Handing over the car keys

 This trip to Oregon with Chance is, I believe, the first time I have traveled alone with him.  As an adult anyway.  It's hard to allow the adult to be an adult.  It's nothing deliberate or intentional.  It's just  something that happens.   

I rented  a car for our stay here and had Chance put on it as an extra driver.    I fully expected to be doing all of the driving.  After all, I am the mom and he's the "kid".    But when we both realized how nervous a driver I am when I have an adult passenger, and how hard it is for the passenger, we decided that Chance should do the driving while he is here with me.

The last time I spent any time in a car with Chance behind the wheel was when he was learning how to drive.   But Chance has been driving for 14 years!  He is an adult, he can find things and use a GPS.   And I am trying to learn not to be a back seat driver.  He's very patient with me.

The original plan when we came out here to Portland was that Chance would stay for one week and head back to Virginia.  I am staying a couple of extra weeks. Since we have found so much to do, including maintaining Courtney and Zach's yard, Chance offered to stay longer if I needed him to.  So he is staying a couple of extra days.   And I think he and I are both happy about it.

This evening we are meeting my cousin Colleen and her daughter Kate for dinner.  Chance will drive of course.

Mount Hood as seen from Jenny Jestatis' house

one of the walls in the Laughing Planet restaurant where we had lunch yesterday

The coffee shop around the corner from Courtney's house

Portland, Oregon

 Here  we are!  Chance and I are house and cat sitting for Courtney and Zach while they are at Burning Man.   

This is the first time Chance and I have traveled alone together in- well, maybe ever.  It's so strange when your child, especially the "baby" of the family is an adult.   

Our arrival at PDX (Portland International Airport) was something of a Keystone Cops adventure! It's a little bit more complicated than I want to get into, but it was crazy. It involved searching for the car rental place. which should have taken a few minutes and ended up taking about an hour and several trips around the airport in Courtney's car.  But, we are here.

Jet lag is real, and the first day we were here I was falling asleep everywhere.   I am getting more in synch  with the time differences now.

Yesterday I thought that it would be nice to be tourists and I booked a touristy river cruise for Chance and myself.  I have been on this cruise twice before and know how nice it it.

Well, the app I was sent by the cruise company took us somewhere that was not the right place.   We parked and we walked and we never found the boat.   I was so exhausted by all the walking that I sat on a wall while Chance got the car and picked me up.  I guess we should have taken a taxi?

I think we have come to the agreement that when we go out together, Chance will do the driving.  My second guessing myself when I am driving makes Chance crazy and in turn makes me nervous.

As when Nick and Buddy and I went to Maine. Lots of organizing and tidying up. starting with the kitchen.  That's what we are doing here.  Imagine my delight in discovering that Chance likes cleaning and organizing too!

The coffee house that was here the last few times I was here is gone- closed.  But a new one has opened in it's place..  We've been there a couple of times.

Chance in the coffee house

Oregon Berry Shake

Morning Has Broken Song by Cat Stevens

 Morning has broken like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world

Leaving on a jet plane...

 Chance and I are heading to Portland, Oregon in a few days. We are going to house and cat sit for Courtney while she goes to Burning Man  Chance will be there (in Oregon) for a week.   The original plan was for me to stay for an additional week, leaving for Virginia when Courtney and Zach get home.

Courtney was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer.  She knew that she would be having a thyroidectomy (surgical removal of her thyroid ) and the plan was for me to fly back to Portland and be there for her surgery.   

Change of plans.  Courtney's surgery has been scheduled for exactly one week after I was scheduled to leave Portland.  So now it looks like I will be staying in Portland a little while longer.   I just booked an Air B&B for that week.

I love Portland, and I know everything will be fine.  But I am nervous.   Nervous about my child (yeah she's 44, she's still my baby) having surgery. Nervous about being away from home ,and wondering if I will be there long enough.

Shortly after I get back to Virginia, Nick and I are going on a cruise, leaving September 23rd.

I am stressing about things that I probably don't need to stress about, but I am.

Bird feeders.   I have a ton of bird feeders in the back yard.  Not really a ton, but more that 10.  I make sure that they are filled- and they are rarely empty.  I currently am feeling unmotivated to fill the feeders even thought they are getting very low on seed.  We left for three weeks when we went to Maine and the feeders didn't get filled.  The birds forgave me and returned when I resumed feeding them.   I could ask someone (Nick) to fill them but I don't have the patience to explain what goes into which feeder, or how to clean and re-fill the bird bath.  Explaining things to a person who doesn't understand or comprehend what you are saying is exhausting and frustrating.   It's easier just to leave it.

Here's the thing:  I have the bird feeders for selfish reasons I suppose.   The birds were doing fine before I started to feed them and the will do fine without me.   But it gives me pleasure and meaning and a connection. I care. enjoy the birds.    I feel very Zen and very useful when I feed the birds.  And there are so many birds or various colors, sizes and sizes sounds.   It is meaningful to me.  Trying to explain all of it takes the joy out of it.

Houseplants.  Somewhat the same as the bird feeders.  I water the plants.  I trim them and move them to maximize their sun exposure.  I know the story of each plant. Where it came from.  How we got to be in possession of each one.  The coleus needs to be watered frequently to be happy.  The orchids do not like wet feet- they like to dry out a bit between watering times.  There is plant food for every one of the plants.  The "regular" plant food is suitable for most of them, but the orchids have their own special food.   

The plants outside need care too.  The tomatoes need deep watering early in the day or they wilt and don't produce much of anything.    My potted plants in the front and the back need to be watered almost daily- more often if it has been hot and dry out.  

The plants will live or die if they are not treated right.   I know this and I care.  They may not be very animated, but they are alive and they depend upon being cared for.  They are domestic plants.  That means we planted them and created these lives that are dependent upon us. 

How do you explain all of this to someone who either really doesn't care or maybe just doesn't understand.  Or someone who doesn't think you know what you are taking about.   

So I will leave minimal instructions.  "don't forget to water my plants".

Mothering is about paying attention to little details.  It's about caring.  And occasionally, benign neglect.

I am going away.  I am coming back.  I am going away again. Then I hope to be home and settled into my knitting and TV watching.

It will be okay

Lovingly Lifted Words

 I do not know the source of these words.  My  friend, Nan Jolly, posted this on Facebook and it resonated with me .

Last evening we watched a video of several scenes in which the kids were young.  Some young enough to be carried on my hip- or an older sibling's hip.   This morning I have been reflecting on time and life and how it all happens no matter what you do or where you are.

********************************

WHEN PARENTS GET OLD ...

Let them grow old with the same love that they let you grow ... let them speak and tell repeated stories with the same patience and interest that they heard yours as a child ... let them overcome, like so many times when they let you win ... let them enjoy their friends just as they let you … let them enjoy the talks with their grandchildren, because they see you in them ... let them enjoy living among the objects that have accompanied them for a long time, because they suffer when they feel that you tear pieces of this life away ... let them be wrong, like so many times you have been wrong and they didn’t embarrass you by correcting you ...

LET THEM LIVE and try to make them happy the last stretch of the path they have left to go; give them your hand, just like they gave you their hand when you started your path!

(“Honor your mother and father and your days shall be long upon the earth”.)

Taken shortly before her death, my friend Billye and her great grandchild

And here we are

I have so many thoughts.  Thoughts about life.  The meaning of life.  The value of life.    Wondering what I would do in various circumstances.   It's easy to say "I would do..." whatever I think/ judge a person "should" do.   

It is so easy to be right about what someone should do and what they have done and what they should have done.  But who and what is right? 

I remember when Nick's Grandma Burke was in her final days.  We went to visit her in the nursing home.   Courtney was three years old- old enough to know who Grandma Burke was.   Before we went into see her, Nick's mom went into the room to check it out.  Grandma was not at her best you could say.  According to Nick's mom, Grandma Burke looked disheveled and not great.  Mary (Nick's mom) said that we were not going to visit that day.  As she told me later, Mary did not want Courtney's last memories of her great grandmother to be memories of a scary woman who might just look like a witch to a little child.   I am glad we didn't see her like that.   Mary said that was a memory she had of her own grandmother and felt that it was an unfortunate way to remember a loved one.

When I was in collage at George Mason, I befriended a young woman named Morningstar.  We used to walk each other to our  cars in the evenings after class- or walk to one car and drive to the other.  Morningstar was around 36 and the mother of 3.  

One evening as we were walking to our cars, she told me that she was glad that her children were old enough to remember her.  Her own mother died when she was very young, and Morningstar didn't really remember her.  I had never thought about that before.    I had thought about how my children would be cared for if I died, but never considered how they would remember me.

Now I have a friend who is fighting with all she has to be well.  To regain as much strength as she can. Maybe even to make a full recovery.  She has young children (and older ones too).  She wants to live, to raise them.   To see them grow up.

A mother's love is stronger that just about anything else in the world.

In other news: I'm okay

 I have been having headaches for about a year now.  My neurologist had me try several migraine drugs to see what works best for me.  The one I am taking is called Ubelvry.  It's very expensive- over $1000.00 for a box of ten tablets.   Fortunately my insurance has approved it and so it doesn't cost me anything.  Even so, just knowing how expensive it is makes me ration it.  Also, it can make me sleepy, so I don't take it if I am driving anywhere.

Of course, with my history of having two brain tumors and needing brain surgery twice make me a bit worried/ stressed/ freaked out!

Sunday we went to Bethesda for me to get an MRI.   I am claustrophobic, so I take drugs to calm me  down.   The MRI was not too bad with medication on board.  And, on Monday, I got the results.  No tumors!

For now at least I can relax a bit.  It doesn't mean the headaches will stop.  But, at least I know that the headaches if not from a brain tumor!

The ribbon says:  "left frontal meningioma 6/2014"  and "Skull hemangioma 11/2017