Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. ~ Virginia Woolf

I was going thru my archives of about a bazillion different photos and graphics when I came across this one.  I was looking for another photo for today's entry but when I came to this one my whole train of thought shifted and I decided to use this one instead and save the other for another day.  If I ever find it, that is...I really do have a lot stored away, considering I've written close to 2,000 blog entries the past 5 years.

This photo is one my Dear Hubby took a few Christmas seasons ago.  He'd gone hunting at his cousin Ed's house which is just across the road from this one.  This house has special memories for Dear Hubby...it is the farm homestead of his maternal grandparents who originally emigrated from Austria in the very early 1900s.  They settled in Canada, to begin with, then came to Oregon City.  Dear Hubby's mother, the last of 14 children, was born here in 1929.  When I married Dear Hubby in 1974 only a handful of the children had passed away.  As I write this, my mother-in-law and two of her brothers are still alive.  But one is terminally ill with cancer and may die within days.

Dear Hubby spent a good portion of his early years in this house.  His mother worked so his grandmother took care of him and one of his sisters during the day.  His grandma never learned to speak much English.  When they moved to Oregon this house was far enough out in the country that she rarely went to 'town' so there was little need for her to speak anything more than the basics.  Dear Hubby tells me he never spoke German but he could understand it when his grandmother spoke it to him.  This house was the Sunday gathering place after church when everyone who could would come over for dinner.  Dear Hubby had something like 60 first cousins so I can just picture little ones frolicking all over the yard, the porch, the fields.  They were a big, boisterous group.  I don't know if the accordions and the spoons were brought out on any of these Sundays but I've been to wedding celebrations where they were and the family would dance polkas and the Schottische.   There was a lot of life lived in this house.  But, like with all families, parents aged and died.  Sadly, the house was sold outside of the family tho Cousin Ed still lives across the road in the house he grew up in, and family still lives scattered all over the nearby area.

I don't exactly envy Dear Hubby for this rich heritage but I often wonder what it must have been like growing up surrounded by so much family.  He had cousins who were as close to him as siblings.  So, as he took this untouched photo that day, I wonder at the memories that must have been moving at lightning speed thru his mind.  Picturing his parents as their younger selves, seeing his long-gone grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Picturing himself, a skinny little dark-haired boy playing in the yard.  Eating all the wonderful food prepared and served in that house. 

I never had that, growing up.

Maybe...on second thought...I do envy him after all.

Who can hope to be safe? who sufficiently cautious? Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush. ~ Horace

I'm at the point in life where I don't like to watch the news much any more.  I am sickened about the sex scandal at Penn State, just as I was with all the cover ups concerning molestations within the Catholic church.  Having been a child who was molested...only one time...and knowing the devastating affect it had on me, I can not imagine what it must be like to be repeatedly violated.  I never told my parents what happened to me for 7 years.  It's amazing how the attacker can make an innocent child feel like it's the child's fault, makes the child question themselves as to why they were the one the pervert focused on and not some other child.  In my case, it could have been dozens of others who might have been...and probably were....violated by this man.  He was a person whose home was open to children from all over town.  His wife worked days, he worked nites.  Perfect scenario.  Along comes me, a little girl of 9, and he targets me while a bunch of us kids were playing Hide 'n' Seek at his house and I was "it".  Those minutes on the floor of his living room alone with him will never be erased from my memory.  When everyone called "Ready!" and I had the chance to get away, I fled from that house as fast as I could and I never went back.  And I never let him within 20 feet of me ever again.

And I kept that secret bottled up inside until the day I was 16 and I finally unburdened myself to my parents.  Naturally, they were aghast and were horrified I'd kept this from them..."Why didn't you tell us?  We could've gotten a hold of the police!  He could've harmed lots of kids!"  True, true, true.  But how do you put into words something that happened to you before you even knew what sex and perversion were?  Seven years later, we had moved 140 miles away and he had died of throat cancer.  Good riddance.  And to this day, 48 years later...well, I have to forgive him because I'm a Christian but I get sick to my stomach whenever I think of what he did that day and how he took my innocence away forever.  We forgive, but we never, ever forget.

And so....

I'm at the point in life where I don't like to watch the news much any more.

In my soul, I am still that small child who did not care about anything else but the beautiful colors of a rainbow. ~ Papiha Ghosh

My collection of paper dolls.

Barbie, Midge, Skipper.

Janet Lennon.

Connie Francis and Lucille Ball.

Haley Mills.

Patty Duke.

Kate, Bobbie Jo, and Billie Jo from "Petticoat Junction".

I do not know

where Betty Jo disappeared to.

Tammy, her Mom, brother Ted, and sister Pepper.

To name a few.

They moved with me from my hometown

in 1966

And they have come with me on every move since then,

to 12 different houses

in

45 years.

When I take the shoe box off the closet shelf...

any of the many closet shelves

they have lived on...

and I open it

and take them out

I am once again a little girl

who spent countless

hours

sharing my childhood

with them.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. ~ Confucius

Sometimes, when I really get to thinking about it, the distance I've put between my hometown and where I live now pulls me up so short I get that hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, like when an elevator I'm on stops too quickly.  I think it's pretty safe to say the reality is I will never see it again in my lifetime.  Another one of those facts that hits me every now and then....well, more like at least once a day....and literally takes my breath away.  That I may never ever see anyone from my 'past' life face-to-face ever again.  Or that 2/3 of the United States sits between me and Portland.  That I live in the Eastern Time Zone.  That I live in Michigan.

I'm getting tired of writing about this.  I've been here 7 months now.  It's time to just settle down and write about the things I used to write about, like my aversion to phones and menopause and books and everything else I filled up 1500 posts on.  And yet, it always seems to come back to this.  Have any of the rest of you made such a monumental move for the first time in your life as you're approaching your Golden Years?  Is it because I was so settled in my comfort zone for so many many years that I feel like a kid in a candy store in my new environment, my new life, and each day as I awaken and realize where I am it blows me away?  I did this?!  Me?!  No no no...no way. 

Dear Hubby and I were talking about this yesterday.  It's been a big change for me, yes.  But it's been of epic proportions for him.  Talk about being settled in comfort zones!  He'd worked at the same company for 32 years.  He'd been the Supervisor there for 16 of them.  He knew his job inside, outside, and upside down.  He could've been blindfolded and found his way there.  He functioned on automatic pilot because of the sameness of his days.  And then we moved here.  He didn't even know where the new business he works for was located.  He knew zip zero nada about the type of business it is.  He didn't even know what he was supposed to do.  And he was 57 years old.  Since the first of March he's definitely learned a lot.  He's put his whole heart into learning it, into pulling his mind out of its sleep mode and compartmentalizing all kinds of new information that's coming at him from all directions.  And he says he's feeling truly 'alive' for the first time in years.  He's  coming home at nite and having the most vivid dreams.  So am I.  We've both been wondering why and I told him I think it's because both our brains are functioning on overdrive since we moved here.  So much new stuff to absorb, so many changes.  Our brains are so overstimulated they don't know how to shut off.

That's ok, tho.

Because in retrospect we both realize how much we were stagnating.  How much we were just going thru the motions.  Another day, another dollar so to speak.  Get up, go to work, go to bed...only to get up, go to work, go to bed.  We were in a rut, baby.

Well, we're in anything but a rut now.  Each day is a new adventure.  It's like we've come out of a long hibernation or something.  I don't have the words or ability to define it right.  It's like I've been given a new lease on life, I guess.  Like life has a freshness to it that I'd almost forgotten it had.  Like the joy of discovery I had as a child has been given back to me.  A rebirth.

Dear Hubby and I have never ever been wave-jumpers.  We've never done anything extraordinary.  Never bungee-jumped or rafted down the Colorado River.  We were the type of couple who'd come into the church we'd attended and sit in the same pew on every Sunday, for years.  We were steady.  Predictable.  Nice. Ordinary.  I know we shocked ourselves when we agreed to set forth on this life-changing adventure.  But I think we shocked everyone we know even more so.  We've had several friends tell us they admire the "guts" we had in embarking on this journey.  They tell us they admire us.  And many have told us they wished they could do the same thing, especially those around our ages.  Those who are into their humdrum existence, who are functioning on automatic pilot.

We both felt we've been 100% led by God to do what we've done.  We both feel we made the right decision and are right where God wants us to be at this particular time in our lives.  We feel God working on us in ways we don't have answers for but we have total confidence in Him and know He's leading us still.  There is great comfort in that knowledge.  I feel like Lots wife...."Don't look back."  And I don't.  I have no regrets.  And if I never see Portland or my hometown again?  Well, that's what a memory is for.  They're right here with me, and they always will be.

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. ~ Auguste Rodin

40 years ago my parents and younger brother and I vacationed in the little town of Waldport on Alsea Bay in Oregon.  A quiet little burg along Highway 101.  It wasn't one of the more popular tourist towns, tucked back from the Pacific Ocean.  We'd rented a cabin-style unit in an older motel for four days.  It wasn't a vacation I  wanted to go on.  I was 17, my younger brother 11.  My parents were going thru some particularly hard years in their marriage and the air in the cabin was thick with tension and bickering.

My brother and I escaped to the long stretch of beach that skirted the bay.  The tides came and went with a quiet ferocity.  There was no surf...we could spot that off in the distance at the mouth of the bay.  But sea lions bobbed about when the tide was high.  Sea birds skittered and cried overhead.  We skipped rocks out across the smooth surface of the water.  For siblings with 6 years between us, we got along remarkably well.

Towards the late afternoon of the second day there, we befriended two brothers and their sister.  They had shrimp guns and we amused ourselves by screwing them down into the wet sand and extracting small sand shrimp.  Nothing worth eating.  We might've built a sand castle.  But as the sky was streaked with apricot orange and pink sherbet and we were standing together in a circle looking down at the shrimp gun, another pair of bare feet entered into our tight orbit.  My gaze moved upward until I found myself staring into the most incredible pair of golden brown eyes I'd ever seen.  They belonged to one of the most handsome young men I'd ever encountered.  We stood transfixed as that moment in time stopped for the length of a heartbeat.  Sound didn't register.  We created our own vacuum.  And when he said, "Let's go take a walk" we headed off down the shore.  One of the brothers yelled, "Hey, where you going?" but I didn't look back.

I don't know what my father sensed.  He'd been standing there off to the side.  But when my younger brother began to run after us Dad called him back and told him to leave us alone.  And when the two of them headed back to the cabin no one called for me to follow.  I stood in the cool wind as the sun went down and became acquainted with my soul mate.

It wasn't love.  What teenage encounter at that age is real love?  But until the moment he entered into our circle I had still been a tomboy girl.  I'd had no serious crushes.  And this wasn't a crush.  It went deeper than that.  Is there such a thing as chance encounters, or does everything that happens to us in our lifetime happen for a purpose?  Was he there to help me cross the chasm from childhood into the moment when I became fully aware of myself as a young woman?  I don't know.  But I do know it was magical.  We sat up half the nite, hunkered down against the sea wall to block the cold wind blowing in from the sea.  We never kissed.  We never even held hands.  But he told me, "If I were to die right now it would be ok because I'd know you were still here in the world."

As this memory came to my mind tonite I remembered his name.  I did a Google search on him and it surprised me he was even real.  And he is alive and hopefully well somewhere in southern California where he is a high school teacher of Fine Arts.  That seems very fitting for him.  He had the soul of a poet.

And I will leave it there.  I have no desire to contact him.

But he will always remain the apparition who seemed to flow in on the tide.  Who made a young girl feel pretty and worthy of the attention of a handsome young man for the first time in her life.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. ~ Mark Twain

My grandson Dylan has really gotten in to painting since he began preschool. When he brought home several of his works of art the other day I asked him if I might have a couple to hang up on the refrigerator so we could all enjoy and admire them. He very seriously sorted thru them and gave me two. "What are they?" I asked. One, he told me, was a turkey. The other was Lightning McQueen with a hat on his head. Hmmmmmm...as I looked them over I couldn't have agreed with him less but they weren't my paintings. What right did I have to suggest, "No, no...isn't that one a fish in the sea? And that one a red pepper?" Why are we adults so insistent upon trying to influence the creativity of our children...or, in my case, our grandchildren? How often do we squelch that creative flair they possess by trying to force our perception of what is and what isn't?

I know bowling isn't a creative art but my dad was an avid bowler, belonging to several leagues and participating in many competitions during his life. One thing we shared was our left-handedness. When I was around 10 or 12 he decided he was going to teach me how to bowl and I was quite willing to learn. We went to the small alley in my hometown and he showed me how to hold the ball, where to stand, then let me launch off several balls. I thought I was doing quite well...some of the pins went down! But no, no..."Here, let me show you how to do this," my dad said, and he began positioning my arm this way and that, telling me when to release the ball, when to do this, how to do that. As I began rolling gutter ball after gutter ball, getting more and more tense as I tried to please him, more and more frustrated when I didn't, I finally burst in to tears and told him I didn't want to do it anymore. It ended up being such a stressful experience for me it killed off any interest I'd had in learning the sport.

I have tried to keep that memory close to the surface while raising my kids and helping in raising my grandkids. Whenever the urge comes over me to barge right in and tell them they need to do it my way...I remember that day with my father. I remember how badly I felt when I couldn't perform to his satisfaction. And then I back off. I tell them it's beautiful...it's a job well done...I love it!

And it is!

They say genes skip generations. Maybe that's why grandparents find their grandchildren so likeable. ~ Joan McIntosh

Dylan and Dear Hubby went on Dylan's first camping trip ever this weekend. This is mine and Dear Hubby's "Hill" outside of the town of Madras in Central Oregon. He and I have been camping out there forever and we rarely ever see any humans. Only deer, antelope, coyotes, and free range cattle meander by...and occasional jackrabbits. Dear Hubby tells me rattlesnakes are around there, too, but I've yet to spot any. Dylan makes the third generation to camp on 'our' hill.

Darling Dylan, just chill-laxing.

A full time job...scooping and flinging dry cow patties!

Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions. ~ Brendan Francis

I recently wrote about being one of a set of twins. My twin died in utero and even tho we never shared life in the outside world, I've always felt as if a part of me is missing. There are even 'syndromes' about such a thing: Vanishing Twin and Lost Twin. I had no idea either existed until I typed in "lost twin" a few years back in a Google search, wondering if there was any one out there who shared the same lost feeling I have at the core of me. Shocking to me, there are probably millions.

After writing about this I had several comments and emails about it. It brought to mind one of those 'family secret' stories passed down thru the generations that I thought I would share because I think in itself it's quite unusual but very interesting. Interesting to me because it seems destined that whole sets of twins don't seem to survive in my family. So...I thought I would share this with you. I have a feeling I might've touched on it somewhere in the past but with almost 1000 posts in my archives on this blog and several hundred on my 'first' blog...well, the thought of digging thru those is so daunting I'll just leave it alone and start from scratch. And it was so long ago I might've written about it most of you wouldn't remember it anyway.

My paternal grandmother gave stillbirth to a set of twins, back around 1920. As to whether they were boys, girls, or one of each I don't have a clue. But as the story has been passed down to me by my mother, my grandmother was recovering in the hospital afterwards and that is where this story begins. My grandmother died when I was 3 years old so I don't remember her. I don't know what type of person she was emotionally to try to gauge just how this might've affected her. My oldest brother is 6 years older than me and was 9 when she died...he's told me she was one of the best grandmothers in the world. I do know she was also a Christian woman, so I'm sure she must've felt the assurance in her heart that someday she would be reunited with her two 'lost' babies. But I imagine the reality of losing them at that moment in time must've been tragic.

Grandma had a roommate, a French-Canadian Catholic woman who'd just given birth to her 12th or 13th child. As my grandmother lay there in her bed she couldn't help overhearing the conversation the woman had with her husband when he came to visit. They both spoke about how they had no idea how they were going to feed and clothe yet another little one. They were already under tremendous strain trying to provide for the others already there. As Grandma listened a seed sprouted in her heart and when my grandfather came to visit her later in the day she told him of the other woman's dilemma. "Why don't we ask if we can adopt the baby girl?" I believe they'd already lost my uncle, a toddler who'd died from spinal meningitis. My grandfather agreed, and they approached the other couple with their idea.

I don't know how all the details were ironed out, but the little girl was adopted by my grandparents and christened with the name Claire. In those days adoption was kept very quiet in families for the most part. And even tho Claire was olive-skinned and had dark hair and stood out in photos amongst all the fair Swedes and English family members, she grew up not having a clue she was adopted. My father, who was their natural born son, came along a few years later. He never knew Claire was anything but his natural sister.

When my grandfather died when I was 10 my dad and I went to his house to sort thru Grandpa's belongings. My dad found a strong box stashed away filled with all kinds of papers and tucked in among them were Claire's adoption papers and Birth Certificate. To say my dad was stunned is an understatement. But my brothers and I were told the news. I guess my parents figured with Claire living in New England and us living here in the NW, especially in the 50s and 60s when air travel was a luxury and not an every day occurrence for so many like it is today, they figured the odds of us seeing Aunt Claire and spilling the beans was pretty remote. Even so, we were sworn to secrecy. When I finally did meet her, in 1968 when I was 14, I wonder what she must've thought of me, peering at her so intently most of the time. But her unknown history -- to her, anyway -- and knowing I had such an important secret stowed away deep inside made her quite mysterious and special to me.

Years later, when one of Claire's sons joined the military and was shipped overseas to Europe, she was going to take a trip to visit him. When she applied for a Visa, tho, she needed a copy of her birth certificate, which she didn't have but my father did...when he'd found it in Grandpa's strong box he'd never sent it to her. So dad mailed it off...and a few days later he received a rather hysterical, frantic phone call from his sister. What did this MEAN, she was adopted?! No WAY was she adopted! Grandpa and Grandma were HER parents! When dad had found out her history he'd had no idea how to tell her...emotional issues were never his strong point. Instead of preparing her for it, he'd decided to let the Birth Certificate tell her the news.

It was this incident, in knowing this secret for so long....and other important life secrets that belong to other family members that have had devastating affects when they've also been revealed...that have made me be honest with our children. Sometimes probably even bluntly honest. But skeletons in closets usually don't portend any good news. Being forewarned is forearmed...I've felt that way in every aspect of raising children. My children grew up knowing all about whatever's been hidden away in generational memory vaults. And as to my history and Dear Hubby's history...they know all about our faults and foibles, too.

I guess in some ways too much knowledge can be a bad thing. But there is also safety in knowledge. Comfort in knowledge. Security in knowledge. And there is love in knowledge.

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anaïs Nin

I am notoriously gun shy when it comes to having photos of myself taken. I have lots of excuses why. Most of them go back to my childhood, stemming from the nickname bestowed upon me by my brothers and dad: "Moose". From overhearing my mother refer to me as an ugly duckling. From having an older brother I adored turn on me one day and tell me, "You are so ugly!" But, you know....I'm 56 years old and I've finally, in the past six years, become very comfortable with myself in my own skin. And when I glance in the mirror I've come to realize I'm not ugly. With age comes perspective, I suppose. You'd think 36 years of hearing my Dear Hubby and children telling me I'm beautiful would wipe out those old insecurities but it's amazing what we drag along from childhood, isn't it?

With all that said, I still don't like having my photo taken. I read this wonderful entry at my bloggy friend Mel's blog this morning and it really got me to thinking. It even inspired me to write about my lack of enthusiasm....well, actually my sense of dread...whenever a camera is pointed in my direction. The way my face freezes, my gut clenches, my teeth clamp so tightly my jaws ache. And it brought to mind a moment a few weeks back when my grandson Dylan found a used-up disposable camera and pointed it in my direction. He told me, "Grandma, I'm going to take lots and lots of pictures of you!" And when I asked him why he said, "So I can have them forever and ever!" As I said to Mel in the comment I left, there's someone in this world who loves me just the way I am!

I received an email this morning from a site who has accepted an article I wrote for publication. And in the email I was asked if I could send along a photo they can attach to the article. Yikes. If they only knew how few are in existence, ha! But I found one that I actually do love, the one I've included here. Yes, I'm still half-hidden but my arms are full of two of the little people I love most in this world. And I can see I'm not ugly. But try and tell the child within me that.

Before I Was A Woman...

I was once a feisty little girl who hit boys so hard I could make them cry.

I loved paper dolls.

I was a tomboy.

I threw footballs as hard and as accurately as boys could.

One of my brothers nicknamed me "Ramona Gabriel" after the quarterback

Roman Gabriel.

I loved waking up to the sound of chainsaws far off in the forests on

warm summer mornings.

I wore lots of hand-me-down clothes.

School was very easy for me and I was often very bored.

I was deeply afraid of bats.

I could eat a whole watermelon if I could get away with it.

I loved bubble gum.

I loved drive-in movies.

Being the only girl in the family I never had to share a bedroom.

I was very secretive.

I loved playing Hide 'n' Seek past sunset on summer evenings with all the neighborhood kids.

I was very jealous of my youngest brother when he was born over 6 years after me.

But I grew to love him.

Deeply.

I was my Dad's "Missy McGoo".

I loved riding high on his shoulders and dancing on top of his feet.

My mother would tell me, "I hope if you ever have a daughter she's twice as stubborn as you are so you'll know what it's like trying to raise you".

(I know now.)

I was always "Sis".

I was always on the outside looking in.

My Swedish grandfather didn't like me very well.

But I didn't like him either.

I once received a beautiful fancy Valentine in 3rd grade and never did know who gave it to me.

I loved going to the docks at Westport and watching the fishing fleet coming in with their catch at the end of the day.

I loved picnics at the lake.

Bonfires on the beach.

Butter clams cooked on the fire at Hood Canal.

Rowing across the waters with my Dad towards the Navy ships and never seeming to get any closer, they were so far away, singing "I've Got Six Pence" and "Row Row Row Your Boat" at the top of our lungs.

I loved hamburgers from "Mr. Gene's"

and milk shakes at "The Beehive".

And chocolate ice cream cones.

Little League baseball games were the highlights of our summers.

I loved the first day of school.

I loved the last day even more.

I loved the penny candy table at Bullard's.

I loved Dairy Day parades.

I loved Grape Nehi soda.

I loved swinging bridges and lazy river bends that were perfect swimming holes.

I loved riding my bike.

I loved summer evening walks with my mom after the dishes were done.

I loved it whenever Uncle Winky would come to visit.

I loved my calico cat Knucklehead.

I loved sour green apples and sour green cherries, picked from the tree before they were ripe.

I loved my childhood best friends Laura Ruth and Angela.

I loved my small town childhood.