The Great Mother’s Day Surprise of 2008

Here is a quick story about two surprises—one bad, one good.

Despite the fact that Mother’s Day 2007 my mom had flown in from Tucson and we spent the weekend together, overall the day was pretty grim. In the middle of the night we received a call saying that my dad had unexpectedly passed away. This was a very bad surprise, indeed.

So one year later, we decided to stay put in our respective towns, each doing our best to pass through the memory of that unfortunate day. This year anniversary dates, such as Dad’s February 14th birthday, have been rough. Memories are all around. Sadness emerges. Grief runs its course sometimes like an earthquake and other times it just lingers in the background like afternoon storm clouds. It’s a strange sensation to experience for the first time an entire year without him.

This Mother’s Day my mom planned to go to brunch with a friend. Little did she know that I planned to come, too. After a quick work trip to Kodiak, on Saturday night I secretly flew down on the red-eye to Tucson, and there began the Great Mother’s Day Surprise of 2008.

It went something like this:

Her best friend Londa picked me up at the airport and while she parked and walked into Mom’s house, ready to pick her up for brunch, I was standing on the sidewalk around the corner, calling Mom from my cell.

“Hi Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!”
“Hi sweetie.”
“Sorry I didn’t call you sooner today. I was out on a long run.”
“Oh, I should have known.”

As we talked, I started walking towards her house and up her walkway. I could see her standing in her living room, talking to me on the phone. She had absolutely no idea that I was standing outside. She thought that I was in Fairbanks.

“Did my package make it in time?”
“No, it didn’t make it.” I could hear the disappointment in her voice that the Mother’s Day package I had told her about earlier in the week, had not arrived.
“It didn’t make it? Really? Hmmmm. Well—I DID!!”

And then I pranced right into her living room and with a giggle said, “SURPRISE!!!!”

She immediately burst into tears, shaking her head in complete disbelief that I could possibly be standing in front of her. After all, a few seconds earlier I had been in Fairbanks, talking with her on the phone. We gave each other a very long hug, both awash with feelings of such deep gratitude that we could share the day together. This was definitely one of those unforgettable moments, a new memory that will always be part of our mother daughter story.

If you’re contemplating some sort of crazy caper like this in the future, I would highly recommend it. Ideally, life gives us more good surprises than bad, and it’s the good ones that fuel us through the rest.

Look up and see the wild world

There is something profound about witnessing hundreds of birds flying together in migration, each carrying on their wings the intention of coming home. Such a site fills my heart deep down with an odd combination of joy, longing and sadness. It makes me forget about any trivial to-dos or lingering regrets. A flock like that brings me right into the present.

At dusk tonight I pulled into my driveway, freshly defeated after a soccer loss and for various reasons, missing my dad. He’s been gone now for almost a year. I was wishing I could just have a conversation with him, like we typically did on weekends. I stopped daydreaming and stepped out of my truck, startled by the sounds of geese above my head. I looked up to see droves and droves of Canadians, on the final approach of another spring migration. They were making a bee-line for their summer stop at Creamer’s Field.

The graceful flapping of their wings coupled with their gawky voices made me stop for several minutes in awe. And they were so animated in their calls that I wondered what it was they were saying to each other. Or maybe they were simply calling out in pure unabashed glee, the way that any being would who’d just completed a nearly three thousand mile journey with just their body as the vehicle.

Dad once wrote in a bird book that he gave me for my birthday, “There is so much good in the wild world, I hope that you find it all.” I think of those words tonight and am reminded why it is such a gift to live in Alaska. The wild world’s goodness is easy to find. Sometimes it’s as simple as just standing in one place and looking up.

Up a river with a paddle and some swans

For your information, interior Alaska’s Clearwater Lake is ready for paddlers. I know this because Saturday I was part of a friendly flotilla—four boats, eight humans and one dog—that put in at the Clearwater River just below the campground, then paddled approximately five hours down the meandering river and onto a small section of the Tanana, where we took a sharp turn at a sign with an arrow pointing left and the word “Lake.”

At this point we were forced to paddle like escapees from Alcatraz, working our way up through a rapid current, that eventually led us to Clearwater Lake. Here we used the bows of our canoes to crunch a jangled path through approximately 100 feet of relatively thin ice that sat between the middle of the lake and the far shoreline, where we would soon disembark.

And when we chanced upon the lake for the first time, we were greeted by two enormous swans, trumpeter or tundra varieties and certainly mates for life, who I swear cackled over and over again, “It’s spring! It’s spring! It’s spring!” And they were absolutely right.

About forty of their swan friends and double the number of Canadian goose socialites lingered atop the remaining ice shelf that lined the shore of the lake. A harlequin couple, overdressed as usual, were the wallflowers of the bunch, loitering along the edge of the affair. Regardless, it seemed we had caught them all in the middle of a somewhat segregated cocktail party, with swans on the left and Canadians on the right. All were reconnoitering, reflecting on this year’s long journey north. And behind this gaggle, two lackadaisical moose stood on the shore, silently munching on willows, and paying no attention to this energetic flock. Surely they’d seen this all before, spring after spring after spring.

If you’ve never heard a couple of swans on take-off, they’re the bird world’s version of a 747, and if they’re ascending from a lake, their gigantic wings beat against the water, the tips especially slapping against the surface, until just airborne enough to be free. Amidst the grace of their flight, a subtle downward motion juts down awkwardly from their lower neckline with each wing flap. This balances out the downward thrust of their giant wings, and makes it possible at the same time for their elegant heads to surge forward with each flap, as if they were each their own winged victory of Samothrace.

In addition to this live rendition of Winged Migration, one of the day’s highlights took place after we stopped along a bank on the Tanana and had lunch. Here we all fell asleep in the sun. It was a rare kind of warm, unbothered sleep where one immediately goes to a heavy, relaxing place of pure dreamy content. I could have happily stayed here for a few hours, but our crew’s squirrel hunter and canine alarm clock, woke us all up with a raucous in the woods, and as the squirrel chattered away for dear life and the bad dog was scolded, we all came to and knew that it was time to paddle along. This was okay though, because that cozy rest in the rays was just the glimpse I needed to know that summer’s incoming laze will surely usher in more of the same.

A few yogic considerations

The notion of breathing, surviving and thriving should naturally include something about the practice of yoga. And since people of all ages, shapes and sizes do it, this post is meant for anyone considering taking part in a yoga class for the first time.

There are several different styles of yoga. Some use props to help people gradually work into poses. Other styles meet in a hot room. Restorative yoga is meant to promote healing and relaxation. Power yoga classes are more physically challenging to the body. Trying different styles can be useful in discovering which style fits your needs.

In Fairbanks, there are several places that offer yoga, including the University of Alaska (UAF) Fairbanks, the UAF yoga club, and Infinite Yoga. Infinite Yoga is currently my favorite place to do yoga because the space is just so beautiful, with lots of light, aesthetically pleasing architecture, and such welcoming teachers. To find a yoga class in your area, you might visit yogafinder.com or the Yoga Journal’s national directory of studios.

I have heard people say, “I don’t do yoga because I’m really not very flexible,” or “I think I would be embarrassed.” With that in mind, this post is meant to encourage anyone to try a yoga class. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• When deciding what to wear, make sure that your clothes cover you in a way that you will be comfortable in a class of people with whom you could theoretically be stretching and bending together into the shapes of a human pretzels.
• Come to class a few minutes early, especially if you don’t want to be in the front row. Surprisingly, one unspoken rule of yoga is that class begins on time.
• Know that yoga is done with bare feet, but wearing socks and taking them off after a few minutes of warm-up stretches is normal.
• The teacher may make subtle adjustments to your body during class. This is meant to help students more accurately move into the poses and can often be the encouragement needed to move further into a pose.
• Typically yoga students are not encouraged to talk during practice, instead to take in what the teacher is saying and focus on their own individual movements and breath. Of course, questions are encouraged, but yoga classes typically are not heavy in the dialogue department. Before and after class are great times for talking.
• Remember that yoga is a personal experience and a process. Try to steer away from comparing yourself to others in the class. If you can only touch your knee, and the full pose asks that you touch your toes, accept where you are at this moment.
• Staying in the present moment is a large part of yoga. The mind will want to wander to the past and future. Focusing on the breath and the task at hand will help to stay put in the present.
• The basis of yoga is breathing, so during a class remember to always come back to breath—the simple act of pulling air in to the body, absorbing oxygen, and the pushing out what remains.
• If at any time a pose is too difficult or painful, with your mind visualize breathing into the challenging area and you may find that eases the pain. Feel free to modify the pose to fit the needs of your body at that moment. Remember that if a pose really hurts, you don’t have to do it.
• The last few minutes of class usually end with a pose called shavasana, a Sanskrit word meaning “the corpse pose”. During this time the body slows, so putting socks on and covering with a blanket or sweatshirt is encouraged, will help you to stay warm, while also promoting maximum relaxation and rejuvenation.
• After shavasana the teacher typically ends class with hands in prayer position at the heart, a bowing of the head with the spoken word “Namaste,” which means “I honor the spirit within you.” And students typically bow their heads and respond back to the teacher with the same word.
• Keep doing yoga and it is amazing to see how one’s body improves in flexibility and balance.

What does feng shui have to do with my wart?

Are you one of those people who think that feng shui (pronounced fuhng shwey) is a pseudoscience for free love Mac users who wear clogs, handmade beaded earrings and follow astrology? If so, in the spirit of opening our minds this winter to new and mysterious subjects, let me share with you a brief story about a pesky wart.

One time when I was sixteen I had an ugly wart on my foot. At the time my dad told me that if I rubbed the wart with half of a raw potato and then put that potato under the rain spout, my wart would go away. My dad did have a sharp sense of humor and I’m certain he was pulling my scrawny leg at the time. Regardless, I tried this and the day after I put the potato under the rain spout, my wart disappeared. Maybe my wart would’ve disappeared without any russet. Maybe the act of rubbing that baker on my wart actually caused it to physically disappear. Or, maybe simply believing the potato would bring a cure caused my brain to create physical healing. Whatever the cause, I haven’t had a wart since, and if I do in the future, I’m definitely grabbing a spud.

That being said, just because something hasn’t been proven in a scientific way, doesn’t mean that it might not be simply fabulous. Take love for instance. Magical love doesn’t always make sense and sometimes we don’t understand how exactly it works, but that doesn’t mean it’s not divine and incredibly helpful in this life.

My westerner’s take on feng shui, the Chinese art of creating harmonious surroundings to enhance the balance of yin and yang in one’s life, is that it’s like a metaphysical father that asks, “What are your intentions in this life?” And then, instead of offering a blessing, feng shui shows a physical reminder of those intentions everyday. By placing, in one’s surroundings, objects and colors that represent an individual’s aspirations and desires, the hope is that these daily physical reminders assist one in manifesting their intentions through action.

So, is your karma mixed up with your dogma? Have you lost touch with your inner leopard? Or do you just want a wart to go away? Whatever the the questions, stay tuned for a quick three-step guide to discovering your very own feng shui fix.

Sweet potatoes for Apollo Bonobo

So the next time you find yourself invited to a Zen baby blessing potluck, or any kind potluck for that matter, you may want to visit epicurious.com for some inspiration. For this Buddhist feast, I think the recipe needs to meet some important prerequisites, including being vegetarian and nut-free, while also embodying the taste of royalty.

The curious cook can use epicurious’ advanced recipe search to easily make sure that certain gastronomic specifications are covered. Using this tool I can ask that the main recipe ingredient be a vegetable, that nuts be excluded from the recipes, and after a vast list appears, I can then ask to view the recipes in fork order. Recipes showing four forks are the highest cook rating and from my experience typically meet my definition of “embodying the taste of royalty”.

After an exhaustive search, that took less than one minute I might add, I have decided to try a simple, yet seemingly delectable dish called grilled sweet potato salad. I think I had something very similar to this at a potluck last month, and if it’s the same one, it was delicious.

And after reading the front of the Zen baby blessing ceremony invitation again, somehow I know that whether my bowl of sweet potatoes is a hit or I bring home most of them, either way there is nothing to worry about because as Lao Tzu reminds us, “We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.”

Zen baby blessing ceremony to follow

This weekend I’ve had the honor of being invited to celebrate my friends’ baby’s one-hundredth day of being alive. This Zen Buddhist ceremony will mark the former Apollo Bonobo’s entrance into his earthly infancy, and will be followed by a potluck. Since I’ve never attended such a ceremony I’ve been wondering, just what happens at a Zen Buddhist baby celebration and just as important, what will be my dish?

I needed a sneak preview of what was to come, so I visited the Zen Friends: A Guide to the Buddhist Way of Life where they say a Zen baby blessing ceremony is a way for Buddhist families to welcome new infants into their Zen community. The parents, along with two specially appointed guardians, promise to help the child attain its fullest potential. The child is also asked to care for the parents, who have given it the precious gift of life.

After reading this, I am very curious to hear just how the almost-three-month old former Apollo Bonobo will answer when asked to care for his parents. Will he agree at his young age to take on this responsibility? Or will he ask for more time, an extension of sorts, to ponder before giving a more definitive answer? It seems the potential here for ceremonial drama is huge, and I haven’t even decided on my dish!