I was never, ever anxious or stressed before I had children. Not even during finals week. Not even when I arrived in Rila, Bulgaria at 10pm with no hotel reservations. Now I'm anxious just about every second of the day. I try to let my kids be free, to take their chances with the world; but I'm anxious for them.

2 hominids from the savannah

An old friend drove over from Portland today. In my previous incarnation, I was her manager; now she and I are colleagues; and I work part-time from Bend while she has every-other-Monday off. She drove over the pass early this morning so that we could snowboard together.

She has skied before but is just now learning to snowboard. Today was her second attempt: two runs down Sunrise in an hour, a leisurely break for lunch, and then a final slide down the hill before her muscles could fail her.

Learning to snowboard is a mysterious endeavor. One of the difficulties is language. How do I make a turn? she'd ask. Well, you swap edges. Rock from toe side to heel side. Ahh, she'd say. We talked about shifting her weight, squaring her shoulders, digging into the snow with her heels. Mm-hm, she'd say.

I learned to ride from one of my husband's friends, a snowboard racer. I used to look at him the way my friend looked at me today. "I understand all those words individually," I'd say, "but I don't know what you mean!" So I'd hold his phrases in mind: fall line, catch line, tree well, edges, swap edges, toe side, heel side. Then I'd slide down the mountain: whee! crash! In sliding I'd begin to feel with my b*dy something that seemed like it might match his phrases, and then in a flash I'd understand. Oh! Swap edges! Why didn't you say so?

My friend did not learn to associate any of the odd snowboarding lingo to what she felt today. Next time, I think.

But once we sat resting in the snow -- we two hominids from the savannah plunked in the snow, in the sky. Pine forest spread out beneath us, on and on, as far as we could see... I pointed out Broken Top and told her stories of some adventures we've had there. My husband proposed on that ridge there; Blake hiked to that glacier all by himself; Sasha's been there, too, in my front pack. After awhile we started down again, and she said that I should go on ahead. "I don't want to keep you," she said. "Go have fun." But I said oh, it's ok; I just love to be up here.

I understand, she said.

It's all good, dude.

Strangers on TV

Years ago I lived with a family in Moscow. They weren’t relatives or family friends; we didn’t know them; they were just a small, Russian family who had volunteered to host a student through my college exchange program. The "host parents" were only a decade older than me – the age I am now, in fact – but lived such different lives, with such gritty responsibility, that I found them unfathomable. Also, I spoke Russian poorly. Andrey and Galya’s four-year-old daughter would rage at me. Why can't you speak? Why can't you understand? Once I tried to read her a story but she threw the book down in disgust; I could not differentiate the pronunciation of the words "mouse" and "bear," which rendered the story meaningless.

I lived with them for 3 ½ months. In the early weeks we tried to communicate – Andrey would drink vodka and lecture on the history of the Russian Empire. Then I had a bout of homesickness during which I refused to speak Russian and derided everything Soviet. I came around again for the last two weeks or so.

One evening at the beginning of my stay, as we sat in their small apartment kitchen finishing dinner, Andrey and Galya explained that a great American movie would be showing on TV. They seemed eager for me to see it. The movie, they said, was called "Choo-zhoi." It had a sequel, "Choo-zhee-ah." Did I know it?

Well, I didn’t know those words, so I couldn’t be sure if I’d seen it; I excused myself to find my dictionary. Choo-zhoi :: Stranger. No, sorry, I said. I don’t know a great American movie called Stranger.

They found that hilarious. Oh, you’ll love it! they said. With a lot of hand gestures and animated expressions, they told me the plot. I struggled to understand. A few people in a – what? An airplane? It crashes. Round eyes, yells: something scary happens, I couldn’t tell what. Then Andrey leaned back, almost lying in his chair, shouted, "Aaargh!" and shot his fist up out of his belly.

Alien!

Since that evening I never have been able to hear the word "stranger" without also hearing Andrey’s shout and feeling the extra connotations in the word "alien." I had thought of strangers simply as people I didn’t know – other drivers on the road, other shoppers in the store – but now they are also aliens: unknowable, unpredictable, bizarre.

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You thought I was going somewhere else with that, didn't you?