3X17=51

Three dogs, a seventeen year old boy, his mom, take a gap year. 

[31751]

Vermont spring

There are brilliant days in the muck of a Vermont spring that sharply dazzle, the sun piercing through the wet air and melting the snow so fast it can flood roads and villages. 

Keep an eye out for them. 

They are rare and extraordinary.

[31751]

March Mist

I walked the dogs up and down my hills, twigs and needles scattered, frozen crystalline droplets still hanging onto glistening branches, wide curls of birch bark arcing away, about to fall loose, and finally settled on the highest hill my meditation seat, a fallen tree.

From there I saw a canvas filled with mist gently shrouding the brown-black trunks reaching up, 

their fingertips hopefully touching the sky, infinitesimally small buds promising the unfurling of tiny leaves. A deep sadness poured out of me and was replaced by

a chest-aching expansion of wonder, a huge in-breath of the extraordinary, I find again and again in the natural outdoors;

by dog kisses, Max, then Rosie, then Theo, checking in on me, telling me: We’re here, with you, always. Life is good. Isn’t it? And, OK, enough, it’s time to move on.

[31751]

Snow storm in Central Park. March 1, 2015. 

I ran after the woman in the cloak to capture her. We were all in a French movie...

[31751]

Driving into New York City, February 27, 2015

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[31751]

On the ridge - amy

It was a fall Tuesday and I was on a long run with four dogs - Max, Theo, Rosie Mei, and Sophie - up into the hills of the back country, past farms, into the high woods, along an old logging trail that no one ever visits, heading toward a secret little mountain lake.  

Almost at the ridge, I heard Theo, who was behind me, break out in a sudden howl, a yelp, another howl. I thought he had caught an animal and I called to him to come to me. Again I shouted. And again. But my usually obedient and ultra loyal dog wouldn’t come. I turned and ran back to him, approaching quickly but with caution what I thought was an animal yelping in pain underneath him. And I saw it: his front left paw crushed inside the heavy metal jaws of a trap attached to a thick steel chain, straining and taught between Theo and where it disappeared into the ground. Theo writhed and howled, releasing great moans into the sky. 

I was utterly alone on top of a backcountry ridge with no phone and had to figure out what to do. I couldn’t open the jaws of the trap clamping down onto his front paw. The traps are heavy steel, medieval-looking, half-circle mouths, the size of a large horseshoe. I analyzed the contraption thinking, "Julian would be able to figure this out, Scott would know what to do,” but couldn’t figure out how to open it further. I didn’t want the trap to open and spring back on my own fingers. Then all of us would be trapped.

I frantically dug into the packed dirt with a stick and my bare hands to see if I could release the metal chain from the ground but it was deeply sunk into hard packed soil and meanwhile Theo was violently twisting and yelping, alternately chewing at the trap and his paw. I have heard that dogs will bite their feet off to free themselves. Or, the trap stops circulation and their feet must be amputated. My mind rocketed from terrifying scenarios to logistical options in rapid succession.

And then Max gave the same piercing yelp and howl. I turned around and he was leaping into the air, contorting his body, eyes wild, neck arching. I ran over to him and saw his left front paw was caught in an even larger trap.

I realized that what I was good at was running and running fast. I told the two, trapped dogs that I would be back - something I say to them every time I leave them - and that it was going to be OK. I was going to get help. And Theo laid down with anxiety in his eyes but somehow trusting that I would. Max still writhed but then sat still. I was stunned at the dogs’ momentary presence of mind. Would they stay? Would they try to rip their legs off or break them if they became frantic? Would their feet need to be amputated? Their legs?

I ran as fast as I could with Sophie and Rosie Mei. Rosie was reluctant to leave her brother and all time companion, Max, and pulled back on the leash, turning her head back in an effort to see him as we headed down the hill, through woods, around a remote cow field that hosted a bull, past an abandoned house, another empty house, and finally saw a truck and a small car parked in front of a dilapidated farmhouse and barn. The car door was closing. I shouted for help, running, running.

And then the door opened. A very large woman in a blazing pink sweatshirt emerged from the smaller car. And then a wizened, older man appeared next to the truck. I saw them peering at me running up the hill. Almost there. There. My hands and clothes were covered with dirt from digging, I was sweaty and wet from the rain, my hair plastered to my head, and I think my face must have been streaked with tears.

I explained the trouble and they set to work immediately. He on his improbable smart phone, his hands shaking. Perhaps a nerve disorder, I thought. The shaking didn’t deter him for a moment.

The man, Dave Farnham, called his game warden friend who connected him to another game warden and another and found one who would drive to us immediately. Then Dave grabbed his shovel, his crowbar, and his wire clippers from his truck - for, improbable again and amazingly fortuitous, he was a contractor, fireman, and emergency medical technician - and told me we were ready to go up into the hills to rescue my dogs.

The woman, Tammy Simon, supplied us with a sheet and a blanket from her car, which she said we could throw over the dogs if they were to bite.

“Dogs in distress,” she said, “even the sweetest ones, will bite.”

It turns out, pet sitting was her line of work. She stayed with Sophie and Rosie Mei at the bottom of the field to keep a lookout for the arriving game warden.

And then she called out to me when I was half way up the steep and scraggly field,  “Breathe, honey, just breathe! You have got to change your energy and be calm for the dogs!”

I forced myself to think back to my climb up King’s Ravine, wondering if one scary day would help with another. It did. I told myself if I could make it through that day, I could make it through this one. Just keep moving. Forward. Upward. Don’t stop.

Dave led me up through the cow - and bull - pasture unhooking electric fences and holding them high or to the side so I could step under or around them. A gentlemen even in crisis.

I expressed concern about the bull and he said, “I’m not worried. I’ve got the shovel. And if the shovel won’t do, I’ve got the crowbar.”

We entered the woods and climbed farther and soon I found the trail, which led to the dogs. I didn’t want the dogs to see me and become more distressed, so I asked Dave if he should go ahead of me. I was concerned they might bite him in their terror.

Again, he parried with grim calm and that buried-under-the-grit-snow-and-ice Vermont wit and compassion that you have to listen closely for with your heart,

“I’m not worried. I’ve got gloves. And I like dogs."

As Dave approached, I called to the dogs to reassure them. I heard Theo bark his “Warning, stranger!” bark. Then, there was absolute calm. Silence.

Moments later, Dave called “One released!” and Theo came bounding and limping toward me. Another silence while I stroked Theo’s head and held him close to my legs. I saw in his eyes that he wanted to wriggle for joy, but the pain stopped him. So he just looked and looked at me.

“The second one released!” Max hobbled on three legs toward me, such a confused expression on his face, not understanding why he couldn’t use his front paw.

Dave ambled back down the path, unfazed but concerned, “They were coy dog traps,” he called to me.Theo nuzzled him over and over again and wouldn’t leave his side all the way down the hill.

“When I released him,” Dave said looking at this black, shaggy dog at his side “he just looked at me. He was saying "thank you... for releasing me.”

As we eased down the hill, I repeated over and over again, “There is a god.”

“But,” I explained to Dave’s slightly hunched, narrow back, “I don't believe in God.” My never-ending philosophical arguments with myself clamor for attention even in the midst of it all.

Dave was my savior at that moment. Dave and Tammy. How could it be possible that I found the two most perfect people to help me, in the middle of almost nowhere? Causes and conditions? Karma? Fate? A miracle? Just damn good luck?

Dave suggested we stop a few times, to let the dogs breathe and take a break. It was so hard for them to walk. At one point, Theo walked right through a cow flop - inconsistent with his normal fastidious behavior.

“Oh, right through it,” I muttered, anxious about infection in case of open wounds and also forgetting Theo’s predicament momentarily.

Dave responded with his unruffled kindness, simultaneously easing my hyper-vigilance and sympathetic to Theo’s pain:  “It’s just cow dung, nothing to it. Plenty of that in my life."

As soon as we saw Tammy at the bottom of the cow field, her round, pink body above the muted greens, I waved to her and she waved back exuberantly.

Back at the old house, Dave and Tammy explained that when I first ran up the road to them, they were about to leave. They’d just been checking on their friends’ semi-abandoned house for a short while. Closing it up for winter.

I didn’t question god. My relief was flooding my body, heating my tensed muscles. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. For these two perfect people. Nothing more.

The game warden arrived followed shortly by Julian driving the Volvo. We gently lifted the dogs into the back.

After thanking Dave and Tammy profusely, Tammy gave me two of the hugest hugs I think I have ever received in my life. She would have given them even if I didn’t thank her. She saw my terror and she knew she was salve. No questions. Only certainty. The right thing to do. You do it.

Julian drove all the dogs and me home and then I drove with Theo and Max to my vet in Waitsfield an hour south of my home.

Miraculously, not a bone was broken. The dogs were OK.

There was fear on that ridge line. My fear. Fear of having to manage crisis all alone. Fear of the unknown woods where man had been and made his mark. Fear of angry, painful contraptions and the people who set them. That fear stayed with me through that night, not letting me sleep.

It’s hunting season. So many times I have seen a camouflaged hunter hiding behind a tree or stepping silently through the woods, even though I don’t run in the woods during deer rifle season. I sense people lurking in those trees, which makes me far more afraid than any coyote or bear.

As Paul Brown, the game warden said when he arrived at the scene, “There are a lot of people in the woods. They’re everywhere. Everywhere."

[31751]

Immersion Journey I: Cow Sauce

My first min-doc in 20 years. I learned how to use a semi-pro video camera and Premier Pro CC in the last month. A neo-producer-director-cinematographer-editor Amy is unearthed. It's really exciting. And, I promise, I will get better!

[31751]

In the growing darkness of winter in Vermont, I keep returning to the first and second notes of Robert Thurman's buddhist arpeggio. I can't get to the third or fourth.

First note: Understand and embrace that this life is precious. The taste of chard sauteed with onions, my dog nuzzled close to my feet, the fire in the wood burning stove, good jazz emanating from the kitchen.

Yet, the mind wanders to anxiety, anger, impatience, boredom, fatigue. Tomorrow's work. The bitter cold and black ice of winter. Taxes in April.

Second note: Death, of life or circumstance or season, otherwise known as change, will happen. Return to the chard, the dog, the fire, the jazz. Now. and now, and now.

This life, it's pretty good, isn't it? Even when it's all hitting the fan.

I remember the stars on that black night when I found out my husband was having an affair.  Thousands of bright tiny-ness scattered out all over the sky. I remember looking into the sweet blackness of the summer night woods and smelling rich and abundant nature. Somehow, it was going to be alright, because at least I had this. This nature - extravagant, vast, and steadfast, presenting itself with utter calm. 

[31751]

King's Ravine, NH.

[31751]

King's Ravine - amy

Astride a boulder the size of a one bedroom cottage teetering on one of its corners, and looking down into a cave that sunk into moldy darkness directly below, I thought, “I am scared. I am so fucking scared.”

The steep ravine walls rising up another 1100 feet, made up of rivers of tumbling boulders, giant and insurmountable sheer rock slabs, and stunted trees clinging stubbornly wherever they could to thin layers of dirt, curved around me on three sides. There wasn’t a fourth side. The valley floor plummeted over boulder fields to expose a wide panorama of the White Mountains north. 

I saw no one. Anywhere. I searched for human movement or color and listened for sound, footsteps, poles hitting rock. Nothing. I thought of my iPhone and wondered how I could use it - just in case. 

"I am a mother of three amazing kids," I thought. "I can go back. This is stupid."

But the idea of going down, over the boulders with gaping caves below them, seemed just as daunting. 

***

Because I was too cheap to buy the AMC guide to the Presidential Range, because I relied on what I thought was a well researched map and trail directions from the internet, and because the signage was the usual - unlike   our excessive highway signs - slightly mystifying and forcing use of a good map and guide, I ended up on what Backpacker Magazine lists as the number one hardest hike in the United States: Kings Ravine to Mt Adams. 

It was early fall, midweek. Half way up, on the regularly strenuous part of the trail with dirt and waterfalls, roots and small rocks, I had passed three lovely, fifty-something hikers. I didn’t realize that the two men, Jim and Dave, were the mountain goat type until later. 

I smiled and said hello. They got out of the way as I apologetically explained I was hiking two peaks, Adams and Madison, in one day and needed to be back down before sun down.

It is always good to make the acquaintance of friendly strangers when hiking alone. Just in case. 

***

I made the decision to turn around. I strained and hoped to hear evidence of the fifty-somethings as I scraped my butt over gaps between boulders and dropped from one rock to the next. Down. It was not long before I heard the tap of a pole. And another tap.

At the nexus of Chemin de Dames, Elevated, and The Subway, all trails that led up the ravine sides and one upon which someone had drawn a sad face with “REALLY HARD!” next to it, I came upon Jim examining his map. I wanted to run over and hug him but just smiled broadly. 

He wasn’t excited about seeing me. Nor were the two others, Jennifer and Dave, a husband-wife team who hiked up a few minutes later. But nice enough. I told them of my predicament hoping they’d say, “Hike with us!” but they didn’t. 

I am persistent in my efforts to convince others that I’m a nice person, worth hanging out with perhaps. Come to know me, and hopefully, you’ll be happy you did so. My waggy-dog attitude is annoying to some; often when I am on a solo journey I’ve been annoyed by the same in others, so I’ve learned when to back off. But, it helps on the trail. 

They conceded to let me into their group. Relieved not to have to descend over what I thought was the hardest part, or at least as hard, I turned around again. And headed back upwards with my new support team. 

We climbed a 1100 foot vertical at a 67 degree angle in half a mile over giant, house size boulders and arrested rock slides that seemed ready to cascade with the smallest tremor. I was most often in front, finding a place to brace myself to grab Jennifer’s pack so she could belly flop, finger hold, push with knees and shins and toes, up and over the boulders and caves. 

By the time I reached the giant rock slide, only Jim was behind me. Jennifer’s husband stayed with her below, ascending more deliberately. My fear drove me on. If I stopped, I would think. If I thought, I would be paralyzed.

Fear in any arena - for instance, what to do with the rest of your life and how to make enough money to pay the bills - paralyzes. I’ve learned you have to keep going. Breathing. Constantly and carefully scanning the near and the far for fingerholds, footholds, loose debris, for a path. Managing what is.The “bliss state” if you can accept that life with all its terrifying and frustrating imperfections is just the way it should be. Hah. Bliss was not the state I was in. 

Earlier, I had chanted, “trees, trees, trees, trees” because whenever I saw the little stunted things, I thanked them for their roots, their tiny trunks for they gave me something to grab and hope of dirt, and piney woods smell, and easily traveled paths. 

Now I wanted to chant, “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” And I wanted to joke about “fear sweat”, the stinky sweat you get when you’re terrified. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to offend Jim, a nice type - unlike edgy-city-girl me - even though he was too far below to hear. 

When I realized he was on the other side of the rock slide, where the rock cairns marked a slightly less insane path, I shouted: “Can you talk me up over this?”

He didn’t know what that meant. Or didn’t know how to cheer someone on.  And then I blurted: “I’m scared.” And once I said it, tears sprung out of my eyes and poured down my already salty cheeks.

The last time I had felt both this amount of seemingly unending extreme physical challenge and apprehension bordering on terror was when I naturally birthed my twins. Then, I was in a hospital with my husband by my side and a great big midwife between my legs. Doctors, narcotics, medicine, and machinery were on alert to ensure my and my babies survival. And I was giving birth. To my children. Something I really wanted to do despite my lack of earth motherliness. 

Here, on the rock slide, I was alone. Almost. I ran over the comparison again and again - giving natural birth to twins to intense solo climbing, so different on the surface yet viscerally the same, mentally and physically pushing myself to the edge of my abilities -  sweat and tears coating my face. Because I couldn't think outside of the experience of my exhaustion, the obvious didn't occur to me: my babies were turning 18 in two days. 

Embarrassed at my emotional release anywhere near my stalwart fellow climber who had stopped far below, I wiped my tears off my face as I grabbed at rocks and climbed. But they wouldn’t stop. 

Then Jim called, “You’re doing OK, Amy! Just follow the cairns.”

Right.

A diagonal up, over a boulder hanging on precariously, across a jumble of smaller rocks. I had this. And then, there was grass. Inconceivably growing between the base of a giant rock face and the rock slide. And dirt. And I was free. Minutes later, I was at the top. 

I am not proud of this. I had nothing to prove. I only wanted to spend a day hiking solo and reflecting in high altitude. I felt incredibly stupid.

I knew it already, but I will never rely on the internet again. Particularly when it comes to the health and wellbeing of myself or others. There is nothing better than the thoughtful, well-researched, and vetted book.

I discovered it’s OK with turning back when the going gets tough. The tough are sometimes injudiciously stubborn. Perhaps inconsiderate of themselves or others. Or just plain crazy.

The tough are also the parents, particularly the parents who solo parent their children, who keep going because they would never dream of turning back or running away. They don’t need scary mountains to climb. Parenting is enough. 

And be open - albeit discerning - to the kindness and help of strangers.  When it seems the best choice is to keep going, even though it scares you, the support of wise and good people makes the insurmountable, surmountable. 

I wonder if the universe was jolting me back to and echoing the opening scene of my-life-as-mother-of-three-children-in-two-and-a-half-years, to conclude our incredibly rich 18 year journey together, a perfect full circle story, the intro in the closing paragraph.

***

Interesting. I climbed King's Ravine challenged and supported by three hikers. I climbed through motherhood challenged and supported and loved by three children. 

[31751]

High School - julian

My work as a personal care attendant takes me into the local high school, which I graduated from months ago, frequently. This leads to copious amounts of unwarranted introspection. Bear with me. 

I was homeschooled for the first 15 years of my life, if you count the pre-kindergarten days of drawing circles in the air and pushing around Thomas the Tank Engine. I do. Homeschooling is a much more organic experience, one which cannot be segregated from the rest of one's life. During this period I switched from exploring what was then called the Macromedia Studio 8 to scribbling math in my Singaporean textbooks to taking individual classes on journalism, on Japanese, on biology seamlessly. 

What common chord provided harmony to this symphony of seemingly unrelated activity? These were all things I had interest in. I wasn't limited to what classes I had access to, what periods were available, what would look good on a college transcript. It was the ultimate manifestation of "stay hungry."

"Stay foolish" was, unfortunately unavailable when most of your activity involves poking buttons in the aforementioned Macromedia Studio 8. I was socially inept, insular, and had a penchant for wearing pajama pants...to everything. High school changed that. I made friends, was good at sports, I found the "jock" stereotype was a nice little public school mold I could squeeze myself into. 

I made some of the worst design I've ever made (when I had the time). I made some of the best design I ever made. But I never made a poster, a logo, a website, while in public school, because I wanted to. I made it because someone had asked me to for nine dollars an hour and I had begrudgingly accepted the work. 

I can't give homeschooling a wholehearted recommendation without admitting that its lonely. But it leaves you with a sense of wonder and exploration I can't help but see institutions crush.

P.S. Lunchrooms are weird. I used to sit with my group of friends and had NO IDEA how exclusive we were. I wish I had invited the loner kids to sit with us more.

[31751]

My garden. My lettuce art. My dogs in compost. My compost on dogs. - amy

[31751]

Done with the Garden - amy

Like all good Vermont homeschool moms, I grew a garden. An organic veggie garden. I'm not a homeschool mom anymore - the kids have fledged  - but I still have the garden. 

Growing backyard food is immensely rewarding. And very acutely, not so. 

When I was little, I helped my Mom in her summer garden. I planted purple peonies in my row and she planted all the stuff we could eat. I preferred taking care of the Noah's ark inhabitants: two rabbits, two goats, two pigs - one species each summer - until I got to horses which we leased for the summer and were kept in the local stable which became my second home. Horse shit and all. I still love the smell. 

After some garden and animal-less years of being a college student, harried New York City producer, stressed mom-of-three-in-two-and-a-half years (never was an earth mother), I started a garden again. In pots. And boxes. In the Connecticut suburbs. Growing things I could eat was intensely satisfying. At least on a flower pot scale. 

When we moved to the back hills of Roxbury, Vermont, I scaled up. This is what one does in Vermont particularly as a homeschool mom. Four big raised beds, one for each child and one for me. And another large circle in front of the barn for garlic, onions, and winter squash.

Although I liked the ideal, I'm not sure that spending time in the veggie garden inspired the kids to become the Vermont homeschool kid stereotype: avid farmers, young botanists, curious about all things plantlike. They didn't love the arduousness of it. Who would? Weeding in mosquito-ridden, hot Vermont summers is not fun. (A common myth is that Vermont summers are cool. Nope. We're land bound and heat up quickly without large bodies of water to cool us off.)  Anyway, I'd agree, it's much better playing Lego.

But, if you want a garden that if not educates the kids and instills love and wonder for all growing things, at least feeds the family, you've got to pay attention to the science and the local anecdotes. And sweat and itch and have really dirty fingernails. And spend a lot of time doing it. For free. 

So I did. And the kids helped. Until they were older teens. Until they went to public school. Or had jobs that paid dollars not vegetables. Dollars can buy cool boots and newer phones. Dollars buy gas for the truck. Dollars help with college. I get that. I really, really get that. 

Vegetables, not necessarily homegrown organic vegetables, buy something that certain middle-aged people care about -  more years, less cancer. (My kids, if they read this, will say they do care about vegetables. Which is true. And they eat them. For this I am glad.)

For me, time spent in the garden was soothing and brought me clarity, particularly when I was directing the small school I founded and my high energy days were filled with social negotiations. There was nothing better than two hours of digging in the dirt followed by shavasana on the warm straw piled between the rows of green.

Back then I knew I had my kids to help. 

Now, mid-September, kids gone, kids busy, I can hear the veggies screaming from the garden: "Damn woman, get out here and pick me! Weed my beds! Tend to my brown leaves and dried up stalks! Then cook me, can me, freeze me and put me up!"

And I just want to turn around and give them the finger. Not the vegetables really. They mean no harm. But the fact that it is one of those thankless, pay nothing jobs that homemakers do and few really appreciate. It's not a resume builder. It's not a money maker. It's just food for the table, which in the middle-class world, is a given.

It feels oppressive. If an unshared task - a solo endeavor - which it still is for many, does the idealized return to backyard chickens and veggie gardens along with all else house, home, and family keep homemakers from gaining job market power and earning respect? 

I want the freedom to go to the farmer's market and be social while I choose the best tomato and nibble on freebies of goat cheese and sausage made from pasture raised pork. I want to come home with my "home preserved" jar of kimchi, a loaf of perfectly crunchy bread and two artisanal beers. And put my feet up.

But to do this, as the solo being in charge of house and home, I need a paycheck. And to have a paycheck, I have to work for dollars. And to work for dollars, I have to have a resume with "real work" on it. Which, luckily, I do.

However, there are many other homemakers facing the empty nest, mostly moms, who don't. Who grew veggies and read to the little ones and later negotiated teen crises and made sure there was food on the table and clean clothes to wear and that the house was somewhat clean, and hugged and yelled, and juggled and balanced, and drove and drove and drove. Which I also did. 

There are no dollars for this work. Dollars to buy cool boots and newer phones. Dollars to buy gas for the truck. Dollars to help with college.

And there is little recognition. Except, from our kids. Hopefully, from our kids. 

[31751]

There is nothing more comforting than a hug from Julian. 

Kayak journey from Grand Isle, September 4.

-  amy

[31751]

Familiar Terms New to Me - amy

Divide by 2, add 7.

At a dinner party, I was told by a really smart, middle-aged guy about his lucky friend who just divided by two. And I was told by a thirty year old male friend that this made sense. It kept it safe. Out of pedophilic waters.

But, the Huffington Post reports that women want their men younger, not just men. At least online. Josh Fischer of SNAP Interactive's dating site Are You Interested finds that women are more likely to respond to younger men.

Yet, according to this report, almost half of grown men only consider younger women. Anecdotally, it seems age-based: middle-aged men seem to choose much younger partners more than 30-something guys. 

Looking at movies, ads, and local couples - and Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth - the trend for at least the last 100 years is definitely older men with much younger women. Divide by two.

So, bravo to those men who buck the stereotype and opt for older women. Or at least find partners their age. More likely, she'll respond. 

Quantity Is Quality

Is it all related to fear of death? Or is this because, as my older friend uttered emphatically, "quantity is quality?" Date a younger woman and you get more? Maybe - until she's had kids, she's exhausted, and has little time left for herself. Empty nesters, on the other hand...

But really. Men just want to supersize? The artisanal six pack isn't good enough when you could get the Budweiser 30 pack for the same price, maybe less?

Of course, an older guy with gray hair - if he has any left - just looks old next to his youthful babe. I'm not fussy about hair. Just saying. 

The Harvard psychologist Justin Lehmiller says, in the Huff Post article, that "when the woman is older, it shifts the traditional heterosexual power dynamic toward greater equality."

If equality makes happier couples, then dating women their age or older, might make men look younger and feel happier. But, they might not get as much sex.

According to a New York Times article, couples in egalitarian relationships  may not have as much sex if they truly take on a 50/50 shared work load in and out of the house. But, that might not be true for those couples whose kids are out of the house?

But all this fuss about quantity when there's chocolate to eat?

As a young twenty year old said to me recently, "I don't want to get into a relationship because there's so much I want to do!" Sex is great when it's great. But it takes up time. There are mountains to climb, oceans to explore, museums to visit, and music to dance to. I think it's sexy when a guy plans adventures outside of the bedroom. The bedroom is always there to come home to. And, if the mood strikes, passion can happen anywhere.

Cougar

And then there's the issue of woman as felines. I'd never use a feline descriptor for myself; I'm more chimpanzee meets kangaroo, with wolf and maybe porpoise thrown in for good measure. 

My thirty year old friend told me that the term 'cougar', a term I'd never heard it until an older man patiently described it to me, worked for women dating younger men. But men dating younger women? That, he said, is just "normal."

Please, please, I wanted to say, you are sounding twice your age. And, in this case, that's not a good thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/16/young-women-date-younger-men_n_3606539.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/does-a-more-equal-marriage-mean-less-sex.html?_r=1

[31751]

Familiar Tools New to Me - amy

I feel I am living a cliche. Newly divorced mother of three learns to use power tools. Wow.

Ridiculous as it may seem, I never knew how to refill my windshield wiper fluid. Learned that one quickly.

Then there was the chain saw, the weed whacker, the power washer, and the belt sander. All require that jerk-yank on some dangly cord to start them. Antiquated.

Their commonality besides making tons of noise and obliterating any material they touch? They all have throttles and chokes. Finally, a friend explained that the term "choke" comes from choking on fluid. And throttle means, like, shutting down the fluid hose as if you're going to throttle someone's neck. I feel like I'm in the machine tool version of The Godfather. 

The 2004 Dodge Dakota with 163,000 miles on it and purchased for the kids and me, brought new learning experiences. Brake lines, valve lifters, rotors, and exhaust manifolds. I also got to visit AutoZone. You can pick up really good, cheap, soft fiber cloths for wiping down your truck - and your stainless steel appliances - a version of which are sold for five times as much at Bed, Bath and Beyond or Zabars. I think my Mom sent me one from Zabars. I'll send her a pack of ten from AutoZone.  

Finally, the power tool I've come to know the best, was a new phone. An iPhone. My X gave me one of those police/construction grade flip phones that could be run over by a Mack Truck because he thought I broke everything. 

Well, I've got an iPhone now and it ain't broken. Not yet. And to start it, I don't have to jerk and yank. Just press that little innocuous button on the top.

It doesn't make mincemeat of trees. Or blast paint off a porch. 

It does keep me very close to my super-text-friendly kids. And I love that. 

But I miss my girls' voices. 

[31751]

I've been told by a few key people, that I've spent the last 30 years care-taking others. Defining myself using someone else's pen. That now, must change. 

Off I went, to kayak across the broad lake in sunshine. I found a tiny island, and had it all to myself.

But I'd made a promise to my youngest daughter, newly exploring her New York City life, to call her at 2. And so I did. From an iPhone I would have never purchased two years ago and carefully protected in an orange dry sack. From an island of rocks and water and ungainly trees but not a soul around. 

After talking for maybe half an hour, maybe more, so glad to have the connection to my fiery little one, she asked me if I was in a peaceful place. I laughed and said indeed I was. Both on this island and in my soul.

Life has rocked me in so many ways over the last few years, I said, I can take anything.

She told me, Mama, Papa's engaged. 

And I felt, Oh my god, my dear, dear children. 

But for me, it was remote and foreign. Bizarre and inexplicable. I had no feeling for myself.

Until later.

- amy