And then there were the birds!

                      The frigates flew with the boat much of the time, but this day I was up above at the right time and enjoyed taking their photos. I enjoyed watching all of the birds wherever we were but four hikes, one the first part of the week and three of our last four outings focused on the islands' birds. I've shown you the flamingo and the pelican in other posts. Iguanas were in some of the areas with birds so they'll show up here too. The one below was my favorite. Could it have something to do with the color?!

The bird above was found in the same swamp as the flamingo--a Galapagos mockingbird.

We climbed up a rocky path to see these Galapagos hawks devouring a dead baby seal. My shot of one standing alone won't upload but think you can see how different they are from the ones around our areas. I wasn't warned and didn't take my hiking poles on our first hike out to see birds, became afraid I'd fall on the large round rocks and got behind the rest of the group. After that I took one pole, and my roommates used the other one. With my camera, I couldn't have used more than one. The shore where we watched for these swallow-tailed gulls to take off was spectacular.

On the way to these birds we saw this iguana posing. 

 From the trail as we were beginning the walk to the shore birds.

See how the bird blends with the rocks--over which I didn't enjoy walking! This was our first walk with birds where the rocky paths were a challenge. The island is Plaza Sur, a small island we visited near Isla Santa Fe where we saw the hawks.

I should perhaps have blown this one up so you could fully appreciate the sight of so many of the red-orange crabs lining the rocky shore above the sea. 

And now we are on to another island--Espanola, the southernmost island of the Galapagos where birds abound--especially the waved albatrosses. Nearly all of the world's 12,000 pairs breed here. We walked through the middle of booby colonies too. And sea lions and marine iguanas make their way to the water on the beaches. 

This wonderful geyser-like eruption is made simply by the waves hitting this spot in the rocks!. Gorgeous! 

Here is a pair of waved albatrosses! There were many seeming, like this pair to pose for us. And below are boobies. The blue feet don't always show up well and some were other types of boobies. The hills were alive--literally! I was delighted no matter the rocks over which to walk!

These two are masked boobies.

A blue-footed booby is on the left, and a delighted Maggie here!

There are more bird walks and birds. However, I'm signing off for now with no promises for more Galapagos blogs. I hope at some point to write a bit about Quito. Perhaps I'll start that blog with the last bird walk on the islands. For now, I want to work on the novel!

The Galapagos -- Post 2 -- Simply Amazing!

                             
                         View from cliff-top trail on Espanola, the southern-most island of the Galapagos

There were other ships at many of the ports, one group in particular traced many of our stops. I knew this primarily because our guide and theirs, a woman, visited either in passing or on the beaches from which snorkeling was the primary activity. And not so many of that group joined the snorkelers. On one beach I chatted with a man from Columbia Missouri who graduated from Missouri State in Springfield. He was the only American with whom I spoke on the islands.

 Our forays into the island paths didn't lend many flower photos, and I was using my distance lens but here are a couple of flowers in this jungle-like area.

This was the big payoff on this walk. We were close enough in this lagoon that I could have captured this flamingo with my I-phone! And we saw more than one!

From the turtle breeding center I walked along the sea, then cut through this pink house restaurant to read the road where I joined others searching, in what was barely a town, for post cards to send from Post Office Bay where we were going the next day.

And Post Office Bay, you asked? It wasn't what I expected! 

This funny little peaked box contained many post cards. We searched through them for addresses near us to take to, ideally, deliver in person, and we left our own cards, most of which were addressed to ourselves. Mine was hand delivered while I was on a recent trip to Tulsa for a memorial service. Our new receptionist called and asked me to come down as the folks delivering it wanted to meet me. I answered from outside the Crystal Springs Art Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, so didn't meet those folks. They also wanted to know if I'd been in the Galapagos to write the card! 

I was trying out my mask and flopping around in the water near this beach, not making much progress. I don't know how much better I would have done with fins, but there were none small enough for my feet. Unexpectedly, a voice above me said, "I'll take you out to see the swimming turtles." It was a woman from New Zealand and her husband. She took my arm and he swam along the other side and they led me out farther than I could have gone alone to see the underwater swimming turtles!! It was exciting and by the trip back to the beach, I'd relaxed enough to enjoy the snorkel. Back on the beach as I exclaimed my thanks, she said, "I couldn't stand for you not to see the turtles."

And speaking of turtles/tortoises, I loved the ones roaming around the field on a farm we visited. That farmer made a business of allowing tourists to visit. They had boots for us to wear in case of mud and for sturdier walking and coffee/tea afterward. Our group was boarding our van to leave as the next much larger group arrived.

This tortoise is heading to submerge in a small pond, joining others already there.

Early the morning we were going to visit the Charles Darwin Research Center, we bid goodbye to six of our fellow passengers. Four I'd spent enough time with to be sad they were leaving--the couple who led me through the water to see the turtles swimming and a mother and daughter. The daughter was another camera buff and the mother a nurse with whom I'd walked another beach and visited while others were snorkeling. Those of us who stayed went to the Darwin Center's visitors' pavilions together and began to seek each other out at meals and cocktail hour. Our guide, pictured below, spoke as if he was reading the best book I read prior to the trip, adding his stories. He was extraordinary!

We did go inside a room where "Big George" stays on display. He's the oldest known tortoise, maybe approaching 100 years though his age can't be documented, and is preserved for visitors to view through glass.

Afterward we found our first tiny touch of the Internet in the Galapagos National Preserve's small gift shop just outside the Research Center's grounds. It was so slow that we got e-mail titles but not the content. This was a town with many many shops filled with the same variety of souvenirs and also restaurants. After walking, shopping and enjoying the fish market below, six of us found a place to enjoy drinks.

That's it for this morning. Next time I'll share the birds and shores that were my favorite spots! I also loved riding on the sea, whether reading up on top, watching the birds following us or riding around in the panga while others snorkeled!

The Galapagos -- Part 1 -- September 29 - October 8, 2018

The clouds from the plane on the way to our first stop, Miami, were wonderful! I felt, as I often do on an airplane, a sense of escape. The additional 2+ hour wait in Miami while a tire was changed on our plane--we were allowed to get off--was made enjoyable by the company of a couple from Maine who were also headed to the Galapagos Islands. They were taking the big ship tour--100 passengers--and we wouldn't likely see them as on many of the spots we visited they would constitute the entire number of visitors for that area at one time or on one day.

We arrived at the Quito, Ecuador airport about 1 am. I met my roommate who'd arrived not long before and we were met by two women from the tour company, Peregrine. I booked through Intrepid but Peregrine, a sister company, runs the Galapagos tours. My new roommate and I were too tired to converse on the 45-minute drive so I knew what she looked like, that she was Australian and that was about it. She invited me to join her with the guide she had engaged to tour Quito at 9 am the next morning, but I didn't want to head out that early. Since our hotel rooms for that night were extra, we'd reserved singly. The next day she paid for one more night alone and the hotel let me have my room without extra cost for that night. I hoped that didn't mean that she hadn't felt good about rooming with me, but would learn that she had some of the same concerns I had about rooming with a stranger. She was a pleasant and easy roommate.

My Quito photographs for that extra day are on my phone so I'll do a short blog on Quito later. It is an interesting large city, and I learned as I took taxis around town that very, very few people speak English. Ecuador uses the dollar for currency and that, and that it is the usual departure point for the Galapagos Islands let me think more service people would speak English. I wish I had known!

I all but missed the tour group meeting, but that's a story for the Quito blog. There were fourteen of us for the first part of our tour. Some would leave mid-week and others would join us. The couples ranged from 30s honeymooners from Ireland to an early-mid sixties couple from Australia. There were two fifty something couples from New Zealand,  a mother and daughter from Australia (the mother was 70), and my roommate and me. Two sixty-something women from Australia were already on the boat. Yes, as I had been told was likely, I was the only American. Both Intrepid and Peregrine are Australian companies.

Our ship, the Grand Queen Beatriz, was new this season. Below is the lounge and reading area where our guide's nightly talks were held and where we were welcomed aboard, introduced to our crew and given frothy drinks. We did this to say goodbye to those who departed mid-week and to welcome the newcomers. We lost six--the women who were already aboard, the mother-daughter duo and one of the New Zealand couples. We gained another mother-daughter duo (younger) and two Australian couples plus a delightful married couple (women) from Britain. I understood them without such hard listening although by the time they came aboard I was able to hear the others without as much effort. I'd also given up paying serious attention when the Australians and New Zealanders talked about politics and places in their countries, often two or three talking at once.

Below you can see that the food bar where breakfast and lunch choices were arrayed sets between the two tables, each seating eight people. With a group that small, it was important for all to get along. For the most part, that happened. Dinner was served to us at our tables. For whatever reason, gluten free was an impossible concept so I ate many serving of beautifully arrayed fruit for dessert! Finally I asked that they keep those fruit plates, serve me whatever the others were eating and let me decide what to eat. For instance, I could eat the fillings of pie. The food was excellent with many healthy fruit and veggie choices. I don't recall a mediocre dinner.

I love being outside as the boat sped to our first destination, one of snorkeling from the boat. Those who were planning to snorkel, I didn't then, loaded into a panga boat pictured below. We used two of these boats for all shore landings, some wet where we waded a few steps to shore and some to a dock where we made shore in a dry landing. We knew in advance which type landing we would have. Sometimes I went barefoot on the sand and others I wore old Teva sandals and changed to hiking shoes if necessary.

The panga driver who became my buddy took me along the shore and pointed out my first critters while the others snorkeled.

With all back on the boat we motored to our next destination. I went up on the top deck and took photos of the frigate birds that followed us. They will show up in another blog post but these were my first.

I spent time reading and relaxing between shore tours under the shade on these comfortable benches. Opposite them are lounge chairs in which to sun, but as you can see from the photo below, our first days didn't have much sun.







The next day we began our usual schedule: 7 am breakfast and ready for the first tour at 8. Our first day's morning tour was on Isla Isabela, the largest of the Galapagos Islands. The area where we docked for a dry landing was flat and the trails easy to walk. We were greeted by a sea lion on our path. We were not to walk toward the animals but could stand still and let them walk toward us--to a point. No touching!

The iguanas on this island are marine iguanas, the only ocean-swimming lizards. The iguanas were of different varieties on other islands, some others also swimming.

This spot on Isabela wasn't beautiful but we were so excited to see the wildlife that we weren't bothered much by all the rocks.

The iguanas hung on the sides of the rocks by the water peering over as if to say "take my picture."
The ghost crabs beckoned to me with their orange-red color. After walking and listening to our guide for a couple of hours, we headed back to the ship for lunch and a rest before our afternoon excursion.








That afternoon we went to the tortoises sanctuary and saw them in all sizes. We arrived at feeding time and watched the caretakers toss elephant ears into the pens of various sized tortoises. Our guide said that by 2020, all will be turned loose to live in the wild since the species is able to reproduce and survive in their natural setting. Here are a few photos of tortoise feeding. We'll see more older ones in the wild later.

I was going to add a large tortoise as they were at this sanctuary too, but my uploading has stopped working. I'll close for now as we go back to the ship, rest, annoy the bartender for drinks, listen to our guide tell us what we'll see tomorrow and answer questions and enjoy a lovely dinner and conversation.

More in a couple of days.

A Glimpse of the Divine --

Sunset at St. Benedict's Monastery 

This week this dimension of life lost two men, both Benedictine Monks and Priests, whose lives enriched those of many of us. 

Father Thomas Keating with me on retreat at the Snowmass Retreat Center at St. Benedict's and Fr. Thomas alone.











Last Sunday morning I happened to check e-mail early and had a Caring Bridge notice that Abbot Joseph Boyle of St. Benedict's had died early that morning after a valiant battle with cancer. Abbot Joseph was three years younger than me. He was always a welcoming presence at the Monastery, speaking to groups of all sizes. He prided himself on remembering our names and was temporarily flummoxed when my friend Mary Ann appeared with me at her side rather than our friend, Judith, who had accompanied her on many retreats. "You are not Judith," he said, then rubbed his nose as if that would bring my name to mind. He later got as close as Margie, not bad since I hadn't been there in four or five years. After that he did not forget my name.

This morning I opened my e-mail to find three notices of the passing of Fr. Thomas Keating who had moved to the abbey in Spencer, Mass. to get more effective care several months ago. Fr. Keating was born in 1923. When asked how he was for the past several years prior to his departure from St. Benedict's, he had smiled and said he was dying.

At the retreat where he is pictured, he had spoken with vigor to our group at the retreat's closing circle and announced at the end that he would be happy to stay for a few minutes for photographs. We hadn't known that he would be able to meet with us so the picture taking opportunity was a bonus.

Humble, compassionate, wise, with eyes that sparkled with joy as he spoke--these words could describe both of these men. Abbot Joseph was known primarily to the St. Benedict's Community--those who regularly and occasionally attended mass there and the hundreds of us who made retreats in that beautiful valley. Fr. Thomas was known not only to the Christian Contemplative world but to many in other traditions.

As my friend Mary Ann said today, they had served well and long and deserved their rest. However, this world has lost two lights that spread Divine love and light to all they encountered. Fr. Thomas' books and the centering prayer practice he founded with two others changed my life at a fragile time and enriched my life in the twenty plus years since.

I last saw them both in July of 2015, shortly before I moved from Colorado to Nashville. Mary Ann and I were on a private retreat at St. Benedict's and were invited to a memorial service for Abbot Joseph's sister. Ft. Thomas slipped into the back of the sanctuary in time for communion and stood in the bookstore waiting to receive hugs and greetings as we left the service, announcing to all who asked that he was dying.

It is with a heart broken open that I acknowledge their passing and with the deepest gratitude that I honor the gifts they brought into my life.

Rest in Peace dear brothers in Christ.


PS: Tomorrow I will write about my trip to the Galapagos. I simply couldn't let the passing of these religious men pass without notice.

Inspiration in the Middle of Decay

This lovely violet, a favorite spring flower from childhood, brightened an otherwise brown patch of
leaves. The sun made a couple of those leaves iridescent. Does that sound like life to you? It's those violets, that reflected sun, nature's gifts that lighten my darker mood.

Yesterday's trek with a good friend through woods with trees still naked of leaves was highlighted by the wild flowers scattered through the forest. It was near the creek that I found such a wealth of beauty growing from the winter's decay. Below those tiny blossoms come out to the partially submerged log, reminding me that there is still some small beauty in this aging body--though it may not shine as those buds did, catching my eye from the bank above the creek.

The sun flirted with the clouds but most of my viewing was in the shade, reminding me to look for beauty in the shadows, to remember that through the darkness comes healing.

I moved quickly from one bloom to another, aiming my camera, preserving beauty that is fleeting, the creek in the background. Each tiny flower was its own show, its own glory as each of us has our own beauty.

I started this post a few days ago, in a darkly reflective mood. That place has captured me this morning.I must go back to the memoir editing in a few minutes. It's not calling with any pleasure, but my diligent editor next door has promised to complete her work for a scheduled meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and I need to have finished her first 100 pages prior to that time.

I'm adding a photo of the blue-eyed marys taken a week ago Sunday on a cloudy, cold damp afternoon on a mostly muddy trail. These tiny blossoms were covering hillsides, lining the riverbed, worth the uncomfortable hike to spend time with them. That's a positive way to look at this editing exercise or to those slogs through pain. There is beauty to be found. We simply have to be willing to be uncomfortable to find it, healing too in the cracks and crannies of life. Enjoy beauty wherever you find it.

A Waiting Line -- Visitors to Prisoners in a Maximum Security Prison

There can be no photographs. We are allowed our drivers' licenses, a car key, and if we use one, the card for the vending machines once we are passed through security and before we are walked out to the pods (if that's where we are visiting) to see our prisoner friends and family members. Now that the weather is cold, our coats and other wraps go through screening with our keys and licenses.

We wait in line. Last week one of those waiting was a mother with a nine-year-old boy. She said he was going to visit his birth dad for the second time in a pod different from the one where I visit a man who has become a friend, living on death row. Once we were with our guard escort, the boy ran ahead, anxious for his visit. The guard, a kind man retired from his first job, asked the mother to call him back as he led us up to the door of Unit Two, where I was let off.

The waiting line that day included a nicely dressed white woman in a wheel chair who was visiting someone in the minimum security part of the prison. She had to be hand searched, holding up the check-in line for several minutes. Her nephew wheeled her to check in, and was coming back to get her.

Most of the visitors are persons of color so those of us who are white stand out. Over weeks and months, if like my friend, David, who visits regularly on Monday evenings and is always in line before the doors open, we become acquainted with others who wait.

I'm (like David) part of a group of volunteers who have been matched with a death row prisoner. Our Monday evening visitors and prisoners are like a family group, better than some as we don't argue or complain about trivial things. Recently, a new visitor from that group, standing in line, recognized the mother of a young man recently incarcerated and went into the minimum security visiting room to give him a hug. He went to a highly touted private high school with her daughter and had been a guest in her home.

Often visitors are acquainted with each other as the two women in front and one behind me were last week. Complaining about jobs at one of our large hospitals, I realized that their relationship was as co-workers. I was in the middle of their conversation, and I heard no mention of the prisoners they were visiting, but none were going to the outside units. A child who held up three fingers when I asked his age accompanied one of them. I played hide and seek around his mother's legs with him for several minutes.

I try to get there earlier or later than the shift change as guards are let in before visitors no matter when they arrive. Some security staff will let two or three of us in between groups of guards, but as the only woman--we are screened by a person of the same sex--staff member was searching the woman in the wheel chair, we missed the space when there was a lull in the guards arriving. The woman with the little boy was at the head of the line at that point, visibly put out, but nothing can be done but wait.

We watch to be sure the woman who runs the computer and prints out our visitors passes is there. She is key. Without her, there will be another slow line waiting for the passes. Those of us who are regulars praise her weekly--and pray that she doesn't get sick! Is the system old and slow? You bet, but the budget doesn't allow for upgrading.

After signing in two books and getting our passes, we go through one, then another gate enclosed in wire, enter another section, show our hand stamp through the window to that guard, and get whatever we are taking our prisoners from the vending machines.  Most visitors are seeing prisoners who can be visited in a large room, usually filled with folks talking and eating. For those of us visiting outside pods, we look for a guard to walk us to our destinations.

Entering Unit Two, the death row pod, there is again a wait, this time for our prisoner friends to be called from inside and allowed through security into the visiting room. The speed of this part depends on the guards inside the pod, and that varies. Recently the older guard, one we all think of highly, went back into the pod to find a guard to let my friend through. Another time, one of the prisoners being visited offered and was allowed to find him for me.

Once in the visiting room, we greet the other visitors and prisoners already there with hugs and handshakes. We greet our prisoner friends with a hug, and sit down for a visit as with any other friend. My friend keeps a box of varied tea which he brings in so I and others can have water heated in the microwave for tea while we are there. The microwave pops a lot of popcorn, a usual treat, while others bring sandwiches that are best heated. The prisoners can bring art or writing out for us to see or read, but we can't take similar things to them.

These men are very different from the young men who killed, mostly on an angry impulse, often under the influence of drugs. Three with whom I'm acquainted have been there more than thirty years and are self-knowledgeable interesting men. My friend writes and does various art projects. He made a lovely bird feeder which he mailed me for Christmas (he didn't remember that I live in a high rise, and I didn't remind him.).

We, the visitors who are part of the death-row visiting team, leave with hearts filled with gratitude and inspiration not to let the small things of life disrupt our peace.

Grace -- Serendipity -- Inner Knowing

The decision I made when beginning another re-write of my childhood memoir, one in present tense, seemed a reasoned choice. I chose to write from the eyes of nine-year-old me, in the fifth grade at our eight-grade country school. That choice allows me to use earlier experiences in past tense or as flash backs and can grow with me as I write forward. It is a voice that can more easily carry through high school than that of the younger Margaret. And as my NY coaches appear to want, it will make the story more intimate.

                  This desert scene, for me, signifies feelings of aloneness, being lost. I must
                  search for the beauty, but would look hard, it that was what it took to find it.

Now more than 100 pages into the present tense version, I find it easy to bring the early childhood stories into the text but often struggle when writing from that nine-year-old's present feelings and experiences. As I look back and feel where she was, look at a few photographs from that age, I realize that this was a time of great struggle, perhaps even a pivotal time, one where I/she fought through deep sadness and grief, determined not to be a younger version of her sad mother.

                                    The first violet in our back yard always made me smile!

Being a glass half full person is an important part of who I am. I've always credited that part of me for how I got through the difficulties of childhood. Looking at my nine-year-old self now, I see her battling for a happy place though it was often away from the present moment. I recently told a friend that I realized that I needed to fall in love with that little girl character as much as I love my fictional heroine in my novel so I would look forward to being with her in the writing process. Being with the sadness, the feelings of being trapped, are hard. I am, however, proud of her determination, for finding places and spaces that nurtured, and for caring about her family and friends.

Grace, serendipity, inner knowing, call it what you prefer, but I believe I was led to this age in my childhood to show her struggle, and to allow for release of her deeply held grief and pain. When going home would be difficult no matter whether she went directly from school, I'm proud of her for seeking out the woods and that girl-in-the-pond reflection with whom she could share. I'm sad that she had to endure so much, but grateful for her courage and strength.

I'm grateful that my parents, with their many flaws, never let me doubt that I would go to college, that getting an education was important, though their reasons were different from each other and from mine. While Mother veered from wanting me to have all the books I desired to being hateful about my ability to get lost in a story, her desire for us to have books won that battle.

We all need someone to believe that we are precious, wonderful, smart children. I was fortunate to have the Wood cousins, especially the two "old-maid" teachers, who thought I was so special. Both Cousin Edna and Cousin Gertrude made huge differences in my life, but Cousin Gertrude is most memorable. She left the adult conversations, often heated about the world situations and politics, and spent time with Billy and me. My first trip to the big public library in town was with her. My first walks to their neighborhood park, and my first time to be allowed to walk there by myself were her doing. She did her best to get me the clothes her students were wearing--my first sundress, first pair of school jeans, first shorts and mid-rift top, first pleated skirt and more.

I realize that this fits more in the tradition I'm beginning on my website so I will post it there. However, it could be helpful to one of you as well so I'll leave it here too.