Lucky

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of my 28th birthday. I got up early for a walk and listened to the robins chirping and the idiot woodpeckers drilling away on the tin chimney-tops. At church, I attended to fifteen wet-combed kindergartners in Sunday School and then met friends for chocolate cupcakes and coffee.  Though I drilled my knee and wrist in the family soccer game that ensued in early afternoon, and my childhood team (Michigan) lost to Kentucky in NCAA basketball, it was a heavenly day. After well-wishes, cards, phone calls, emails and facebook greetings, I realized how blessed I am to know you all, to be connected to you in a constellation of ways.

Perhaps the most important connection I made was with my husband, who escorted me to a fabulous dinner at RootDown in Denver. We chatted and ate at a leisurely pace over a two-hour meal and the crowning glory was that we had 120 minutes of things to talk about, apart from the children! I am still surprised and challenged and intrigued by the possibilities we share, and gratified that our core values are still intact. For this year, I resolve to put more dinners on the calendar, though our waistlines and wallets might appreciate a less sensational dining experience. For now, I am lucky, and I am thankful.

Support Groups

Here's an amazing story that I read in Tara Brach's True Refuge:


[Change agent Fran Peavey writes:] One day I was walking through the Stanford University campus with a friend when I saw a crowd of people with cameras and video equipment on a little hillside. They were clustered around a pair of chimpanzees - a male running loose and a female on a chain about twenty-five feet long. It turned out the male was from Marine World and the female was being studied for something or other at Stanford. The spectators were scientists and publicity people trying to get them to mate.

The male was eager. He grunted and grabbed the female's chain and tugged. She whimpered and backed away. He pulled again. She pulled back. Watching the chimps' faces, I [a woman] began to feel sympathy for the female.

Suddenly the female chimp yanked her chain out of the male's grasp. To my amazement, she walked through the crowd, straight over to me, and took my hand. Then she led me across the circle to the only other two women in the crowd, and she joined hands with one of them. The three of us stood together in a circle. I remember the feeling of that rough palm against mine. The little chimp had recognized us and reached out across all the years of evolution to form her own support group.

Quoted from Fran Peavey,
Heart Politics (New Society Publishers, 1986), p. 176

The female chimpanzee's insight and strength amazed me. She reached across species to find the commonality and help that she needed.  How hard is it for us to do the same, even among our trusted friends and family?  I wonder how that story ended; I'm willing to bet the publicity people's crude wish was not fulfilled that day. The little chimp's outreach out shows strength and intelligence, not weakness. The same goes for us; when we reach out for help we show strength, and by experiencing pain we cultivate compassion. It's not comfortable and it's not society's way, but it appears to be fundamental to more than one species.

Don;t Set Out to Save the World

"We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts."

-          -Pema Chodron

I did set out to save the world. I was younger then, and didn’t know better. At first I wanted to stamp it, make my permanent mark, and then I wanted to save it. Now I just want to inhabit my own microcosmic slice of this big pie. My slice is strawberry-rhubarb today, sweet and sour, tangy and tart. I hope  my actions sweeten or warm your  plate and never detract from the full flavor of life.

PS – Thank you for the wonderful words of support regarding poetry and writing sent in response to my poem. You opened and strengthened my heart and bolstered me through a day of recovery from the stomach flu. What a welcome break from disinfecting, washing sheets and warming 7Up. Yesterday would have been  much more sour if not for you! 

Poetically Pleased

Many of you have already seen my email or Facebook posting, so forgive me for the duplication, but I'm excited about my poem being published on  Every Day Poets. It's only the second poem of mine to be published, and the first in several years. I've posted the poem here, too, just for fun. Thank you for supporting this baby step, hopefully the first of many.

LONELY STRETCH OF HIGHWAY NORTH OF ALBUQUERQUE • by Laura Dravenstott

A century of empty miles, nowhere to rest

between Las Vegas and Ratón.

The scrub-brush residents here

root tenaciously in the red-orange soil.

New world vultures circle overhead,

beady-eyed, greedy to sound the alarm

on invaders thinking to dig up splintered

bones of stinking cedar or sugar pine.

Enigmatic cloud shadows dash and dot

across the shrugged shoulders of the high mesa

with a silent warning for travelers to move on.

Bracketology

It was a wild weekend of basketball here at the Dravenstott household. All of us entered the traditional Drav-Clav March Madness tournament (includes all of the Dravenstotts and Clavadetschers and makes it clear why I didn't hyphenate!) My kids all filled out a bracket for the first time in recent memory and so had a personal interest in the course of the games. One by one our brackets have succumbed to upsets; Daniel lost his tournament winner, Duke, on the first day, and I lost my final two teams by yesterday afternoon. Rob sails on in first place, followed closely by his brother and Aden (whose bracket title is "Umm . . .what?").

We had fun sitting around the fire watching basketball on Saturday as snow drifted past the windows full of spring flowers and Easter wreaths. Aden started asking about the colleges themselves: where they are located, how big they are, if the weather is rainy or cold, etc. I answered with a typical Mama Bear slant: everything far away is either too large, too cold, or too rainy. Aden's interest in colleges tugged at my heartstrings; we have a few more years before the interest gets deep and personal, but those years are passing quickly.

Yesterday afternoon Rob and I took Daniel to his first Denver Nuggets game at the Pepsi Center. Since it was a Christmas present, I had splurged on good seats and it was awesome to see how tall, quick, and strong the pro players are when you sit close-up. We bought junk food, swapped stories with the people around us, and hammed it up for the in-house camera during free-throws. Daniel made it on to the jumbo-tron doing some of his dance moves, with me in the corner frantically directing the camera his way. He pronounced it a "dream come true" though he didn't realize he was on the big screen until after the fact, when I told him and Rob showed him video on the camera. A fun weekend full of basketball, taunts and jibes, college dreams and big screens. I love March Madness!