From the Shallow End

In my life, I've been called "serious," "too serious," and "un-fun" often enough to understand that I tend to be, well, serious. Ordinarily, I try to live up to that reputation, especially in this blog.

For one thing, this space is MINE and I can be as serious as I want without any fear of putting a damper on the festivities in the blogosphere. (This is why you can't comment--nobody gets to tell me I'm too serious.) At the same time, this space is MINE, so I can be frivolous if I want to.

Today, I just have to say that it's fun to live in a country in which Maxime Bernier, above (in his days as Industry Minister), is a government official.

I'm not talking about his looks (serious, remember? that's me) but his look. Isn't he just straight out of a Bond movie? Get the European suit (high stance) and "I'm confident in my manhood" lavender shirt with lilac tie. Even the name: it's novel-worthy. Nothing like it down south. Even today's darling, Barak Obama, himself talks about his big ears. And then there's Bernier's reputation as a charming scapegrace. Of course that's what he is. You can tell by the look.

Canada: it's a whole 'nother country. And then there's Quebec, which, according to the current government, is a nation within...no, wait...a sovereign...no...well, something. Anyway, it's in Canada, too, and it's part of what makes life up here so interesting.

The navel-gazing will return next time.

Inevitability

Here's what the willow brush looked like two-and-a-half weeks ago. Today, every form of vegetation seems to be producing pollen. The poplars are sprouting leaves. Spring is here, though the skies look gloomy on occasion.

Speaking of gloom. Several weeks ago, rumours started flying about Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier. (Bear with me. We'll get back to pollen.) He's roughly the Canadian equivalent of Condoleezza Rice (only without the piano skills). He's a very public face for Canada all over the world. As a Cabinet Minister, he has a lot of responsibility for meeting and charming foreign leaders.

But it's his relationships at home that have been giving him trouble most recently. The opposition parties think his dating life is a big problem--apparently his recent girlfriend has had liaisons with three figures known to be tied to organized crime in Canada. (They also say she showed too much cleavage at Bernier's swearing-in ceremony in January. Whatever.) The Prime Minister smarmed, in response, that politicians' private lives are just that--private--and should remain so. He implied that the public's interest in Bernier's dating life was just prurient gossip.

Though it pains me to admit this, I agree with the Prime Minister, TO A POINT. If Bernier were the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, or the Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics (I am not making this up), I would care slightly less about who shares his pillow.

Even so, a person called to public service sometimes has to sacrifice elements of a private life to be worthy of the public's trust. And public servants should err on the side of more discretion and more caution, not less. Someone who is Canada's representative at NATO summits should really find different friends.

Yesterday, Bernier resigned his cabinet post. Apparently he had left a sensitive document (in fact, a briefing for a NATO summit) at his now-ex-girlfriend's house five weeks ago, thereby fulfilling the worst nightmares of both the government party and the opposition parties. Seriously. The opposition parties may be using this to their political advantage now, but a security breach like this serves the interests of no one. No government party. No Canadian. No one.

Which leads me to my real concern about Bernier's relationships. I think his staff hung him out to dry, and here's why I think that.

From my limited experience working in an environment with strict security controls, I know that Canada must have in place written policies for handing sensitive documents. They likely have a multi-tiered system for classifying the content of documents. They likely have a check-in and check-out system for removing documents from secure areas.

Administrative people love these systems. They're very reassuring, and generally speaking, they work.

In the days of yore, I got a security clearance because I needed physical access to parts of the lab that were "behind the fence," where other people (scientists and engineers) were working with materials and on programs that required various levels of secrecy. I am positive that I know nothing about anything, especially atomic weaponry, that isn't public knowledge. (If you're interested in the shocking amount of material that is public knowledge about nuclear weapons, subscribe to the newsletter for Otowi Station Bookstore, a Los Alamos bookstore owned and managed by my friend Peggy, a Lab veteran, and check out their stock.)

Some years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy changed its clearance system so that people like me, who needed only physical access to a desk in a secured area, didn't get a clearance that gave them access to documents that were possibly sensitive or classified.

In other words, these policies are important, they are followed, and they are evaluated regularly. In fact, I can't begin to imagine the kind of scrutiny document policies and procedures have undergone since the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Because Bernier left a document at his girlfriend's, we know he didn't follow whatever protocol the Canadian government has set out. Possibly his office routinely ignores protocol. It's also possible that he's careless. Okay. I still find it curious that it took five weeks for anyone to say anything, and that the "anyone" turned out to be the ex-girlfriend.

Minister Bernier has handlers. He has administrative assistants. He may even have people on staff whose primary responsibility is to ensure the security of printed material. If his office routinely ignores procedures for classified documents, someone knows that. If he's careless, many someones know that and also know that they need to check closely behind him.

But nobody did. They allowed Bernier to make this mistake--and they let the mistake be revealed in a way that maximizes the public embarrassment.

It's possible Bernier wasn't even the real target. It's possible that civil servants are tired of the treatment Harper's government has been doling out and they chose this situation for a little discipline.

And of course, I could be completely off-base. The Canadian government policies could be so slipshod as to make two leaks of classified documents in the past few months a routine occurrence. But my story, frankly, makes me feel a little better.

Whatever really happened, it's time for advice from a former government worker and ongoing idealist: Never piss off the administrative staff.

Don't call workers in human resources "paper-pushing bureaucrats" and don't denigrate your government's business systems--those systems get you competent staff members and deposit your paycheck into the bank.

Don't yell at computer tech support people--nobody knows those cables better than they do, and do they hack into your email on their lunch break, looking for incriminating material? Yes, they do.

Don't dismiss the staff writers as "wordsmiths." They help you say what you really mean instead of what you actually said, and if you're nice to them, they'll make you look smarter than you really are.

Don't think "Administrative Professionals Day" means squat. Pay your staff well. Be nice every day.

And, sure as bare willow sticks grow gray fuzz, release pollen, and sprout leaves, you will endure the consequences of your actions. If you take my advice, you will enjoy those consequences. If you don't...well, you may have to quit your cabinet post.

Ruminations

I should make it plain upfront that I don't actually chew a cud, like cows and even deer do. However, my repetitive tasks often become contemplative tasks, and eventually thoughts, um, surface to be chewed upon. Metaphorically.

Here's one: Take BEFORE Pictures, Dummy. Working on our property is an extension of the work my family did in Stillwater after my father died--remember the Crapture? This is the outdoor version of that. Another indoor setting will come all too soon--I suspect some stuff has been in the attics here since the bigger house was finished in about 1950.

What I've been doing is the equivalent of 30 years of yardwork. It's not even gardening, at least not yet--it requires fewer fine motor skills and far less mental energy. It's bigger stuff. I'm removing trees (OK, I just help), picking up brush, and raking leaves.

Yes, I'm raking leaves in the woods. Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus and sometimes I feel just plain garden-variety nuts. So far, I have successfully drawn imaginary lines beyond which I will not rake leaves. As I have said before, "indoors" and "outdoors" are mental constructs here, and that extends to cultivated outdoor space and non-cultivated outdoor space.

Anyway, none of this actually shows because I keep forgetting to take BEFORE pictures. As we learned while clearing out the family home in Oklahoma, I must focus on what I've done instead of looking for evidence that I've made a difference. Because I'm raking a forest. Nuts. And since I don't have BEFORE pictures, why take AFTER pictures, when the response can only be "After what?"

Here's my second thought: taking care of places like this involves a whole lot of repetitive, contemplative tasks. No wonder lots of teenagers dream of leaving the farm--there's a crapload of work involved in living the country, or even vacationing in the country, as my parents did. We don't even have animals that need to eat regularly, except ourselves.

And no wonder taking care of the places quickly became too much for my folks. First, they retired late--when they were coming up for full summers in the late 1980s, they were already 70+ and not used to physical labor. Add in the fact that they didn't really know how to care for the places and weren't particularly interested in it, and suddenly I can stop asking "how on earth did things get this run down?"

Fortunately, I am finally coming to understand that I live here. Like, all the time. Forever. (Yeah, I know; that's been the plan for nearly four years now. I'm slow.) I have time and health and energy to undo the years of neglect and perhaps even improve the condition of our properties. Unlike my parents, I don't have to cram in physical labor during a few weeks or months of what is supposed to be vacation. And unlike my parents, I like doing this stuff.

Lucky me. Living here, forever. Imagine that.

Little Things, IV

I've written before (the first, second, and third times) about the little things, the small differences in a country that are surprising. Along those lines, I scored a major victory yesterday. I didn't look for the newspaper.

Yesterday was a holiday, Victoria Day. Most people call it "May long weekend." I'm not sure that people up here chanted "The twenty-fourth of May is the Queen's birth-day." I know my mother, exiled from Victoria Day celebrations, taught it to me. But then, she also taught me how to play jacks. This is why my husband sometimes wonders exactly how old I am, anyway.

Of course, the U.S. has its own May long weekend, Memorial Day. Started to hono(u)r the Civil War dead, it has now taken on patriotic and family overtones. My parents always took flowers (an iris or lily from their garden) to the grave of their first baby. No doubt they would have visited other family graves, had any been close enough.

Increasingly, Memorial Day is heralded as the official start to summer. Newspapers are thicker than normal because of all the special advertising. It is an occasion for "blow-out" sales on cars, beer, and sodas. In Arkansas, nurseries that sell bedding plants basically close Memorial Day Monday--the arrival of summer means that your pansies and other cool-loving flowers are on their way to a slow, steamy death.

Here, the May long weekend brought snow--just in the air; it melted once it hit the ground. But it's a reminder that we can't yet count on the arrival of summer. Yes, green grass is mixed in among last year's dead stuff, and the willows are sprouting tufts of soft gray. But we can't get complacent. The temperature still dips near freezing at night.

The ladies at the gym today were comparing gardening notes. Only one woman has her bedding plants in the ground already, and she's concerned that they'll get nipped. A few have annuals in flats in the "gradge" ("guh-RAHJ" to me) that they'll put in once we have a few days of sunshine in a row. This close to the lake, the weather stays cool longer. We put flowers in late--possibly not before June.

Grocery stores (except for family-owned corner stores) were closed yesterday for the holiday. The local daily newspaper didn't print yesterday. And, for a wonder, I remembered it was a holiday and didn't go look for the paper. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

I'm getting used to this country, little thing by little thing, one holiday at a time.

Civility? Politeness? Tolerance?

My oldest brother forwarded me a link to a blog at Campaign for America's Future (www.ourfuture.org), a U.S. progressive website. The writer, an American, lives in greater Vancouver.

A translation for Canadians: "Progressives" south of 49 are different from "progressives" up here, especially those who are now part of "Progressive-Conservatives" parties and movements. Many liberals in the U.S. have given up attempts to reclaim the word "liberal" and have taken to using "progressive." Many U.S. progressives, if Canadian, would vote NDP, most would vote Liberal, and a few would be enlightened (and increasingly uncomfortable) Conservatives.

The title of the blog post is "Outright Barbarism vs. The Civil Society." In it, the writer starts with a myth I've discussed before: Canadians are more polite than Americans.

It's an easy shorthand, so I know why she does it. Her main point is to talk about a couple of books that explain how the conservatives in the U.S. have hijacked political discourse. She also urges civility in public as a way to rebuild the U.S. capacity to think critically, logically, and carefully about data. All that's fabulous and I couldn't agree more.

She is also right about the power and effectiveness of civility--she mentions how RCMP officers are polite yet firm when exercising authority. Yep yep.

But she hasn't watched the House's Question Period recently, or she'd understand that Canadian political discourse can be as rancorous as that in the U.S.

She also didn't mention that Canada's current Prime Minister isn't all that great with the calm exercise of critical thinking skills. PM Harper shares his U.S. counterpart's dim view of the role of science in public life.

Here's one recent example. Canadians made significant contributions to the international report that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Yippee, except that the report was about global warming--a non-starter to the Harper government. The Prime Minister's office not only didn't host a celebration (the Green Party finally organized something in February, some three months after the announcement, but it also apparently embargoed participation on behalf of the entire party. Only two Conservative MPs even showed up. The Prime Minister and his cabinet were busy elsewhere (no doubt firing science advisors).

Even Bush overcame his antipathy to science, global warming, and Al Gore and invited Gore to a reception at the White House in November.

Stop the presses. It's true: Canadian politicians can behave badly, even more badly than George Bush.

Just another nitpick: the writer also mentions that meetings in Silicon Valley were very different than they are in greater Vancouver. I too have found that meetings move at a different pace in Thunder Bay than they did in central Colorado. But a meeting in Thunder Bay isn't all that different, except in accents, from Monday morning staff meetings in Arkansas, where movie reviews were first on the agenda.

Basically, I understand what the blog writer means. She's right that a loose confederation of semi-independent entities operates very differently from the federal government in the U.S. She's right that many people up here simply avoid political discussions rather than yell at each other. I agree that getting along with each other, at a deep level, is necessary in Canada, and that Canadians do it well.

But it's not just about "being nice" or "being polite." It goes deeper. Even though Canada is diverse ethnically, geographically, and politically, Canadians share a basic caring about other people. They may disagree about the best policies to get there. But the differences, compared to differences among policies in the U.S., are slight.

Here's an analogy: in the U.S., differences between parties feel like the difference between noon and midnight. Meanwhile, Canada's parties are more like Dr. Pepper, whose ads suggested drinking it at 10, 2, and 4. Yeah, 10 and 4 are different, but they're both daylight and there's always room for a position between them.

I've been too busy, mentally and emotionally, to worry about U.S. politics lately. But I'm glad people on both sides of the border are looking at what has happened in the U.S. in the past decade, and--more important--discussing how to go back to showing respect for reach other. We can always use a refresher in those lessons up here, too.

Formative Experiences

I've been thinking about siblings. You know how a sibling comes from the same sacks of DNA you do, and you can sometimes see yourself and your own (or your parents') mannerisms in a sibling? Especially those mannerisms that just. Make. You. Nuts. It's actually comforting in a scary way.

Yet at some point, you and your siblings leave off fighting in the back seat of the family station wagon and venture off on your own personal adventures. These adventures aren't necessarily traumatic. Some of you "go away" for formal education and some don't. Some of you cast about for a job or profession for awhile, while others get on a track and never look back.

Of course, formative experiences can also be horrid--sick children, broken families, accidents, loss.

Through it all, you're still siblings and indelibly connected, but your experiences give you different "hot buttons."

I was thinking about siblings in relation to the U.S. and Canada. You could argue that the two countries are actually distant cousins by now. Feel free to impose some other descriptor on the relationship. But for all that we both occupy North America, we as countries have different experiences.

Case in point: SARS. Remember that? Yeah, me neither, except in a "whew, bullet dodged" kind of way. But I have learned about it since moving here.

This past Friday, a passenger train en route from Vancouver to Toronto was stopped in Nowhere (actually Foleyet), Ontario. One passenger had died under mysterious circumstances, and several others were sick. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (aka "Mounties" or "Horsemen") were sent to investigate.

I "got" right away that this was a public health scare, not necessarily a terrorism scare. After a few minutes, I did finally remember SARS. But I didn't have the visceral "omigod" reaction that I saw in the newsreaders and reporters.

Being me, I had learned the little I now know about SARS in Canada through fiction--in this case, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Award-winning collection of short stories by Vincent Lam. Lam is a physician in Toronto who helped treat SARS victims. Oh, and he writes.

Here's a SARS statistics refresher, courtesy of the World Health Organization. Between November 1, 2002, and August 7, 2003, 251 cases of SARS were confirmed in Canada. That's more than anywhere else, other than China itself, of course, where nearly 8000 cases were confirmed. Of those 251 cases in Canada, 41 people died. The U.S. had just 33 cases, and 0, zero, deaths.

Friday's event was seen both as a chance to practice lessons learned from the SARS outbreak and as a practice run for any future infection, such as avian flu. This situation ended well (except for the woman who died, of apparently natural causes, in her 40s). The other illnesses on board were determined not to be a public health threat--just a series of coincidences.

As these details came out over the weekend, news readers and reporters expressed concern and relief. I never heard or even had the sense that they felt "pff, much ado about nothing."

And I think that's because Canadians know, in a deep and meaningful way, that influenza outbreaks are frightening, deadly, and likely.

I don't mean to say (today) that Americans are insensitive. These formative experiences work both ways. The terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2001 are a prime example of something Canadians can't quite grasp in the same personal way that Americans do. Yes, the Air India flight that exploded over Scotland in 1985 was also a terrorist plot that claimed many Canadians. But the CN tower in Toronto still stands. No planes were directed toward Ottawa.

Thus it's worth remembering that in spite of a long, undefended border and our shared (increasingly distant) past, we respond to different events differently.

Just like me and my own siblings--none of whom, fortunately, inherited our father's tendency to make loud crunching noises while chewing mashed potatoes. At least no one has demonstrated it so far.

Yang Deux

Here's another element of Yang Time that I'm coming to terms with: sending words out into the world again, where they may influence others. (Or they may not even be read--and I'm OK with that!)

For the past year, I haven't actively sought paying work. My semi-retirement started when my father became ill. Since his death, paperwork has multiplied in stacks on my desk(s) the way wire coat hangers breed in the dark of the closet. We as a family are sorting our way through to the bottom of it, though.

It's been a full year, "full" both in the sense of "more than 365 days" and "eventful in a quiet way." I haven't been actively mourning all that time, but I've needed the inward-focused time. The routine. The consolidation. The stock-taking. I have had to, and have had the opportunity to, consider who I am now that I no longer have elderly parents to worry about.

In the past two months, a couple of work-like projects appeared on my horizon. One of them is for pay; one isn't. Both involve writing words for someone else. In their own ways, both projects have reminded me that words "out there in the world" have potential power.

One of the projects I won't be discussing. The other is a series of columns about hearing loss that are appearing in my local newspaper this month. This week's column is about coping with hearing loss--yours or someone else's.

Wednesday, at a meeting, a woman who is profoundly hard of hearing shared that this particular column had appeared at exactly the right time. Her family, who was as sympathetic as most families are to those with hearing loss--which is to say, not nearly enough--was visiting her. She pulled out the column to show them. The column gave them all a way to talk about how difficult communicating is--for all of them. They had a pleasant few days together, the most pleasant in some time.

I'm happy that they had this experience. It's nice to hear nice things after you've worked on a project, no matter how pleasant the work was to do in the first place. But in no way do I take credit for smoothing a family's time together--they did that themselves.

Note that above I said that words have "potential power." Like a hatchet, language is powerful tool, but someone has to wield it. This family used the hatchet to chop through years of miscommunication and resentment. They could have hacked each other to bits with it just as easily. All I did was tie the sharpened rock to the stick.

I work with words because I believe (because I must believe) that most people don't create conflict lightly. Most people are curious and generous and want to understand each other. If they're unsympathetic, it's because they're busy, not because they're malevolent.

That's why I find much political discourse , on both sides of the border (and on both sides of the issues in the U.S.), increasingly difficult to take. Pundits and many politicians grab their language hatchets with the philosophy, "Cleave or be cloven"--and so create that reality.

But back to Yang Time: It is nice to have my hatchets floating around in public again. May they all be used to cut through dead undergrowth, and other crap, to let the light shine in again.

Yang Time

When you grow up in an academic household, you tend to be comfortable with books. Whether you're comfortable with the out-of-doors, or other actual physical objects like motors and pulleys and whatnot, depends somewhat on the particular niche of academe you're affiliated with.

My parents' fields, mathematics and history, gave me the ability to suspend disbelief and attachment to the present to live mentally in many times in the past and future. I can solve puzzles and predict storylines and am not intimidated by cosmology (though not fascinated by it, either). I know my way around bookstores and libraries. When I'm sufficiently rested and motivated, I can even find something to talk about with damn near anyone. I also appreciate silence.

However, I don't consider myself an outdoor person. Or I didn't until moving here. In previous lives, I didn't garden or mow the grass or really do much outdoors other than lie around in the sun, hike, swim, or sit in the shade drinking cool drinks. I have always enjoyed being outside, sorta, and I'm not icked out by bugs, though snakes are another story and don't get me started on rodents. But I never had an urge to be outside.

Except when I was here, of course.

Now that I'm here all year and loving it, I find my relationship to the calendar changing. We're coming into the Yang Time, the outdoor season, the time for visible growth and reaping what you've sown all winter. Deer gambol, squirrels chatter, and the birds sing as if they've been composing all winter.

I like it. I like being more in synch with the outside world. I'm completing those nagging inside projects (hanging pictures and figuring out what the heck to do with my jewelry) so I can get to the outside projects full-time. I'm still an introvert and a writer. Every day all year must have quiet time and time with fingers on a keyboard or at least pen on paper.

But soon, most of my quiet time will come while drifting in a canoe or rowboat. I'll stare at the sky while walking down the path to the camp. I'll muse while hacking at undergrowth with loppers and my muscles. And I'm liking that a lot, too.

Increments

I took this picture last week--Saturday, to be precise. It's now, what, Tuesday. And this view looks quite different. No "after" photo, sorry.

Yesterday afternoon I was on this beach clearing brush. Only two small ice floes drifted, disconsolate, near near the shore. Everything else winter-esque in this picture has disappeared. All in a few days.

I've been waiting for spring to arrive, and I guess even I would have to say that this is it. Yesterday I was able to be outside for a couple of hours doing what is basically glorified yardwork (but oh, what a yard). I was still wearing a long-sleeved cotton tee, a long-sleeved flannel shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt lined in waffly thermal underwear fabric. I wore work gloves. I was working pretty steadily for the time I was out there. Still, my ears and the tip of my nose were cold. But yes, folks, this is spring.

I've been waiting for spring since oh, about March. Some internal clocks are easier to re-set than others, and crocus in March is normal in the southern U.S. So I've been watching every day, looking to see evidence of warmer weather. But spring incrementaled in when I wasn't watching.

The same thing happens when I monitor sunrise time. I'm not a morning person, so I depend on the sun to help me get moving in the morning. At midwinter, sunrise is about 9 a.m.--not much help if I have a full day. After the midwinter solstice, I anxiously watch to see if I can tell that the sun is rising earlier. Daylight Saving Time messes with that, and did so even earlier than usual this year, and that's about the time I've given up hoping to feel a difference.

But at some point recently, I noticed that the sun was coming up about 7:30. Not only was it rising earlier, it's rising farther north along the horizon. Then this morning, it was shining directly into my eyes before 7 a.m., making the bedroom extremely warm and bright. The sun, too, has incrementaled on me.

No wonder spring is exciting for all the birds and mammals that hang around here. Something is different every day, now--the ponds in the driveway are noticeably smaller after just one semi-sunny afternoon. Soon, the pine trees will be putting out their candles.

I do love this place at every time of year. But I am ready for some spring. And even though we may still see snow (it snowed on May 13 last year), I'm finally able to see it as an aberration for this time of year, not as a given. By increments, I'm learning to trust the sun. This year, at least.

Happy Mother's Birthday

I've said before that April is brown. This year, May is starting out pretty brown, as well. However, the stands of willows growing in the ditches provide some startling red colo(u)r, if you stop to look at them.

The blurry white things in this photo are snowflakes. Happy May.

If my mother were still alive, she'd be 91 today. The eighth anniversary of her death comes later this week. And Mother's Day is next weekend. A trifecta of remembrance in early May.

She died the kind of death that some would call a blessing. I prefer to call her death a release, if it must be called anything other than a death.

It was her life that was the blessing. She was intelligent and driven, with a tendency to speak and meddle when biting her tongue and stepping back would have been more polite, but less honest. She didn't suffer fools gladly, a trait in a teacher that wins respect, not adoration, from students. It's also, sadly, one of the traits I inherited and it consistently gets me into trouble because often the most foolish person of all turns out to be me.

She was ambitious, inventive, and creative. When she got a good idea that "someone" should do, she often ended up being that "someone." She loved things that were true and beautiful--not necessarily things that were pretty, and certainly nothing cheap but flashy.

She was generous and very supportive of my so-called career. She loved buying me suits to wear to job interviews or to work. I thought of her during my recent trip to Tucson, where I bought a suit that was expensive but fits like a dream. She'd have loved that. However, she believed in building character, even when her children became adult-aged, so she would have forced me to choose just one of the blouses that went with this fabulous suit. In my ongoing attempts to outgrow elements of my upbringing, I bought all three, and a couple of sweaters, too. Fortunately, the beeping cash register drowned out her voice in my head, saying "Extravagant!"

But of course, every day I am grateful to her for hanging onto this land, our family's heritage where I have the good fortune to live. Even though she could afford to be here only three weeks most summers, it was important to her to do that much. And fortunately, my father understood her need to do that and made it part of his life, too. And so, luckily, here I am.

Because no matter how brown, gray, rainy, snowy, windy--just plain nasty--the weather can get, there is no place in the world I'd rather be. There are always willows, if you just know where to look.